The 6 exotic spots jetsetters will visit in 2015

❶ Seaside safari: Mozambique

Seaside safaris and sumptuous hotels — including &Beyond's Benguerra Island resort pictured above — are luring travelers to Mozambique and its archipelagos.Photo: Handout

The southern African country of Mozambique, and particularly its Indian Ocean archipelagos, is set to enjoy a rising profile in 2015, as more top-tier stays and safari offerings pop up. The islands' turquoise waters, powdery white-sand beaches and coral reefs invite languid relaxation and plenty of watersport adventures, including windsurfing, scuba diving, fishing, sailing and even seaborne safaris.

Sail with Anantara's Medjumbe Island Resort & Spa.Photo: Handout

October saw the arrival of the romantic, kid-free Anantara Medjumbe Island Resort & Spa on a private atoll in the 32-island Quirimbas Archipelago. Medjumbe hosts 12 thatch-roofed surfside villas, each with its own plunge pool, plus a gourmet restaurant and luxurious spa offerings.

In the country's Bazaruto Archipelago, meanwhile, &Beyond will open its family-friendly Benguerra Island resort in April, following a major renovation that will offer 10 casitas, two cabanas and a three-bedroom villa, all with arabesque design features, nestled in the island's waterside forest.

The travel-by-foot-focused company Country Walkers has three new 2015 itineraries in Mozambique, two in the islands and one that takes guests inland to the shores of Lake Malawi, along the country's border with Malawi and Tanzania. Singita — the company that all but invented the modern luxury African safari in the 1990s — has plans to build a coastal retreat in Mozambique in the next few years.

❷ Under the radar: Villas

Poolside at Casa Agriates, in Corsica.Photo: Handout

When it comes to villas, bling-y destinations like St-Tropez and Sardinia's Costa Smeralda are out, while quieter, low-key-but-no-less-chic spots are in.

Think: Italy's Tuscan Coast and the French island of Corsica, as well as undiscovered enclaves of Spain's Balearics and relatively hidden Greek outposts.

Pegasus Estate, on a quiet Greek island, embodies a trend toward low-bling, high-chic villas.Photo: Handout

Villa agent extraordinaire Cédric Reversade, of Unique Properties & Events, points to a few favorite new finds: In Capalbio, Tuscany, he recommends the six-bedroom, contemporary farmhouse-style Villa Lovelli, appointed with a long infinity pool and views of the Tyrrhenian Sea.

In an unexplored archipelago of Greece's Cyclades islands, Reversade picks the charming, 100-year-old Pegasus Estate.

And in Corsica, he suggests the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired Casa Agriates, whose large pool and nearly 40 acres of landscaped gardens and groves give way to expanses of mountains and sea, and include a private beach road.

Eight art-filled bedrooms await, along with a gourmet kitchen and walls of sliding glass doors that open to a patio, making for easy indoor-outdoor living.

❸ City of love: Paris

The Peninsula Paris, which debuted in August, is part of a wave of super-haute hotels opening in the City of Lights.Photo: The Peninsula Hotels

After the recent attacks in Paris, citizens from around the world are flocking to the city to stand in solidarity with their French brothers and sisters.

The tourism industry also remains unbowed, with several super-swank hotel openings slated for the coming months, following on the haute heels of The Peninsula Paris's August debut.

First up: The 40-room La Réserve Paris landed in January just off the Champs-Elysées in a historic mansion once owned by couturier Pierre Cardin. Designed in aristocratic 19th-century style by master decorator Jacques Garcia and boasting a 52-foot indoor pool, it puts particular emphasis on spa and wellness, just like its sought-after sister properties in Geneva and St-Tropez.

An "Eiffel Tower" luggage tag, $24 from flight001.com, is tres chic!Photo: Handout

Next to arrive, in March, will be Maison Souquet. The romantic 20-room stay in a former Belle Époque "pleasure house" in the Pigalle neighborhood lets the prolific Garcia — also the designer here — show off his Orientalist, bordello-chic best. There's a subterranean pool and hammam, too.

Finally, in the fall, the Ritz Paris is meant to emerge from a multiyear redo helmed by French decorator Thierry W. Despont, marking the comeback of one of the grandest of the city's grande dame palace hotels.

