Ciao a tutti,
Come annunciato sulla mia pagina IG, oggi è stata pubblicata la mia prima intervista a tema viaggi sul sito Touripp.it – di cui ringrazio lo staff!
Di seguito il link all’intervista, che traduco in inglese per gli amici sparsi per il mondo!
Hello everyone!
As announced on my IG (neverland.2.0) I had the opportunity to be interviewed by Touripp.it staff and I’d love to share it with you – all over the world – in English as well.
1. Hi Camilla, and welcome to Touripp.it! Briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Hello everyone! My name is Camilla, office worker every day but a traveler in my free time. Curiosity towards new languages and cultures and, in general, towards diversity has been the engine of my life, ever since I was a child. During my high school and university years I began to discover the countries of the languages studied, especially Russia. I can say that St. Petersburg was my first love and that it conquered a special place in my heart - having lived there, on several occasions, for some months. Over the years, after multiple experiences in Europe, I decided to fulfil my dream - the coast to coast in the USA. Through a traveler site, I got in touch with four travel companions and we organized our first adventure worthy of the name! After this magnificent experience I had the opportunity to return overseas several times, always discovering different places and hidden corners of the United States. For the past six years, my fiancé has accompanied me both in life and in travel and at the moment we are organizing the most important one: the honeymoon in Patagonia!
1. Tell us about the exact moment you thought: "I open a travel blog"! Since when do you have Neverland 2.0, and what pushed you into this world?
My blog was born a couple of years ago, when I felt the need to share my experiences with friends and acquaintances interested in them, as well as with many travelers from all over the world. At the moment my blog is still a page in constant development, divided into sections dedicated to different topics related to travel. In detail, in addition to a generic page in which I summarize the routes and the organization of my travels, I set up a kitchen section and one entitled "literary cafe" - where I talk about my travels under a literary point of view. Actually, I think it is very important to travel "prepared" on the destination you are going to know, accompanying your stay with a reading about this place. As far as I have seen so far, the world of travel blogging is very crowded and making its way inside is not easy - especially if you can't travel full time. I would like that even in Italy, as already happens to a greater extent abroad, it was possible to maintain financially by managing your own blog and sharing your experiences - but I think it is currently unreachable.
2. Literary Café ... interesting! Can you explain better what it is and how the idea was born?
Literature has always played an important role in my studies and, during my university and study years in St. Petersburg, I had the opportunity to work with the head of the Dostoevsky Museum and professor at the local University to deepen the knowledge of this author. This teacher made me discover a new perspective under which study and set my travels up. From here, I deepened the theme of the "genius loci" - the spirit of the place - whose theory foresees that each place has its own essence which is expressed through its architectural, sculptural and natural manifestations. The passion for this topic made me develop it in my degree thesis, starting from Latin literature up to modern times, and then reconstructing real thematic paths that make the literary work under study "alive" . I think this approach can prove useful to understand the place in depth and to bring the works that our predecessors have left us alive. If I have intrigued you, you can read more on the topic on my blog!
3. Let's talk about food: do you consider it an integral part of the trip and the culture you are visiting? What is the best dish tasted on the go?
Cooking is very important to me, in everyday life and on the go. I think that every day you can travel while sitting at your table, experimenting with new recipes and taking a cue from the dishes tasted in the most disparate corners of the world. From the Alaskan salmon, to the Greek moussaka via the Russian borsh, I was lucky enough to be able to taste many good dishes abroad - among which I would not really know how to choose my favorite. What I can say is that every perfume and every flavor recalls travel memories and, almost always, nostalgia for the destination that has come back to mind. I think it is lucky, it means that each experience has enriched me with something and that it has actually paid off the sacrifices made to achieve it.
4. A book / film / TV show that pushed you to travel somewhere in the world?
The novel "Crime and Punishment" inspired not only my walks in St. Petersburg, but also my degree thesis! Once there, I had the opportunity to reconstruct the literary paths of Dostoevsky's novels, getting to know better the city and its topography / toponymy. Turning to the big screen, "Into the Wild" inspired not only me, but an entire generation of travelers - not only for the destination, but for the spirit of the trip itself. Going into detail, the TV series "Heartland" inspired my trip to Alberta (Canada) in 2017. Indeed, once I arrived in Calgary, I organized a short excursion to the country of High River - Hudson in the series tv - which I had seen on the screen for months. It was really nice, for a few hours I felt like one of the protagonists of the series!
