New build home design currently focuses on experiences, including joy and wellness. Travel and hospitality naturally lend themselves to experiential-based home design, because they tap into positive sensory moments. Travel is all about escapism, something that homeowners want so they can step out of the daily routine.

“Travel gives people a chance to try different lifestyles, cultures, or personas. For a short time, you’re an adventurer, a foodie, a wanderer, and you can bring little mementos of that adventure back home to remind you of that experience,” says Knikki Kennedy Grantham, creative and product director.

Travel inherently presents new points of view, literally, helping housing professionals innovate to keep home design fresh and relevant for new homeowners.

Valerio Muraro, vice president of design with Ashton Woods, says, “For architects or interior designers, travel is one of the most important things that we do to think of out-of-the-box.”

Plus, hospitality spaces, such as hotel rooms and ships, are excellent examples of smart space planning for homeowners, which is an important strategy, given that home footprints are trending smaller.

Here is how to bring vacation vibes into your new-build home.

Focus on Feelings Over Finishes

Trying to choose the right layout, cabinets, counters, or flooring for your new build? Pause and reflect on favorite places and experiences. Finishes and features will follow naturally to replicate the same good feelings.

“[Inspiration] can be from the taste of a great meal and the experience of the ambience of the restaurant, or from a beach, with a view of a cliff, where you don’t have walls around you, but an entire environment brings you happiness and memories to carry with you. When you go home, you want to recreate this joy,” says Muraro.

What might this look like in your new home?

• Love the mountains? Incorporate rugged stone and other natural, textural materials.
• For a beachside escape, focus on natural light, open sightlines, and soft blues, greens, and creams.
• For high-end restaurant vibes, layer low lighting for ambience. Include a built-in banquette and plush materials in the kitchen or go all-out with a formal dining room.

Size Doesn’t Matter, Space Planning Does

Prior to residential interior design, Muraro designed luxury yachts. There is a crossover in small space planning principles, including maximizing functionality and strategically directing flow between spaces.

Muraro says homeowners often overestimate how much space they actually need. Instead of focusing on the square footage of a potential home, he suggests thinking about a floor plan in terms of specific rooms and their functional roles, like bedrooms, bathrooms, a media room, or a home office.

This often results in a smaller footprint which is more affordable and easier to maintain for today’s homeowners and better aligns with functional needs.

“Using the lessons from the yachting industry, you can recreate the same environment [in a new home] with rooms that you need, but using far less space, because you work with a better layout,” he says.

For example, corridors notoriously waste space on a ship (and in a home too) because they consume precious square footage without offering a secondary function. Instead, think about alternative layouts that eliminate corridors, such as open-concept, or asymmetrical layouts, where the bulk of living space is clustered on one side, with passageways on the other.

Also important is storage, says Muraro. Storage vital in a ship, where limited vertical space requires creative storage solutions that don’t overwhelm the aesthetic balance. Use the same concept to maintain balance in your home design.

Muraro says that another essential in yacht design is creating flow, something he finds valuable in new home layouts. “We use the same concept, creating a focal point that is of interest to invite visitors to walk on to the next room, and then to the next.“

Recreate Vacation Vibes in Your New-Build Home

1. Make a grand first impression

High-end hotels go all-in in the lobby, because what you see when you enter the door shapes your whole experience. Use the same approach with your foyer to re-enforce your style statement, explains Muraro. “It sets the tone for the entire home.”

This is a good place for striking, oversized light fixtures and impactful artwork.

2. The powder room should be stylish

Muraro suggests visiting the bathroom in the hotel lobby or the hotel restaurant to see how these out-of-the way spaces play a significant role in reinforcing the aesthetic. Details matter, even though these spaces are out of the sightline. “They usually do something special, as a memory point,” he says.

In a new home, this is your powder room. Muraro recommends a curated sink, different shapes for finishes, wallpaper, and special lighting to create your own memory point.

3. Incorporate resort-inspired decor

“Bringing vacation vibes into your everyday living space is all about creating a sense of relaxation, escape, and lightness,” says Kennedy Grantham. She recommends :

• Use soft neutrals, whites, sand tones, ocean blues, and leafy greens.
• Decorate with rattan, wicker, linen, cotton, jute, and reclaimed wood.
• Incorporate woven baskets, sisal rugs, and driftwood-style accents.
• Add plants to blur the indoor-outdoor line.
• Use large windows, glass doors, or sheer curtains to let in natural light.
• Invest in plush towels, spa-quality bedding, and fluffy robes.
• Use candles or essential oil diffusers with calming scents (lavender, eucalyptus, coconut).
• Add global touches. Moroccan lanterns, Balinese carvings, Mediterranean tiles, or tropical-inspired accents.
• Less is more. Keep spaces clean and minimal to mimic hotel calm.

Staycation : How Travel-Inspired Design is Transforming New-Build Homes in 2025? by Heather Wright | Livabl