These well-off wanderlusters have helped create a travel industry boom, with pent-up demand pushing bucket-list travel into this year’s shoulder seasons. And the most spendy of globetrotters are going all out – perhaps even more than usual – to ensure an unforgettable holiday.

Take one East Coast big spender who flew 20 of his closest friends to Rock House, a US$655-plus per night hotel in the Caribbean island chain Turks and Caicos, for an all-expenses-paid long weekend over the summer. Throughout the four days, top-shelf liquor and US$600 bottles of wine flowed freely. He paid US$120,000 to the resort alone, said Nikheel Advani, the COO of Rock House’s owner, Grace Bay Resorts.

Rock House opened in May with 46 oceanfront, villa-style accommodations.

Then there’s the man who, as an anniversary surprise for his wife, planned to book a private palazzo in Venice for a performance by opera legend Andrea Bocelli at the cost of about US$300,000 for a half-hour, and then jet to the Dolomite mountains for a romantic picnic. (The grand plans were foiled by a bout of Covid-19, said the trip’s organiser, Jules Maury, who works for Scott Dunn Private, an ultra-exclusive, invite-only arm of a United Kingdom-based luxury-travel company.)

American Express Travel’s 2022 Global Travel Trends report, which used polling data collected in early February, confirms the move toward bucket-list travel this year. Of the 3,000 people polled, 86 per cent expected to spend more or the same amount on travel in 2022 as they did in a typical year before the pandemic and 65 per cent of respondents said they’d rather take a dream holiday than purchase a new car.

An August report by the luxury travel agent network Virtuoso found that future sales of travel are running 47 per cent higher than in 2019.

Luxury travel planners shared the receipts to prove how globetrotters are spending big despite uncertain economic times.

Wealthy wanderlusters are seeking more extreme holidays

Maury said she’s seen an uptick in clients wanting to go the extra mile in their travels.

It’s now “‘I want to go to Rwanda to see the gorillas,’ whereas it might have been before, ‘We’re gonna go to Kenya or Botswana.’ Let’s take it one step further,” she said, adding that seeing the gorillas in Rwanda is “the ultimate safari”. The trip can cost upwards of US$15,000 per person, according to the travel site Afar.

Karen Loftus, of Women’s Adventure Travels, said she’s also seen an uptick in interest in Rwanda safaris. She’s arranged trips at a lodge called Kataza House, run by the conservation-focused safari operator Singita, where prices start at US$13,600 a night for five to eight guests. A stay at Singita’s Serengeti House starts at US$16,000 and tops out around US$22,500 a night for five to eight guests. The price doesn’t include the US$1,500 per person, per day permit to trek into Volcanoes National Park to actually view the gorillas.

Nature spotting has been a big travel motivator lately. Maury said that she’s had an increase in requests for trips to the Galapagos Islands, where the unique wildlife includes giant tortoises and 13 species of finches; to Brazil’s Pantanal wetland region, famous for its jaguars; and to Greenland to see polar bears.

Clients are “adding a bit more dream factor” to their travels, Maury said.

Remoteness is the ultimate luxury

Maury and Loftus have both seen an uptick in interest in trips that let their clients get away from the stressors of modern life.

Maury has arranged visits to the Kitchen on the Edge of the World, a foodie pilgrimage to the Arctic Circle that features a rotating cast of the world’s top chefs, like the seafood expert Rick Stein and the Michelin-star-holding Basque chef Nieves Barragán Mohacho, that books up many months in advance.

Only 20 people can attend each chef’s limited run, with tickets costing US$5,400 and up per person for the four-day experience. That doesn’t include flights to Holmen Lofoten in northern Norway.

Loftus sees high net worth individuals’ desire to be “catered to in the middle of nowhere” as a trend accelerated by the pandemic, as well as a reflection of the personalities of this class of travellers.

“High net worth people are typically high achievers,” Loftus said. “You go to these amazing places and you achieve something you never imagined was possible.”

She added that more involved excursions like hiking in a remote corner of the world “lends itself to some really great bragging rights”.

Quality time with loved ones matters above all

But not all bucket-list travel experiences need to be in far-flung corners of the world. Spending quality time with family is still the No 1 priority in luxury travel, according to a March Deloitte poll cited by Berkshire Hathaway.

In August, Bill Finnegan, a mergers and acquisitions lawyer who lives in Houston, took his son, son-in-law and nephew to golf at Pebble Beach, a picturesque public course on the outskirts of Carmel by the Sea, California.

The trip was arranged by the private holiday club Exclusive Resorts. Finnegan estimates he pays about US$45,000 a year for 30 days of travel at the holiday club’s qualifying properties.

The trip served as bonding time for the group and put Finnegan’s son one notch closer to reaching his goal of teeing up at Pebble Beach 20 times in his life.

“For me, it was a bucket-list trip not only for the destination, which was incredible, but being able to do it with my son, son-in-law and nephew – just the whole experience,” Finnegan said.