What the super-rich are looking for on their sabbaticals
Trips can include snow leopard spotting in India, living with the San people in Botswana and diving with sharks in the ‘sardine run’ off the east coast of South Africa
The super-rich are going on sabbatical. It turns out having bucketloads of money can be stressful, leading some of the world’s richest people to take sabbaticals or even gap years to escape the pressure of managing their businesses or personal fortunes.
Tom Barber, founder of boutique London travel agency Original Travel, said so many super-rich customers had asked his firm to arrange bespoke trips ranging from one to 12 months that his firm is launching a special division dedicated to sabbaticals for the 1 per cent.
“It’s a huge trend,” Barber said. “The wealthy are looking for an escape. Often they want to get some sense of a back-to-basics lifestyle and learn the skills of our ancestors, like how to hunt and cook their own food.
“For others, it’s ‘braggability’. They want to use their money to open doors that normal people can’t and to tell their friends all about it,” he said. “If you’re in the 0.01 per cent, you are going to be a competitive type of person.”
These are no ordinary holidays. Recent trips Barber’s firm has arranged include snow leopard spotting in India, living with the San people in Botswana and diving with sharks in the ‘sardine run’ off the coast of South Africa.
Barber said his company had arranged 80 sabbatical trips lasting at least a month over the past six years, with a significant jump in bookings over the past year. High-end travel agents in the United States have reported a similar trend and also launched bespoke sabbatical booking services.
Barber said most sabbaticals are a month or two, but he had arranged a 12-month gap year for a 45-year-old billionaire who had recently sold his start-up and wanted “some time to reconnect with this family”. The trip cost well in excess of £1 million (HK$10.08 million).
The family visited 65 countries – from Mauritius to Bhutan, Antarctica and Greenland. “The guy was burnt out,” Barber said. “He wanted to see the world, get back to basics a bit and most importantly see more of his kids, who he hadn’t seen so much of when he was working to sell his company.”