How to Upgrade Your Sunset Experience

From a rooftop retreat high above Dubai to a cocktail bar with prime-time views of Scottsdale’s sweeping desert sky, these hotels and resorts pair sunset scenes with unmatched amenities and exclusive experiences.

Built like a Balinese village along a sandy, crescent-shaped beach, Four Seasons Resort Bali at Jimbaran Bay takes advantage of its superior setting to present three distinctive ways to behold the brilliant evening sky: Find your centre with a sunset hatha yoga class by the ocean; sip Champagne on a sunset cruise in the bay; or settle yourself on a cushy daybed with a cocktail and live music at Sundara, the Resort’s restaurant and beach club.

Prefer to pair sundown with solitude? There’s a fourth way: Stay in one of the two-bedroom Premier Ocean Villas. You’ll have your own infinity pool and bale (Balinese pergola) with broad, unobstructed views of the ocean and the fiery sky.

In the heated waters of the city’s only outdoor infinity pool, look out over Puget Sound from Four Seasons Hotel Seattle. Thanks to clear-glass balustrades, there’s not a bad seat on this sought-after pool deck, which also lays claim to a hot tub, a firepit and comfy chaise lounges. As the sun sets over Elliott Bay and the Seattle Great Wheel, the sky-high Olympic Mountains turn into towering dark shadows in the distance.

On the deck of the new Live Oak bar at Four Seasons Hotel Austin, you’ll have a front-row seat for more than the sinking sun. The Hotel’s position overlooking the bridge, and Lady Bird Lake below, qualifies it for prime bat-watching.

From early spring until the first chill of fall, more than a million Mexican free-tailed bats make their home beneath downtown’s Congress Avenue Bridge. In a frenzied exodus that occurs every evening just before sunset, they leave the roost to embark on their nocturnal hunt. You can see two natural wonders at once from either the Live Oak or a spot on the expansive terrace of the new Ciclo restaurant – part of a multimillion-dollar renovation to be completed in fall 2018.

Set on a hillside surrounded on three sides by the Pacific Ocean, Four Seasons Resort Costa Rica at Peninsula Papagayo offers up all manner of ways to admire the fiery sky. Take a guided kayak tour around the peninsula, stopping to watch the colours change behind Monkey Head, an iconic rock formation that spires from the sea, or board the 47-foot Goombay catamaran for a sunset cruise that includes a snorkelling stop. There are guided sunset hikes, private beach dinners and sunset yoga on the beach. Better yet, stay a week and rise to the challenge of experiencing them all.

On one side of Four Seasons Resort Dubai at Jumeirah Beach, the turquoise waters of the Arabian Gulf beckon. On the other, glittery Dubai unfolds.

At this sumptuous Mediterranean-style manse, you don’t have to choose between city and sea; have both. Watch from the open-air Mercury Lounge, six storeys high, as twilight turns the city into sparkle. Back at sea level, the sunset over Jumeirah Beach awaits – and so does the debonair Sea Fu restaurant.

Rising from the ocean about 1,200 miles (1930 kilometres) off the coast of Africa, marked by mountains, lagoons, beaches and reefs, Mauritius is the kind of island you want to be marooned on. Its wild beauty only grows more striking at sunset, with Bambou Mountain awash in golden light.

Once a week, Four Seasons Resort Mauritius at Anahita honours the occasion by inviting dancers to perform the sega, a celebratory local dance. Join in the magnetic rhythm for your own bodily salute to the setting sun.

Desert sunsets and the allure of the American West are practically inseparable. See in person what so many artists and photographers have tried to capture with a stay at Four Seasons Resort Scottsdale at Troon North.

A valley rife with soaring saguaros and spindly cholla acts as a kind of court for the famed Pinnacle Peak. Watch the falling sun paint the sky with warm shades of purple, pink, yellow and orange from a seat on Onyx Bar’s handsome patio.