Satopia Travel Publishes First Privé 100 Ranking of Remote Places to Stay; Antarctica's White Desert Tops Legends

From Antarctica's interior to a candlelit oasis in Egypt, the annual ranking names 100 places to stay across ten categories.

PARIS, FRANCE, October 14, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Satopia Travel has published the Privé 100, a new annual ranking of 100 remote places to stay, and named White Desert in Antarctica No.1 in its Legends category.

White Desert was one of three operators that took guests into Antarctica's interior last season. Of the 1,027 people who made that trip, 537 travelled with White Desert, according to the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO).

The ranking sorts 100 hotels, camps, trains, villas and yachts into ten categories, with ten places in each. Every property is assessed on the same five criteria: sense of place, design and atmosphere, intimacy and privacy, human connection and conscious impact. Properties cannot pay for inclusion or for their rank.

The No.1 in each category is:

Legends: White Desert, Antarctica
Boutique Hotels: Capella Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
Islands, Indian Ocean: Nihi Sumba, Indonesia
Islands, Rest of the World: Nukutepipi, French Polynesia
Luxury Trains: La Dolce Vita Orient Express, Italy
Private Villas: Villa Beatrice, Portofino, Italy
Safari: Wolwedans, Namibia
Ultra Remote: Awasi Patagonia, Chile
Wellness: Chenot Palace Weggis, Switzerland
Yachts: Orient Express Corinthian

Many of the places on the list are defined by what surrounds them. Wolwedans, the Safari No.1, sits within Namibia's NamibRand Nature Reserve, more than 215,000 hectares of private desert that has held International Dark Sky Reserve status since 2012. In Egypt's Siwa Oasis, Adrère Amellal, No.5 in Ultra Remote, has forty rooms built by hand from salt, clay and straw. There is no electricity. After dark, the rooms are lit by beeswax candles.

The ranking arrives as dark skies and uncrowded places become harder to find. The World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness estimates that the Milky Way is hidden from more than a third of humanity, including nearly 80 per cent of North Americans. In 2025, Venice charged 723,497 day visitors an access fee, and Virtuoso's 2026 Luxe Report placed crowd control first among the year's five luxury travel trends. Hotel supply, meanwhile, continues to grow: Lodging Econometrics forecasts around 2,742 new hotel openings worldwide in 2026, more than seven a day.

"Service can be trained. Design can be commissioned. Privacy can be bought. Distance can only be found," said Emma Ponsonby, Co-Founder and CEO of Satopia. "At Wolwedans you fall asleep under one of the darkest skies on earth. That kind of peace is becoming rare, and the Privé 100 is a map of where it can still be found."

"There are more exceptional places to stay than ever before, and choosing between them has become harder," said Ahmed Gouda, Co-Founder of Satopia. "We wanted to look beyond the usual language of luxury and ask a more useful question: what does this place allow someone to experience that they could find nowhere else?"

The Privé 100 will be published each year. The full 2026 ranking is available at satopiatravel.com/prive-collection/

About Satopia Travel
Founded in 2015, Satopia Travel designs private, tailor-made travel through The Privé Collection, celebration travel for life's milestones, sabbaticals, and Hosted Experiences with chefs and creative figures including Francis Mallmann and Massimo Bottura. Satopia is a certified B Corporation, with a score of 81.3 (February 2024).

Both co-founders are available for interview. Photography and the full ranked list are available from the Satopia Press Office.

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