Since 1989, Rovos Rail has crossed southern Africa aboard mahogany carriages restored to the great years of colonial exploration. A maximum of 72 passengers in 36 private suites. No screens, no connection. The dining car in starched white service, Western Cape wines, the landscapes of the Kalahari, Zimbabwe and Tanzania scrolling past at 60 km/h from the open-air observation car.

Since 1991, Quark Expeditions has opened both poles to travellers with the most diverse expedition fleet in the world. Ice-strengthened ships, Zodiacs, and aboard the Ultramarine two helicopters to fly over the pack ice. Antarctica, South Georgia, Greenland, Svalbard, the Northwest Passage, the North Pole: fewer than 200 passengers on board, a team of biologists and glaciologists, and every day spent ashore — as close as possible to the penguins, the polar bears and the great white silence.

The first nomadic hotel in the world. Every six months, Thierry Teyssier — the creator of Dar Ahlam — settles in a new country and brings to life a fleeting “House of Dreams”: Rwanda, Cambodia, Japan, Brazil, Peru. No key, no reception, no fixed itinerary — here you are not sold rooms, you are given moments. A regenerative hospitality woven with local communities for the space of a season, then gone. 700,000 hours is the average length of a life.

On horseback in the Okavango, where the 4x4 can no longer go. From Macatoo camp — seven tents set on an island of palms, around fifty horses — you gallop at daybreak across the flooded plains, among elephants, giraffes and zebras, sometimes under the gaze of lions. For experienced riders only; the rest explore by mokoro or 4x4. A night on the raised platform, under the open sky, with the delta as your only horizon.

Four of the finest dive sites on the planet, aboard exceptional liveaboards. Raja Ampat, the heart of the Coral Triangle, holds the richest marine biodiversity in the world — close to 75% of all known coral species. The Galápagos and their schools of hammerheads, the Maldives and the ballet of manta rays and whale sharks, the Red Sea and its reefs strewn with wrecks. You sleep on the water, dive two or three times a day, and surface without a word.