HOW TO PLAN YOUR NEXT $100,000 VACATION

ON AN EXCURSION to the ancient city of Petra, Jordan, clients helicoptered in after-hours so they could tour the ruins alone.

-  JIM GORANT

Another trip, this one to Camp Sarika, the Utah desert retreat billed as America's most luxe glamping experience, offered visitors the run of the place before it opened to the public.

Then there was the tour of Frogmore, the closed-to-the-public English "cottage" where Harry and Meghan lived before decamping to the U.S.

All are worthy contenders, but the ultimate example of the latest trend in super-luxe travel has to be a particular Bahamas angling adventure: A stealth diver with a stash of previously captured live fish was concealed beneath the boat to hook one onto the line if the anglers failed to catch enough fish on their own.

"As long as it's legal, we'll try to make it happen," says Max Rosenthal, operations manager at New York-based Fischer Travel, which arranged all of the above trips.

In the game of constant one-upmanship that luxury travel has become, the glamorous destinations and Instagrammable accommodations that once wowed well-heeled vacationers are now a given.

Agencies like Fischer offer a new level of concierge service, delivering something akin to what czars and industry barons of the past might have expected.

The desire for moremore luxury, more exclusivity, more surprise and delight-is what drives the rise of such agencies, which serve a growing moneyed clientele seeking meaningful experiences but lacking the knowledge, connections, and time to create them on their own.

"People want to have these great, life-changing experiences, but they don't want to deal with the chaos of travel," says Amanda Teale, founder and CEO of Minerva Private Travel in Cobham, U.K., which plans trips for a coterie of highend clients on both sides of the Atlantic. "We provide very serious hand-holding and do everything we can to eliminate the hassle factor and the drama." Demand is on the rise.