Journal

The Taj Mahal was built as a love letter. Commissioned by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in 1631 to honor his teenage bride, who had died in childbirth, its construction involved the work of 22,000 laborers and a thousand elephants. The Indian monument still stands as perhaps the world’s greatest display of affection.

To which we say, game on.

While today’s ultra-wealthy may not be commissioning timeless monuments to show how much they love their spouses, they are producing extravagant epics in the form of over-the-top, hyper-personalized vacations. In conversations with a half-dozen travel agents and celebrity-event producers who specialize

Supersonic jetliner travel, which ended more than a decade ago with the Concorde, will make a comeback and transform the aviation industry in coming years, according to billionaire Richard Branson.

“The next big thing, hopefully in my lifetime, will be supersonic travel coming back and people traveling around the world in next to no time,” Branson told Bloomberg Television in an interview in Washington Tuesday. “And hopefully in a relatively environmentally friendly way.”

Branson’s Virgin Galactic is already working with Boom Technology Inc. on its supersonic jet, and Japan Airlines Co. in December took an option to buy as many