Exquisite Safaris Philanthropic Travel: Taking you Farther. Bringing you Closer.™

One hundred and fifty years ago visionary poet Walt Whitman warned that the industrial revolution (not to mention our digital revolution) was artificially accelerating the tempo of people’s lives to the point where humans where losing touch with their inner rhythms and the natural pulse of their thoughts and emotions.

Whitman urged people to appreciate and occasionally cultivate idle time as a way to refresh the soul, in order to become more receptive to the human part of us.

More recently, Jeremy Rifkin the author of Time Wars warned of the dangers to the human psyche of too much speed.

“We have quickened the pace of life only to become less patient. We have become more organized, but less spontaneous, less joyful. We are better prepared to act on the future, but less able to enjoy the present and reflect on the past.

Humanity has created an artificial time environment punctuated by mechanical contrivances and electronic impulses.”

Today, over 75% of families share dinner once a week or less and parents face more outside the home responsibilities, and less intimacy and meaningful experiences with those they love.

Whitman’s prescient observation has been clearly validated.

Our experience (Exquisite Safaris Philanthropic & Engaged Legacies) has proven that the most powerful under-utilized tool for creating multi-generational family intimacy, unity, growth and transformation is the private family philanthropic travel experience.

A purpose driven high impact philanthropic travel experience creates a wonderful way to communicate with the people you love, the people with whom you want to share the most important learning insights and feelings of your life.

We give our hearts to those who share our experiences and we cherish those people both in and out of our immediate families, whose stories we have truly heard because we then understand their world.

Intimate Exquisite Safaris Philanthropic private travel experiences help us find meaning in our lives while we expand our perspectives, practice generosity and experience teachable moments that imprint our memories and model our values.

Creating virtuous children through early and often age appropriate philanthropic travel has proven itself countless times as a unifying transformational family experience.

Can Money Buy You Happiness?
Marc Gold was set on the path he now travels when he was just a child, when his father, photographer Albert Gold, explained “the meaning of life.” He took the 8-year-old into the bathroom and had him look in the mirror. Gold recounts the conversation:

Albert: ”What do you see?’
Marc: ‘I see myself.’
Albert: ‘Okay. How old will you be in 70 years?’
Marc: ’78.’
Albert: ‘Okay, when you are 78 years old, look in the mirror again and ask yourself one question, because by then your life will be almost over: ‘Did you live a life that made this a better world or not? Very simple. If the answer is yes, I am proud of you, and if not, I am disappointed.’
Marc: ‘But how am I going to make this a better world?’
Albert: ‘That’s your job. You figure it out.’
Mark has spent his life exploring the world as a philanthropic traveler.

Philanthropy Begins at Home
A parent’s greatest challenge is how to infuse character into children and grandchildren so they will have the underlying fiber to use their present and future social, financial and intellectual capital in ways that will be a blessing to them, their family and the world.

There is no vacation from a parent’s obligation to deliver leadership by example and being an affluent parent comes with even greater responsibilities.

It’s not just the responsibility of preventing money from harming your child -but the responsibility of using that money to parent in positive ways.

Creating teachable transformative moments that include impactful lessons in honesty, humility, sacrifice, industry, responsibility and temperance have largely failed in the Baby Boomer world of unprecedented affluence and excessive consumerism.

Families who are succeeding in raising well adjusted children do so because they always remember that every moment counts.

When I was just seven years old, my grandparents leveraged a rare opportunity to introduce me to the daily march for survival in rural Haiti.

My grandparents intent was to expose me to the world that I would inherit, both good and not so good.

Their vision included helping me develop a strong sense of self through challenging experiences and to impress upon me at a very early age that our family wealth was a blessing and a tool for the greater good, not the definition of who we are.

As you might imagine, my memories of our four-hour ride into a jungle village with unclothed, impoverished villagers left a lasting respect for my grandparents who answered my questions and helped me to comprehend what I had witnessed and how we might help.

My grandfather’s kind words and respect for those who we met and his generosity that day has profoundly shaped my worldview.

“The real source of wealth and capital in this new era is not material things.. it is the human mind, the human spirit, the human imagination, and our faith in the future.” -Steve Forbes

Thoughtful family wide participation in philanthropy leads to growth in self- esteem, stability, imagination, and a rewarding family life.

Research indicates that the adult philanthropist becomes the values model for their children and grand kids.

Personal Transformation, Wealth & Wisdom
There are many components to a charitable giving strategy, from donating money to causes we believe in to volunteering our time to setting up a donor advised fund or private foundation to create a lasting legacy of giving.

Savvy high net worth parents realize that full family involvement in philanthropic travel requires more than just a call to their black card concierge hotline.

Transformation requires outside help in the form of a philanthropic advisor experienced in choreographing every detail of the transformational experience to drive the deeper meaning and impact on all members of the family.

