If your idea of a holiday is baking in the sun for two weeks, then perhaps The Luminiare is not for you. However, if you have an innate curiosity about the world around you, then Adam Sebba could be the man to help you explore.Sebba founded The Luminaire in early 2022 to offer expert-led holiday experiences for those he describes as "culturally curious". Uninspired by beach holidays and adrenalin-fuelled adventure tourism, he realised he was not alone in craving something different. “Ripping it up with a 4x4 in the desert, that’s not me,” he tells The National. Instead, he decided to offer an alternative.Case in point, any decent concierge company can book a table at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Milan, but only The Luminaire can arrange for guests to dine at a family farm supplying the venue. “You eat the produce straight from the field, at the farmhouse table with the family, in the same setting that they've been growing it for 400 years.”It is, he explains, all about finding a different way to experience the world. “The Luminaire is all about authenticity, and it's sort of the nuclear word. A lot of companies want to be authentic, but doing experiences with authenticity is difficult. “Why did I call it nuclear? Because you can't be more or less authentic. It either is, or it isn’t."His own inquisitiveness spurred him to curate journeys that no one else offers, for those drawn to discovering art, landscapes, or the intangible rhythms of a place.Living with Yamabushi monks in Japan. Photo: The LuminaireInfoThis could mean taking clients to Paris to visit the last rooms where Vincent Van Gogh lived before his death, and gaze on the tree immortalised in his last painting. Or it might be living with Yamabushi monks in Japan, where the only words allowed to be spoken are "I accept". Living with the monks is a deeply spiritual experience, explains Sebba. “They spend their whole time in nature. They hike up and down the sacred mountains in silence.” The itineraries offered are as varied as they are evocative, ranging from riding horseback across the vast, cinematic expanse of Patagonia guided by an Argentinian gaucho, to tracking wildlife on foot through the untamed landscapes of Zimbabwe and Zambia. One can navigate the stark, otherworldly beauty of Antarctica or traverse the Omani desert, living with Bedouins.This adventurous spirit echoes his own, non-linear journey. Although he studied law, he instead joined the army, which he credits with teaching him discipline and adaptability. Next, he went into consulting, where he was given “every consulting job my company thought an ex-army officer would like oil and gas, aerospace and defence. Anything with a big workforce or a dirty product.”His next move was into the field of luxury, which taught him about excellence. "It gives you an opportunity to be the best at something in the world, and to create a truly world-class product, not mass market.”This philosophy solidified into The Luminaire, where each adventure is built around an idea and an expert, sharing their contacts, knowledge and experience. A newly launched photography experience in New York, for example, calls on the extensive contacts of top archivists to access the studios of some of the most famous photographers in New York, or the archive of Magnum, the global photographic co-operative. “People can go and see images of the 1950s segregation riots in America with handwritten notes alongside them in the original archives,” Sebba explains. “It just isn't available for any tourists to go to.” Venice is among the locations featured by The Luminaire. Photo: The LuminaireInfoSuch diverse and immersive trips have unexpected results, he explains. "People start on these trips and don't realise they're passionate about it,” he explains. One example is helping excavate dinosaur fossils in Wyoming in America, popular with father-son duos. Initially setting out to spend time with their sons, Sebba has watched fathers return advocating efforts to tackle climate change, having seen extreme weather captured in the fossil record. Another trip to Venice in Italy, helping art restoration alongside Laboratorio della Misericordia, has had a similar effect. Guests, he explains, return with an "understanding of the threat to the art from rising global temperatures and humidity. They come back advocates for the protection of Venice.”For Sebba, such awakenings prove he and his team are on the right path. As a travel company, he explains, “it's really cool to be able to say that you're making the world a better place, rather than just flying people around and just burning carbon.”Buffalo and natural geysers in the US state of Wyoming. Photo: The LuminaireInfoThe impact on guests can take many different forms, he explains. A recent trip to AlUla, in Saudi Arabia, took a woman on her first trip since the death of her husband. Having talked with her female guide about growing up in different cultures, "she said that the trip changed her perspective on travel forever, seeing the world through other people's perspectives".As to why people are searching for a more connected experience, Sebba offers theories about the over-digitisation of daily life. Spending hours every day glued to screens, he believes, is “causing a deep-seated desire to have experiences in real life. Whether we like it or not, we're living our lives on screens, and therefore, there is a desire to go out there and enjoy life.”In 2025, The Luminiare partnered with Virgin Unite, the non-profit foundation of the Virgin Group. The venture is called Foundation, and was set up to raise money for charities by arranging new trips for a new audience. “It's a way for us to punch massively above our weight by working with a global charity to do things we just couldn't do on our own,” he explains.One trip will be climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, a trip he recently undertook with his son. “Every day is like a different planet. It's literally walking from rainforest to glacier.”Able to raise £25,000 ($33,537) for every trip, and aiming to run four trips a year, it offers significant revenue for charities, without compromising the standards of The Luminaire. Forget sleeping on the floor, he says, amenities include “tents that you can actually stand up in, beds and an incredible chef".A kitchen garden in Tuscany, with The Luminaire. Photo: The LuminaireInfoThe Luminaire has also recently joined with Mandarin Oriental Hotels to create Mandarin Oriental Exclusive Journeys, offering elevated experiences that extend beyond the hotel. While curated for Mandarin Oriental guests, a trip around Japan, he explains, will also see guests stay in non-Mandarin hotels, while a trip to Venice has guests staying at Gritti Palace, run by the Marriott group. Able to reach beyond company boundaries, the platform is already proving highly popular. “The Mandarin customer is a very interesting demographic," he explains. "They're curious, very cultured."In short, his kind of people.He is proud that all The Luminaire customers “would rather have pasta with an Italian grandmother than eat at a top restaurant". The challenge for him, he says, is curating trips that keep track with such openness. There is little risk of running out of topics, he says, because "curious people can just find anything interesting".