Few American presidents have had more impact out of office than they did in the White House. William Jefferson Clinton aims to be one. His mission is monumental—to turn the planet's prosperous to the service of the poor. His method and inspiration include traveling the earth in a whirlwind of philanthropy. Patricia Storace journeys with him through Asia and catches him in his New York headquarters, where, briefly at rest, he speaks with candor about the world as he finds it—and as he wants it to be

I am reading the newspapers in Emperor Humayun's paradisiacal New Delhi gardens. The Times of India's special report on Indian religiosity reveals that forty-nine percent of respondents believe God is both male and female and would manifest in human form as both. I absorb this while waiting to join former president Bill Clinton and his entourage, who are occupied this December morning by a private reception for donors to the William J. Clinton Foundation, the philanthropic organization of global ambitions founded by Clinton in 2001. Later this afternoon, we will embark on a journey that will take us, in the space of a week, to South India, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Vietnam, while Clinton makes his final visit to selected sites as UN special envoy for tsunami recovery, and to AIDS clinics served by the Clinton Foundation.

A few days earlier, I was in New York City, sitting in the Clinton Foundation headquarters on 125th Street in Harlem, surrounded by boxes of wrapped Christmas presents embossed with the presidential seal in gold. I was hoping to find out exactly where and when we might be going. The Clinton staff were still playing chess with stops and schedules—which of the tsunami sites he would be visiting, and how to coordinate dates for meetings with prime ministers and health ministers who had agreed to sign memorandums of understanding in connection with the foundation's AIDS programs. Clinton works closely with heads of governments. "Whether they can help you a lot or not, it's impossible to conceive of succeeding if they're not for you," he explained to me, "so you can't go in unless you get the ground rules clear, unless they really want you." Another challenge is Clinton's own voracity for travel. Eric Nonacs, one of his policy advisers, says with the faintest hint of exasperation, "Of course, Bill Clinton wants to visit every place at once."

Clinton does not, and cannot, travel like you or me. His trips are crafted to highlight or sustain social projects. Naturally, there are security concerns: an important tsunami site, Sri Lanka is also the focus of a violent civil conflict; George W. Bush, on a trip to Indonesia just preceding ours, was greeted with passionate protest. Nor can Clinton fly commercial airlines—no carrier could accommodate his erratic schedule or the changing population of staff, intimates, donors, and press who accompany him. And then there is his Gulliver-like footprint, setting off powerful reactions wherever he travels, his every word and facial expression monitored by a flood of cameras and tape recorders.

In the afternoon of our day in New Delhi, I meet the Clinton party at the distinguished children's hospital Kalawati Saran, where, at a newly opened AIDS therapy center for children, Clinton will announce a multipartner launch with the government of India of a national pediatric program on HIV/AIDS. This venture is based on an agreement made with two Indian pharmaceutical companies to cut the price of HIV/AIDS pediatric drugs, which will allow an additional 100,000 HIV-positive children in sixty-two countries to receive treatment in 2007.