In our favourite industries, from time to time there is a game changer. Henry Ford changed the way we moved from place to place, Steve Jobs and Apple changed the way we used computers, and Jeff Bezos and Amazon changed the way we buy things. In 2005, the luxury travel industry had such disruptors as well. Three men realized that the conscious traveller of today is looking for more than just a haute hotel in an urban centre. That there’s more to life than focusing on how to get past a velvet rope and into some vacuous party for the elite. They wanted to create once in a lifetime travel experiences, every time, with bucket list after bucket list checked and emptied only to be refilled again. Where instead of nights on the town, its nights under the stars in lavish tents and treehouse suites. These disruptors for the affluent traveller are Tom Marchant, James Merrett and Matt Smith, and their company is called Black Tomato.

With the rise of the predictable all-inclusive package holiday has come a certain mundanity to modern holiday making. As a result, the enlightened traveller is yearning to gain more from their travels than a ‘nice’ view of the sea from their ‘nice’ breakfast buffet table. If your travels have lost their excitement and spontaneity they once had, then Black Tomato’s unique, out of this world (or as close as you can get) experiences may just be everything you’ve been dreaming about from your, frankly, lame hotel pool. For those longing to live amongst locals, while staying in unique luxury accommodations set in stunning surroundings, this innovative luxury travel company is here to bring you once in a lifetime trips you’ll be raving about at dinner parties for years to come.

First, picture your usual package holiday hotel’s interior, and replace it with the most luxurious tent you’ve ever stayed in, furnished with soft carpeting and crisp white bedding. Now picture the view of your infinity pool, and replace it with the most beautiful, still lake river you can conjure up. Of course, this may seem like you’re living in a fantasy world, but with Black Tomato’s ‘Blink’ trip, this can be your reality. An entirely customisable experience, this next generation glamping trip is designed to fulfil your ultimate lifetime holiday idea, anywhere in the world.

Your airy domed tent gives you unobstructed views of the pristine natural environment that you choose, whether that be Namibia’s Kalahari Desert or the Musandam Peninsula in Oman and leaves no trace once you’ve left. Black Tomato’s next ‘Blink’ trip is to Patagonia, where lucky guests will witness a solar eclipse from their tent village directly between the stars in Argentina. Once the trip is over, the area is left immaculate and untouched, as in a ‘blink’ of an eye, the only evidence of anyone having been there is the memories in the minds of those who chose to venture away from the comfort of their typical hotel holidays.

When asked where his obsession with travel, and luxury travel in particular, began, Tom recalled warm childhood memories of long drives through Finland with his parents, where his desire to experience the lesser known natural wonders of the world began to develop. Later, during his first summer of university, he and two friends eagerly backpacked across the Philippians, travelling in a manner far from luxury, but still enjoying fantastic scenery and soaking in the country’s culture. It wasn’t until they spent a week in bustling Hong Kong on their way back that they got their first taste for luxury travel. Hearing good things about a snazzy bar called Felix, the university students went out and bought themselves some smart shirts and headed over to the Peninsula Hotel. Here they marvelled at the stunning views of the city and realised the potentials of luxury travel that they too could one day experience and incorporate into their entrepreneurial dreams.

When Tom Marchant first started Black Tomato with James Merrett and Matt Smith, his entrepreneurial father wisely told him: ‘You have to be obsessed from the start’. Fifteen years later, and his drive to grow Black Tomato as an innovative company and community feels as fresh as it did when he first began. Black Tomato’s team ethos began long before the company materialised, with Tom and James talking endlessly of their dreams during their studies at university. Together, the determined trio built a luxury travel company that would incorporate luxury and cultural immersion, whereby guests could stay in magnificent accommodation while being encouraged and enabled to explore the essence of the places around them.

What is also important is that luxury and cultural immersion are not an either or, and this is reflected in the company’s unique opportunities, such as their enthralling tour of Charleston, where you lose yourself in South Carolina’s gastronomic gems, historic storytelling and wilderness. For Tom Marchant, travel is the perfect fuel for storytelling, and memories of trotting along Charleston’s cobbled streets by horse carriage and spotting dolphins in wild waterways are sure to be told over and over again long after the trip has ended.

Cultural immersion is sought after by many travellers but is rarely fully achieved. Black Tomato’s ‘Bring It Back’ trips, however, may be the closest one can get to not just witnessing, but experiencing a culture wholly different to their own. Tom Marchant emphasises that when it comes to our wellbeing, diversity of perspective is essential to understanding our true selves.

Black Tomato’s website, unique and innovative in its formatting, asks you ‘what do you need?’, rather than laying out each trip as a selectable entity. With introspection, you choose from needs such as ‘find a better work-life balance’ or ‘find a more sustainable lifestyle’ and are then shown which destination can best help you grow. For example, those who need to ‘make their passion their life’ are suggested an immersive trip to revolutionary Cuba, where the vibrant culture is all about passion, music, theatre and dance. Black Tomato aims to inspire creatives to bring that passion back home with them and to harness it in a way where it is not pushed to the side-lines of one’s life. It is this encouragement to learn from travel that makes Black Tomato unique among other luxury travel companies in making travel meaningful experiences that not only entertain but build us up.

Travel should be more than just an escape from reality. It should be exciting, mind altering and story worthy. Black Tomato has turned the travel industry on its head, making what was once impossible, possible. The bucket list of the affluent traveller longs to be checked off, but Black Tomato surpasses this, giving you experiences you never even thought plausible. If camping beneath stars is on your list, Black Tomato will give you a solar eclipse. If photographing your holiday on camera is, then they will capture the entire thing on drone. The phrase ‘going the extra mile’ has never been better suited.