The full potential of Philanthropic Travel is realized through a professional process that requires a consultative and collaborative team of experts in philanthropy, investments, estate planning, family dynamics and family mission development.

You should expect to be engaged in questions that focus on every member of your family, their personal preferences, current philanthropic experience and future vision.

The hardest part of the planning process (for me) is asking the essential questions about what is most important to the people involved and determining how the answers can be used to enhance each family member’s growth and trust.

Over the past 6 years it has been my unique privilege to listen to family members share their aspirations and dreams of how they can make a difference in the world and leave a trace of the best of ourselves once we are gone. I have found inspiration in creating family transformation and sharing the personal victories catalyzing over $1 million dollars in high impact philanthropy donations.

Like Benjamin Franklin stated in Poor Richard’s almanac:

If you would be forgotten,
As soon as you are dead and rotten,
Either write things worth the reading,
Or do things worth the writing.

A few stories worth the writing..
“Visiting the Matare neighborhood outside Nairobi was a powerful experience for our family. What we encountered grabbed our hearts. Living there does not make for an easy life, and it is so much different from what we know. And yet we found our hearts warmed from this unforgettable experience. David opened the community up to us in ways we would have never been able to see ourselves. We enjoyed a chance to hear people’s stories, to learn about their hopes and dreams, and to enjoy playing sports with local youth. Franklin’s outreach is powerful, and since our visit we now feel like we can help him make a difference through our growing friendship. Our lives will never be the same and we look forward to visiting again.”

Quintessential Philanthropic Travel
Two Februaries ago, in the middle of a sticky East African night, Ted van Beuren sat in a remote region of Kenya, eyes fixed on the horizon. From his cushy Rusinga Island Lodge bed, near the shores of Lake Victoria, he watched as a storm approached like none he’d ever witnessed. Lightning bolts fired in blinding spurts, each time illuminating a landscape of fallen trees and grazing hippos. And the sound of thunder, at first almost inaudible, rose to a pitch so high it felt like a thousand bombs exploding in unison.

In the same room, van Beuren’s 23-year-old son tried to sleep. But as the seconds passed and the eye of the squall moved closer, a blast of wind burst through the net door, blowing the room’s curtains against the ceiling and the atmosphere into chaos.

“What was that?” Ted Jr. yelled as he jolted upright. “What’s happening?”

A moment later, the skies opened, unleashing a torrent of rain so hard it drowned out the thunder and dimmed the lightning. But as he sat there, the man who had left his safe Pennsylvania neighborhood to visit the unknown halfway around the world could not think about the powerful meteorological event unfolding before him. Nor could he think about fly-fishing, his passion, and one of the adventures he had hoped to share with his son while in Africa.

“All I could think about was what I was going to do with the quality time I had left in my life,” he says. “All I could think about was that morning.” That morning, van Beuren found himself first in Nairobi, in a densely populated slum where orphans of AIDS victims lived alone in extreme poverty. And then later in a village on Rusinga, where a young man without even a high-school education had somehow managed to pull together the necessary means to start not only a medical center, but an international export business to support it.

Images from those encounters did not sweep over van Beuren immediately. But as the day’s cadence slowed, and the clock turned past midnight, and that storm drew near with a strength he’d never seen, they came into focus. As the CEO of one of the biggest multi-sports facilities on America’s East Coast vividly tried to recall every last detail of his day, a message reverberated through his body.

“It was like God was speaking,” van Beuren says. “That storm was his cleansing me, and I knew what I had to do. Everything was all of the sudden extremely clear.”

Philanthropic Travel tests our comfort zones, generates positive emotions, ignites old dreams, empowers entrepreneurial initiatives and recalibrates financial and estate plans for families with a new-found sense of mission.

Our decision to create a living legacy allows us the opportunity to engage our children as financially responsible directors of family philanthropy potentially generating a legacy of global philanthropic engagement that shines like a lighthouse into the future.

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United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) states that if responsible practices are in place, Philanthropic Travel is the natural interlocutor between the wealth and desires of the global traveler and the socio-economic needs of some of the world’s most remote, but heritage-rich communities, natural and cultural sites.

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Learn More:
Around the World with Exquisite Safaris Philanthropic Travel
Philanthropic Journeys begin with Exquisite Safaris
Member of the United Nations Foundation World Heritage Alliance for Sustainable Tourism
The Advent of Philanthropic Travel by Mark Lovett Global Patriot
Financial Times/FT.com: Exquisite Safaris Philanthropic Travelers
Vacationing in Generosity: Philanthropic Travel
TheGlassHammer.com Philanthropic Travelers
Your First Philanthropic Travel Experience

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John Legend: Philanthropic Traveler