NYT: The Rise of Non-MM Travel

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Vacation Experiences That Only Money Can Buy
Bespoke Luxury Travel, From $100,000 and Up

JAMES BARBER yearned to travel to exotic places when he was a boy reading National Geographic. Now 71 and a successful business owner, he is able to indulge that love in far-flung destinations during trips created exclusively for him and his family.

There was the trip to Egypt, Jordan and Italy in the months before the Arab Spring in 2010 that included private cooking classes in Jordan, gladiator school for his grandchildren in Rome and an armed guard in Egypt to keep everyone safe. He loved the one to Thailand where his grandchildren got to hold tiger cubs in their laps and he leash-walked a full-grown tiger, raised from birth by monks.

“We were out in the woods and we saw an antelope,” Mr. Barber said. “The tiger got stiff and followed him with his eyes. Then he relaxed and went on walking. The monk turned to me and said, ‘Man is the only animal that kills for sport; the tiger’s belly is full.’ ”

While such experiences might cost the equivalent of several years of mortgage payments for an average family, Mr. Barber says it is worth the price for a couple of weeks away.

“It is expensive, but I love the flexibility,” he said. “If I organized the trip on my own, I’d miss a lot of things.”

These are trips that only money can buy. Like other areas of life, from education to housing to retirement savings, travel is something where the truly wealthy are pulling away not just from average Americans but also from the merely rich. And they are driving demand for the most exclusive trips.

According to data collected by Virtuoso, a network of 8,900 top travel agents who serve two million customers, travelers who spend at least $100,000 a year on trips have increased their annual spending at two to three times the rate of the regular traveler over the past seven years. (Those regular travelers, in the company’s parlance, still spend $10,000 a year on a vacation.)

Last year, National Geographic Expeditions, known for its trips to places like Antarctica, the Galápagos and the Kalahari with archaeologists in tow, organized two around-the-world trips by private jet. The cost was $77,000 per person for 24 days and both trips, carrying 78 people each, sold out. By comparison, it costs $23,000 to be one of 148 on a 25-day trip to Antarctica.

“One of the common links among our travelers is they’re curious, passionate and they’re looking for unique and authentic experiences,” said Lynn Cutter, executive vice president for travel and licensing at National Geographic Society.

(Most of the 200 trips the society organizes cost around $5,000, she said, and all of the money goes to support National Geographic’s research and educational programs.)

For those more interested in being pampered than talking archaeology in Bhutan, the Four Seasons now has its own private jet that transports travelers among its resorts. A 24-day around-the-world trip next February makes 10 stops, including Bora Bora, Bali and Istanbul, and costs $119,000 per person.

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“You can expect to see a lot more of these jet trips coming,” said David Kolner, senior vice president for the consumer division at Virtuoso. “They’re selling out. You have to book in advance.”

Mr. Kolner said his firm was seeing strong sales of seats on Virgin Galactic — where $250,000 buys a 20-minute spaceflight. He estimated that 700 seats had already been sold — and Virgin Galactic has yet to take a customer to space.

This interest in such unusual trips is a combination of wealth, impatience and being overwhelmed by all that is out there.

“My overall observation after 20 years working in the high-end travel business is high-end travelers become more self-centered or self-focused every single year,” said Charlie Scott, founder of Ditoui, a travel consultancy. “They want what they want and they’ll pay for what they want and they just want someone to figure it out.”

He said when he started in the business, travelers were more accepting of someone else’s idea, or just tagging along with a group on safari.

Jason Clampet, a founder of Skift, a website for the travel industry, said that the increase in bespoke — or custom — travel closely mirrors developments with luxury brands in general. “You can get luxury at a mall — anyone can buy a Louis Vuitton bag,” he said. “A truly customized trip is something unique.”

For Gary Rolle, an investment manager in Los Angeles, paying a premium for a trip with his family and knowing that it will be well organized is worth the expense.

His next trip with six family members, including his two grandchildren, will be to Australia. The 17-day trip is packed with visits to wildlife sanctuaries and parks filled with koalas, kangaroos and other animals that will delight his young grandchildren, yet at night the family will stay in luxury hotels.

“I’m trying to create a high point in our lives,” he said. “I’m willing to pay enough to make it a wonderful trip.”

Rebecca Wright, director of sales at R. Crusoe & Son, which organized Mr. Barber’s and Mr. Rolle’s trips, said the company’s typical traveler spent 10 days and $25,000, not including airfare, on a trip. It once organized a 90-day trip focused on studying the world’s religions that cost $250,000, and a three-year family journey from Australia to Geneva over land that stretched into the millions of dollars.

