Ask Me Anything About Italy - March 27th
We meet on Zoom at 8 pm ET
March’s Ask Me Anything About Italy comes at the end of the month because I leave for Italy this week. Usually, I go for multi-month stretches, but this will be a quick 11-day trip to evaluate some new experiences in Turin and conduct interviews for a new book project I’m working on about Pompeii.
This monthly call is a benefit available only to subscribers. Every podcast episode is free and available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube, but Substack subscribers can access our community chat and monthly Q&A, where I answer all your trip-planning questions. Mark the date on your calendar, and subscribers will receive the Zoom link the day before the meeting. And don’t worry if you can’t join us live. Just email me your questions, and I’ll answer them after all the live attendees have asked their questions.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Ted Gioa's article “We Really Are Entering a New Age of Romanticism.” In it, Gioa discusses a renaissance of appreciation for the human experience as we are now fully living in the digital age. Gioa writes, “People now see the sterility and human waste created by a culture of brutal algorithms—imposed by a consortium of billionaires operating without accountability or constraint.”
Reading this clarified why I’m so passionate about off-the-beaten-path experiences in Italy. People have journeyed to this country for thousands of years to find themselves, from Odysseus to Stanley Tucci. But now, algorithms have taken charge and is creating toxic tourism by sending too many people to the same places to have a bucket-list experience that prioritizes dopamine hits, not soul-stirring experiences.
If you’re new here, here are a few episodes encapsulating how I want you to travel.
Episode 2: The Magic and Miracle of the Panarda takes you to the Abruzzo and a centuries-old winter feast that still thrives in Italy and Philadelphia. But if you’re traveling to Italy this summer, you can visit Villavallelonga for its summer festival, which celebrates the food of this small village in a remote but stunning location.
Episode 3: To Tour Or Not To Tour is an interview with Petulia Melideo from Context Travel. We discuss overtourism and how best to see the most famous sites so that our precious time and money are used meaningfully.
Episode 15: Basilicata’s Beachside Paradise features a chat with author Helene Stapinski about the places she visited while researching a family mystery for her book Murder in Matera. She talks about the gorgeous beaches, hidden stories, and unguarded temples of Southern Italy.
Lastly, I want to invite you to join me in Italy for Jenny Kroik’s Art Colony from May 25th to June 1, 2025. This will be the fourth installment of a weeklong workshop led by illustrator Jenny Kroik and dedicated to art and creativity.
Beauty wants to be beheld, and I have curated a week of experiences that make me feel awe and wonder, from a boat ride inside Palinuro’s Blue Grotto to making bread with Nonna Angela. Jenny will help capture what you feel with paint and pens and transform it into art. This year's workshop is timed for early summer so we can have more experiences on the glittering Tyrrhenian Sea. And there is absolutely no art experience required to join us.
More new podcast episodes are coming soon! If you have questions or an idea for a future episode, don’t hesitate to shoot me an email at danielle@feasttravel.com