Ricardo Araujo is a travel guru who makes rich people’s wildest dreams come true.

The journey was about to begin, and Ricardo Araujo needed to find a mermaid.

The client, heir to a large American family, embarks on a three-week excursion following the path of the epic poem. Odyssey. Araujo, a luxury travel agent, spent six months and millions planning the trip, and he needed something spectacular to top it off. When he heard that the client’s grandson loved mermaids, he found out what it was.

Araujo scoured social media to find the perfect professional mermaid – yes they did – then flew from Scotland to Capri. He hired a submarine and had the driver and actress constantly rehearse, showing her entrance, exit, the direction she would swim as the submarine passed. He described the family’s security detail to make sure that the mermaid wouldn’t come out if she swam too close.

Two weeks into the trip, the girl and her mother went in a submarine to see deep-sea fish. On their way back up, the ship suddenly changed, revealing a brief glimpse of a beautiful, water-tailed mermaid bobbing past the window.

When they returned to New York, Araujo said the girl was still jumping up and down screaming about what had happened. “I have never seen a happier child,” he said.

Her mother was less than happy.

“What should I tell her?” Araujo says she asked him. “I have to say no mermaids.”

It was one of those seemingly magical experiences created by Araujo, a travel planner his clients call “the magician” and the press hailed as “the alchemist of travel.” His business, as founder and CEO of Ariodante Travel, does the seemingly impossible, from mermaid sightings to private tours of the Vatican to a night at the top of the Arc de Triomphe.

But the secret to Araujo’s art isn’t magic, it’s money: His trips cost between $250,000 and $22 million, and he targets clients worth at least $400 million, giving him what he calls a “blank check.” ” to design their dream vacation.

While most Americans are scaling back their travel plans or canceling them entirely due to the economy, Arujo’s cat-and-cat customers have no such concerns.

“The trip is disgusting,” Araujo said, “but it’s not about the money — although, as you can imagine, it costs a lot. It’s meaningful.”

Araujo was born in Colombia, the son of a diplomat who moved his family to Brussels when he was 13 and back again, and was originally trained as a pianist and composer. In the year The startup came to London in 2014 to formulate an idea for an app that would teach people to read music using AI, but it ran afoul of the rigid structures of the venture capital world.

At King’s College he taught adjuncts in music and philosophy and answered questions about music on a radio show. A few months later, Airbnb arrived to see if it could host one of its neighborhood “experiences,” taking travelers to classical music concerts. “Why did I say that?” he recalls. “It’s a free concert.”

One of Araujo’s first clients, a wealthy Boston couple, took a liking to him and asked him to join him at the Royal Opera House the next night. Araujo said he would enjoy it, but the concert is sold out. The couple called him a few hours later and told him that not only did they have three tickets, but some of the best seats in the house. It was then that he learned what money really bought.

Courtesy of Ricardo Araujo

Later, after a sumptuous dinner and several glasses of whiskey, Araujo suggested the couple visit the opera house for a retreat. He had some friends who owed him favors in business; Just make a few calls. The couple was very happy. They spent the next day visiting the orchestra pits, stumbling into rehearsals, and eating the “dirty” chicken in the cafeteria. Then they returned to Boston and told all their friends about the experience.

Suddenly Araujo had a new business.

But Araujo wanted more than taking moneyed Americans to the opera house. These were ridiculously wealthy retirees with limitless time and seemingly endless resources. He didn’t blame them—”You can’t ask something if you don’t know it’s possible,” he said—but Araujo wanted to give them something. More.

So when a client asked to visit all the Tudor castles in England, he jumped at the chance. He called the travel idea “boring” and came up with a new idea based on the client’s love of Shakespeare – a tour of Tudor castles through the eyes of the Bard of Avon.

Over the next several weeks, Araujo used his art-world connections to find hidden archives and called upon his gift for everything else. Finally, he toured his client around southern England, visiting Tudor castles, seeing some of Shakespeare’s authenticated signatures, and visiting the house where Christopher Marlowe, who some suspect was the real Shakespeare, was killed. The students finished the event with a visit to a primary school in the town where Shakespeare was born, a play directed by the cast of the Royal Shakespeare Company. The cast later performed for a customer at a local bar.

Courtesy of Ricardo Araujo

The customer was happy. This Araujo was what he wanted. This It was alchemy.

In the following years, Araujo expanded his vision, planning 15 expeditions to nearly 30 countries. These days, Araujo won’t plan a vacation in less than two countries or for less than $250,000 (not including travel costs, as clients often want to use their own private jets). He signs extremely strict agreements that prevent him from disclosing the full identities of his clients, but describes them as the “financial and intellectual elite”—wealthy but with a passion for history or culture.

