Nostalgia Travel Is Trending: These Are the Best Destinations for 2026

Something funny happens when the future speeds up. The past starts looking really, really good. It’s no surprise that with the boom of AI and social media fatigue, vinyl record sales have outpaced CDs for three years running. Point-and-shoot film cameras are back-ordered. Everyone under 30 is shooting on disposables. In an era of generative-created everything, more than a quarter of travelers now plan to cut social media on their next trip, and searches for no-internet properties have spiked. The historic hotel, specifically the kind with hand-painted murals, original tin ceilings, and a saloon where actual outlaws once drank, has never felt more necessary. It’s only natural that the West has the best ones. Here’s where to go.

The Mining Exchange Hotel/Practice Hospitality

The Mining Exchange Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colorado

Originally built in 1902 as the gold and silver stock exchange for Colorado’s mining boom, this downtown Colorado Springs landmark was where fortunes were made, lost, and celebrated. A top-to-bottom renovation completed in 2024 kept the bones intact, with original vault doors, exposed brick, soaring ceilings, and a lobby display of vintage mining stock certificates, while adding a craft coffee bar, an indoor-outdoor cocktail courtyard, and an on-site art gallery. Pikes Peak and the Garden of the Gods are minutes away.

Thomas J. Story

The Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah, Nevada

When silver was discovered in Tonopah in 1900, this five-story stone hotel rose to become the tallest building in Nevada and the finest hotel in the desert. Wyatt Earp reportedly drank at the bar, and the original bank vault still sits in the lobby. After closing in 1999, it was lovingly restored by a family with deep local roots and is now Nevada’s only property on the Historic Hotels of America register. Book the Lady in Red suite, if you dare.

Photo Courtesy of Cuyama Buckhorn

Cuyama Buckhorn in New Cuyama, California

Built in 1952 during a brief oil boom that made this Santa Barbara County high desert valley briefly glamorous, the Buckhorn was a haunt for oil executives and, reportedly, Johnny Cash. A 2018 renovation by a pair of L.A. architects gave it new life: mid-century bones, cowboy-Western details, a barrel sauna, and a farm-to-table kitchen sourcing from surrounding ranches. Two hours from L.A., it’s beneath some of the best stargazing skies in California.

Stephan Werk, Werk Creative

The Western Hotel & Spa in Ouray, Colorado

Built in 1891 at the height of Colorado’s silver boom, this 16-room frontier-era boardinghouse is one of the last of its kind in the U.S. A meticulous two-year restoration preserved original tin ceilings, wide-plank floors, and a rare pre-Prohibition saloon mural, while adding a Nordic spa carved out of the former dirt-floor basement. Ringed by the San Juan Mountains, Ouray delivers box canyon hikes, natural hot springs, and a wood-fired restaurant to match.

Kat Alves

Holbrooke Hotel in Grass Valley, California

Continuously operating since 1862, making it the oldest boutique hotel in California, the Holbrooke has hosted Mark Twain, Ulysses S. Grant, and four presidents total. An 18-month restoration preserved the original pre-Civil War bar and Victorian clawfoot-tub rooms while adding a candlelit basement speakeasy, the Iron Door, built into original stone walls. Gold Country doesn’t get more Gold Country than this.

Visit Santa Ynez Valley

Skyview Los Alamos in Los Alamos, California

When new owners bought this 1959 Highway 101 hilltop motel in 2016, locals had long nicknamed it the Bates Motel. Their first design decision: keep the vintage yellow MOTEL sign. Two years of renovation later, Skyview reopened with 33 reimagined rooms, a working vineyard, hand-tiled fireplaces, and Norman restaurant, a wry nod to its former reputation. It sits above one of California’s best small wine towns, with a pool view to match.

Photo by Chiara Salvadori

Hotel del Coronado in Coronado, California

One of the last surviving Victorian wooden beach resorts in the world, the Del opened in 1888 on a sand spit across the bay from San Diego and hasn’t really stopped turning heads since. L. Frank Baum, who visited frequently, designed the crown-shaped chandeliers in the Crown Room. Some say the hotel itself inspired the Emerald City. Every U.S. president since LBJ has visited. The rooms in the original 1888 building are worth the splurge.

Courtesy of Timberline Lodge

Timberline Lodge in Mt. Hood, Oregon

Built between 1936 and 1938 by unemployed craftsmen through FDR’s Works Progress Administration, Timberline Lodge is less a hotel than a monument, to the New Deal, to the American craftsman, and to the sheer audacity of constructing a four-story stone-and-timber lodge at 6,000 feet on an active volcano. Hand-carved furniture, wrought iron fixtures, hand-loomed textiles: virtually everything inside was made by hand on-site. FDR dedicated it in 1937. Stanley Kubrick used the exterior for The Shining in 1980.

Courtesy of La Fonda on the Plaza

La Fonda on the Plaza in Santa Fe, New Mexico

There has been an inn on this corner since Santa Fe was founded by the Spanish in 1607, making La Fonda arguably the oldest hotel site in America. The current adobe structure dates to 1922, expanded and remodeled by legendary designer Mary Colter into the full-block Pueblo Revival landmark it is today. Hand-carved beams, stained-glass skylights, Saltillo tile floors, and original folk art in every room. It’s the only hotel directly on the historic Santa Fe Plaza, and it feels like it was grown there rather than built.