For over 15 years Brown + Hudson has been the only bespoke travel company to design immersive travel experiences based on scientific insight, travel research and the latest thinking in experience design.
Our clients' wishes, goals and outcomes are practically guaranteed thanks to the deliberate nature of our work, the rigour and intention we apply.
Now, in addition to real world travel, we go further as our clients ask us to design infinite travel experiences in virtual reality.
The thinking, choreography and dynamics that are found in our real-world experiences are part of the fabric of each VR experience we create. Each makes our VR travellers better travellers back in the real world. Perhaps more fun, curious, adventurous, engaging, empathetic, eager to learn, smart or playful.
Who'd have thought that a VR experience would make you a better traveller IRL?
Some travel professionals consider these ideas heresy. Others have said that they might be one of the most significant developments in travel since the 1800s.
The most exciting thing about the concepts you're about to discover is that they could allow millions of people who, for whatever reason, can't travel, to travel and derive the many benefits of travel without even leaving home.
"In the mind there are no boundaries between ideas so why should there be in reality?"
(Philippe Brown.)
"I wish our trip could have lasted a longer." is something our clients regularly tell us. Of course, extending a trip is always possible. But this wish got us thinking. Our creative team and travel experts brainstormed with world's top virtual reality (VR) thinkers. The solution we designed allows you to make your trips last forever, and to relive them wherever and whenever you want.
Consider on a future journey, a treasure hunt that takes you deep into the backstreets of Marrakech, or an incredible adrenaline-fuelled day driving hypercars on the Nürburgring. Or maybe a family expedition to summit Licancabur volcano in Chile's Atacama Desert.
Now imagine having your entire trip seamlessly and imperceptibly turned into a VR experience. A personal collection of connected travel experiences that your family has lived together and can revisit together in vivid sensory detail. You and your family will be able to retrace your steps, and, just as you did in real life, discover new corners you didn't know existed.
More than the most vivid legacy of family memories, CAPO is the trip that never ends.
Research has shown that several short breaks can offer more benefits than longer trips abroad.
Applying this insight to your daily life you could disconnect from your 9-5 for an utterly transportive VR lunch hour in Hanoi, or escape to a Himalayan Kingdom for an hour of meditative discovery.
Microdosing the many therapeutic benefits of travel on demand is now entirely possible. It's an idea increasingly adopted by businesses who have value their staff's wellbeing. Beyond wellbeing these short multi-sensory and utterly immersive VR escapes have been shown to boost productivity and creativity.
Using a TESLASUIT, HaptX glove, a FeelReal scent mask, the headset of your choice and other tactile and sensory inputs you can travel to Hanoi for lunch and still back at your desk by two.
Sometimes you just can't travel. Plans get changed at the last minute, pandemics and geopolitical conflict conspire to confine you to home. In addition, an increasing sensitivity to your carbon footprint might make you reconsider how much you travel and why.
What if someone could design your very own infinite virtual world for you to explore? What if this world could do all the things that real world travel does without you having to leave home? What if it pushed the same buttons?
What characteristics would you bring into your brave new world? What emotions and feelings would you want to stimulate? Curiosity, empathy, connection, deep relaxation and play perhaps? What challenges, discoveries, growth, learning and transformation would you want us to design into your experience?
If, for whatever reason you can't travel, we'll create a virtual world for you to discover together. This world could involve the best parts of all your favourite family holiday destinations and memories. Or be completely new. It will also embody all the characteristics that you'd like us to build into it: challenge, education, past memories, surprise, human connection, stimulating curiosity, language. Then, when you next travel you'll find yourself better travellers applying all your virtual growth learnings to your real world travel.
For years, clients have to asked us to connect them to the world's best guides, docents, experts and academics. Sometimes we set up meetings with journalists, politicians, spiritual leaders and other inspiring individuals who can help them make sense of the place they are travelling in.
Imagine for a moment that you are travelling in a virtual world. Who guides you there? Who teaches you how to navigate these new and unknown realms? Who gives you the inside scoop and teaches you the tips, tricks and meaningful insights to progress?
Perhaps League of Legends is your thing. Or maybe Roblox or Upland? Whatever virtual world you would like to discover, we introduce you to the world's top virtual talent: TheShy, Faker, Caps, Doublelift, Smeb, Perkz, Rekkles. Wherever you are in the metaverse, we introduce you to the best possible person to help you discover it.
Have you ever wished you could travel back in time to experience a particular place at a particular point in time?
Perhaps London in the 80s, Berlin in the 1920s, or Chelsea football club in the 60s? Or maybe Viking history, the Mona Lisa or the moment Tutankhamun tomb was discovered?
With our concept Time Travel we create VR and Augmented Reality (AR) experiences that take you back in time in the most engaging way possible.
Whether you're in a private jet, First Class or Business, long-haul flights can be tedious and worse when you have no choice but to fly Coach. How could your experience be significantly improved? Perhaps by changing your environment to something more pleasant than rows of seats?
Tell us about the setting you'd like to be in for your next flight and we'll create it for you. Blue skies and fluffy white clouds? The interior of your favourite spa? A mountain scene dotted with pastures and wildflowers?
Guided by you we'll take the setting that makes you happiest and bring it to you virtually so that whilst your plane transports you to wherever you are going to we'll transport you to your happy place.
Recently we met a family with a particular problem. Their kids prefer to stay home and play computer games with their friends rather than go on yet another luxurious family holiday. The real world just wasn't enough for them.
To solve their problem our creative team proposed to gamify the family's real world travel. This became The Great Game. Think of it as a 10 – 14 day travel escape room where the lines between reality, theatre and serendipity are constantly blurred. Here the family's usual M.O was disrupted and they challenged themselves, played, learnt, relaxed, connected and discovered places peripherally and surprisingly intensely.
For families who can't travel, or who want the benefits of travel all year round, The Great Game VR is the virtual reality version of this engaging, fun, challenging, connecting and utterly addictive real world travel experience.