“In Paris, the Eiffel Tower is a given but what else can make it special?” she said. “Can they go into the Louvre before hours and be there alone? Or is it just going into the Louvre with one of our specialist guides? The budget defines it.”

Greg Sacks, a founder of Trufflepig, a travel company that also publishes a lifestyle magazine, said his firm created its first $1 million trip last year, a seven-day excursion to Antarctica for six friends. The company outfitted a full safari camp on the ice, arranged for planes to take the friends to the polar cap to do kite skiing and guides to take them to see a colony of penguins that only scientists normally glimpse.

“It’s hard to do a land-based trip in Antarctica in comfort,” he said. For its work, the company was paid $120,000 in fees and commissions.

But Mr. Sacks cautions that many travelers confuse bespoke trips with staying in the most expensive places in every locale. These trips are about spending more time with family and friends and less with people they don’t know. A more typical trip is four to six people at a cost of $50,000 total.

“People have less time in general and they don’t want to spend it hobnobbing around a table with 16 strangers,” he said. “Our top clients will plan four or five years of travel with us. It’s more like financial planning. It’s trying to take a holistic approach.”

It is often the less-expensive features, like not staying in only the best hotels in India, that make these trips special for someone who wants to get a feel for the country.

“You’re trying to understand someone and help them find the things that are the fit for their sensibility and not just their pocketbook,” Mr. Scott, the travel consultant, said. “Otherwise you’re going to get the run-of-the-mill high end with no sense of authenticity or true luxury.”

Mr. Barber said he became interested in bespoke trips more than a decade ago. “I got tired of being stuck on the bus and waiting for someone else,” he said. But he still plans simpler vacations to places he knows. He and his wife are soon headed to Hawaii for his 45th and her 47th visit to the island. “It’s my favorite place and we stay at the hotel where we always stay,” he said.

But he has no expectations that the trip will match memories like one a few years ago in Borneo, where a female orangutan dropped from a tree in front of him. “She took my hand and started walking with me,” he said, “right there in front of my wife.”

www.nytimes.com/2014/07/12/your-money/bespoke-luxury-travel-from-100000-and-up.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Moth&module=inside-nyt-region&region=inside-nyt-region&WT.nav=inside-nyt-region

[aurora]

I won't lie. For most things in life, I feel we have enough money. I don't need expensive cars or a wine cellar or even nice jewelry. But I would love to have enough money for trips like these, and especially to avoid flying coach to take them.

[Deleted]

Jul 12, 2014 10:01:24 GMT -5 aurora said:

I won't lie. For most things in life, I feel we have enough money. I don't need expensive cars or a wine cellar or even nice jewelry. But I would love to have enough money for trips like these, and especially to avoid flying coach to take them.

TOTALLY AGREE. My thought while reading the article was that I want to go to there.

[Nonny]

I would also love to be able to afford to travel like this.

As a random aside, my pet cats have totally hunted for fun and sport, and not food, so I'm just giving the JLaw "OK" head nod to the monk.

[cheezer]

This is why I save for retirement. A girl can dream, right?

[teatimefor2]

Jul 12, 2014 10:01:24 GMT -5 aurora said:

I won't lie. For most things in life, I feel we have enough money. I don't need expensive cars or a wine cellar or even nice jewelry. But I would love to have enough money for trips like these, and especially to avoid flying coach to take them.

I completely agree with this. We plan to take our kids on some amazing holidays regarding the safari and Amazon when they are older; we are estimating $20k/$30k pet trip. But I would love something like this! Travel is my passion!

[Brit]

We pinch pennies on a lot of things, but we definitely throw down on travel. It is something nobody can take away, it doesn't get worn out or go out of style, and you get to keep it forever. Another flame-worthy traveler here.

[CloudBee]

Travel is one of the best ways to spend money, IMO. Memories can't be stolen, and experiences make you who you are. I would cut back in many other areas to keep travel "in the budget".

[crashgizmo]

I completely agree with spending a ridiculous amount of money on travel. We currently budget more on vacations than any other annual expense, including our rent. It's worth every penny.

[mskitkat]

The amount I spent on my Greek cruise could have paid off DH's loans and a good chunk of mine. I feel exactly zero regrets. DH and I love discussing where to go next.

[bryantpark]

International work travel spoiled my taste and we've taken a break from planes while we have small kids but once they are old enough to enjoy and remember they'll be all over the map. Quite frankly DH and I both have some family members that are way too paranoid to travel and I just don't understand it.

[readyin07]

Can this gentleman adopt me?

[Deleted]

Jul 12, 2014 13:33:01 GMT -5 bryantpark said:

Quite frankly DH and I both have some family members that are way too paranoid to travel and I just don't understand it.

