Photo:
Fabio Lovino/HBO
Just hours afterThe White Lotus’s shocking season 3 finale, fans are already speculating about where the scandal-ridden resort will open next.
Based on everything the show runners have let slip so far, and how they’ve chosen locations in the past, here are all the places that could fit the bill.
Francesca Orsi, HBO’s head of drama, gave the biggest hint, telling Deadline in February 2025. “I can’t really say where we’re going to land, but chances are somewhere in Europe.” This would go against a comment previously made by the show’s creator Mike White, expressing he wanted to visit all seven continents for the show, but still feels significant given it’s specificity.
Executive producer David Bernad, who also spoke exclusively to PEOPLE about choosing Thailand for season 3, recently told The Guardian that “Mike doesn’t like the cold.”
This would seemingly narrow season 4‘s destinations down to…
The Four Seasons Koh Samui in Thailand. courtesy Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts
Four Seasons Grand Hotel du Cap Ferrat in France. Four Seasons
Seasons 1 and 2 were both filmed exclusively at Four Seasons resorts. Season 3 branched out, shooting primarily at the Four Seasons Koh Samui but supplementing hotel scenes with other properties, including the Rosewood Phuket and two Anantara Resorts, in Phuket and Koh Samui.
Assuming a return to Europe is imminent, we looked at the offerings of those three hotel brands in temperate climates to narrow down our best guesses of where the The White Lotus might be heading next.
As Four Seasons has been the favored resort partner for the show in the past, we started there. The luxury hotel chain has 17 properties in Europe. We eliminated the hotel in Taormina, Sicily, of course, where season 2 was filmed.
It seems unlikely the show would return to Italy for season 4, given how much it leans into the discovery of new destinations as part of its lore. And, if that’s the case, it knocks down the list of options significantly.
Four Seasons Grand Hotel du Cap Ferrat. Four Seasons
The most suitable locations remaining are Athens, Istanbul, Mallorca and, perhaps most promisingly, the famed Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat in Saint Jean Cap-Ferrat on the French Riviera,
The French Riviera is a classic high society destination that has a plethora of pedigreed hotels, stunning beaches and a world of exorbitant wealth to explore.
The Spanish island of Mallorca offers some of the wild nightlife culture we saw during the Thailand season’s full moon party, and yes, more beautiful luxury hotels.
Four Seasons Mallorca. Four Seasons
And while Athens and Istanbul aren’t seaside, they could be featured in the same way Bangkok was in season 3, as a secondary location with plenty of popular resort locales nearby, like Bodrum in Turkey and Mykonos in Greece. White even hinted, “I want to get a little bit out of the ‘crashing waves against rocks’ vernacular,” so a more urban focus is a possibility.
The Rosewood hotel group currently only has eight hotels in Europe, but is rapidly expanding with four more currently being developed.
One of those in the works, in Crete, could certainly fit the bill, either playing itself or standing in for myriad other Greek islands. A not-yet-open hotel would also solve some logistical issues around shutting down a property for months in order to film there, which is what the show has done in the past at the Four Seasons Maui at Wailea in Hawaii; San Domenico Palace in Sicily; and most recently, the Four Seasons Koh Samui.
Crete, Greece. Getty
Greece also offers an incredibly rich and mythology-filled history, something the show has explored in the past, including with the ever-present Moor’s Heads in Sicily and the incorporation of Buddhist traditions in Thailand.
Finally, Anantara, whose properties were used for many of the lobby and spa scenes, among others, in season 3, has a portfolio more focused on Asia, and Thailand in particular. But it does have nine European hotels, including one in Nice, on the French Riviera, which could potentially be intertwined with the Four Seasons’ Grand Hotel in the same region to create a White Lotus resort.
Vienna, Austria. Getty
Depending what time of year the next season shoots, almost any European destination could meet White’s alleged warm weather requirement.
A few more season-specific options that may be worth considering include Vienna, a stunning city with remarkable architecture and a storied past that’s become an especially popular destination in recent years, when it was named the most livable city and Austria the happiest country in the world, though neither quality necessarily lends itself to the characters of The White Lotus. Both Anantara and Rosewood have properties there.
The moody English countryside is no stranger to a good murder mystery, so the Four Seasons Hampshire, located southwest of London in an 18th-century manor, could also be a worthwhile consideration.
And should the show return to the fertile grounds of Italy in season 4, all three hotel groups have plenty to offer in Amalfi, Rome, Florence, Milan and beyond.
If Europe is definitely the continent of choice, our money is on Greece’s Cycladic islands or France’s Cote d’Azur.
Tokyo, Japan. Getty
If the scouting trip Orsi mentioned doesn’t pan out, or if it was laying an intentionally false trail —something the show runners have admitted to doing with the scripts — there is another destination both White and Bernad have long expressed interest in: Japan.
“Mike and I both love Japan,” Bernad told PEOPLE exclusively in February. “We almost did a movie in Japan. We’ve tried to work there, and if you had to ask me, my dream in life would be to get paid to live in Japan.” When scouting locations for season 3, he says, “It felt like, oh yeah, we’re going to shoot in Japan.” They visited Thailand as a backup, and were unexpectedly enamored. “We love Japan. It’s the best, but I think by the time we left Thailand, we knew we were shooting there.”
The Maldives. Getty
Should they follow White’s previous wish for geographic diversity, the remote islands of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean have long been on fans’ watch lists thanks to their numerous 5-star resorts, many featuring iconic over-water bungalows.. A similar desert island feel has also put French Polynesia, Mauritius and the Seychelles on White Lotus viewers’ radars. And yes, Four Seasons resorts are plentiful in all of the above.
With season 4 set to begin filming in 2026, it may not be too long until we know more.
