Travel
Trains, trails, and a lasting curiosity about other cultures and how they live.
I’m an independent traveller with a taste for the demanding kind of journey. I travel to be challenged rather than to switch off: long overland and rail routes that cross whole countries, trails walked over several days, mountains, and the sort of places that reveal themselves slowly and on foot.
Trains are a particular love of mine. There’s a rhythm to a long rail journey that no flight can give you: the landscape changing hour by hour through the window, the strangers who become companions for a night, the feeling of actually crossing the distance rather than skipping over it. Trekking gives me the same thing at walking pace, days spent outdoors with everything I need on my back.
The landscape, though, has never been the whole point. What keeps pulling me back is the human side of travel. I move with a strong anthropological curiosity, drawn to the cultures, peoples and ways of living that are different from my own, more interested in sitting in someone’s kitchen than in ticking off a monument. Every journey is, first of all, an education in how other people see the world.
That curiosity comes with a responsibility. I care about how I travel and about what my presence leaves behind, so I look for journeys that give something back to the communities that host them: travel that is fair, low in impact, and built on genuine encounter rather than extraction.
Over the years I’ve also become the person who plans these journeys, not just the one who joins them. I enjoy the logistics as much as the scenery: designing a route, stitching trains, treks and back-roads into something that actually works, and bringing a group safely along for the ride.
The full list of the 71 countries I’ve visited so far lives on my countries I have visited page, and you’ll find travel blogs and vlogs across the rest of the site.
Travel Journals
Some journeys became travel journals of their own: overland routes, long-distance trains, trekking adventures and encounters collected along the way.
The Great Africa Traverse
An overland journey across Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana and Namibia.
Tracks to Trails
Rail and Hiking Journey from the Balkans to Georgia’s Caucasus.
Exploring Nepal
Mountains, trekking and life in the Himalayas.
Uganda Gorilla Adventure
Across Uganda in search of landscapes, wildlife and mountain gorillas.
Reunification Express
A rail journey through Vietnam.
South Africa Express
Travelling by train across South Africa.
El Chepe
By train through Mexico’s Copper Canyon.
USA Rail Pass
Crossing the United States by train.
Via Francigena: Siena to Rome
Walking the ancient pilgrimage route from Siena to Rome.
Other Trips
More hikes, journeys and adventures beyond the usual routes.
For information and travel planning: mp@mauriziopittau.it
Travel’s Newsletter: www.mauriziopittau.it/newsletter
