Top Luxury Travel Experts and Influencers to Follow in 2026

Five years ago, the most influential voices in luxury travel posted cocktails by infinity pools at golden hour. The feed has been looking different lately. The luxury travel experts worth following in 2026 spend far less time in front of a camera and more time behind it. Some run members-only advisory firms we bet you’ve never heard about, while others delve into wellness travel or offer insider tips on ultra-deluxe private jet flights.

At The Point Luxury Villa in Tamarindo, this is the travel sphere we tend to pay closer attention to and the names below are the ones we check in on most often.

THE PRIVATE ADVISORS MOST TRAVELERS WILL NEVER HEAR ABOUT

For ultra-high-net-worth clients, the most useful luxury travel experts work almost invisibly. They run small advisory firms, take on new clients only by referral, and handle anything from a teen birthday in Aspen to a forty-person family safari in Botswana.

Fischer Travel sits at the top of this category. Founded in 1973 by Bill Fischer and now run by his daughter, Stacy Fischer-Rosenthal, the firm operates as a members-only club with a reported $150,000 initiation fee and $25,000 in annual dues. Their motto, “making the impossible possible,” reads closer to a job description than a tagline. Fischer clients were the first guests at Camp Sarika at Amangiri before the property opened publicly. When a hotel in Wadi Rum (Jordan) failed to meet their standards, the team flew staff in from the Kempinski in Aqaba to run a higher-grade desert camp for one trip. Clients manage nothing.

Scott Dunn Private, led by travel director Jules Maury, is the members-only arm of Scott Dunn. Their advisors travel constantly themselves and answer the phone at three in the morning when a teenage daughter loses her passport in Tokyo. Maury’s team starts by working out who the client is before contemplating the destination and the order in which they work is a huge part of their incredible success. They are arguably the epitome of ‘tailored’ luxury travel experiences.

Unforgettable Travel Company, founded by Graham Carter, has become a favorite among industry leaders and anyone who could be described as “rich and famous”. Their bookings range from Norwegian glaciers and Balinese wildlife camps to VIP access at the Monaco Grand Prix and the Vanity Fair Oscars party. We host Unforgettable clients at our private beachfront villa most years, and the pre-trip preparation is something to see, down to the brand of coffee a guest takes at breakfast.

We sometimes describe ourselves as luxury travel experts of the smaller details, and most of what we know about that came from working alongside firms like Unforgettable over the years.

THE WELLNESS EDITORS REWRITING WHAT RECOVERY LOOKS LIKE

Wellness travel has split into a dozen smaller categories in the last few years. The advisors worth listening to in 2026 are the ones who can explain the difference between a long weekend at a spa and a six-day clinical reset, and then (more importnatly) tell you which is right for you.

Australian Samantha Lippiatt, founder of The Wellness Travel Expert, is one of our two personal faves. She has spent two decades in travel and the last ten years specializing in wellness. She has also been nominated for the World’s Best Wellness Travel Agency three years running, so you know she delivers on the good. Lippiatt builds programs around specific health concerns, mainly hormonal change and burnout recovery. Most of her clients are women in their forties and fifties who want a retreat with measurable outcomes, not just nice scenery.

Another favorite wellness expert of ours is Faye Bradley, editor at Compare Retreats, who writes the clearest reporting on where wellness travel is heading. Her recent coverage of “hushpitality” (architectural silence built into hotel design) and “neuro-wellness” (cognitive resilience treated as seriously as physical recovery) tracks what we hear from our own guests. The absence of noise often matters more to them than any one specific treatment on the menu.

If you’re planning a Costa Rica wellness reset, reach out to us.

THE ADVENTURE-LUXURY PHOTOGRAPHERS

Another interesting change in the luxury travel sphere has been the injetion of activity and adventure, of getting the body and huices flowing, and rising your heart rate for an exquisite reward.

The most luxurious indulgence of all in 2026 might just be a little bit of effort, according to two incredibly talented and adventurous photographers.  

Chris Burkard is the surf and landscape photographer who made cold-water travel desirable again. And millions of followers agree. Chris is the man who has almost single-handedly made Iceland and the Lofoten Islands read as aspirational travel destinations today. Apple and Patagonia send him on assignment because his images have the power to convince viewers to book the harder trip. He treats physical effort as part of the appeal, which works for travelers who stopped being impressed by comfort alone and got positively bored sitting around a pool all day. Love doing epic stuff? Burkard is who you’ll want to follow.

There there’s Daniel Kordan, the Russian-born landscape photographer who builds content around the kind of trips most agents would not even know how to quote. From glamping in the heart of the Mongolian tundra or chasing polar bears in the Arctic in the middle of winter. Kordan leads small-group photo tours for boutique luxury brands in places that haven’t appeared in anyone’s feed yet. When a guest at our ultra-luxury Tamarindo property asks where to spend the rest of their year, Kordan’s account is usually where we point them.

THE FAMILY TRAVEL EXPERTS

The Bucket List Family (Garrett and Jessica Gee) is probably the best starting point for multi-generational planning. They document family travel in a way that doesn’t compromise either side and their work has changed what hotels and private villas now offer families.

Then there is Eric Stoen, named by Forbes as one of the world’s most influential travelers. He is among the few voices arguing for serious luxury travel experiences with children, introduced early and often. His feed bounces between Tokyo skyscrapers and Mediterranean villas, and his audience is mostly other parents who refused to wait until retirement to travel well.

MEET THE SAVVY AVIATION INSIDER

All these amazing experiences are missing something rather crucial: trabsport. That’s where Sam Chui comes in. Sam reviews private aviation and first-class commercial flying with a level of technical detail nobody else matches, and plemty of luxury travelers hang on every word (and criticism) he says. His calm, methodical delivery and his impressive following is why Emirates and the major private-aviation operators send him on the routes they want their wealthiest passengers reading about. For travelers planning a Costa Rica arrival, his reviews of the aircraft and lounges flying out of Miami and Houston are the most reliable in the category.

WHAT TIES THE 2026 LIST TOGETHER

The Fischer client and the Burkard follower don’t appear to have much in common at first glance. Both want the same thing from a trip in 2026 though: an experience that feels custom-fit, with enough privacy to be themselves around the people they love. That bears almost no resemblance to the high-gloss luxury sold in magazines ten years ago.

We have been noticing this at The Point as well. Guests arrive with mooch clearer and definitely shorter briefs. They want privacy and a Concierge team that anticipates what they need before they ask. Unscheduled time matters more to them than the list of 101 things to do in a week.

The best luxury trips in 2026 leave room for doing nothing.

Most of the people following these advisors are after trips that feel personal and hard to replicate. Status for its own sake holds little interest now. If you’re planning a 2026 trip and want to design your own Signature experience, start with the names above. 

Then come and talk to us.