The Ritz-Carlton Abama

The Ritz-Carlton Abama sits in Guía de Isora on Tenerife's southwest coast, a four-hundred-and-sixty-one-room resort built in a Moorish architectural style and set into gardens dense enough that the grounds carry a persistent floral scent from the vegetation around them.

The golf course runs across the property with ocean views throughout. The terrain is challenging — the volcanic landscape of the Canary Islands does not offer flat ground — and the course is one of the more serious on the island.

Two restaurants here hold Michelin stars. MB serves a Basque menu; Kabuki serves Japanese. Both kitchens work with the produce that the islands' fertile volcanic soil makes possible, and both are proper destination restaurants rather than hotel dining rooms that happen to have good food.

The spa draws on botanical ingredients for its treatments. Beyond that, the resort has the range of pools, terraces and garden spaces you would expect from a property of this size on a warm Atlantic island.

Guía de Isora is on the drier, sunnier side of Tenerife, away from the north. Tenerife South Airport is the nearest point of arrival.