The shift in what defines true luxury travel from material comforts and indulgence to something more meaningful has been fascinating to watch. Those symbols of wealth of the not-too-distant past have become mass-market and accessible, as longtime Financial Times luxury columnist Lucia Van Der Post noted in her article How We Spent It: The Changing Face of Luxury. And those that have endless means seem to be moving toward unflashy quality experiences and a focus on betterment in various forms, be it mental, spiritual, intellectual, or charitable. A large part of what’s driving this change is also a desire for access to community and knowledge. But all too often, some of these initiatives fall a bit short. In Africa, it’s a bit of a cliché for luxury travelers to drop into a local village for a few hours, buy something, and leave. There exists a larger opportunity for deeper programming here. An example of a blend between experiential travel, geography, and history is Natural Selection‘s newly launched flying safari that originates in Angola. These expeditions, the first of their kind, follow the “paths of the rivers that feed the Okavango and Kwando river and wetland systems from their sources in the Angolan Highlands into the Okavango Delta and Linyanti in Botswana, and finally, to the sands of the Makgadikgadi.”
SOURCE: SKIFT