The thin air of the Himalaya is still in your lungs when you step into Sarajevo's old bazaar. Days ago, you were climbing to Tiger's Nest, a Bhutanese monastery pinned to a cliff 10,200 feet up. Now Turkish delight is piled on the stalls, and the Ottoman lanes of Bascarsija close in around you.
Spread a map across a table, and those two places land in different worlds. TCS World Travel has spent 35 years drawing lines between corners like these by private jet. Along the way, it has mastered how to reveal the best of each destination.
Here are three of those lines.
At Ahu Tongariki, 15 moai stand shoulder to shoulder with their backs to the Pacific. Days later, you're snorkeling a private site on the Great Barrier Reef among rays and sea turtles. By the end of the week, you're at Angkor before dawn, watching the light gild its spires before a blessing from Buddhist monks.
TCS pioneered this journey and offers it five times each year. Its line circles the whole globe, bringing together many of the world's most iconic cultural, historic, and natural destinations. Before Easter Island, you ride the privately chartered Hiram Bingham train up to the Inca terraces of Machu Picchu. After Angkor come the Taj Mahal and the Pyramids of Giza.
What makes the circle work is the timing. A late November departure reaches East Africa in its dry season, Asia as temperatures cool, and the South Pacific and Australia in early summer. Other departures linger longer or trade in alternate destinations. No two trace quite the same line around the globe.
In Palermo's Palatine Chapel, golden Byzantine mosaics glow inside a royal palace shaped by centuries of Arab and Norman rule. One room, three cultures. It's the first stop on a line that runs through places where trade, faith, and empire crossed paths and left their mark on one another.
Over three weeks, that line crosses 10 countries and eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites, with expert guides and local voices connecting each stop to the last.
From Sicily, the journey carries you east to Samarkand, where caravans once traded silk, paper, and ideas between China and the Mediterranean. In Registan Square, three madrasahs, once centers of Islamic learning, face one another beneath domes of blue tile. In nearby Koni Ghil, artisans who revived the Uzbek craft of handmade paper show you how they turn silk, mulberry, and rose water into delicate sheets.
The Silk Road also ran by sea. In Galle, on Sri Lanka's southern coast, you walk the streets of a 16th century fort shaped by Arab, Portuguese, Chinese, Dutch, and British traders.
Faith traveled these routes, too. In Bhutan, monks still keep house inside Rinpung Dzong, the 17th century "Fortress on the Heap of Jewels" that towers over the Paro Valley. In Kathmandu, you walk clockwise around Boudhanath Stupa among Tibetan pilgrims, then cross the city to Pashupatinath, where Hindu worshippers honor Shiva on the riverbank.
Sarajevo brings the line back to Europe, and back to the old bazaar where this story opened. A local guide walks you through the city while sharing personal memories of the 1992 to 1996 siege. At the National Museum, the curator tells the story of the Sarajevo Haggadah, an illuminated 14th century Passover manuscript that has survived centuries of upheaval.
The journey ends in Tangier, hometown of Ibn Battuta. In 1325, he set out from this city and spent nearly three decades on the road, crossing Central Asia and reaching Sri Lanka along the way. Among his maps and manuscripts, a few of the names now sound familiar. The trip closes with one last day inland, in the cobalt and indigo lanes of Chefchaouen.
The trek into Volcanoes National Park begins in the cool of the Virunga highlands. With an expert naturalist leading the way, you climb through rainforest until a gorilla family comes into view, close enough to watch them interact with one another and the forest around them.
Few journeys follow a morning like that with a desert. In Namibia, dunes shaped over 43 million years run straight into the Atlantic. Your guide traces the tracks of geckos, beetles, and lizards that dive beneath the sand to survive.
In Cape Town, a cable car lifts you to the top of Table Mountain, the city and the ocean spread out below. Back down in the city, the colorful houses of
Bo-Kaap line the streets, and lunch tastes of the Cape Malay kitchens behind them.
Botswana's Okavango Delta comes next. Game drives follow the floodplains, and a mokoro, a traditional dugout canoe, slips through the channels in near silence. At Victoria Falls, known locally as "the smoke that thunders," you hear the water before you see it. Then the line bends north to the Nile and the tombs of the Valley of the Kings, before a final stop among the ruins of Carthage in Tunisia.
Advisor tip: The gorilla trek means hours on steep, muddy rainforest trails. Your advisor can walk you through TCS's Kigali alternative before you book.
Since 1991, TCS World Travel has specialized in private jet expeditions. It has designed and operated journeys to more than 200 destinations, and today, it runs more than 20 expeditions each year. Some of those lines circle the globe. Others go deep into a single region, theme, or perspective.
That experience shows most on the ground. Expedition leaders, expert guides, and a traveling physician accompany each journey. Daily activities unfold in small groups, so a cooking class in Palermo's Ballarò Market feels like lunch with friends rather than a demonstration.
In 2026, Travel + Leisure readers voted TCS the No. 1 Tour Operator in the World's Best Awards, the ninth year it has been recognized among the World's Best.
Spread the map out again. The corners haven't moved, but you see them differently now.
Maybe your finger circles the globe from Easter Island. Maybe it follows the old trade routes from Samarkand to Tangier. Or maybe it runs from Rwanda's highlands down through desert and delta, then north to the Nile.
Wherever it lands, TCS's expertise sits behind the line. Your travel advisor can lay the departures side by side and turn that line into dates on your calendar.