- Esther Spengler rescued $ 13,000 to spend three days just traveling to the Morocco Mountains.
- Thomato Black’s “Get Lost” experience removes travelers in remote destinations around the world.
- Travels usually take care of wealthy and CEO travelers who require a mental and physical challenge.
Esther Spengler was lost.
She was about five years in postnatal depression and felt, “as so many mothers do,” that she had lost her sense of identity after having two children, she said.
Desperate for inspiration, she was researching for unique trips that she and her husband could get to celebrate their anniversary in 2020 when she encountered a regular service – a luxury travel company that would fall in the wilderness and leave you to find your way.
Spengler, who is now in the middle of the 1930s and lives in Texas, was arranged in the idea. Her husband of the house could see her excitement and suggested that she went on the trip alone as he stayed again to see their children. During a year and a half thousands of dollars saved later, Spengler was found alone in the Morocco Mountains – now lost in very different sense.
“I had felt so long like a dead skeleton walking around and I suddenly felt this spark of life,” Spengler told the experience, which was organized by the UK -based luxury travel company Black Tomato. “It is completely changing the trajectory of my life.”
Black Tomato’s “Get Lost” experience is part of a growing trend of travelers, especially rich ones, choosing the traditional luxury of tourist style in favor of outdoor -based adventures that can be more challenging, physically and mentally, than they are relaxing.
The idea behind “Get Lost” is for travelers to jump into a remote area and sail themselves, or “lose to find themselves,” as the company says. Spengler told her the black tomato she wanted to go somewhere warm and away from the SH.BA, so she ended up in Morocco.
She spent three days just navigating the mountains, relying mainly on her map and compass to reach a bottom point in a more populated area. When she was not completely sure she was on the right track, she was consulted with a GPS device she carried with her for a backup.
“That’s what I was looking forward to, just being just in the middle of nowhere,” she said. “I love that isolation where you need space to think and be.”
Esther Spengler crashed into the Morocco Mountains for her journey “Get Lost”. Giovanni Merherhetti/UCG/Universal Image Group/Getty Images
Rich travelers pay big dollars to fall into the desert
“We see travelers looking for activities that require more mental and physical exercises,” Misty Belles, vice president of global public relations for the luxury Virtuoso travel planning company for Travel + Leisure, told Misty Belles. “C-suite customers in particular want experiences that go beyond their comfort zone.”
Rob Murray-John, head of special projects in Black Tomato who helps plan “lose” trips, said a wide range of people choose to go on them, adding that “often very successful individuals are doing so as a reflection period”.
Some are experiencing or emerging from a period of personal difficulties. Others can be a CEO that weighs a career change, or have recently sold their business and are trying to understand what comes next. Most, though not everyone, are rich by customers, as travel can cost $ 25,000.
“From the point of view of ethics, what connects everyone is the desire for savagery and complete detachment from the outside world,” he said.
Spengler, whose husband was in the military, spent a long month and collecting funds to be able to cope with her journey, which cost about $ 13,000 when she went in October 2021.
Tripdo trip is completely stretched and has taken care of the individual, including “how lost” they really want to be, Murray-John said. Some clients choose a place they will want to visit, but this is about everything they know prematurely. Others do not know which country they are headed, but seek to be sent to a specific type of landscape, such as a jungle, desert, mountain or polar environment.
Some clients who choose to fly private do not even know where they run until they arrive. Travels take place worldwide, with some past destinations, including Mongolia, Perus and Svalbard in the Norwegian Arctic.
Once they fly to their destination place, they meet from guides to the ground and behave in a distant place during a day or more travel, which can be by car, aircraft, four-four, or even a collar. Then they usually undergo one or two days of basic survival training – learning things such as building a fire, building a shelter, or dig a hole in the ground to go to the bathroom.
After training, the traveler, equipped with supplies that includes a map and compass, will be separated from their guides and will be left alone to navigate himself again in civilization over several days.
Esther Spengler photographed at the end of her solo trip after meeting her guide again. Esther Spengler
Travel as ‘therapy’
Although the person on the journey may feel completely isolated, the black tomato is always tracking them visually and with satellite communication equipment. The guides are on Earth traveling together – often with the client literally on their viewing line, even though the client cannot see them – so they can intervene if needed for security reasons. In total, trips require months of meticulous planning from black tomatoes, Murray-John said.
“I really want people to experience trips this way because I think it changes you for the better,” he said. “The journey is now becoming part of your therapy plan.”
Upon completion of the desert excursion, the client meets again with the guides, celebrates, and usually spends one night or two in a hotel to catch their journey with little traditional luxury.
At the end of the third day of Spengler in the desert, when she began to see signs of civilization again, she was not ready for her to end.
At the time she returned home to the US, she said her perspective had been completely moved. “I thought I’m not going back the way it was before,” she said. “I will be in charge and take care of my family. But I will start living.”
She joined the army – something she had always wanted to do – and began to take survival classes involving her placement in complicated situations for days in a time to prove her skills.
Spengler said the journey brought her a sustainable sense of empowerment and sustainability, and that now when she experiences a difficulty that she is best equipped to overcome it mentally.
“It wasn’t relaxing,” she said. “It was an adventure.”
Do you have a story to share about a unique travel experience? Contact this reporter at kvlamis@businsinsider.com.