The UHNW travel industry has made seclusion a luxury. In our latest article for Luxury Briefing Magazine we explore how privacy and escape from the coarse excesses of the world is becoming more desirable. Full text below.

Billie Holliday didn’t feel so good about being alone. She sat in her chair, filled with despair. ’There's no one could be so sad, with gloom everywhere, I sit and I stare, I know that I’ll soon go mad’.

Doubtless we’re all going mad with the way things are.

But in fact, being alone, wanting a little seclusion, some privacy and escape from the coarse excesses of the world is becoming more desirable - a luxury.

If scarcity is one of luxury’s core values, and true seclusion however temporary, is scarce; then a little seclusion is indeed luxury.

I feel a change coming on. People will increasingly want an escape from tech and the burdens it brings. I am no Luddite, but being info-bombed, AI aided, text stressed, platform pressured… I look around and the weight is heavy. People will pay for experiences that moves them away from all that. Oh, I know the switched off mobile is a futile dream, but there are places for those who desire deluxe decompression.

The UHNW travel industry is one luxury sector that has figured this out years ago, offering beautifully remote walled gardens, in villas, on islands, at resorts, up mountains, over the sea, down the valleys to the well-heeled.  Ditto the owners of Edmiston or Burgess superyachts, or Bombardier or Gulfstream planes. Exquisite detachment, one step beyond the gaze of others. Not so much turn left on the plane, as turn wherever you want, as you own the whole thing.

I have just returned from the North Pole courtesy of our friends at Secret Atlas. They run amazing expedition micro cruises in isolated locations. And the Arctic is definitely a place to ponder these matters. It’s Nature at its most extreme.

Profound, wondrous, timeless. Being up there alone in the freezing white wildness reminded me that the world is mightier than we are. That we are frail, precious, that we are temporary, that we have to more graciously bow to things greater than ourselves.

That ‘everything is a luxury, starting with being in this world’ as Italian writer Cesare Pavese said. And it’s calming that the mobile doesn’t ring and the email ping.

Being far from the madding crowd can be seen as counterintuitive to luxury brand-building which thrives on the opposite - exposure and connection. Exposure these days is supposed to be Good. Whole professions are devoted to ‘getting the truth out’.

The media, the entertainment industry, writers, artists, lawyers, psychotherapists, doctors, historians… and rightly so. Sarah Igo’s fascinating ‘History of Privacy in Modern America’ speaks of the conflict between exposure and reticence as a story of positive gain for society, not a loss.

There are luxury brands that connect with solitude and exclusivity. As luxury shifts from pure materialism to unique experience, there is now no shortage of exclusive, secluded adventures including luxury tours to the North/South Pole, private safaris or glamping experiences in wildernesses.

Aman Resorts offer hotels and resorts located in remote island retreats and mountain hideaways. Four Seasons Private Retreats say it in their name. Bulgari does Italian luxury getaways-from-it-all.  Rosewood offer Ultimate Escapes. One&Only do one-off resorts and private homes ‘handpicked for their extraordinary beauty and cultural charm.’  I’d be more than happy to test the claim.

Let’s not forget the digital detox retreats where guests surrender their mobiles to immerse themselves in nature and mindfulness. Like Camp Grounded in California whose off-the-grid weekends are popular.  Or Ritz-Carlton Reserve’s Disconnect to Reconnect phone-free hotels offering quantum healing, yoga, mandala art and sound therapy. Yup, the seclusion business works in many ways.

The acclaimed psychiatrist Anthony Storr explored the value of spending time alone in his famous book ‘Solitude’ where he pointed out many of history's creatives were by nature or circumstance, often solitary. He mentions brilliant scholars and artists - from Beethoven and Kant to Henry James to Wittgenstein. Bob Dylan and The Band decamped to Woodstock, getting back to the garden to reinvent rock with serious songcraft and organic musicianship.  Virginia Woolf famously believed that a room of one's own, a space for solitude, was essential for creativity.

Escaping the madness is one definition of luxury. Another way of looking at it is wanting the time and space to enjoy luxury simply secluded.

Honestly you’re better off alone if you want to caress and smell the Bridge of Weir® finest leather hide of your Aston Martin seat, savouring rawhide ‘sourced from the finest Scottish beef herds, processed with the softest and purest of Scottish water’. Incidentally, as this column appreciates the finer details, only the finest heritage breeds are used like Charolais, Limousin, or Galloway and Aberdeen Angus. If that doesn’t bring on the quiet smile of satisfaction that you belong to a super-class light years beyond the hoi-polloi, I don’t know what will.

The most glamorous film star of her day, Greta Garbo, famously said ‘I want to be alone’ in Grand Hotel (1932) and, though it was 92 years ago, she was on to something.

Read more from our Brand Matters series:

  • The enduring importance of craftsmanship here
  • Why craftsmanship's vulnerability will win in the tech world here.
  • Creativity: From Origins to AI here
  • Luxury is ageing gracefully here
  • Thinking luxuriously here
  • How distance creates desire here
  • Why the pursuit of authenticity is paramount for luxury brands here
  • Exploring the symbolism of colour for luxury brands here
  • Why beauty, elegance, timeless high quality, durability and a little self-indulgence can be good for you here
  • Why nature continues to inspire luxury brand design here

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