Unless you've been living entirely off the grid these last few years (good for you), you know that The White Lotus is now one of the biggest breakout TV hits in recent memory—singularly scooping up 14 Emmy Awards and two Golden Globes; inspiring memes and iconic cultural moments ("These gays! They're trying to kill me!"); elevating the actor Jennifer Coolidge to an even higher echelon in the Hollywood pantheon; and turning it creator Mike White into a household name.
The mini-series-turned-franchise produced by HBO, streaming on Max, revolves around the fictional White Lotus resorts and casts of psychosocially dysfunctional guests that check in and out of glamorous hotels, tan themselves in the sunlight of Maui and Sicily (in seasons one and two, respectively), and, shall we say, push each other to their limits. On top of the stunning filming locations that essentially act as ads for the destinations (the show has been partially responsible for making “set-jetting” a travel trend), the high-caliber acting performances and the superstar names attached to the show have made the whole thing a phenomenon. And now, there's a highly-anticipated third season in the works.
White, who wrote and directed every episode of the first and second seasons, says he was surprised that the series was even recommissioned: “I always thought of it as an experimental show,” he told Entertainment Weekly, “so there was never any idea that we would even do another season.”
Similarly surprising: Both hotel locations in both seasons were set at Four Seasons hotels. After season one, White admitted that the hotel group “were happy for the business. But the fact that this is now the visual for the hotel from hell probably escaped them to some degree.” Proving that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, the show installed themselves in another magnificent Four Seasons location for the second season—this time in Sicily.
What about the third season? You guessed it: The cast and crew are back at another Four Seasons. Read on for our guide to the paradise settings used in each season of The White Lotus—and to find out where they're going for the third season.
A version of this article originally appeared in Condé Nast Traveller UK. All listings featured on Condé Nast Traveler are independently selected by our editors. If you book something through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Where was season one of The White Lotus filmed?
The first season of The White Lotus filmed at the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea, in Maui, Hawai'i. A single filming location was the requirement when HBO asked White to dream up a show that could be made under strict production guidelines during the Covid-19 pandemic. With this in mind, his thoughts turned to childhood holidays, which for him were in Hawaii. He liked the place so much, he bought a house at Hanalei on Kauai, and the recent arrival of billionaire ‘tech bros’ as his neighbors fed into the story of the show.
“At first, it’s, like, ‘It’s so beautiful! I’m in touch with nature and it’s so healing,’” he told The New Yorker. “Then you realise it’s on the backs of people who’ve had a complicated history with people like me.” The result was The White Lotus, written at speed in August 2020 and filmed at leisure, from October to December, with cast and crew quarantined in the resort for the duration.
Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea
Opened in 1990, the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea lives up to the tropical-paradise clichés with ease, with some of the suites we see in the show costing up to $26,000 a night. Alongside the 380 guest rooms and suites, its 15 acres house three pools, three restaurants (including Wolfgang Puck’s Spago), three golf courses, a spa, and an art museum. Amazingly, White and his crew were given almost free rein, from the entrance and lobby to the restaurants, the spa, and even the neighboring Wailea Beach.
Key to the drama are the suites, all carefully decorated to reflect their occupants, while keeping to strict ground rules laid down by the resort. While they weren’t allowed to paint the rooms, they could change the materials, bedding, and curtains—an important factor, as production designer Laura Fox explained to Architectural Digest: “They’re lovely rooms, but not to film in. I think [my job] was trying to find a version of a new hotel that was kitschy and flawed and rich, like the characters.”
The Palm Suite, a home-away-from-home for the honeymooning characters Shane and Rachel, is one of the resort’s Elite Oceanfront Suites—and was given what Fox called an ‘anti-beach’ makeover with vintage greens, velvet, and hanging lights. The White Lotus’s other honeymoon suite, the Pineapple, is the Lokelani Presidential Suite; at 4,500 square feet, it's the hotel’s (and Hawaii’s) largest, with three bedrooms, five bathrooms, and two living rooms. This was given a palette of yellow, green, and brown with, of course, pineapple motifs.
For volatile Tanya, played by Jennifer Coolidge, who arrives with her mother’s ashes in a plastic bag, the Hibiscus Suite was created in one of the Oceanfront Prime Suites, with pinks and reds expressly designed to clash with her sartorial fondness for bright prints. Then, for the Mossbacher family, led by tech exec Nicole, the Tradewinds Suite was created from the Maile Presidential Suite, with a range of blues and very '70s Hawaiian art. This was the biggest departure from the real Four Seasons hotel: In the show’s Tradewinds, the Mossbacher kids sleep in the living room, but the Maile is in fact the Four Seasons Maui’s second-largest suite, with three bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a full sauna included.