My husband's parents are too paranoid and overwhelmed to travel. They go from Long Island to DC by train twice a year to visit his sister, and that's it. On the one hand, the DC trips include weeks of packing and shipping boxes of stuff down ahead of time (!!!) so I don't even want to know what an international trip would look like for them, but on the other hand it is such a shame. There's so much about the world that you can't learn through pictures.

We're going to the Galapagos in January and my husband isn't planning on telling his parents until right before because they'll be so paranoid about us going to that area of the world.

[wanderlustmom]

Loved this article and we stayed at our first four seasons this last trip. I definitely enjoyed the amenities and the extra touches of a luxury hotel--but even if I were a millionaire--there is still something to be said for staying more with the locals in small bed and breakfasts. That's not to say I won't want to try luxury again--but I did feel more removed and it was a bit insular and stuffy. When we stayed at a lonely planet inn in Florence, we met people of all ages and from lots of places. We both love to travel but I think DH and I prefer a backpack and trains to fancy.

[teatimefor2]

Jul 12, 2014 17:04:08 GMT -5 v said:

Jul 12, 2014 13:33:01 GMT -5 bryantpark said:

Quite frankly DH and I both have some family members that are way too paranoid to travel and I just don't understand it.

My husband's parents are too paranoid and overwhelmed to travel. They go from Long Island to DC by train twice a year to visit his sister, and that's it. On the one hand, the DC trips include weeks of packing and shipping boxes of stuff down ahead of time (!!!) so I don't even want to know what an international trip would look like for them, but on the other hand it is such a shame. There's so much about the world that you can't learn through pictures.

We're going to the Galapagos in January and my husband isn't planning on telling his parents until right before because they'll be so paranoid about us going to that area of the world.

My ILs, especially MIL, only like to travel to areas that they know, which is mainly the Caribbean and speak English. When we went to Jordan and Jerusalem for a fortnight, we told them after the trip as well.  They were also not keen on DH's trip to Brazil for the World Cup.

You will love the Galapagos, DH has been twice before we got together.  The sea lions are amazing and so is the scuba diving!  Enjoy!   

[bryantpark]

Jul 12, 2014 20:03:50 GMT -5 teatimefor2 said:

Jul 12, 2014 17:04:08 GMT -5 v said:

My husband's parents are too paranoid and overwhelmed to travel. They go from Long Island to DC by train twice a year to visit his sister, and that's it. On the one hand, the DC trips include weeks of packing and shipping boxes of stuff down ahead of time (!!!) so I don't even want to know what an international trip would look like for them, but on the other hand it is such a shame. There's so much about the world that you can't learn through pictures.

We're going to the Galapagos in January and my husband isn't planning on telling his parents until right before because they'll be so paranoid about us going to that area of the world.

My ILs, especially MIL, only like to travel to areas that they know, which is mainly the Caribbean and speak English. When we went to Jordan and Jerusalem for a fortnight, we told them after the trip as well.  They were also not keen on DH's trip to Brazil for the World Cup.

You will love the Galapagos, DH has been twice before we got together.  The sea lions are amazing and so is the scuba diving!  Enjoy!   

My ILs won't drive 20 minutes to my house. And if they do they are so uncomfortable they only stay for 20 mins. I wish I was kidding.

[winnied]

I love travel but part of that is actually planning it all out. I love building that excitement for months ahead of time. I'm a planner by nature, though.

Everyone has their spending priorities. Some people love home improvement, some makeup, and some travel. I think travel gets a side eye sometimes or is considered extremely luxurious because it's not always tangible.

[winnied]

Jul 12, 2014 20:09:17 GMT -5 bryantpark said:

Jul 12, 2014 20:03:50 GMT -5 teatimefor2 said:

My ILs won't drive 20 minutes to my house. And if they do they are so uncomfortable they only stay for 20 mins. I wish I was kidding.             

Count your blessings! 

[frlcb]

I agree with others who spend more than the norm on travel, we do as well, and have been fortunate to do some amazing things with our kids. My parents place a high priority on travel and do very high end travel. We are lucky to sometimes come along for the ride.

[wise_rita]

Sigh, a girl can dream (and I have been beyond fortunate in the travel department so have no room to moan).

[grosnl19]

We also love travel. International work travel sparked the flame and it is still burning. We even went so far as to take an International work assignment here in Europe. It is a cost for sure just to live over here (my lost salary, a few house expenses for our home in the States, etc), but it is only temporary (we plan to be here another 1.5 years, so 5ish years total) and it gives us amazing travel opportunities. Worth every penny!