Remote destinations lure the adventurous
Specialist travel agents such as Chang Theng Hwee are refreshingly clear about their target market. His company serves about 1,000 people a year looking to book custom packages to remote places, whether it's the Antarctic, the historic sites of ancient Persia, or the Mayan ruins of Mexico.
'These people are very well-heeled, and they've travelled to China 50 times and Japan 20 times,' says Chang, the founder of Country Holidays. 'They're looking for something a bit more unusual.'
Agents say demand is rising for custom tours designed around a specific event or to little-known parts of the world. 'There's only so many times you can go to Paris or London,' Chang says. 'They want to have their intellectual curiosity satisfied. Learning is as much of the journey as is enjoying.'
If you want to get from here to Timbuktu - a city in the west African country of Mali - the company will arrange it. The Mali trip starts at Bamako, the nation's capital, and continues on to the ancient town of Djenne, site of a famous mosque topped with dozens of turrets. Ideally, visitors arrive on a Monday, when the town is full of the colours and smells of the weekly bazaar.
It's with such local knowledge that custom-tour operators feel they add value. In a world where you can book most basic travel yourself, online, they aim to walk you through a part of the world that's harder to research or reach.
One of the most popular new destinations is Russia, served by new direct flights from Hong Kong. Country Holidays also arranges trips to the Antarctic and Patagonia. Iran is a surprisingly popular destination, where visitors head to the former capital of the Persian empire in Isfahan, and can see the ruins of Persepolis, the city sacked by Alexander the Great.
'A lot of people think of Iran as hostile and politically unstable, that they've never seen tourists,' Chang says. 'But far from it. It's really the centre of the Persian civilisation, which lasted 3,000 years.'
But it's the wilds that offer the greatest potential for adventure. Steven Ballantyne runs Expedition Project Management, a Hong Kong-based company that organises trips to unusual parts of the world and advises clients who are looking to develop expeditions themselves.
Ballantyne was taken hostage in the jungles of Papua New Guinea in 2001, but survived after a dramatic air rescue.
He has drawn on his decade of experience there to lead independent expeditions along the Kokoda Trail and the Black Cat Trail.
This year, after the unusually cold winter in Mongolia, he aims to develop an aid-related trip that would see visitors drive livestock across the country, from more fertile areas into those hard hit by the winter deprivations. The trip, which costs US$3,000, is only open to six people.
