The Most Beautiful Resorts in the World
4 places in 4 countries · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful resorts in the world are Bad Gastein (Austria), Zugspitze Cable Car (Germany) and West Baden Springs Hotel (United States). The list covers 4 resorts in 4 countries. Austria has the most, with 1. Last updated 13 October 2026.
A great resort is shaped by the thing people came for. In a spa town it is the water: hot springs that drew bathers for centuries and left behind colonnades, bathhouses and grand hotels stacked around them. In the mountains it is the lift itself, a line of cable strung across a void that turns a summit into a view anyone can reach. The finest of both make the setting part of the architecture.
This collection brings the two together. The Zugspitze Cable Car climbs to the top of Germany's highest mountain, while the Titlis Rotair in Switzerland was the first cable car whose cabin turns a full circle on the way up. The Peak 2 Peak Gondola links Whistler and Blackcomb mountains in Canada across a long, open span. Lower down, Bad Gastein in Austria piles Belle Époque hotels up a steep valley around a waterfall that runs through the middle of town, and the West Baden Springs Hotel in Indiana is built around a vast domed atrium from the early twentieth century.
Places here are chosen for how they look and ordered by beauty. Each has its own text, a photograph credited to its author and a spot on the map, and the section opens by country on separate pages.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bad Gastein | Spa town | Austria | |
| 2 | Zugspitze Cable Car | Ski lift | Germany | |
| 3 | West Baden Springs Hotel | Spa town | United States | |
| 4 | Peak 2 Peak Gondola | Ski lift | Canada |
01 Bad Gastein
Austria47.115° N 13.136° E
Image by Separatus from Pixabay The town's fortune comes from 17 thermal springs that rise at the foot of the Graukogel beside the falls, at 40 to 46 °C, producing about five million litres a day. The springs were known by the 13th century, when the poet Neidhart von Reuental mentioned them; Paracelsus studied them, and in the 18th century Archbishop Hieronymus von Colloredo built the Badeschloss beside the falls for his own cures.
Did you know? Bad Gastein hosted the 1958 Alpine Skiing World Championships.
02 Zugspitze Cable Car
Seilbahn Zugspitze
Germany · 37.1 km from Innsbruck47.457° N 10.992° E
Maksym Kozlenko · CC BY-SA 4.0 The numbers explain why the journey feels so dramatic. The slope length is 4,467 metres, and above the single support tower the cabins hang on a free span of 3,213 metres, the longest of any cable car when it opened. That tower is itself a record: a steel lattice mast 127 metres tall, the highest of its kind for an aerial tramway anywhere and the tallest cable car support in Europe.
Did you know? The 127-metre steel support tower alone weighs about 420 tonnes and was completed in July 2017, five months before the first passengers rode the line.
03 West Baden Springs Hotel
United States38.567° N 86.618° W
Nyttend · Public domain The site began as a mineral spring known as Mile Lick in the hills of southern Indiana. A physician, John A. Lane, opened a hotel there around 1852, and in 1855 the settlement was renamed West Baden after the German spa towns. Railways brought guests from across the country to take the waters, in fierce rivalry with the neighbouring French Lick resort.
Did you know? The hotel had its own bank and stock brokerage, and when news of the 1929 crash arrived, guests crowded its offices and began leaving within hours.
04 Peak 2 Peak Gondola
Canada50.069° N 122.946° W
Ruth Hartnup from Vancouver, Canada · CC BY 2.0 It is a feat of engineering first. Built by the Doppelmayr Garaventa Group, the line is a tricable (3S) system — two fixed track ropes carry each cabin while a third rope hauls it — the first of its kind in North America. 03 km between the second and third towers, which stood as the longest in the world for a lift until the Eibsee cable car on the Zugspitze overtook it in 2017.
Did you know? Its two terminals are said to be the largest lift terminals in the world; the Blackcomb one alone contains 279 tonnes of steel.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What is the most beautiful resort in the world?
- On our list, Bad Gastein (Austria) ranks first, followed by Zugspitze Cable Car (Germany) and West Baden Springs Hotel (United States).
- What is a spa town?
- A spa town is a settlement that grew up around mineral or thermal springs, with bathhouses, pump rooms and hotels built for people taking the waters. Many European spa towns flourished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
- Which cable car rotates?
- The Titlis Rotair in Switzerland, opened in 1992, was the first cable car with a rotating cabin, giving every passenger a full panorama during the ride.
- How many resorts are on this list in the world?
- The list covers 4 resorts in 4 countries. Austria has the most, with 1.