FROM his first trip down the Nile at age six, when he sat on the knee of the famous Aga Khan, Hanns Ebensten was captured by a wanderlust that carried him through his long life. His love of adventure and intrepid spirit led him to remote islands, desert oases, mountaintop villages, and faraway lands that most people could barely imagine. 
Nineteenth-century diaries, maps, and his beloved 1929 Baedeker travel guides fueled his passion for travel and his insatiable appetite for exploring the world. Hanns’ life was filled with caravans and train rides, charter planes and jungle safaris, but it was also one of outrageous gay philandering and a penchant for tattooed men in torn jeans and uniforms. Hanns escorted royalty and tearoom queens, played bridge on the Orient Express and hanky-panky with guards in a Borneo zoo. But in the end, Hanns was both a perfect gentleman and the quintessential world explorer.
