“For one sweetest mood of blood, for the same reason of travel, travelling” – F. De Andrè
Encapsulated in these verses by my favorite Italian songwriter is what for me is not just a way of meaning travel, but rather my way of meaning life.
My name is Danilo, I come from Calabria, Italy, but like so many of my fellow countrymen I have sought my fortune outside my region, eventually landing after a long tour in the province of Padua, where I currently live. I generally make my living as an engineer, which has caused me various psychic deviations, among them attention to detail, which, however, comes in handy when I design my routes 😊.
I started at early age going around Italy and Europe with my family, but actually my first real trip was to Turin, in which I lived for more than 5 years for study purposes, which seemed to me like a futuristic world. After that, I also lived abroad for a few years, equally distributed between Belgium and Germany, and then returned to Italy in March 2020, “against all vaticin, against the gods and against fear,” quoting another of my favorite songwriters.
I love cities full of art, but I prefer contact with nature, which I learned to love and respect especially during my experience in the scouts, where I developed, among other things, good adaptive skills, and began to interface with particularly difficult realities.
With this blog I do not propose to teach anything about how one should travel, also because I would have no titles to do so, but only to share my experiences, which are those of a person who, quoting Proust, more than exploring new destinations, always tries to get new eyes. And maybe, at times, let you smile.
Enjoy your reading
Below, find a picture of myself on each continent, just to give you an idea of what will be available on this blog, sooner or later!
What you can expect from this blog
Traveling has always been a passion for me, but ever since two dear friends of mine gave me an Earth scratch map, scrapping that map has become a mission, rather than my favorite hobby. That said, everyone travels in his own way, so I also allow myself the freedom to do it my way. Below, find a list of some general considerations that apply to my way of experiencing travel, in random order:
- As mentioned in the introduction, I am not a traveler by trade (although I don’t rule out that it may happen at some point). This means that the time available to me is dependent on the vacation time I can afford during the year, as for about everyone. Also, I prefer not to return to the same place twice, at least if they are sufficiently complicated places to get to. This is to say that my itineraries are carefully designed so as to “optimize” time, which in my case means being able to worthily visit as many carefully selected things as possible, in reasonable time. So, on the one hand, I don’t go anywhere just so I can “put the flag up,” and on the other hand, I linger to appreciate the places I visit for the time I consider appropriate, to avoid not having enough to see everything I have planned.
- I am five feet and a walnut tall and don’t exactly have the physique of an Olympic athlete. This means that, like most people, I have to deal with what my body allows, trying to be cautious and avoid extreme situations. To put it bluntly, if I have to make a prediction, I don’t think I will ever write a post about what can be seen from the top of Mount Everest, although I don’t like to set limits for myself. However, this does not mean that you will not see things that might seem extreme; rather, it means that if I have made it, you can certainly make it too.
- While it is true that you should not expect extreme things, it is also true that I have good adaptive skills on average, so I am not afraid of very spartan accommodations, or particularly adventurous experiences. Where it is necessary to measure up to things a little too far outside the “comfort zone,” I will report it appropriately.
What you CAN’T expect from this blog
- Except in special and motivated cases, you will not find suggestions on hotels where I recommend sleeping, or restaurants where I recommend to eat. This is for at least three good reasons. The first is that my memory is not exactly infallible, so I often do not remember what the rooms I slept in were like or the names of the restaurants I ate at. The second is that, fortunately, there are already platforms of various kinds dedicated to the purpose, from Booking to Trip Advisor, and many others I don’t even know about, that can easily do the job for me, with better results. The last, most important, is that everyone has his own habits and needs (as well as his own wallet), so what works for me may not always work for others, and vice versa. For example, you will notice from the photos that I don’t have Samson’s thick hair (that is just why I don’t have his strength either, let’s be clear!), so I don’t choose “accommodations” based on whether or not a hair dryer is available.
- You will not find any “photoshopped” images (although in some cases they will appear to you as such), except to make any persons portrayed unrecognizable, in compliance with privacy legislation, not only because I am not a professional photographer, but mainly because I believe that people seeking information about destinations they intend to visit want to know what they look like in reality, not how much people might like the photos they post on social.
