Freethought Expeditions

The 2027 season

Four thinkers. Four landscapes. One unhurried way of traveling.

Each expedition is capped at twelve travelers and built around a single figure from the history of freethought. Resident scholars, small-yacht and boutique-hotel logistics, and the kind of dinners you'll still be quoting a year later.

Spinoza's Amsterdam

The figure

Baruch Spinoza1632 – 1677

01Philosophy & the radical Enlightenment

Spinoza's Amsterdam

The city that made the most dangerous philosopher in Europe

We walk the canals of the city that excommunicated Spinoza at 23 and then quietly proved him right. With a resident philosopher reading from the Ethics each evening, we trace a life lived between lens-grinding workshops and the most radical book of the seventeenth century — and the Dutch Golden Age that made both possible.

Where
Amsterdam & The Hague, Netherlands
Length
8 days
Price
From $6,900

Itinerary highlights

  • LectureThree evening seminars: 'Before the Cherem,' 'God, or Nature,' and 'Why Spinoza Still Frightens People'
  • MuseumPrivate morning at the Rijksmuseum with a Dutch Golden Age curator; the Rembrandt House; and the Spinoza statue on Zwanenburgwal at blue hour
  • EncounterAfter-hours visit to the Spinoza House in Rijnsburg, with original lens-grinding tools, and a day in The Hague at the Domus Spinozana
  • WalkJewish Quarter walking tour from the Portuguese Synagogue to the site of Spinoza's expulsion; a Jordaan canal walk at dusk
  • CityTwo days based in The Hague: the Mauritshuis (Vermeer, Rembrandt), Binnenhof, and a long lunch in the old town
  • DiningTasting menu at De Kas in a working greenhouse; a private chef's table in a 17th-century canal house; jenever flight at Wynand Fockink
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Sagan's Pale Blue Sky

The figure

Carl Sagan1934 – 1996

02Astronomy & deep time

Sagan's Pale Blue Sky

Cosmology in the world's clearest desert

We base in San Pedro de Atacama with a cosmologist as our companion, with private access to a working observatory and nightly viewings under skies so dark the Milky Way casts shadows. A reading of Pale Blue Dot at 4,500 metres — bring tissues.

Where
Atacama Desert & Santiago, Chile
Length
9 days
Price
From $6,400

Itinerary highlights

  • EncounterPrivate tour of ALMA observatory at 5,000m with a resident astronomer
  • LectureFour fireside talks tracing Cosmos episode by episode, in the landscapes that inspired them
  • WalkSunrise hike through the Valley of the Moon; salt-flat flamingo walk at Salar de Atacama
  • CityBookended Santiago days: Neruda's La Chascona, the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, and a Bellavista neighborhood walk with a local architect
  • DiningMulti-course wine pairing at Boragó (Santiago); high-desert dinner at Tierra Atacama
  • MuseumGustavo Le Paige archaeological museum, curator-led
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The Garden of Epicurus

The figure

Epicurus341 – 270 BCE

03Philosophy & antiquity

The Garden of Epicurus

A pursuit of the well-lived secular life

From the Agora to the site of Epicurus' Garden, we trace one of antiquity's most radical projects: a philosophy of pleasure built on friendship, modest appetites, and the death of fear. Long lunches. Longer arguments. The occasional swim.

Where
Athens, Aegina & the Peloponnese
Length
12 days
Price
From $8,200

Itinerary highlights

  • LectureResident classicist leads three seminars on the Letter to Menoeceus and Lucretius' De Rerum Natura
  • MuseumPrivate morning at the Acropolis Museum; Epigraphic Museum tour with a Hellenistic specialist
  • CityWalking tour of ancient Athens with an archaeologist; an evening through Plaka and Anafiotika by lantern light, ending at a Psyrri natural-wine bar
  • WalkCoastal hike on Aegina to the Temple of Aphaia; olive-grove walk in Nemea wine country
  • DiningTasting menu at Spondi (Athens); a true 'Epicurean dinner' on a Peloponnesian terrace
  • EncounterAfternoon at a small-production Nemea winery with the vintner
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Lucretius in the North

The figure

Lucretiusc. 99 – 55 BCE

04Earth science & materialist philosophy

Lucretius in the North

On the nature of things, in a country still making itself

Lucretius wrote that the world is made of atoms in motion, indifferent and astonishing. Iceland makes the case in real time: plates pulling apart, vents building a country's grid, auroras overhead. We read De Rerum Natura in the land that proves it.

Where
Reykjavík & the Icelandic south coast
Length
8 days
Price
From $6,600

Itinerary highlights

  • LectureNightly readings from De Rerum Natura, paired with a working geologist
  • WalkÞingvellir mid-Atlantic rift walk; black-sand beach hike at Reynisfjara
  • EncounterGlacier-edge excursion at Sólheimajökull; aurora watch from a private highland lodge
  • CityReykjavík walking tour with a contemporary historian; a Laugavegur design-district afternoon, Harpa concert hall at dusk, and coffee at Reykjavík Roasters
  • DiningTasting menu at Dill (Reykjavík); a farm-to-table dinner at Friðheimar's tomato greenhouse
  • MuseumSettlement Exhibition (Landnámssýningin) and the Icelandic Phallological Museum, because Lucretius would have approved
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