An "Eiffel Tower" luggage tag, $24 from flight001.com, is tres chic!

❹ Island life: Puerto Rico

Outside the St. Regis Bahia Beach's Plantation House.Photo: Handout

The American aristocracy is making a comeback in Puerto Rico. First, the Ritz-Carlton debuted its Dorado Beach resort at Laurance S. Rockefeller's former retreat there, and now the waterfront Condado Vanderbilt has opened just outside Old San Juan, in a Spanish Revival hotel built by Frederick William Vanderbilt in 1919.

Sail away to faraway seas with this "Anchor" passport case, $11 from jonathanadler.com.Photo: Handout

Last month, most of its 427 marble-floored, light-filled rooms — many with balconies and ocean vistas — debuted in the original building and a new 12-story tower, joining two sea-view pools, a 10,000-square-foot spa and two restaurants by a chef who earned a Michelin star working at New York's Blue Hill.

Two more pools, beach cabanas and the rest of the rooms will launch soon.

Meanwhile, at Dorado Beach, a new al fresco poolside eatery arrived in November, and at the 4-year-old St. Regis Bahia Beach, a new spa director is shaking things up, expanding a "Spa Without Walls" program, which scatters treatments around the resort's nearly 500 acres.

Curving concrete and lively social spaces draw a hip, gypset crowd to El Blok hotel on Vieques island, Puerto Rico.Photo: Dianne Pulliza

On the island of Vieques, just off Puerto Rico's east coast, the sustainably minded hip hotel El Blok opened in August.

Its curving concrete structure, cut with screenlike latticework to filter the Caribbean sun, holds 22 simply decorated rooms, a restaurant from celebrated San Juan chef José Enrique and plenty of socializing space for its gypset guests.

❺ Snow patrol: Vail

Gifted students of Vail's ski school.Photo: Dan Davis, Vail Resorts

Vail's reputation as a more ski-serious alternative to fancy-pants Aspen gets confirmed this season, as the resort hosts the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in early February and the Burton US Open Snowboarding Championships in March.

Vail beckons with new nighttime snow adventures; the mountain will also host the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships this February.Photo: Jack Affleck, Vail Resorts

But Vail is also upping the luxury ante, with a redo of RockResort's historic, chalet-style 165-room Lodge at Vail, which debuted late last year, around the same time the 84-room Sebastian Vail unveiled its own renovation, which saw 16 one-bedroom suites join a recently added mountain-view pool and a roaring fire pit.

This season, the Sebastian has also launched "night owl" fitness offerings that let guests go snow-tubing, -shoeing and –biking under the stars.

If that's not your cup of après-ski, head to Décimo instead.

The mountaintop nightclub opened last season and is going strong in 2015.

As for downhill sports, the mountain has received top-flight upgrades in preparation for the upcoming championships — not least the high-speed, heated, Wi-Fi-enabled Gondola One ski lift and coaching sessions offering pro peeks at the new racing venues.

❻ Cruise control: River sails

The new, 21-suite Sanctuary Ananda carries adventurous cruisers on Myanmar's Ayeyarwady River.Photo: Photo Courtesy Sanctuary Resorts

River cruising is steaming ahead for 2015. Particularly popular are super-small boats sailing to hard-to-reach destinations — in surprising comfort and style. The end of last year gave us the maiden voyages of the 40-passenger Aqua Mekong in Vietnam and Cambodia and the 21-suite Sanctuary Ananda on Myanmar's Ayeyarwady River.

Smithsonian Journeys will take you through South East Asia.Photo: Amanda Mack

Avalon's 36-passenger Avalon Siem Reap and Avalon Myanmar will also begin plying those corners of the world in 2015.

Haimark, for its part, just launched the 56-guest Ganges Voyager, which APT will use for journeys through West Bengal, India.

Fall will bring a pair of additional Haimark ships: the 22-suite Amazon Discovery in the Peruvian rain forest and the 12-suite Mekong Princess.

Smithsonian Journeys will charter the latter for an October adventure through Cambodia and Vietnam.

TOP PHOTO: Lounging on the sundeck at Sanctuary Ananda, courtesy of the resort.

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