His process is something like this: he interviews the client, guesses their needs, desires, dreams. He uses that to generate ideas for a trip, writes a plan, and conducts research on how it might happen. He calls his clients’ personal assistants, drivers and chefs, figuring out the small, personal details that make a trip special. (How does the client’s daughter like orange juice? Does the family have a choice of almond milk?) Then, and only then, does he discuss the budget.

“Budget” is a word Araujo uses sparingly, preferring to focus on the end result rather than the price of the ticket. He likens the process to haute couture design: If you’re ordering a custom-made dress, you don’t know how much you’ll pay: you may need additional embellishments, additional alterations, or other materials. “I don’t know if it’s going to cost $100,000, $500,000, a million, $500 million,” he said. “Some materials are worth more than gold.”

That’s why Araujo has two rules for his customers: no last-minute bookings – magic takes time – and no detailed invoices.

Take the couple who spent the night at the Arc de Triomphe. Araujo had to fight with the French Ministry for permission during his sleep, and then decided to build a whole collection of glass, which he could not see for months, under pressure from the French architects. As a final touch, the couple dressed the room with a bottle of Krug champagne from the year they were married.

The champagne fetched nearly $20,000 at a Hong Kong auction. If he had listed it as a line item, it would have spoiled the fun.

In addition, he knows that they can afford it.

“Is that bottle worth $20,000 or is it worth $1 million?” he asks. “It’s worth anything, because it’s a memory they’ll never forget.”

Achieving these unique experiences requires money, yes, but also connections—and more than a little creativity. When he approaches a museum or other cultural institution, he chooses his own network for the right connection, and then thinks about the problem that can be solved for them. “They always say no, it’s not possible. And then you have to know, why can’t it be?” “Then how can I solve their problem before they say, ‘There’s a problem?’ is that

Another secret to heating up potential relationships? Aruja says “poker” “lots of gambling”

There is another reason why Araujo doesn’t like to go in easily. The rich – and he chooses his words carefully here – well, they tend to get bored easily. Not because they are disinterested people, but because they are used to seeing and experiencing unusual things. “If you’re a billionaire and you go to Louis Vuitton, you get a private VIP room, you’re treated like a queen,” he said. “For you, it will be normal.”

Customers who have seen all this are not impressed by the restaurant or the museum itself – they want the people inside: the chef whose family has lived in the area for decades, the librarian who is well versed in the history of the archive to hold more documents. (The latter actually occurred during a trip to the site of the signing of the first French constitution. The happy archivist captured the first minutes of Marie Antoinette’s assassination.)

Araujo will have to develop the mindset of the filthy rich to do his best. His mother’s family was well-to-do and his father’s family prominent in Colombian politics. (He claims to have received gifts from presidents on his birthday.) The travel agent is rarely impressed by his well-heeled clients. He doesn’t seem particularly bothered by the extravagance of the trip.

In fact, he has a habit of asking his customers how they got their money. “To me, it’s about their needs,” he said, not about that.

Which is good in theory, but at least once he failed.

Courtesy of Ricardo Araujo

Ariodante; Nomadic way

Two years ago, Araujo was talking to a business associate, who proposed—on a small scale—a trip to the northernmost point on Earth. The place, at the northern tip of Greenland, has never been reached by land, much less by car. Anyone who goes will set multiple world records. Araujo decided he had to go.

Without a single client in line, Araujo spent eight months building his dream vacation and consulted more than 120 people. His team built satellites and custom tanks to drive over the ice; They interviewed experts and sent spy planes to take pictures and see the road. Araujo said he would allow the Danish troops to fly to the military camp. The last group consists of scientists – most of the trip is recorded for climate change research – videographers, doctors and of course, chefs. At last a ship was prepared to take them.

In December 2021, Aruao secured the final part of the journey: the client. A friend of a friend suggested a Russian billionaire who was passionate about scientific research and was willing to pay a price of nearly $22 million. During Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they discussed when they would withdraw and the West issued a list of oligarchs to be sanctioned. Araujo’s client was first on the list.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “Was I, come on, am I cursed or what?”

Courtesy of Ricardo Araujo

Courtesy of Ricardo Araujo

Araujo still dreams of that record-setting trip, but knows it may take time to find another client. In the meantime, he’s planning another fantasy vacation: a multi-day murder mystery in the Mediterranean. Guests will travel to Paris in custom-made suits, learn Charleston dances from famous prostitutes and be served by Michelin-starred chefs. They are then transported to an old steamship, where the mystery begins. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Araujo said.

Tickets start at $400,000.