We did the legwork in 2008, so you could get a leg up on picking a place to vacation in the New Year. Starting at the top of the world, here are 10 great places to stay, from cozy cabins
to lofty towers, with a sharecropper's shack thrown in for good measure.

SPITSBERGEN HOTEL | Longyearbyen, Norway

In Longyearbyen, on the island of Spitsbergen, which is part of Norway, this town of 2,000 is the closest permanent settlement to the North Pole. The hotel was spartan, but cozy, especially during my visit in March, which is the coldest month of the year with an average temperature of 7 degrees. The drink of the day at the bar was a Bahama Mama, and the restaurant served seal, whale and reindeer.

In winter, you can ride snowmobiles and dog sleds and climb in ice caves under glaciers. In summer, the birds return, and more than 170 species of plants and flowers decorate the tundra. Guides carry rifles, in case you run into one of the area's 3,000 polar bears.

Rates: Rooms start at $360 a night. www.svalbard.net, and click on the Union Jack.

JAMAICA INN | Ocho Rios

The Jamaica Inn, a classic, family owned resort in Ocho Rios. The place has changed little since Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller honeymooned there in 1950. Winston Churchill also was among its celebrity guests. The unpretentious two-story, sky-blue buildings have 47 suites, all with stunning views of the turquoise Caribbean. Days are spent on the private, empty beach; dinner is served on the terrace under the stars. The spa is carved from the jungle.

Rates: Winter rates start at $550 a room. www.jamaicainn.com.

SKYLINE VIEW CABINS | Alto Pass, Ill.

Closer to home, the aptly named Skyline View Cabins are on a ridge-running road that joins Alto Pass and Cobden in Southern Illinois. The two wood cabins are duplexes that sit side by side. The top floor of each has a living room, kitchen and two bedrooms, with a wood-burning fireplace. An interior stairway joins the upper to the lower floor, which has one bedroom, a kitchen and a bath. The beauty is the location, in the midst of the 10 wineries on the Shawnee Hills Wine Trail. The back porches look out onto the surrounding Shawnee National Forest.

Rates: The two-bedroom upper level rents for $120 Monday through Thursday, $140 on weekends. www.skylineviewcabins.com.

TRUMP INTERNATIONAL HOTEL AND TOWER | Chicago

At the other end of Illinois, and the budget, is The Donald's new digs, the Trump International Hotel and Tower Chicago. With 92 stories, the building is the city's second tallest, after the Sears Tower. Sitting on the Chicago River, a short walk from Michigan Avenue, the hotel has sweeping views from its 339 rooms and suites. You can work out on a treadmill in the health club and look out onto the city skyline. Sixteen, the hotel's restaurant, has 30-foot-tall curving windows with eye-level views of the tops of the Wrigley Building and Tribune Tower next door.

Rates: Winter rates start at $295 a night. www.trumpchicagohotel.com.

HERMANNHOF HAUS WINERIES | Hermann, Mo.

Banker Jim Dierberg wants to create a Napa-style destination in Hermann on the Missouri River. He's on the right track with his Hermannhof Haus Wineries, six vintage stone "wine houses" relocated to a hillside looking over the quaint German town. The wine houses have 20 suites for nightly rental. The Champagne Suite has a gas fireplace in the bedroom and another in a luxurious bathroom with a shower and soaking tub. A covered porch was the perfect place to sample some of the Missouri Wine Country's products. Dierberg also has converted two floors of the Festhalle into eight elegant rental suites, called the Inn at Hermannhof.

Rates: Winter rates in the wine houses range from $126 to $277, depending on the day and house. www.hermannhof.com.

TIAMO | South Andros Island, Bahamas

Looking for everyman's idea of paradise? Try Tiamo, a secluded resort on the bone-white beach of South Andros Island in the Bahamas. The resort has no cars, no streets, no shops and is accessible only by boat. The 11 bungalows are in elevated, screened buildings hidden in the palms, pines and sea grape. You may not see another guest until you show up for cocktail hour and dinner in the main lodge. Tiamo has won awards as a self-sustaining "eco-resort," but owner Mike Hartman shuns that description. Makes you think everyone wears Birkenstocks, he says. Actually, most guests go barefoot.

Rates: High-season rates are $415 a night, a person, which includes meals. www.tiamoresorts.com.

KELLY PLACE B&B | Cortez, Colo.

From the front porch of Kelly Place B&B in the red-rock country near Cortez, Colo., you can see an ancient Anasazi ruin in the cliff across the arroyo. A 10-minute hike takes you into the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, which has more than 5,000 recorded archaeological sites. The late George Kelly, founder of the Denver Botanical Gardens and Horticultural Museum, built an adobe home on the spot in the mid-1960s and used native and introduced plants to create an "oasis in the desert." Guests in the seven lodge rooms and two cabins can roam the ruins, watch birds, attend archaeological lectures or just sit on the back patio, gazing out at Sleeping Ute Mountain.

Rates: Nightly rates range from $100 for one night, to $73 for four or more. www.kellyplace.com.

SHACK UP INN | Clarksdale, Miss.

Clarksdale, Miss., is the epicenter of the Delta blues, and a good base from which to tour the museums, nightclubs and juke joints. The impressive new B.B. King Museum is just down Highway 61 in Indianola. The Shack Up Inn is on the outskirts of Clarksdale, on the grounds of the old Hopson Plantation. The owners have relocated a group of sharecropper shacks for rent to the blues lover in search of the real deal. It's doesn't come any more down-home than this. With battered furniture, rusting refrigerators and shower stalls of corrugated tin, it looks as if the sharecropper still lives there.

Rates: Shacks rent for $75 to $90 on weekend nights. www.shackupinn.com.

THE GREENBRIER | White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.

A bastion of Southern hospitality, the white buildings of The Greenbrier sprawl over 6,500 acres near White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., looking like a small town. Twenty-six presidents have visited the hotel, along with DuPonts, Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and Kennedys. None of the celebrities left a bigger imprint than New York decorator Dorothy Draper, who was hired to spread her love of color and floral patterns throughout the interior. A hotel has been on the site since 1858, and the present one was built in 1913 and enlarged in 1930. The strangest chapter in it storied history came after the Cold War, when a secret bunker was built under the hotel to house Congress in case of nuclear attack. You can tour it for $30.

Rates: Weekend rates start at $339. www.greenbrier.com.

BITTER END YACHT CLUB | Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands

The Bitter End Yacht Club at Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands is a sailor's delight. The only way to get there is by boat, and a constant parade of yachts pull into the sheltered sound to visit the resort's bars and restaurants. But you don't have to sail to enjoy the Bitter End's beaches or stay in its recently remodeled hillside cottages. You can partake in seaside massages, champagne and dinner cruises, snorkeling and diving trips and excursions to the wondrous rock formations of The Baths, a national park at the water's edge. From your bed at Bitter End, you can stare across the Caribbean at Necker Island, owned by British billionaire Sir Richard Branson. He rents out the whole island for $46,000 a night.

Rates: Bitter End is cheaper at $880 a night in the high season. www.beyc.com.

By Tom Uhlenbrock
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH