Few are able to access the exclusive world of ultra-luxury travel – yet if you’re a EuroMillions jackpot winner, that will be one of the many options you have in front of you, as you go about swapping normal life for time on your champagne-stocked yacht. Think of it this way: the UK’s biggest ever jackpot winner walked away with £184m. That’s a serious stack to start planning your next holiday from, not to mention all the other holidays you’ll be taking.
For the rest of us, daydreaming about how we might spend our imaginary millions is always a fun pastime. With that in mind, here are five extraordinary – and eye-wateringly expensive – travel experiences for those for whom money is no object.
Dine in a volcano
Dinner in a restaurant is for the likes of mere mortals: the uber-wealthy dine in volcanoes. And the all-time ultimate volcanic dining experience was in Iceland where, in 2016, a group of guests were invited to descend 400 metres down the crater of dormant Thrihnukagigur, just outside Reykjavik, into its magma chamber to feast on a private banquet rumoured to have cost around £10,000 a head; small change that is, if you’ve just won multiple millions of pounds. So perhaps it’s just a good excuse to treat 20 or 30 of your nearest and dearest to a once-in-lifetime dining experience for your next birthday dinner?
But if volcanoes aren’t really your thing, you might want to cast your eye to any number of other unique and costly dining experiences, including restaurants in near impossible locations: five metres under the ocean in the Maldives; in a high-tech, multisensory “capsule” room in Ibiza, and in a stunning limestone grotto in Puglia.
A luxury hotel … in space
Forget Bali or the Seychelles, those with limitless cash reserves can look even farther afield for their holidays. The US company Above: Space Development is proposing to build two luxury space hotels. The largest of the pair, Voyager station, will sleep up to 428 guests, not under the stars, but among them, while the smaller Pioneer station has room for a much more intimate 28 sleepers. The company has said these could be operational within the next five years, although it’s not clear at this stage whether this is achievable. But while it may be that this timeframe is a little optimistic, you’ll at least have the chance to think about exactly how badly you want to spend a few nights (if that’s even the right term) up there: the one-off package is expected to be priced somewhere in the tens of millions per guest.
For those seeking to get up and out of the stratosphere a bit sooner, you could head into space to experience a few minutes of weightlessness for, it’s estimated, a comparatively paltry £230,000.
A tropical island all to yourself
For many of us the ultimate travel fantasy is to have an entire tropical island to ourselves. In the Maldives, those wanting to play out their castaway fantasies are spoilt for choice. The archipelago has more than 1,200 islands with white sand beaches and brilliant seas, with many available for private hire.
Private islands don’t come cheap. Expect to spend up to £190,000 a night for a private all-inclusive resort rental, the majority of which come with unlimited champagne, personal butlers, VIP limo welcomes, and the kind of surreally beautiful over-water villas the Maldives is known for. Or, as a EuroMillions winner, you could just buy your own, with starting prices for empty islands at around £4m – though remember, you would have to build your own accommodation on top of that!
Grand gazebos
With enough money, even the humblest of holiday types are elevated to new heights. Quite literally, in the case of one destination in Costa Rica, where one of the first luxury camps in Central America has been built up on a hillside, so as to give privileged views over the famous Arenal Volcano. “Tents” there come with their own private plunge pool – although they are less tents, more luxurious eco-lodges that happen to have fabric roofs.
Picture breakfast served on your own terrace overlooking miles of lush jungle, while birdsong, frog calls and the chirps of tropical insects fill your ears as the rainforest awakens. Two weeks in this particular paradise will set you back over £15,000 – well worth it if you’re a nature lover and have the cash to spare. There’s camping. There’s glamping. But for this ultra-luxe outdoor escape, we might just need a brand new term. Lamping, anyone?
Travel back to the golden age of rail
High-end rail travel experiences are letting their passengers take a trip back in time. Specifically to the turn of the 20th century, when train travel was at its most glamorous. Think richly panelled interiors, velvet furnishings, and black tie dinner service. Guests sip on stiff cocktails in plush booths, watching the world roll by.
The absolute best of the bunch are to be found in Japan, where rail travel is a national obsession, and across Europe (from Paris to Istanbul) and East Asia (from Singapore to Thailand), where multiple meticulously preserved trains are still operating on their original lines. One-way trips cost anywhere from a few thousand pounds to more than £50,000 for the grandest onboard suites on a trip from Paris to Istanbul.
