In about a week, my family and I fly to Spain. Over fifteen nights we
will stay in six five-star properties across Barcelona, Madrid, the
Costa del Sol, Sevilla, the Algarve, and Lisbon. I am paying for all of
it, a decision I stand behind and my accountant does not.

Here is why that sentence matters. Most luxury hotel reviews you read
were written by someone who got the room for free, earns a commission
when you open a credit card, or works for a magazine where the hotel
buys the ads next to the review. None of those people can afford to tell
you a famous hotel is coasting. I can. That is the entire idea of this
site.

So this trip is the opening act. Every property gets the same
treatment: a real stay booked under my own name, a score out of 100 on a
rubric you can read on the Scorecard page, photographs of the room
as the hotel handed it to me, the folio at checkout, and a straight
answer to the only question that matters, which is whether it was worth
what it cost. The lineup runs from a grand dame in Sevilla that costs
more per night than my first car to a family resort on the Algarve that
European parents speak about in reverent tones, with a two-bedroom suite
on the Costa del Sol in the middle asking a very uncomfortable question
of both of them.

And because I refuse to believe anyone flies eight hours to eat in a
lobby, every hotel review will come with the other half: where we
actually ate, what it cost, and which places deserved the reservation
more than the hotel restaurant did. We will eat sardines grilled over a beach fire for a tenth of what the
resort charges for the same fish, and at least one tasting menu somebody
talks me into. Both get written up the same way.

Somewhere along the way, a hotel will charge me a “destination
fee.” I will ask what it covers. In all my years of asking, no one has
ever been able to tell me, and the streak is not ending in Spain. This
is the kind of thing this website exists to pursue.

The reviews start landing in August. If you want them as they
publish, along with the running answer to what all of this actually
costs, the newsletter is one honest email a week: where I slept, what I
ate, what it cost, whether it was worth it.

See you shortly after Barcelona. House rule: I say where we slept
once we have checked out, not before.

Some links on this site earn me a commission at no cost to you.
Nobody buys a verdict here. Full policy: How I Review.