We are all looking for an adventure holiday, says our columnist. But that doesn’t mean scaling the Himalayas: because everyone’s idea of being daring is different

Ever climbed Everest or swum the Channel? No, nor have I. But I’m sure that, like me, you feel that your life so far has had its fair share of adventure. Because adventures needn’t involve some peak of physical exertion or a confrontation with extreme danger. Adventures are about leaving your familiar world behind and setting out for new shores, in every sense of the term. They’re something, too, that we can experience in every part of our lives, in our leisure time as much as in our working hours. And we are particularly likely to have them, of course, when we travel away from “home territory”.

But what about those individuals who claim that a true adventure can only be experienced out in the wilds? Or the ones who go even further, and maintain that adventures have even become extinct in today’s enlightened, networked, technologyladen and globalised world? With all due respect, they are missing the point. Adventures are not about taking physical risks; adventures are something that is experienced in the mind. And that’s why they’re still out there to be had.

Today’s travel adventure, for instance, need no longer be sailing around the world or scaling a Himalayan peak. It can be exploring new territory in other senses, too: meeting different peoples, discovering new cultures, doing something you’ve dreamt of doing ever since you were a child (and have no time or opportunity to do in your day-to-day life) or just learning something new. Because adventures, in the end, are about identifying an intriguing challenge, taking it on and enriching your life by doing so.

Adventures are something of a luxury, of course. And we are indeed seeing a certain trend among more discerning travellers, who are coming to seek their luxury less in the comfort of their away-from-home surroundings than in the challenge and adventure they can offer. The world’s more affluent travellers and the trendsetters are all setting greater store by what they do and how they do it. And, as personal values such as responsibility, knowledge, trust, sustainability and sheer curiosity are coming increasingly to the fore, they are seeking to live and promote them in their travel activity, too.

This in turn is prompting a growing demand for “authenticity” - the genuine, the pure, the unspoilt, the original - because only authentic experiences will really open new worlds up to us. The clichéd, the staged and the stereotyped won’t do it, and are no longer in demand. The accent now is on meeting local people in Africa or Asia, for instance, in an atmosphere of reciprocal respect, to see and find out how they live and work. And whether those people are dressed in traditional garb or the same clothes as ourselves is really of little concern.

Elsewhere, the focus is on learning about ancient traditions that are still very much alive today: baking a loaf of bread in a small French mountain village, or harvesting tomatoes by hand on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. A further major area here is the chance to join a specialists’ world from which we are usually excluded. From cooking dinner with a top chef to spending weeks working on an animal protection project in Africa’s savannah: here, too, there’s a vast range of opportunities.

If we look at these changed values, priorities and demands, it’s clear that today’s premium-segment tour operators face a very different range of challenges of their own. Added to this, their customers’ wishes and needs have never been more individual and differentiated - and thus more varied - than they are today. Our products, of course, must pay full regard to these new expectations of any travel activity, and must comprehensively cover the areas concerned.

Needless to say, no brochure can ever meet every customer’s personal wishes and needs. And this is why totally individualised travel arrangements are also becoming increasingly popular in the premium segment: travel that enables the guest to address their own particular challenges, through unique encounters and out-of-theordinary experiences. Indeed, “premium travel” today is primarily a matter of providing access to unusual people and situations, and thereby setting the scene for the adventures of our times.

RETO WILHELM is a member of the Executive Board of Kuoni; kuoni.com