M is also for Members only

Attempting to gain access to a private members' club when you lack membership is never anyone's best look, which is why the recent vogue for exclusive bars sprouting up within well-known hotels was such a godsend. Those who wished to sample the A-list lifestyle without the A-list contacts could enter the inner sanctum simply by booking a room. Sadly, elite hotel owners have reacted by creating the ultimate riff-raff exclusion zone ? members-only hotels. London's Groucho Club has always kept a set of 19 modest rooms for members only, as has the opulent Home House in Portman Square. The Eden Club in St Andrews is a stunning stately home open only to members of the golf club, and you need to be a member of the Carnegie Club (which also has outposts in London and Rhode Island) if you want to stay at the setting for Madonna's nuptials, Skibo Castle. Americans have always enjoyed the elitism of the country club tradition, so it is no surprise that the latest and most expensive forms of private retreats can be found in the US. Membership at the Cherokee Plantation in South Carolina, centred on a grand Southern mansion, gives you unlimited access to golf, tennis, swimming, a spa, use of the mansion's rooms and private hunting facilities, as well as thorough insulation from the nobodies outside the compound. You can even, for $1 million, build a cottage in the grounds, making a night at the St Martins Lane hotel suddenly seems rather reasonable. Emily Dean

Cherokee Plantation (00 1 843 844 8000; www.cherokee-plantation.com).

The Groucho Club (020 7439 4685). Home House (020 7670 2000)

M is for Monkey bikini

A-Z travel guide for 2002