How we curate our picks
Our curation process is meticulous, rigorous, and entirely transparent:
Research and Screening
Deep Research: We begin by scouring multiple sources, generating an initial list of 50-150 candidates per destination.
Initial Screening: Filtering for location, design sensibility, checking with other Fora advisors, and evaluating guest comments (the ones we think are real at least) narrows our choices.
On-site Recon
Personal visits before booking the hotel weeds out 40-60% of contenders; often we feel weird vibes, or maybe spot that highway in front of the hotel that mysteriously never made it onto the hotel’s website pics.
Test Stay
Hotels passing the initial screening undergo a full test-stay. We scrutinize every detail - from pillow comfort to the “you know it when you feel it” vibe check. Why so rigorous? Because we’ve been burned too many times, and we believe you deserve a hotel that truly matches your expectations.
Only those few exceptional hotels earn our final recommendation—when we say "stay here," we mean it without hesitation. But let’s be real; there’s no perfect hotel for anyone… we all have different budgets, are at different stages in life, maybe have small kids or want an adults only retreat… so we tell you who each hotel is for.