Rising to a dizzying 490 meters above the West Kowloon waterfront, the world’s highest hotel occupies the top 17 floors of the International Commerce Centre, itself the world’s fourth tallest building. All 312 rooms and suites provide vertiginous views of Victoria Harbor or the Kowloon peninsula, along with goose-down duvets, leather headboards, lacewood paneling, and onyx sinks.

The hotel’s 102nd-floor restaurant level, crafted by Tokyo’s Spin Design Studio to such dazzling effect that the decor competes with the panorama filling the double-height windows, includes top-notch Cantonese and Italian dining rooms; 14 floors up, the ambience is considerably more sedate at the hotel’s mineral-toned ESPA spa. Crowning it all is Ozone, a sleek rooftop bar where cocktails are sipped to mind-blowing vistas—providing the tower isn’t enveloped in clouds.

1 Austin Rd. West, Kowloon; 852/2263- 2263; ritzcarlton.com; doubles from US$772

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