5. Describe the first 3 words that come to your mind when you think about "traveling".
Discovery, inspiration, turning point. Every trip is a discovery for me - always keeping in mind the words "every year, visit a place you've never been before". Whatever destination I am visiting, a strong motivation and inspiration grows in me to implement my blog - unfortunately, I do not always manage to finalize everything as I would like - considering the lack of time in everyday life. Each trip, which falls more or less in every period of work leave, represents a turning point - to leave the past months behind, to recharge the batteries and to start again enriched with good intentions.
6. During your travels, what was the funniest / embarrassing / tragic-comic anecdote ... in short, the one that always arouses laughter when you tell it?
USA, August 2010. My travel companions and I, full of enthusiasm, pick up the rental car that will accompany us on our month-long coast to coast. A few miles from Washington DC, a tire is torn apart by a huge nail on the road. We pulled over and, putting together brains, hands and experiences, we changed the tire. In the meantime, it was late afternoon and, with our "wheel", we tried to keep up the pace to get to our daily stop - namely the Niagara Falls. During the journey, everything happens: we found ourselves in the darkest countryside of Pennsylvania, where the only lights were the candles on the windows of the Amish peple. We had dinner in a typical diner along the road and - last but not least - we got lost along the highway … Exhausted but after so many laughs we finally arrived at Niagara Falls - where the booked hostel resembled Blair Witches’ home….
7. If there were no time and money limits, what are the next 3 trips you would do?
Cruise around the world: more than for the travel mode, I would appreciate the opportunity to see practically the whole world without having to worry about organizing too much.
Antarctica: loving cold places, nothing would be more fascinating and unattainable.
New Zealand: plan B for our honeymoon, but still on the wish list.
8. In your opinion, what can a blogger do in his own small way to help make our world more beautiful, sustainable and respected?
I think that too many words have already been said, so reiterating the concepts with which we are already "bombarded" by the media daily would not make sense. I believe that social media can be useful to give others a concrete example on how to travel respecting the environment and cultures. When I travel, I try to buy from small local businesses and promote them in my own small way. I always carry my reusable bottle with me (on the go, but also in the office) - to waste as little plastic as possible. If time available, I try to discover the destinations on foot - in a slow and sustainable way. Doing this, perhaps by taking a photo or adding an IG story, can be a small gesture to get other people from your community involved in the journey towards ecology and sustainability. Certainly "repetita iuvant", as the Latins said, but I think that in these times a small concrete gesture would be much more useful!
9. Tell us about your most beautiful journey so far: make us dream!
Fortunately for me, I can say that I made several trips that made me dream and experience emotions words cannot explain. In order not to repeat myself, speaking of my endless American dream, I want to tell about my magical road trip in Iceland.
In September 2015, with my fiancé and two friends, we traveled the now famous Icelandic Ring Road - giving us an adventure ride in the central part of the island. We arrived in Reykjavik in the late evening and, after an overnight stay near the airport, we began our journey. First stop is the Blue Lagoon: although more touristy than other natural pools, this place is certainly worth a visit. By diving into the blue water, among the sulphurous vapors, it almost seems to be in Paradise !
Second stop of the day is Geysir, where one of the most active geysers in the world is located. Seeing it explode in the sky for the first time is a unique emotion and it is certainly the prelude to the beauty of nature that we will discover along the way. The next day, we travel the central part of the island, to reach the north and the town of Akureiri. These driving hours, surrounded by a lunar landscape and without a telephone connection, are undoubtedly the most exciting of the entire trip. After two days, the magic of Iceland has already entered my heart and the surprises do nothing but increase: the barren plains, going east, at some point leave room for the infernal landscape of Hverir - where red dunes and sulphurous chimneys they boil before our eyes.
In the following days we reach the south of the island, whose first postcard is represented by the fishing town of Djopivogur: this small place seems to stand still in time, between the flights of seagulls and the wake of small fishing boats in the open sea. Continuing our journey back to the capital, we admire and explore the Crystal Lagoon (Jökulsárlón) by rubber dinghy and later on we can see some of the most famous waterfalls on the island: Gullfoss, Skogafoss and Seljalandsfoss. The latter, the fairies’ waterfall, is particularly striking as it is possible to walk behind it on a small stone path.
After this trip, I went back to Iceland in January 2017, looking for the northern lights. Unfortunately, in this end, I was unable to replicate the luck I had in Norway the previous winter. However, being able to retrace part of the same route in winter was still impressive and noteworthy.
What I have described are just some of the wonders that can be visited in Iceland, a magical land that I hope will remain an intact natural oasis and not targeted by mass tourism.