My passion is exploring areas where no one else goes: parts of northern Kenya, southern Tanzania, northern Ethiopia, that's my parish, and the new frontier, southern Sudan. War and plague have preserved amazing wildernesses in Africa, but the people are not used to pale faces like me showing an interest. I have the trump card of being an eccentic enigma. I'm kind of a freak show passing through. If I'm on recce, I'll spend three or four weeks exploring, always on foot, living exactly as a local would. I sleep on a herio [mat] and eat maize porridge and drink camel's milk, boiled with ginger and cardamom. Very salty and nutritious. It's the Guinness of the milk world...If I had to leave Africa tomorrow, my strongest memory would be going to sleep listening to leopards rasping and the quiet banter of the night watchmen, burbling round the camp fire.

Related Tours: Kenya: Uncharted Frontiers

Explore ANWR: If any splurge is called for this year, it's this journey into America's still untapped, northernmost reaches from luxury outfitter Abercrombie & Kent. The trip starts in Fairbanks, from which bush planes fly eight guests to the North Slope of the Brooks Range. Too-loo-uk River Guides will paddle you on 14-foot rafts through 50 miles of the Marsh Fork of the Canning, a mostly lazy river that meanders through green valleys in the shadow of white peaks toward the Arctic Ocean...

Related Tours: Untamed Alaska: Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

POLAR BEAR COUNTRY - Thanks to its conservation efforts and expert guides, the outfitter is the only one to have garnered a government permit to set up camp on this highly restricted ecosystem on the east coast of the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen. Timed to coincide with a six-week window when polar bears emerge from hiberation...

Related Tours: Norway: On the Trail of the Polar Bear

Dog Sled in Norway

To feel the surge of foggy-breathed sled dogs in your hands is to experience something elemental and special. To guide these dogs through rugged and bewitching land is life-altering indeed. After receiving sled-driving instruction, you'll spend the bulk of nine days steering your own wood sled - four to six dogs attached - through Norway and possibly into Sweden. You'll cross frozen lakes, pass through hushed birch forests, climb up and over high Arctic mountains...

Related Tours: Norway: Dog Sledding in the Arctic

What started as a boutique safari outfit in the Kenyan Bush has evolved into a full-fledged luxury adventure brand. Abercrombie & Kent offers tours on all seven continents...and operates an invitation-only travel club. Added this year are A&K Extreme Adventures, which run the gamut from relatively soft (a Belize multisport) to hard as they come (an 18-day ski to the South Pole).
 

Related Tours: Belize: River & Rainforest, The South Pole: Conquering the Final Degree, Untamed Alaska: Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

#7. Take a Dare

Whether you dream of climbing kilimanjaro like Hemingway or riding camelback in Lawrence of Arabia's footsteps, a once-in-a-lifetime journey is the ultimate investment. Consider the fifteen extraordinary new Extreme Adventures from Abercrombie & Kent (akextremeadventures.com), which range from $5,315 for a rugged fifteen-day ascent to the base camp of Mount Everest to $42,595 for an eighteen-day expedition to the South Pole.

Related Tours: Nepal: Ascent to Everest Base Camp, The South Pole: Conquering the Final Degree

While his friends fled to Kenya's coast on their time off, Abercrombie & Kent guide Toby Fenwick-Wilson enlisted a couple of camels and local tribesmen and set off into the country's remote northern boundaries. This new A&K safari unveils the fruits of his 18 years of exploring the East African country and befriending nomadic tribes. Fenwick-Wilson has essentially handcrafted the ultimate Kenyan safari, combining rarely visited wilderness and unique cultural access with such physical pursuits as a blistering 6,000-foot mountain-bike descent down Mount Kenya and horse treks through elephant and leopard territory.

Related Tours: Kenya: Uncharted Frontiers

The most ambitious such trip also comes from A&K. Called "South Pole: Conquering the Final Degree" ($42,595; akextremeadventures.com), the expedition is led by Geoff Somers, the only man to cross Antarctica by its longest, 4,000-mile axis. The trip begins with a flight from Punta Arenas to the Thiel Mountains. From there you'll strap on skis and tents and ski the final, 69-mile push to latitude 90°0'S, longitude 0°0'E.

Related Tours: The South Pole: Conquering the Final Degree

It may seem like Geoffrey Kent has done it all, from biplaning over the African veldt to diving with bronze whaler sharks in Australia, but the Kenyan swashbuckler says he’s just getting started. Next up for his ubiquitous luxury-travel operation, Abercrombie & Kent: an audience with emperor penguins in Antarctica--and maybe even a jaunt into space..."

Related Tours: Kenya: Uncharted Frontiers, South Africa & Botswana: Seeking the Ultimate Thrill

To bring an edge back to Africa's highest peak, Abercrombie & Kent (which first led clients to the top in 1966) has launched its new Extreme Adventure Kilimanjaro climb...on the Lemosho Route, the longest and remotest traverse. Armed rangers escort hikers through Arusha National Park, a little-visited gem of forests, moorlands, and volcanic crater lakes sprawled in the mountain's shadow. "We may be pioneers of bush luxury, but adventure is how we define ourselves," says founder and CEO Geoffrey Kent. True to this split personality, A&K provides a gourmet chef, a personal porter for each climber, and a walk-in mess tent with table dining...

Related Tours: Mount Kilimanjaro: The Lemosho Route to the Summit