Meet The Italian on Tour
Shaping Cultural Experiences
Travel has been an integral part of my life since I was a young child. I grew up in a multicultural, bilingual home in the Netherlands with a Polish mother and a Dutch father. My
Update & BBC News Link
A brief update: One interview video will be uploaded tomorrow evening. I believe the BBC News One-Minute World News provides well-balanced reporting of news, hence why I wanted to share it. Top stories on May
From Nigeria to Boston
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VNkCazT_T4&feature=youtu.be
When you first meet Oluwagbeminiyi Osidipe, you encounter a very vibrant, friendly, and unique personality. Oluwagbeminiyi or Niyi – as she shortened her name for simplicity – was named by her mother, who had a “very personal experience” when she had her, Niyi explained. Niyi is a Yoruba Nigerian transplant who arrived in the U.S. in 2006. As one of the most densely populated (West) African countries, Nigeria derives its name from the river that spans its land. To the South, it borders the Gulf of Guinea to the Atlantic Ocean. Originally colonized by the British, Nigeria gained independence in 1960. Its main ethnic groups are the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, who speak English and their own respective languages, while major religions include Islam, Christianity and indigenous beliefs. Niyi shares her story, her views on politics, cultural differences she’s embraced with humor, and what we can learn from each other by expressing curiosity. Her message is simple: travel enriches us through its exposure to new cultures, and enables us to grow.
Mark Twain on Travel
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” (American author Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad).
Have you had the opportunity to travel (extensively, within your country, or even once abroad)? Can you relate to Twain’s sentiments? How does travel enrich us?
Pleasing The Taste Palate
Food has the wonderful quality of uniting us no matter where we are. There is nothing partisan or narrow-minded about food. It simply invites us to indulge, create recipes, and share with others. Two of my favorite Polish dishes (included in collage) are pierogies and barszcz czerwony – a beetroot soup – served on Christmas Eve in Poland. How does food bring us together? What are some of your favorite dishes and why? Can food trigger memories?
Stereotypes: Truth or Fiction?
DEFINING STEREOTYPES: “An idea or statement about all of the members of a group or all the instances of a situation.” (Merriam-Webster). Stereotypes enable bias and preconceived notions to perpetuate, but can also reveal valid
Annual Human Rights Report
“The world changed immeasurably over the course of 2011. Across the Middle East, North Africa, and far beyond, citizens stood up to demand respect for human dignity, more promising economic opportunities, greater political liberties, and
Euro Crisis & Emerging Stereotypes
Brief Crisis Breakdown Since the onset of the global financial crisis, or Great Recession, in 2007, the Eurozone has feared impending growing global debt levels, as well as sovereign debt within European countries themselves. In
Remembering Tiananmen
Today marks the 23rd anniversary of Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in Beijing, China. Inflation, a lack of career prospects, the fall of Eastern European communism, and political corruption, are all said to have fueled anger
Coffee's Uniting Power
A cup of coffee can bridge cultural gaps. At least, that’s what Gizem Salgicil White, founder of Turkayfe.org, believes. Her organization aims to create awareness of Turkish culture, particularly within America. Gizem is a Turkish native,
Here’s our latest CultureTrav Travel Entrepreneurs interview.
Share a bit about yourself, and your husband. What inspired you to launch your trip company, The Italian on Tour?
Travel has always played a major role in our lives. Giovanni left his home at 15 years old to go to the US to learn English and gain international experience. I took a gap year after high school and backpacked around Europe by myself at the young age of 18 years old, when there wasn’t social media, and convenient ways to keep in touch with your family while abroad. Both of these experiences truly shaped who we are today, but what stayed with us most was the innate love for our roots.
Giovanni grew up in Italy and always shared this knowledge of Le Marche with his American and Canadian friends. I always felt a deep connection to my European roots (German and Croatian) and simply fell in life with the Italian lifestyle as we visited Giovanni’s hometown of Ascoli Piceno every year for our summer holidays.