Wailea Beach
Outside the rooms and restaurants, it’s water that matters. Beach scenes focusing on Quinn Mossbacher were filmed on Wailea Beach, just steps away from the hotel, as we see on screen. For the swimming pools, meanwhile, the action focused on two of the Four Seasons's three, leaving the child-friendly Waterfall Pool in the background. We spend plenty of time at the Serenity Pool, where Shane and Rachel take a cabana, the Mossbacher girls read waterside and Quinn is seen wading to the swim-up bar carrying his phone and console at arm’s length, like holy relics. For Quinn and his father’s scuba lessons, it’s the Fountain Pool, which sits at the center of the property.
Where was season two of The White Lotus filmed?
The second season of The White Lotus was filmed at the San Domenico Palace, Taormina, A Four Seasons Hotel, in Taormina, Sicily. Situated high on the rocks a little inland, it overlooks the Ionian Sea, Mount Etna, and an ancient amphitheater, built in the Greek style by the Romans. The town is famous for its proximity to the still-active Etna, as well as the Isola Bella nature reserve and for its medieval architecture.
San Domenico Palace, Taormina, A Four Seasons Hotel
The San Domenico is almost as famous itself, built on the site of a 15th-century monastery and incorporating several historic features. In its original incarnation, opened with the addition of a Grand Hotel Wing in 1896, it hosted famous faces from Oscar Wilde to Audrey Hepburn and Edward VII, and its fame has only been boosted since its 2021 refurbishment as a member of the Four Seasons and, fictionally, the White Lotus. With 111 rooms, including suites and speciality suites, it features a spa, the fine-dining restaurant Principe Cerami, the pool-terrace diner Anciovi, courtyards and gardens that date back to the time of the monks, and an outdoor infinity pool that wins plenty of screen time on The White Lotus.
This is certainly not its first time on film either. Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1960 classic L’Avventura ended in the hotel, and it was also where the divers of 1988’s The Big Blue stay while preparing for a big competition.
Noto
Unlike season one, filmed under strict pandemic-era lockdown conditions, the second season allowed the characters to leave the confines of the hotel. As Mike White told Entertainment Weekly, this was a bonus: “I'm not going to complain about being at the Four Seasons Maui, but you do start to feel like it was a Hawaiian Shining. It was cool this season to be able to feature more of the city and some of the iconic places in Sicily. The canvas gets much bigger and that's a huge improvement.”
As well as the town of Taormina, and a yacht trip on the Ionian, this included a visit to Noto, on the southeast end of the island. This town is famed for its baroque architecture, dating to the early 18th century following a devastating earthquake. For The White Lotus, it became the venue for a day trip where Harper and Daphne have a chat in the limestone piazza, while taking in the Palazzo Ducezio and the cathedral on Corso Vittorio Emanuele.
Cefalù
This coastal town close to Palermo on the island’s north coast provided another outing for the White Lotus guests. The architecture here dates back to medieval times, with a Norman cathedral and streets blending into a popular beach resort. The harbor featured in the film Cinema Paradiso as the venue for an outdoor screening of Kirk Douglas’s Ulysses. It’s close to the Piazza Marina that features in The White Lotus, though most of the filming for the series took place on the seafront by the Sea Palace Hotel on Lungomare Giuseppe Giardina.
Where will season three of The White Lotus be filmed?
The third season of The White Lotus will be filmed at the Four Seasons Koh Samui. Located on a peaceful private peninsula on the island's northeast coast, it's just as glamorous as the show's previous properties. Think breathtaking thatched-roof villas dotted across the landscape, with sprawling views out onto the Gulf of Thailand, sparkling infinity pools, and a world-class spa (where we hope to see more of Natasha Rothwell as she reprises her role as a spa director from the first season).
Alongside Rothwell, other recently announced cast members include Leslie Bibb, Harry Potter's Jason Isaacs, Michelle Monaghan, Parker Posey, Patrick Schwarzenegger and Sex Education's Aimee Lou Wood. According to Bloomberg, this series will also feature a second hotel as its filming location: the Anantara Mai Khao Villas in Phuket. These stunning pool villas offer guests a sleek, tranquil escape just beyond Phuket's longest beach.
