Redefining Luxury Travel

What is luxury travel? The answer often depends on whom you ask. Advertisements for luxury travel often read like a paean to overconsumption, as if the traveller is invited to go on pilgrimage in ritual celebration of material excess. Lavish accommodations in expensive, exclusive resorts; an endless array of over-the-top amenities and extravagant services: think privately chartered aircraft, opulent yachts, or bespoke retail experiences in vast, gilded shopping malls, where the greater the excess on offer, the greater your enjoyment is supposed to be.

At Amaya, we embrace luxury of a very different kind.

Luxury is taking a step outside your private chalet after the sun has set, your face cooled by the gentle pine-perfumed breeze, looking up and witnessing millions upon millions of stars in all their glory, twinkling points of light in a night sky unpolluted by the artificial glow of the city.

Luxury is lowering yourself into a pristine lime-washed swimming pool, naturally filtered and crafted by hand into the shape of a teardrop, and feeling all the stresses and anxieties of modern life melt away into the warm water.

Luxury is joining a skilled horticulturalist on a little foraging trip through the dense forest or along the hillside terraces, learning about the gifts of nature before returning to indulge in an expertly cooked dish made with your very own hand picked organic fruits and vegetables.

Luxury is tasting the first sip of afternoon tea offered to you by the friendly and easygoing people of a nearby Himachali village, sharing in their stories and their laughter as they teach you firsthand their culture, history and traditions, shaped over thousands of years and countless generations.

Luxury is the heady aroma of freshly ground coffee rising from a steaming mug while you sit back and unwind in a charming library, perusing a curated selection of books on food, photography, fashion and philosophy from the comfort of your armchair.

Luxury is relaxing safe in the knowledge that every item in your villa, from the rich assortment of accessories in your complimentary refreshment hamper to the soaps and shampoos in your en-suite bathroom, was made sustainably, naturally and responsibly.

Luxury is the still, quiet warmth of a summer morning punctuated by the sudden delicious coldness of farm-fresh cucumber soup, quickly giving way to the subtle citrus flavour of coriander, the natural sweetness of melon, the soft crunch of almonds.

luxury boutique resort with a private pool

When you recollect your stay with us, we hope your mind calls forth all sorts of special little moments like these, each one private and rich in personal meaning; a vivid montage of unforgettable sights, sounds, scents, and sensations. This is how luxury travel should be: comfortable, thoughtful, and above all, authentic.

Material excess offers a satisfaction of a kind, but it is often transient; enjoyed in the moment, but soon easily forgotten. At Amaya, we choose instead to let the enduring opulence and splendour of nature speak for itself. Our mountain retreat, a timeless part of the sublime beauty encompassing it, offers a profound and intrinsic sense of wonder that simply cannot be replicated. Our philosophy of luxury seeks not only to nurture the soul and rejuvenate the spirit, but to remind us of our symbiotic relationship with the natural world, and to teach us how the land we inhabit enriches us just as we enrich it.