Sushama Reddy. Picture by Amit Datta

Where does Hollywood check in on vacation? Which hotel was Winston Churchill’s favourite getaway? What did Albert Einstein have in common with Charlie Chaplin vis a vis leisure likings? A new travel show has all the answers.

“But Dream Hotels is not just about celebrities,” protests Sushama Reddy, the model-cum-VJ who has anchored the show which premiered last week on Discovery Travel & Living (showtime Thursday 10pm, repeats Sunday at 8.30pm). According to the vivacious Sushama, who was in town recently to talk about her dream destinations, the hotels chosen on the show are not about their luxury quotient but about being uniquely different. Why else would Adrere Amellal Resort in Siwa, Egypt, figure in the list? Mud huts minus electricity is how plebians might dismiss the hotel but jet-setters claim to find nirvana there.

Sushama could speak from experience as she has been to a number of the chosen hotels in her personal capacity. “Many of them are my favourites too,” she gushes.

One such is Reethi Rah in Maldives. Shaped like an octopus with a six kilometre coastline, it is a 45-hectare island with 12 beaches. The Burj-al-Arab in Dubai has a seafood restaurant 10 feet under water in the middle of a giant aquarium. But at the top of the stack is Ngorongoro Lodge in Tanzania, perched on the edge of an extinct volcano. “The safari there has some exotic wildlife,” Sushama recalls.

Three Indian hotels make it to the list of 55 destinations covered in 13 episodes. Part of the grand line-up are the all-suite Rambagh Palace in Jaipur, nestled in the Aravalli hills; the Taj Lake Palace in Udaipur on Lake Pichola accessible only by boat; and Devigarh, once again in Udaipur, with its marbled corridors and silk drapes. No wonder the Chatwals and the Hurleys headed for Udaipur for their big Indian weddings.

But those obsessed with celebrity connections would find them at addresses like Mamounia Resort in Morocco, an art deco creation where Alfred Hitchcock shot much of The Man Who Knew Too Much as did Marlene Dietrich for Morocco, where Churchill and Roosevelt met for the Casablanca Conference in 1943. Or Hollywood hangouts like The Ganservoot in Manhattan, US (preferred by Ashton Kutcher and Drew Barrymore) and Las Alamandas, Mexico, a secluded beach haven boasting guests like Brad Pitt, Robert de Niro and Sting.

There is no mention on the show of the pinch on the pocket. Why spoil a dream voyage, eh?