Mary Semmelmayer and friends planned a six-day private trip to Alaska using small group tour company Intrepid Travel.Courtesy Intrepid Travel
In early 2022, Mary Semmelmayer was approached by another player at her local pickleball club with the idea of going on a group trip together. The two dreamed up a jaunt to Alaska and found a six-day, activity-filled itinerary for a group trip from Intrepid Travel that included hikes through Denali National Park and kayaking in Seward. While the trip normally brings together strangers who book spots individually or as a couple, Semmelmayer recruited six other pickleball players from their club to fill the tour and turn it into their own private group trip.
“We talked about the trip at the pickleball courts and all of a sudden, everybody wanted to go,” Semmelmayer says.
Semmelmayer, a 70-year-old retiree, is a seasoned private group traveller. Over the past decade, she’s been to over a dozen destinations with a tight-knit group of 10 retirees that she met in an art class. They’ve done plein air painting in Provence, gone whitewater rafting in Moab and went on an African safari in Kenya. She has travelled in a variety of ways, from trips with her partner to spots on group tours and cruises, but private group travel is one of her favourites. “Having the group all to yourself, it’s that camaraderie that you and your friends have,” she says. “When you’re somewhere you’ve never been before, it just is phenomenal to explore it together with your friends.”
Semmelmayer’s group stuck to Intrepid’s standard itinerary for their Alaska trip, but the company also offers “tailor-made” private trips with customized itineraries based on a group’s budget, abilities and interests. The Melbourne, Australia-based company says that in 2023, customized trip bookings by North Americans grew by 76 per cent from the year previous. Conde Nast Traveler included private group travel as one of its biggest travel trends for 2024.
Shalene Dudley, CEO of Latitude Concierge Travels, has seen more and more requests for private group trips of more than 10 people come through her agency. “People are trying to maximize their time together,” Dudley says. “They want something memorable, with people around them to enjoy it with.”
Dudley has seen a postpandemic increase in belated milestone trips – a 41st or 52nd birthday, which has normalized non-milestone celebrations. “Now it’s a matter of, ‘You know what, every birthday I’m going to do something big,’” she says.
Another popular motivator for private group travel is the multigenerational family trip. “I have people who bring their parents away because their parents have never gone anywhere,” Dudley says. “We have people take their moms away on a mom-and-daughter trip.” Private group travel also offers the ability to customize a trip to your group’s interests and needs – especially if you have a healthy budget. Dudley says a group once flew in their local golf pro to a Caribbean resort to lead activities with them. “It’s much more personable,” she says. Another customized example is a group of wine enthusiasts hiring their favourite sommelier at home to lead them on a river cruise down the Rhine. “This is someone you trust,” Dudley says. “You get your own tour based on what your sommelier knows you like.”
Wedge Mountain Lodge, in Whistler, B.C., was designed with private groups in mind, and includes a cinema, chef’s kitchen and massage treatment room.Courtesy Wedge Mountain Lodge
With the rise in popularity of private group travel, Dudley has also noticed more hotel companies, like Hyatt and Marriott, catering to large groups with multibedroom villas. “Resorts and hotels have changed some of their footprints to feel like they’re villas within properties,” she says.
There are also stand-alone properties being converted or purpose-built to accommodate large groups, like the Wedge Mountain Lodge in Whistler, which opened in November 2023. Its 10-bedroom, all-ensuite lodge is equipped with a host of amenities and features for groups, like an 18-seat movie theatre, a guest kitchen plus a hidden chef’s kitchen, two massage rooms, a kids playroom, yoga room and sauna and steam room.
Keltie Holdsworth, a co-owner of the Wedge, says that her team often acts as a concierge to customize a group’s stay at their lodge. “We can help you plan the trip from the beginning to end if you want us to,” she says. Some examples of the more premium add-ons she’s arranged for a group include private float plane journeys from Vancouver to a lake five minutes from the lodge, and hiring a private chef and a helicopter for an afternoon of paddleboarding on an alpine lake with lunch following, prepared outdoors.
Multigenerational families are also a large part of Wedge’s bookings so far. “We had one group last winter who brought the kids, so we hired local nannies,” Holdsworth says. The parents went heli-skiing during the day while the kids went sledding and swimming. Then, everyone reunited at the end of the day for dinner at the lodge.
For Dudley, she sees the rise of private group travel signifying a change in the way we want to spend our money. “We are realizing that life is short,” she says. “People are just celebrating being here, that their parents are still alive, that their kids are all still small and they can all travel together.”