Italy Via Untours and SlowTravel
January 1, 2010
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In my 20′s an 30′s I went to Israel a number of times (including one long, glorious summer) and along the way to and from managed to piggyback a few days in other countries like Jordan, England, Sweden, Denmark, Greece, and Italy. I only had four days in Italy and all of them were spent in Rome, with my clearest memory being in the Sistine Chapel, laying on my back on the cold marble floor taking a photograph directly under God’s fingers and Adam’s hand. I went back one more time years later when traveling with my sister and parents and the memory I have from then is of my sister and I sitting on our beds in the hotel dividing up the last of the Skittles we’d packed from home. That’s about all I remember because we were literally in and out of the country in less than 24 hours. Flight in. Flight out. Barely enough time to say ciao!
Ever since then I’ve wanted to go back to spend some real time there; to walk the streets, to go to the countryside, to meet the people, to experience Italy, and I’ve always wanted to travel with D, to show her places I’ve been and to have new adventures in new places with her. Two summers ago we had the chance to go with a small group of people from our church to Greece and while the entire trip was amazing, the best days were the ones spent before the official tour began and after it ended when D and I were the only people we knew in the entire country and had time alone to explore it for ourselves. Ever since then we’ve dreamed about traveling alone together and after storing away enough frequent flier miles we decided to begin a new decade with an extended visit to Italy.
And so at the beginning of December I booked our airline reservations for Italy with British Airways. First class. Our frequent flier miles covered it all except for a small chunk of chump change they attached for taxes, fees, and surcharges and as it now stands we’ll be flying into Rome mid-September 2010 and leaving from Naples one month later. 30 days in Italy. She, me, and we. One week in Rome, two weeks at a vineyard farmhouse in Tuscany, and a final week on the Amalfi Coast. La vita dolce indeed!
Better yet, we’ll be slooooooow traveling on our own so that rather than traveling with a tour group, sleeping in hotels in tourist areas, rushing through museums fast enough to qualify for the Olympic time trials, and seeing the people of Italy through double-thick bus windows we’ll be staying in private apartments in established neighborhoods, shopping for groceries at open markets, and following a travel itinerary that will provide as much time for lingering over espresso at corner cafes and sitting on the edge of a fountain eating gelato as it will for taking in all the grand sites of this historically rich country.
Traveling this way is easier than you might think because there are incredibly resources out there. D and I are using a company called Untours that came highly recommended to us by friends who’ve traveled with them for years and not only do we love the services they offer but they totally won me over with their long-standing commitment to direct the majority of their profits toward social investing.
Untours describe what they do as “providing independent travel with support” which means they handle all the pesky little arrangements that had me wondering in the past if traveling alone was more trouble than it was worth. Among the details Untours covers is that they:
- arrange for our accommodations by personally inspecting all the apartments on site before adding them to their list of available rentals, which we then selected from using their detailed descriptions and photographs
- provide us with independent transportation from rental cars and/or public transportation passes depending on the area
- arrange for a local representative to pick us up at the airport, deliver us to our apartment, acquaint us with the local area and then at the end of our stay return us to the airport for our departure for home….even if means dragging us from our apartment and Italy against our will!
- pre-stock several days worth of groceries at each destination to hold us until we become familiarized with the area
- provide a local contact person to answer our questions while in country and assist in the event of an emergency
- supply advance assistance and travel information as we prepare for our travel to Italy
And with those travel details out of the way, our time is our own, and if all that isn’t sweet enough I somehow managed to stumble into the Slow Travel community. What an incredible resource and what amazing people! There are folks from around the world participating in their forums that are dedicated to slow travel and the pool of knowledge they have between them is incredible. So far most of my time has been spent devouring trip reports from members who’ve been to Italy, going over archives of material that provide travel tips and advice, and of course, pouring over every entry in the section devoted to Italy.
Awesome. Just awesome.
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