Having been a travel journalist for more than a dozen years, I am often asked about the best trip I’ve ever taken. The answer is easy: it was a TCS Expeditions twenty-three-day, private-jet trip to ten “Lost Cities” (all sites of ancient civilizations) and featured lecturers from the American Museum of Natural History and the Art Institute of Chicago. TCS has just offered Indagare.com Connoisseur members a special invitation to make a similar, upcoming trip. Called Empires & Explorers, the trip departs from London on February 20th and examines regions with deep historical connections and colonial pasts. To give you a sense of what TCS offers, I thought I’d explain what made my adventure so memorable.

Some sixty of us met in London and then boarded a 757 that had been reconfigured with all business-class seats. In the air we listened to lectures and saw slide shows on the destinations we were headed to. Our first stop: Jordan, where for two days we explored Petra. Next, Muscat, Oman, where we had lunch at the United States ambassador’s residence, toured the souk and a private museum and dined in tents at the edge of the desert. In India we spent a few hours at the Taj Mahal before flying to Jodhpur, where we stayed two nights in the local maharajah’s Umaid Bhawan Palace hotel. He entertained us, as did other local dignitaries. In each “lost” city, we stayed in the best possible accommodations; many were extraordinary, like the Grand Hotel d’Angkor, in Siem Riep, while others, such as a former Holiday Inn in Lhasa, Tibet, were merely comfortable. The hotels weren’t the point, though. What made the trip so amazing was the special events and access and the guides, who spoon-fed us the knowledge to enrich our understanding of what we saw. We were in Nepal only for three days, but we met with diplomats in Kathmandu and stayed at Tiger Tops, where we looked for tigers riding on elephants. In Beijing we climbed the Great Wall, explored the Forbidden City and had a private dinner in the Great Hall of the People. In Mongolia, we drove out to the steppes and visited a nomadic family in their gers. It truly was a trip of a lifetime.

Back in 1999, when I went, TCS offered only two such trips a year. It has increased the number since then, but the seats sell out quickly, and there’s almost always a waiting list. The company has just added an extra itinerary for 2008, however, and is holding ten seats for our Connoisseur members on its “Empires and Explorers” trip (February 20-March 13, 2008). One of the lecturers on my trip, Jack Daulton, who is an art historian, a lawyer and an enthralling lecturer, will join this one, as will Peter Bobrowsky, a geologist who works with UNESCO, and W. George Lovell, an expert on colonialism and a professor at Queen’s University. The itinerary will include stops in Timbuktu, Mali; Ashanti Kingdom, Ghana; the Namibian coast; Victoria Falls, Zambia; the Maldives; Angkor, Cambodia; Rangoon and Pagan, Myanmar; Jaipur, India; and Lisbon, Portugal. Rates are $51,950 a person, double occupancy. To learn more about the trip and how to book, call us at 212-988-2611.

To read a postcard on a private jet trip, click here.