The question every New Yorker eventually asks — where to stay upstate — has an ever-growing list of answers. Condé Nast Traveler has rounded up its picks for the best hotels in New York's Hudson Valley, and the short version is this: the region is booming, and the new openings are as interesting as the classics. Recent arrivals include Pocketbook Hudson's communal bathhouse and the restoration of an 1859 Gothic Revival mansion in Beacon, with Soho Farmhouse Hudson Valley and Black Creek Barns still to come.
In Hudson itself, a town now nicknamed the downtown of upstate, two properties stand out for very different reasons. The Maker is an 11-room jewel box on Warren Street filled with one-of-a-kind decor — much of it actually for sale, down to the vintage martini glasses — plus suites themed around The Artist, The Writer, The Architect and The Gardener, and a velvet-draped bar in a 19th-century carriage house. A short walk away, Pocketbook Hudson occupies an 1885 pocketbook factory and now runs as part hotel, part arts complex: 46 rooms and suites, galleries, a subterranean dance club, an Argentine-led open-fire restaurant called Ambos, and a complimentary guest bathhouse with three thermal pools and a steam room ($60 for day passes).
Further into the Catskills, the picks get quieter. The Bend in Phoenicia is an adults-only micro-resort with just five rooms, about two hours from Midtown Manhattan, and within easy reach of Phoenicia Diner, Woodstock and Hunter Mountain. In Accord, a 28-cabin compound with a 12-room farmhouse mixes Scandinavian minimalism with throwback Americana, its cabins equipped with wood-burning stoves for winter stays. The newest luxury entry, Wildflower in Gardiner, sits on a 140-acre former tree nursery and dairy farm beneath the Shawangunk Mountains, with 65 freestanding cabins and cottages, a working farm that supplies its restaurant and spa, and 96 percent of the land left undeveloped as forest trails.
There's plenty of variety beyond those headlines, too: Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz bundles meals, afternoon tea and a full daily activity schedule — yoga, golf, archery, horseback riding — into its rate; The Six Bells in Rosendale channels a life-size dollhouse vibe across 11 rooms and a country-cooking tavern; and Woodstock Way, a cluster of modern cabins on grounds with a waterfall, earned glowing marks for staff kindness during one editor's cycling mishap.
Who is this for? City dwellers planning a weekend escape, certainly — most properties are a two-hour drive or an Amtrak ride away — but also anyone chasing a design-forward stay with genuine outdoor access. The common thread across the list is personality: hotels that lean into their buildings' histories, feed you well, and put hiking, antiquing or forest-bathing on the itinerary. Many offer unexpected extras too, from miniatures workshops to archery lessons, so check the programming before you book. Just note the article's headline says 17 while the body counts 16 — a small editorial quirk in the source, but the picks themselves are solid either way.
