You’d think that now, more than ever, we’d just want to escape. And while there’s a place for that, that no longer seems to be what luxury travel is about. We show up for meditation classes and take elaborate baths that we consider essential to self-care as part of our normal routine.
But when we leave home, we want to shake things up. At least I do. In a decade and change of writing about luxury travel, I’ve been lucky to take a trip of a lifetime several times a year. Many of them have left me speechless, but the ones that stand out in my memory are not the ones where I was most relaxed but the ones where I was most scared. They were the ones when I just far enough outside my comfort zone to be euphoric when I was welcomed back into it—and then soon realized that that comfort zone had expanded.
There’s a quote going around lately, with versions attributed to Nelson Mandela and Franklin D. Roosevelt, among others, that “courage was/is the absence of fear” but “the triumph over it” or “the assessment that something else is more important than fear.” Both are vital today, which is why “transformative travel” has become a trend in recent years.
That isn’t just smoke and marketing. In my experience, the best trips are the ones from which I came home a better person. Here are 10 of my highlights. (Disclosure: I had some of these experiences on trips during which I was hosted as a journalist.)
Climbing Kilimanjaro
To be honest, there’s no way this can be a luxury trip. I wasn’t there for a lifestyle publication; I’d bought my trip as a (round number) birthday present for myself. But me being the kind of person who is used to experiences like the others in this story, I splurged for the most comfortable version I could find—an eight-day trek up a lesser-traveled route with Wilderness Travel, which boasted a high success rate and a ridiculously high ratio of guides and porters to paying climbers. We had about 80 men to help the 12 of us up the mountain (including some who carried portable toilets and impractical food like watermelons, a Christmas turkey—it was late December—and champagne). It’s the easiest of the Seven Summits but not a walk in the park. I was miserably cold and frequently crying, but the terrain was varied and fascinating, the guides were as sweet as could be, and the elation at the summit was intoxicating. I wouldn’t do it again, but I wouldn’t for the world give up the experience of having done it.
Learning to surf—for real—in Costa Rica
A lot of surf culture, says Surf Simply owner and longtime instructor Ru Hill, positions the sport as a mystical pursuit, where supposedly intuitive skills and serendipity align. He set out to change that with this weeklong technical surf school on Guoines Beach in Nosara, one of the best water classrooms in the world. After a week of step-by-step instruction in whitewater, the pool and even indoors, my fantastic instructor coaxed me “out the back,” where I caught unbroken waves as six instructors and 11 fellow guests cheered me on.
A horseback “century ride” in Montana
A classic century ride is 100 kilometers on a bicycle, but the Montana Rockies are horse country. So Barbara Barrett, the owner of the luxurious Triple Creek Ranch, adapted the concept into four days of riding (with lavish dinners and comfortable nights back in the ranch) that add up to 100 kilometers. The annual women-only ride raises money for a local Parkinson’s charity, but I didn’t have much need to remind myself it was for a good cause. There’s something deeply peaceful about moving so slowly through magnificent backcountry, venturing into deep canyons, over mountain passes, past crystalline lakes and through vast meadows—and inspiring about the cowgirls who’ve made this their life’s work.
Regatta in St. Barth
When I showed up to crew in Les Voiles de St. Barth, I’d taken a couple half-day sailing lessons and a weekend Basic Keelboat course, but I really had no clue how to sail. That wasn’t a problem for Ondeck Sailing, which enters boats in every Caribbean regatta during the winter season. “We’re serious about having fun” was the mind-set of the two professionals and five competent amateurs with me aboard a 40-foot sailboat. I quickly learned that racing is nothing like cruising—everything is rougher and faster. However, regetta in St. Barth ends with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot at the finish line, and having 1,000 sailors in town tends to make for a lot of fun after each day’s race.
Scuba diving in Indonesia
I’d taken my chances with beginner “Discover Scuba” dives for years, but when the opportunity to spend a week aboard the ultra-luxurious yacht Silolona in the diving mecca of Raja Ampat, I knew it was time to get serious and get certified. The resident dive master, who had been with the Silolona since construction began 13 years ago, was a skilled, patient instructor, and the onboard managers at the time were also thoughtful coaches. I completed my open water tests in one of the richest marine ecosystems in the world, watched enormous manta rays cavort overhead during one of the. After a dozen dives, I left the boat with tremendous confidence and a new love for the aquatic world.
Heli-Hiking in Canada
On a backcountry trip with Canadian Mountain Holidays in the Bugaboos, I laughed when my mountaineering guide pointed to where we’d be heading. (Also, having a story that begins with Bugaboos is a joy all its own.) The peak seemed unreachable, both quite a ways up and utterly inaccessible. Then he got out his ax, cuts steps into the slope and led us up goat trails, fields of scree and a glacier (sometimes with a second guide holding my hand). Looking down from the top, there was nothing funny about the satisfaction of getting there—or about the relief when the helicopter landed on the ridge so I wouldn’t have to hike back down.
Flightseeing deep in Alaska
The Ultima Thule lodge’s name means “the land remote beyond reckoning,” which is more than apt. It’s a six-hour drive from Anchorage and then a 90-minute flight into the Wrangell Mountains, the largest protected wilderness on earth. Owner Paul Claus and a crack team of other excellent bush pilots take guests to places where no humans have previously set foot—early inhabitants believed the land was haunted, and the Claus family were the first white homesteaders there. Guests ride two- or four-seater planes to land in one spot to hike, another to fish, another for an impossibly picturesque picnic lunch and another to check out a massive glacier—or they just soar above it all.
Hiking to Tiger’s Nest in Bhutan
I went to the Bhutan for the culture, the spirituality and the chance to see “the last Shangri-La.” It’s practically mandatory that a circuit of the country’s greatest hits (the cultural heartland of Bumthang, the stunning dzong in Tronga, the important monastery in Gangtey, the phallus fantasyland in Punakha, the capital of Thimphu, and the tourist center of Paro) end with a hike to the 17th-century Tiger’s Nest monastery, believed to be site where Guru Padmasambhava—said to have brought Buddhism to Bhutan—spent three years, three months, three weeks, three days and three hours meditating in a cave. Whether or not you take that literally, it’s jaw-dropping amazing to see the monastery at the end of a two-hour climb, and the feeling inside is profoundly spiritual.
The ultimate safari in Kenya
It’s a bit of a cliché to say that safari is life-changing. It’s also true. It takes only a few minutes in the vast savannah, watching majestic, wild animals trying to stay alive and trying to stay fed to realize that our little problems are pretty insignificant in the great scheme of things. But that experience is diluted when there are ten Land Cruisers watching one leopard. The opposite is the case at the private Ol Jogi ranch in Kenya’s Laikipia Plateau, which spans 58,000 acres and has incredible density and diversity of wildlife, including migrating elephants, a sizeable percent of the world’s remaining Grevy’s zebra population, and a fair share of the few black rhinos that remain in East Africa. The ranch drips with excess—it’s the Wildenstein family’s private estate, now in the hands of a conservation-minded new generation—but it’s the view from the terrace, not the crystal on the table, that’s transformative.
Looking for more transformative travel possibilities? Here’s where to go in 2018.
