This narrative essay is based on a conversation with Jim Tobin, a 57-year-old entrepreneur. Tobin is based in Raleigh, North Carolina and has run a social media marketing agency for 17 years.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Jim Tobin. Tobin and his wife in front of the Taj Mahal.
I first learned about Safrans du Monde, the luxury French tour operator and travel agency, from an article in Travel + free time which came out last spring. When I first saw this article, I sent it to my wife, something like That’s ridiculous, who could do that. It’s epic, but so over the top. We laughed and thought how cool that sounded, then kind of forgot about it. Then about six months later I realized that our 30th wedding anniversary was coming up and maybe we should do something big because 30 years is a long time for her to suffer with me and this article came to me in mind.
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Image credit: Courtesy of Safrans du Monde
I was drawn to it because it’s such a fun and painless way to cross off so many items on your bucket list at once. The trip we went on was the Grands Classiques so we saw Machu Picchu, Easter Island, the Taj Mahal and so many other iconic places. At one point a few years ago, we thought about how to get to Easter Island, and just getting there is no small feat. And that was just one of the stops you can make on this 22-day excursion. We had been to Sydney twice before because my brother had lived in Australia for 15 years, but otherwise all the destinations were new. Seeing the Taj Mahal was so impressive and a bit surreal to be there suddenly, especially as we were in Cambodia the day before and to witness it as the sun rose was amazing. It’s something I’ll never forget. Destination wise, I was also blown away by Bora Bora and how beautiful it was.
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Image credit: Courtesy of Safrans du Monde
Tickets for our trip cost $75,000. There were a total of 52 travelers on our vacation, with a French speaking group and an English speaking group. Our sub group was about 15 English speaking people and we had our own guide who was with us the whole time. She was on the plane from day one to the end and took care of everything from visas and passport collection before we went to certain destinations to informing us of what was happening afterwards. We had a local guide just for our group who met us at each destination and stayed with us from the moment we arrived until they dropped us back at the airport. The ability to have all these experiences without any planning on our part and very little thought about what we needed to do – hotels, transport, food – was remarkable and stress-free.
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Image credit: Courtesy of Safrans du Monde
The plane itself had plenty of room; you have your own place for all 22 days. You have the same flight attendants, the same pilots, the same chef. It was a little bit back from normal travel where flying can be kind of stressful. Getting to the destination was very relaxing, but you had to hurry a bit to see things on the ground. My wife and I joked a bit that it was like An incredible race: One morning we look at the statues on Easter Island and this afternoon we land in Tahiti. But they had a nice vacation in French Polynesia. We were there for four days and it was a lot less scheduled so we could relax a bit more. This trip packed a lot into a relatively short amount of time and I was thankful we did it at a time when we still had the energy and mobility to do things like this.
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Image credit: Courtesy of Safrans du Monde
It’s not a cheap trip, but when you look at the value provided, it’s totally worth it. The logistics of getting to these places are very difficult when you fly commercial airlines and have to make various connections. So logistically it was much easier. It was so much nicer to not have to think about all the planning and just take good care of him all the time. This made it both more cost-effective and more enjoyable when you put together all the must-sees.
