Where to stay: Mykonos

It seems like the entire universe is in Mykonos this summer. Endless blues and whites across Instagram. Sunsets and swimming pools. Beaches and beach clubs. A month ago I was there too. Soaking up the glorious sun in late May, just before the season kicked off, on the annual mother-daughter holiday.

We stayed a week at Mykonos Ammos Hotel; a 5 star boutique hotel listed in the Small Luxury Hotels of the World guide. A pristine white complex of forty rooms, it's the perfect mix of calm relaxation (around the pool) and then upbeat beach bar a few short metres away. Loungers aplenty, there's lots of people-watching to keep you occupied on Ornos Beach - one of the less busy but still vibrant parts of the island. Deep house and club chill out on just the right side of low volume brought the holiday vibe without making us want to tear our hair out.

The rooms were well-sized with decent enough beds (twins, natch, but we heard the doubles were roomy) and enough pillows to sink into. The ground floor rooms, like ours, let you spill out onto the balcony with wine which you can then oh-so-easily take onto the daybeds or hold above your head as you swim about (civilised, of course) in the pool.

Two restaurants are open for business all day from breakfast to after dinner cocktails. Brunch includes a breakfast chef and enough cheese, ham, local pies, fruit and cereal to keep you going back for seconds, thirds and sometimes fourths. Lunch was easy too with Greek cuisine sitting easily alongside Japanese sushi (Kuzina is the only restaurant on the island to use black sushi rice at dinner, there are Japanese chefs at work), and dinner was always going to be a 'roll me out of here' affair. Don't even mention the deconstructed millefeuille. Portion sizes in Mykonos are favourable, to say the least, which is good bearing in mind that prices tend to be around the London mark.

The staff, as you'd expect, swish serenely around the place in sleek grey uniforms. Incredibly friendly and chatty, we saw everyone falling in love with the waiters and hostess Esmerelda has some very good beach and yacht trip recommendations (more on that later). Mykonos Ammos is a real gem and somewhere we wholeheartedly recommend - it's probably a little crazy (like the rest of the island) now it's high season but go either side of the busy months and you're in for a treat.

Hotel Americano, New York City

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A couple of weeks ago my boss flew me over to New York City for two days for an important client meeting. A whistle-stop visit, I left London on late Wednesday afternoon after a couple of hours delay and arrived late evening New York time. After a hop, skip and a jump through immigration and a torturous wait in the taxi queue, I was soon in a yellow cab flying through tunnels into Manhattan. That first close up of the skyline just before we took the Lincoln Tunnel gave me butterflies - my last trip to the city was a whole eight years ago with three schoolfriends on a travel bursary.

My boss stays at Hotel Americano so we booked me in there too. A Design Hotel in the heart of Chelsea, it's a seriously sexy looking place to stay. Arriving at midnight with an early alarm already set, it was like a dream come true to be greeted with this room. Low lighting welcomed me in along with the in-room iPad softly playing Classical music (I later discovered they had some pretty good playlists for party preparations) and that bed? It was deliciously comfy and the perfect way to end the day after a quick shower with everything Aesop.

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The meetings went well so we celebrated in style, starting at the rooftop bar which turns into a pool during the summer. We raised a few martinis to the Manhattan skyline before heading off for some very luxurious cocktails at Baccarat, a hotel that's just seen a cool $60 million refurb, and gives drinkers $10,000 thrones made from coyote fur to lounge around on. Truly decadent.

The rest of the trip involved walking crosstown from 20th to 51st and back, some much deserved wine, guacamole and chips in the downstairs bar and some more wine before I left for the airport for another delayed flight home. A short but very sweet stay in one of New York's most stylish hotels. I'm just trying to persuade my boss to take me back!