Up until this year, I thought there must be quite a lot of decent hotels that are right on a good looking lake. After all, I knew about American and Canadian wilderness resorts that have at least one example of this, and I had stayed at and enjoyed the Wilderness Lodge at Disney World that was successfully modelled off of them. (I don’t count the other Disney World resorts since the lake is most appealing from the Wilderness Lodge, since it was built to echo a natural shoreline.)
And I had already stayed at The Breakers at Cedar Point on Lake Erie, and was already familiar with quite a few lakeside hotels in New York State, even though the view in the former situation wasn’t that great and I’ve never stayed at the latter hotels to know how good they are. But I could think of so many near-examples that I thought that surely there would be quite a few at least classy hotels on truly beautiful lakes.
But I can’t actually find any just from hunting on Google Maps. Probably because I prefer my lakes on the small side. If a lake is small enough and wild enough to be beautiful, then the most that will be around there is a no-frills motel, or sometimes just an RV park. And sometimes it’s difficult to tell from Google Maps since resorts are sometimes set up like apartment complexes, and it’s difficult to tell from that setup how nice the resort is.
And if a lake is small enough but not in a wild area, then it is usually surrounded by so many other developments that it becomes no longer beautiful. For instance, the Embassy Suites on Cranes Roost has a great looking lakefront, but the view is spoiled by the surrounding buildings, including the infamous I-4 Eyesore.
One probable example is Legoland/Cypress Gardens. The beauty of the lake and closeness definitely counts as seen here. The hotel itself is probably at least acceptable enough that in total it counts because of how nice the lake view is.
Any examples you can think of? I know that natural beauty and classiness are subjective, but I personally like hotels that have at least some services so I don’t have to bring everything I’m going to be using with me. You are of course free to apply your own criteria.
It ain’t cheap though. (I’ve been there and it is amazingly beautiful…pictures barely capture it.)
ETA: The lake really is that color from minerals in the water runoff that fills it. Perfectly safe although waaaay too cold to swim in (not sure you could even if you wanted to…no boating either).
Jenny Lake Lodge in Grand Teton National Park. Spectacularly good lodge on the most beautiful lake I have ever seen. Quite expensive, but includes breakfast and dinner in probably the finest in-park restaurant anywhere.
I’m not sure if Lake Tahoe meets your criteria for a “nice” lake; large portions of its shoreline do have a lot of development. But there are several fancy hotels on it’s shores. And there are still parts of the shoreline that are still relatively wild. You would just have to travel some distance from the hotel to get to the wild parts, because the nice hotels are in the developed areas.
IANA expert on your topic. But I have a couple ideas that may help all of us help you.
What is small enough? 1 square mile, 10 square miles, etc. Is a smaller enclosed bay on a large lake good? e.g. a ~1 square mile 3-sided bay on e.g. Lake Erie?
What is wild enough? Does wild require high terrain? Or are lakes in low rolling hills OK too?
Budget matters too. The popularity of scenic lakes in the middle of nowhere as vacation spots for the well-off probably peaked a hundred years ago when air conditioning didn’t exist. Nowadays a lot of laking and camping in rural areas is sorta working class. Which folks want a Motel Six with a Denny’s nearby when staying in what passes for town.
All my question-fussing aside, here are two ideas.
Anywhere on Lake Tahoe is spectacular. I’m sure there are at least some hotels you’d consider nice there. ETA: Ninja’ed by @WildaBeast.
Totally different idea: Instead of looking for lakes, try searching Yelp, Tripadvisor, etc., for “glamping”. Not that you necessarily want to glamp, but that might find you a lot of pretty lakes where people are willing to pay a premium to sleep in a cottage or hard floor permanent tent. With a decent likelihood of interesting boutique hotels nearby.
Glamping is a new enough travel category that you probably won’t be distracted by too many run down has-been glamping facilities. They won’t all be lakeside, but a decent fraction will be. They’ll all be scenic somehow. So that’s a decent proxy for filtering on pretty lakes.
One last question: You didn’t say what your catchment area is. Are you interested in all 50 US states? Lower 48 only? How about Canada? I know of some great lakeside cottage and glamping facilities in Costa Rica and Colombia, but that might be farther than you want to go.
IMO Lake McDonald Lodge in Glacier National Park is about as good as it gets for a fantastic lodge on a fantastic lake in a fantastic pristine wilderness.
I haven’t stayed there because the lead time for reservations was longer than 6 months when I visited, but someday I’ll go back and stay.
Rocky Gap Casino near Cumberland MD, my wife and I had a getaway (without the kids) there recently. Beautiful spot, can walk right out of the hotel onto the trail: https://imgur.com/gallery/FP7QEML
I’ve spent a lot of time in tahoe. It always bugged me (in common with a lot of the US, particularly on the west coast) how disconnected the hotels were from any kind of hiking trail or lake side beach, or the “outdoors” generally. There is obviously some absolutely mind blowing lake side hiking and beaches around tahoe, but expect to get out of your hotel, walk through a massive parking lot, and drive for 30 minutes to reach any of them.
I did look at Tahoe but I couldn’t tell how nice the places were from the air. It does indeed look like the naturally beautiful places there do not have a lot of resorts. Even if the southeast corner didn’t have any resorts, the lake view per se would still be not as good as at the more rugged places.
Looks good, and it’s near my vague stopping point for my next vacation. I might just try to swing it.
Thanks for the suggestions everyone - some nice ones!
Within the last 18 months, my wife and I have stayed at shoreline hotels on Lake Maggiore in Italy (the lesser known, and therefore less developed, but equally beautiful nearby cousin to Lake Como) and Lake Bled in Slovenia.
Lake Maggiore is pretty sizeable, but it’s very long and skinny so it feels smaller than it actually is as you’re sitting on a terrace drinking prosecco and enjoying the view.
And Lake Bled is simply one of the most picturesque lakes in the world.
We also visited Annecy in the east of France on a day trip, which sits on a gorgeous lake.
And this isn’t a lake, it’s a harbor, but it’s small and cute and just a lovely, lovely place to visit and explore — Auray, in the west of France.
I passed by the Otesaga Resort in Cooperstown, NY. Looked like a nice place, although the scenery isn’t quite as dramatic as some of the pictures posted here so far.
Auberge Lac-à-l’eau-Claire is a very nice resort hotel with a pretty lake and outdoor activities in Québec. Places like this aren’t uncommon; there are so many lakes in the province and people want to go to them!
I’ve been to many but not all of these. Nice little romantic getaways and all an easy drive from Montreal, so able to draw that business pretty easily.
Seconding Mohonk Mountain House. This is the one I came in to say. It’s a beautiful lake, beautiful scenery, a beautiful and isolated hotel, beautiful hiking trails right out the door.
