How Do The Super-Rich Travel?

You’ve got a spare £100k to spend on a holiday. What to do? Skydive into an Arctic adventure? Translocate 14 rhino across Africa? Gallivant across central America on a real-life treasure hunt? No problem, say the travel fixers to a new breed of super rich. 

Travel Secrets Of The Super-Rich

How Ultra High Net Worths (UHNWs) splash their cash on their travels is changing. Glitzy resorts and ostentatious hotels are out; mind-blowing experiences and behind-the-scenes access in – the more off-the-chart the better. ‘It is the unique access and the rare feeling that you are somewhere that perhaps no one else has been,’ says Henry Cookson, the founder of Cookson Adventures.

Henry knows exactly how to cater to that cash-rich, adventure hungry market, to the tune of about £150k a pop. One recent trip, for a group of UHNW thrill-seekers, included using ex-special forces guides to tandem skydive the guests into the Norwegian wilderness before kayaking, climbing, running and jet-skiing across an archipelago. ‘They were staying in mountain huts, sleeping in tents hanging off a sheer cliff wall – not for the fainthearted – and in private beach camps along the way.’ 

For Gift of Go, the experience, no matter the price tag, is everything. Offering epic expeditions in little-known parts of the world, co-founder Eddie Lott says these new types of ultra-adventures are a big departure from traditional luxury holidays. ‘[Tour] operators often seek to shield travellers from the genuine qualities of the settings where they operate,’ he says.

The 28-day Diamonds/Wild Tales + Lost Trails trip, for example, takes travellers up close and personal with Brazil’s Serra do Espinhaço region. Costing £29k per person, guests traverse mountains, summit peaks, trek through wild national parks, sleep in tents and wash in streams. No 1,000-count Egyptian cotton sheets and Champagne sundowners for them – and that’s the whole point, says Lott. ‘[This] is a real adventure, driven by meaning and purpose. You’re here to experience a place as much as possible geographically, culturally, ecologically.’ 

If that sounds like too much hard work, luxury operators are pivoting towards another trend in ultra-high-end holidays – behind-the-scenes access, getting you into places that others can’t. Audley Travel has launched a concierge service, where private travel managers create exclusive experiences tailored to their clients’ interests. ‘This could be lunch on a mountain-top reached by helicopter, or their choice of seats at next year’s Lions tour of Australia,’ says James Pook, head of Audley Private Concierge. 

Another top-end operator, Red Savannah, arranged a private backstage tour of Paris’s Opera Garnier for a couple and their 12-year-old ballet-crazy, Phantom of the Opera mega-fan daughter. Not only did she get to see where the costumes, tutus and wigs are made for the ballerinas, but she could try on an outfit before touring the subterranean lake beneath the Opera – the setting that inspired the Phantom of the Opera.

Pelorus focuses on hyper-personalisation, often at sea and with a conservation angle. ‘We’ve seen a 200 percent increase in conservation-led experiences since the pandemic,’ says founder Geordie Mackay Lewis, such as a trip that allowed clients to carry out field research with a world-leading wild dog expert in Botswana. Every trip takes forensic levels of research and planning, such as for the family that loves escape rooms, for whom they created a treasure hunt across Costa Rica, complete with yacht, pirate’s map, clues and actors on the ground. 

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For Stephanie Capuano, co-founder of &Three Collective, which arranges luxury African safaris, it’s all about who you know. ‘Everyone has access to helicopters, boats, etc, these days. The difference is knowing the right people who will share their unique spots to land the helicopter, the secret beach in South Africa to have a top chef cook mussels over a fire, the private collection of art in Cape Town in a friend’s home,’ she says. 

And then there’s the latest in souvenirs: a Hollywood Standard movie of your trip. Cookson Adventures offers exactly that, with an in-house media team accompanying trips to capture their clients’ adventures, whether it’s climbing an ice wall or diving with whale sharks. ‘On their return, we present them with a film of their adventure so they can return to the emotions of that moment at home,’ says Henry. The ultimate travel brag: a blockbuster starring you. Priceless.

Behind The Scenes At The Museum

A more affordable way to get exclusive access to a world-class site is available with a new offering from Montague on the Gardens. The boutique hotel in Bloomsbury has partnered with the British Museum to provide a private behind-the-scenes World War II-themed tour. The best part: you get to wander its hallowed halls for a full hour before the museum opens to the public. Accompanied by an expert Blue Plaque guide, guests are ushered through an off-limits tunnel entrance, exploring the bowels of the museum and learning how curators conserved its priceless eight-million-strong collection during World War II. 

As well as learning fascinating anecdotes about how the collection was moved, and the bombs that set alight the British Library collection, you get to marvel at the secret basements and walk through a hidden door camouflaged by a bookcase in the Enlightenment Gallery, as well as dash to the Egyptian Room before the crowds arrive. 

BOOK IT: Doubles from £276 B&B; the tour costs £950 for up to 12 guests. montaguehotel.com