A Private Travel Advisory · Est. 2025

Travel, as it was
meant to be — witnessed,
not consumed.

A boutique advisory for those who travel often, and want to travel better. We work with a small number of clients each year on itineraries that begin with a conversation and end somewhere a search engine could never have taken you.

Start a Conversation The Approach
A view of Lake Como through the marble columns of a lakeside loggia, with intricate patterned floor tiles in the foreground. Lake Como — late morning
The Approach

A trip is not a checklist. It is an encounter.

The travel industry is full of advisors who book hotels. We are not in that business. Palmé Travel exists for the kind of traveler who has already done it the easy way — booked the obvious places, stayed at the obvious hotels, photographed the obvious views — and arrived home knowing they had missed something.

We start every relationship with a conversation rather than a form. We ask what the best trip you have ever taken was, and what made it that. We listen for what you mean, not what you ask for. Then we build something that could only have been built for you — drawing on a network of relationships, on-the-ground contacts, and Fora's preferred-partner access at the world's best hotels.

What you receive in return is a trip that quietly does the impossible: it answers questions you didn't know you were asking.

How We Work

Three movements. One trip that feels inevitable.

The architecture is the same for every client. The result, never. Here is what working with us actually looks like.

  1. The Conversation

    A conversation — by phone or in person, where possible. We learn how you move through a day in a new place, what you have loved, what has disappointed you, and what you are quietly hoping this trip will become. A planning fee is established here. It is the structure of a partnership, not a charge for a service.

  2. The Drafting

    We disappear for a week. What returns is a fully composed itinerary — properties, reservations, transfers, the small introductions that turn a stay into a relationship. Every recommendation is something we know first-hand or have sourced through a trusted contact in-country. Nothing is included because it was easy to include.

  3. The Trip, and What Follows

    Throughout the trip, we are reachable. Plans flex. Small surprises arrive at the right moments. When you return, the relationship continues — quietly, annually, with a thoughtful note and a sense that someone is paying attention to the next chapter, before you have started writing it.

A long view down an empty stretch of road bordered by trees, light falling across the asphalt.
Field Notes

Dispatches from the road, and elsewhere.

All Notes →
A whitewashed alley in Formentera at midday, with a single open shutter.

Formentera · Summer

The island nobody is writing about yet

Why the smaller of the Balearics rewards a slower hand, and the three properties worth the ferry from Ibiza.
Steam rising from a kaiseki dish on a dark wooden counter in Japan.

Japan · Autumn

What I Actually Tell My Clients About Japan

An honest guide to the country's best hotels, hidden regions, and the decisions that actually make or break the trip.
An empty path through tall grass at dawn in the Maasai Mara.

Maasai Mara · Dry Season

Here's Why Angama Mara is the Luxury Safari Lodge of My Dreams

On safari, the camp is the trip. A short field guide to why this property is the one I send clients to first.
Snow-laden timber chalet exterior in Zermatt at first light.

Zermatt · Winter

A Swiss week, planned slowly

Where alpine adventure meets quiet luxury — the properties, the village, and the moments worth the journey.
The dense green canopy of the Brazilian Amazon seen from above at dawn.

Brazil · Untamed

Brazil Is Bigger Than You Think

From the Amazon to the Atlantic coast — an honest guide to where to stay and what to experience.
Rows of vineyard at dusk on a Tuscan hillside, with a stone farmhouse in the distance.

Italy · Timeless

Italy's Wine Regions Reward the Traveler Who Slows Down

An insider's guide to the estates, cellars, and hilltop tables worth building a trip around.
Palmé Travel — palm emblem Palmé Travel
A Monthly Dispatch

The Edit, once a month.

One note from Richard, on the first of the month. A single observation from the road, one destination worth knowing about right now, and a quiet recommendation you wouldn't find anywhere else. No promotions, no offers — just the kind of email a thoughtful friend would send if their friend happened to know the world unusually well.

Sent on the first of each month. Unsubscribe at any time, in one click. We don't share your address with anyone, ever.

Thank you — you'll receive the next dispatch on the first of the month.
Richard Barningham, founder of Palmé Travel, in a black blazer against a soft neutral backdrop.
The Advisor

The operational view, made personal.

A decade as a flight attendant gives you a particular education in travel — not the brochure version, but the operational one. The delays, the workarounds, the hotels that look the part and the ones that actually deliver. Thousands of arrivals witnessed from a vantage point most travelers never see.

That background is the foundation. Fora certification and preferred-partner status at over forty hotel groups — Four Seasons, Rosewood, Mandarin Oriental, Rocco Forte, Belmond, Aman, Leading Hotels of the World — is the infrastructure. What clients return for is the combination of both.

— Richard

Book with PALMÉ

Tell us where you're going, or where you've been thinking about.

We work with a small number of clients each year. The conversation is unhurried, the form below short. If a trip is taking shape in the back of your mind — even quietly — write to us.