Welcome to the fourth annual list of Robb Report’s Travel Masters.
Travel can be both profound and transformative. Exhilarating and unforgettable. But not always. The difference between a good trip and a great one—perhaps a life-changing one—is so often about tapping the right people to help plan it. It can be hard to know who to trust to create your dream adventure or even a jaunt back to your favorite destination. There are hundreds of travel specialists, after all, most of whom will argue convincingly that they have contacts and connections to open doors around the globe.
Only a handful of operators worldwide, however, have the expertise, clout, and ambition to make the unimaginable real. To celebrate them, and to help you, we have brought them together under this Masters of Luxury banner. There are barely two dozen of them total, nearly all specialists in certain regions or types of journeys.
They come with our endorsement.
You’ll also regularly see their expertise in the magazine, asking them to nominate the hotels they consider the greatest places to stay in the world, tapping them for insider scoops, and asking their recommendations for the best travel products (cashmere’s the key, it seems). As always, if you’re traveling this year, don’t leave home without contacting one of them—and make sure to mention Robb Report sent you.
10. Max Rosenthal & Stacy Fischer-Rosenthal, Fischer Travel
Headquarters: New York, N.Y.
Areas of Expertise: Concierge-style travel
Need to Know: When founder Bill Fischer first pivoted to charging membership fees rather than commissions on bookings, he reinvented the travel-specialist model in a way that’s become the industry norm.
Max Rosenthal is the third generation of his family to join Fischer Travel. His grandfather Bill Fischer founded the New York–based firm, but the company currently run by his mom, Stacy. The nearly 40-strong operation is more like a members-only club than a conventional travel agency, with a $150,000 initiation fee and annual dues of $25,000. For that, the team opens up its little black book to create one-off experiences worldwide. Indeed, it was Fischer Travel clients who were the first to experience Camp Sarika at Amangiri a month before it opened to anyone else. Another client wanted to see Wadi Rum in Jordan, but the local hotel didn’t pass Fischer’s quality control, so the team shipped in 10 staff members from the Kempinski in Aqaba to temporarily run the camp at a higher level.