However, it wasn’t until we invited our friends and family from all over the world to join us for our wedding day, that we truly realized that our region of Italy was what people were looking for. Our guests were in awe of Ascoli’s beauty, the genuine kindness of the locals, the fantastic cuisine, and were only left with wanting more. Our guests’ visit to Le Marche left them glowing, and with an experience that people still are talking about for over 4 years.
This experience inspired us to create The Italian On Tour to allow others to have that magical experience that we were able to give our friends and family: a local travel experience with your Italian Friends that have a deep personal connection with the territory you are visiting.
Tell us about your curated trips. Where do you go, and what do you hope to educate travelers about in Italy?
Our trips take you through the off-the-beaten path destinations of Le Marche and Abruzzo focusing on getting to know the local culture through experiencing is food, wine, and culinary traditions all while giving you local insights into modern day Italy’s daily life.
More than just educate travelers, we hope to immerse them in the local culture and to offer them experiences that will leave them with memories to last a lifetime. Through these experiences, we hope that guests of The Italian On Tour will learn about the local wine, regional recipes, slow food, sustainable farming, our millennial history, and today’s current state.
Most of all we hope that our travelers will connect with our territory, our local community, and leave wanting to share our secret part of Italy with their friends and family back home.
When it comes to your own personal travels, how do you think exploring the local culture of a destination helps you discover its story and layers of history?
In our own personal travels, we practice Slow Travel and believe it is the best way to truly experience any destination you are visiting. By not just passing through, but by immersing ourselves in the place we are visiting, we are able to meet the locals, sample their way of life, and discover their history.
When you connect with the locals, you truly get a taste for the local way of life and discover things you would never find in a guidebook. It is this style of travel that we believe and have chosen to cultivate, as part of our mission with The Italian On Tour‘s slow travel itineraries.
Share about a particularly memorable trip you’ve been on! Why was it special?
Chantelle: 2003 was the year I backpacked solo around Europe for 6 months, and it was also the first year I spent Easter away from Canada and my immediate family. This was particularly memorable for me because I was welcomed into the home of family friends that lived in the tiny town of Utwil, Switzerland. Even though their English was limited, and my Swiss-German non-existent, the Easter I spent with their family on the hills of Appenzeller will forever be in my mind. Still today, I can feel the warm of the sun, taste the alcohol-laden black forest cake, and smell the fresh air of the Swiss mountains. It was, and will forever be, one of those experiences in my life that impacted the way I travel.
The time I had with them was irreplaceable, it was and is the kind of travel I advocate for. One that connects travelers with the locals, their cuisine, and their traditions. It is what I want our visitors to have when they come to Le Marche: an experiential travel journey that connects them to the Italy we call home.
Giovanni: My trip to Australia was particularly memorable because I spent Christmas Day with a local family. They exposed me to their holiday traditions; something I would have never had the opportunity to experience if I had taken a coach bus or large organized tour. It was truly an authentic experience that gave me a real taste of what life is like in Australia.
It is this authenticity and being shown the local way of life that I try to convey when our tour with our guests. I want to give travelers the chance to know Le Marche, Italy the way I do and travel it as if they have their Italian best friend showing them the top places eat, unique sites, and wineries to visit that they would never find in a guide book.
What advice would you give to a budding travel entrepreneur?
Travel for most is not just a job, but a passion. It is really important that you keep that fire alive, and keep yourself inspired, so that you can continue to offer your best to your past and future customers.
Before embarking on your journey as a travel entrepreneur, it is really important that you have traveled a lot and have a clear idea and/or business plan. Defining your expertise takes time.
If you want to create authentic experiences that your clients will remember for years to come, then it is important to explore the regions you are passionate about and make connections with the locals. If you don’t know the locals, their culture, and their cuisine, then you can’t expect your clients to also be able to connect with the place that you plan on sending them.
We also recommend that as a budding travel entrepreneur, you reach out to your network and find yourself a mentor. It is really beneficial to have someone to talk and get honest feedback, especially in the early stages of your business, when things can get frustrating and you are learning the lay of the land.
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Hi! I'm the founder of Culture With Travel and #CultureTrav. Please chat with us on social media and contribute in the comments! Follow @Nicolette_O
