Costa Rica picked up a place on Esquire’s Best New Hotels in the World 2026 list this week, with Waldorf Astoria Costa Rica Punta Cacique named among the magazine’s 43 standout properties. Esquire said its editors spent the past year visiting new hotels and major renovations around the globe before settling on this year’s selection.
The Guanacaste resort was the only Costa Rican property included. In Latin America, the list featured two hotels in Mexico, one in Costa Rica, one in the Dominican Republic, and one in Puerto Rico. That put Punta Cacique in a short regional group on a list otherwise dominated by properties in the United States, Europe, Asia, and elsewhere.
In its write-up, Esquire leaned hard into the hotel’s setting on Costa Rica’s Pacific coast, pointing to the steep green hills, surf, and sportfishing waters that define the area. The magazine said the resort stood out for giving every room an ocean view and for a layout that runs down toward the beach. It also highlighted the food and drink program, noting its focus on Indigenous food, spirits, and coffee tied to the region’s culture and biodiversity.
The property opened in April 2025 as the first Waldorf Astoria in Costa Rica. Hilton says the resort has 188 rooms, six dining venues, a multi-level pool, kids and teens clubs, a 17,000-square-foot spa and fitness center, and 10,000 square feet of meeting space. The hotel sits on Punta Cacique near Playa Penca, about 25 minutes from Daniel Oduber Quirós International Airport.
The resort is managed by Hilton and forms part of the broader Punta Cacique luxury development. Hilton says the project is owned by Revolution, Cacique Investors LLC, and Costa Rican developer Garnier & Garnier. Local Spanish-language coverage published when the hotel opened last year reported an investment of more than $200 million and pointed to sustainability features including 15 wildlife crossings, coral restoration work involving more than 5,000 fragments, and Blue Flag Ecological Program recognition tied to Playa Penca and Calzón de Pobre.
For Costa Rica, the Esquire nod adds another international tourism spotlight for Guanacaste’s upscale hotel market. It also gives the country a place on one of the better-known annual hotel lists from a major U.S. magazine, at a time when luxury travel brands continue expanding along the northern Pacific coast.
