Nekajui, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve

Few places in the world can claim to combine a lush rainforest setting with top-flight luxury quite like Costa Rica’s Papagayo Peninsula, and its case is only made stronger by the addition of Nekajui, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve. Here, on a clifftop overlooking the Pacific, stands an understated but substantial central lodge orbited by a constellation of rooms, suites, and villas — some of which are reached via a wooden suspension bridge that hangs across a ravine.

The Reserve sub-brand is Ritz-Carlton’s top-end product, and it shows. Here you’ll find multiple pools for distinct poolside atmospheres, a spa and wellness complex that covers some 27,000 square feet, and a beach club that’s connected to the resort via a funicular that descends the steep hillside. The standard of service is extremely high, and the in-room comforts are first-rate — this is as true in the Treetop Tents, with their canvas construction, as it is in the rooms, suites, and villas.

To all this is added a generous and varied selection of restaurants, as well as offsite activities that range from a racquet club and a 72-hole Arnold Palmer–designed course to surfing, sailing, and a wide array of excursions by land and sea. It’s tempting to call this the definitive word on the Papagayo experience.