Updated September 30, 2026: The Boutique Books, free-reading, and affiliate details in this August launch letter have been updated to reflect the current offering. Dear reader, Six years ago, devastated by the pandemic's damage to the hospitality industry, I was a 24-year-old, furloughed hotel PR guy with a laptop, cell phone, and a lot of free time. I left NYC and moved back in with my Mom out West. The boutique hotels I adored were dark. Nobody knew when they'd open again, or if. So, I started writing about them on Instagram—small, independent stays, the kind with a point of view—because it was the only thing I could think to do. Pictures of the properties paired with articles that fit as 300-word captions, then Instagram Lives with travel journalists with whom I'd become friends while working at the agency.
I never expected that you. Hundreds of thousands of you, in every corner of the world, would be reading Hotels Above Par every day. So I want to tell you what we're building next, and what it means for you. First, we moved We're now at ReadHotelsAbovePar.com. Slightly longer to type, considerably clearer about what we are: a magazine for people who love boutique hotels.
And from here forward, everything we cover is about boutique hotels. The stories behind the properties. The cities they sit in. If it isn't boutique, it isn't ours. What stays free Everything you already get, plus more of it. The Digital Weekly lands every Thursday. We stopped calling it a newsletter because it stopped being one. Every issue brings you five boutique hotels we reviewed that week, plus a clutch of stories, written by various journalists, worth your commute—interviews, trend pieces, features. We want it to arrive the way a magazine hits a newsstand: on schedule, with weight, worth stopping for. Our Editor-at-Large, Stacey Leasca, runs it. Spa Day arrives once a month, our dispatch from the world of hotel spas, written by award-winning journalist and HAP editor Shivani Vora. Both free. Both staying that way. And a free account also gives you five complimentary Premium reads, including Hotel Reviews, articles, and Boutique Books, so you can read your way in before you decide. What's new: HAP Premium It has to do with exploring the city around where you stay. Every Monday for the next year, we're publishing a HAP Boutique Book—a city guide of roughly 3,000 words. Fifty-two cities, fifty-two guides. Everything inside is independent or boutique-leaning. Here's the rule I refused to bend on: every guide is written by a journalist who actually lives in that city. Not someone who spent a long weekend there. Someone with a corner store. Matt Ortile on Paris. Cristina Alonso on Mexico City. Marissa Klurstein, of Substack's Happy Hoteling, on Florence. And more coming. Every Boutique Book is included with Premium and Founding memberships while your membership is active. We no longer sell the guides individually. Find your city in the Boutique Book collection, then open its post directly on HAP using the email attached to your account. No separate book checkout or library login. Premium also gives you access to our entire archive—every hotel review we've ever published, nearly 500 properties, each one visited and vouched for by a working journalist. Six years of reporting, searchable, yours. So your week looks like this Monday, a new city guide (Premium). Thursday, the Digital Weekly (free). Once a month, Spa Day (free). The part I'm extra excited about When you join through a participating journalist's personal Premium affiliate link, that journalist earns 15% commission on the qualifying payment. For monthly memberships, that applies to the first qualifying month only. For annual memberships, it applies to the first qualifying annual term only. Future renewals do not generate additional commission. Credit goes to the participating writer whose valid affiliate link you use most recently before the qualifying membership purchase. A standard newsletter-referral link or promo code is not a substitute for that Premium affiliate link. This isn't a promotion. It's the reason the paywall exists. Good travel writing has been gutted by people who've never checked into the hotel they're describing. Premium subscriptions pay working journalists to do real reporting in cities they know by heart. That's the whole model. The two ways in Both paid memberships include unlimited access to the full Boutique Book collection, plus new releases while your membership remains active. Founding Membership: $132/year ($11 a month, billed annually) · Print and Founder extras
- $132/year
- Our Founding Members limited-edition, HAP-branded, butter-yellow silk robe, free
- The latest issue of our HAP Quarterly Newspaper
- The 2026 HAP Print Magazine
- 20% off all HAP merch Monthly HAP Premium
- $9/month
- Every Boutique Book, with new guides added to the collection
- The full archive: all 500+ hotel reviews, every city guide, every article
- Our community chat, where you can ask our editors and subscribers for travel recs Free
- The HAP Weekly every Thursday
- Spa Day newsletter
- Five complimentary Premium reads across Hotel Reviews, articles, and Boutique Books I'm reasserting the mission I started during that dark pandemic-time furlough—to share the best boutique hotels in the world with people who love them as much as I do. Thanks for being here. Your passion for HAP and boutique hotels brings me so much joy. —Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Brandon Berkson :heart: | 
