Welcome to Checking In, a review series in which our editors and contributors rate the best new (and revamped) luxury hotels based on a rigorous—and occasionally tongue-in-cheek—10-point system: Each question answered “yes” gets one point. Will room service bring you caviar? Does your suite have its own butler? Does the bathroom have a bidet? Find out below.
Beaches are never crowded, so enjoy the silence.
Courtesy of Lizard Island
In three words: Attenborough’s favorite place.
What’s the deal?
To be fair, Sir David has called quite a few places his “favorite” over the years. But in 2021, while shooting the BBC doc A Perfect Planet, he said it about Lizard Island—a remote spec in the northern reaches of the Great Barrier Reef. And yes, it’s lousy with lizards, medium to small.
A national park, the main island is just 3.9 square miles of rugged hills, mangrove swamp, tropical forest, and stunning beaches. Captain Cook famously used its highest point to navigate his way out of the labyrinthian reef system. And since the 1970s, a single boutique resort has operated on the island. Now, 50 years later—and after several rebuilds—Lizard Island is one of Australia’s best-known luxury resorts and a new member of Relais & Chateaux, the only property in all of Australia with that distinction. (It’s part of the Luxury Lodges of Australia circuit as well).
It’s also the only five-star property that can show you what an otherwise feral Tropical North Queensland is all about. Fishermen flock here in the summer (our winter) for the giant black marlin, which in these conservative times are catch-and-release. Far more come to snorkel the reef and drown themselves in Billecart-Salmon as the waves roll in. It’s largely an American audience thanks to the favorable exchange rate and the no-roughing-it-allowed frills. But the…