Pre-departure activities or classes in the client's home city are carefully chosen to help them prepare for their outcome and journey. The destination is discovered on arrival if the client is flying privately, at their departure airport otherwise.
LONDON – Brown + Hudson, the London-based luxury travel company launches a unique new service. For the experienced traveller “A Journey with no Destination” is a new concept that shifts the emphasis from the “where” of travel to “why.”
Philippe Brown, the company’s founder and Chief Visionary Officer observed: “Travel has come a long way since Gondwana. Today, travellers seek experiences that help them evolve personally and feel differently when they return home.”
So what happens when you remove the destination from the equation and shift the focus to the goal of the client’s travel or their outcome? What changes when you guarantee how someone will feel without telling them where they’ll be going?
Somewhat counter intuitively, this surrender of control and responsibility allows the traveller to become more curious and open to different ideas about the therapeutic role that travel can play. This questioning of the “why?” of travel is something that philosopher Alain de Botton touched on in his 2002 work The Art of Travel.
Brown + Hudson’s process begins with a unique in-depth interview where boundaries (flight duration, budget, no go areas etc.) are established and travel history, motivations and goals explored. Once all the client insights are gathered their experienced trip planner researches how the client’s goals could best be achieved, where and why.
Pre-departure activities or classes in the client’s home city are carefully chosen to help them prepare for their outcome and journey. The destination is discovered on arrival if the client is flying privately, at their departure airport otherwise.
The exact itinerary and the connection between the client’s outcome and the cultural attributes or traditions of the chosen destination are revealed day by day in-country. Each activity, encounter or visit and supporting materials contribute to making the traveller feel just the way they’d like: perhaps more graceful, with a renewed appreciation of their own home or maybe with a greater sense of calm.
With Halloween just around the corner, perhaps the idea of travelling to destinations unknown is too scary to consider.
Alternatively, for well-travelled families, asking “why” rather than “where” and thinking differently about the very act of travel and its therapeutic qualities could be one of the things they give thanks for this Thanksgiving.
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
