Acanela customer Donna Baird-Horne sits down with us and shares her top travel memories, what she loves about Acanela Expeditions, her experience on an Italian tour through Cinque Terre, and more! Listen to hear her Acanela Expeditions review and her next adventures!

In this episode, we discuss:

• What Donna’s experience was like traveling with Acanela compared to other trips she’s taken (0:30)

• Donna’s favorite part of her trip through the Cinque Terre (3:45)

• Donna’s advice for anyone traveling to the Cinque Terre (8:22)

• Donna’s next adventure (9:53)

Donna’s Experience Traveling With Acanela Expedition

Courtney: Hi, I'm back with Donna. This is Courtney with Acanela and we're sitting down to chat about her experience that she had with us in Cinque Terre and about all of her upcoming travel plans. So we're really excited to chat with her. What was your travel experience like with us in Cinque Terre?

Donna: It was actually amazingly better than I had ever expected. I had a little trepidation after I realized that this was a very different type of trip than I've ever been on. Usually, when I go to a completely foreign country, I generally tend to go with a guided trip like Gate One and places where you... I do enjoy really just the small groups, but which I knew Acanela was going to provide. But usually, there's someone that picks you up at the airport and then takes you from place to place. And when I realized this was a much more independent trip, I was really worried because I'd never landed in... We started in Genoa Airport and just the process of getting from there to the hotel was to me, surprisingly not guided.

And so it started off, I was just thinking that, boy, I hope we don't get lost. And it was amazingly well described and easy to follow with the guidance that I did receive from your tour company. I was assured that because we were landing in a very small airport, there would be plenty of people there to help. And in fact, they had a wonderful tourist office and that helped us get on the right bus. Everything went from there on... Because I think that starting is always the most stressful thing.

And it was just from the beginning, just so great. I mean, every day at the hotel, we were seated at we picked up vouchers to get on the little train to go from village to village. And the itinerary was laid out for us. We met people, all locals that were just wonderful. And so it turned out to be actually much more fun than the larger, more organized trips. Because we just felt like oh, we're kind of doing it... It felt like we're doing it independently, but yet we were guided. And so it was just very magical, the whole thing. I would say the local tours were all led by local people. And so unlike the big tours where you tend to get one guy that might know something about one town, this was every town we were in, the visits we had were with people that actually lived right there in that town and knew great details about it. So we just loved it.

Donna’s Favorite Part About the Cinque Terre Tour

Courtney: That's so awesome. I love hearing that. That's so exciting that you had such a good time and that you enjoyed the experience so much. What would you say that your favorite part of that experience was?

Donna: We were taken on a wine tour with the winemaker. He took us right into the vineyard that is on the cliffside. You're looking at the ocean on one side and the vineyard on the steep slope on the other side. And he explained how they get the grapes up the hill with this little monorail. And then he took us from there into the town where we did a little short walking tour through the town, through all the little back streets that we would have never ventured into on our own because they were kind of residential side streets. This was on our way to his wine tasting area, which was a little cave dug into the side of the hill. And that itself was incredible. But on the way, we passed by this door that just looked like maybe it was somebody's house, or I don't know, it was just kind of innocent-looking. And he opened the door and it was a little church where he said his parents were wed.

And it was just great things that you just wouldn't... We would have never found that, never known about it. And then when we were wine tasting, the little snacks that he provided were all made by his wife. They were delicious. Those wine was delicious, the snacks were delicious. And he was just such a pleasant man. And it was interesting because there were other people... I think there were a total of eight of us on this trip and the others decided, "No, we're not going to go." A couple wasn't interested in wine. A couple said, "Well, we've been wine tasting in all different areas and we're not going to go." And when we told them about how it was, they were all so sad that they missed it.

Because it was such a unique thing. It's not like you just... You don't just go into someone's vineyard and you get a couple glasses of wine. You really learn about the life that the... He was telling us that when he wasn't... Like in the winter months, when the vineyard is quiet and there's not much work to be done, he's there repairing all the walls, all the retaining walls by hand. He was maybe about 45 to 50. I mean, but yet he had learned how to do the hand masonry that it's these techniques are passed down generation to generation. And that's how he repaired these steep retaining walls to allow beautiful fruit to be harvested in a very difficult environment. So it was just-

Courtney: Wow. That's so interesting. Yeah, it sounds like you had a really cultural experience.

Donna: Yes.

Courtney: And you got to spend some time kind of feeling like a local. That's exciting.

Donna: Exactly. Exactly. Really seeing this, I mean there's no way that we could have had been able to even go to this because the parking was hilarious. So he picked us up in his little car and then the parking to get into the vineyard was like on a hairpin turn. He just had a little, there was a... We would have never known that anybody could even parked there, but he had a little chain that he unlocked and was able to scoot his one car in there. And then there was a tiny gate that it was marked at that point with his vineyard name, but normally when you're taking these windy turns from the ocean up to the top, you wouldn't really be looking. And so it was just so special.

There were many others. We did cooking tours that were fabulous. We learned how to make pesto several different ways and just all these... Oh God, we ate so well. So it was... Yeah. It was all amazing.

Advice For Those Planning A Trip to Cinque Terre

Courtney: What advice would you give to someone that's traveling to Cinque Terre? Would you have any advice for them?

Donna: I think doing it slowly like this. Most of the tours that you see coming through there spend a day maybe, just kind of running into the town, seeing a couple shops here and there. And I think that this area is so beautiful and well preserved that it really deserves more time. And having this opportunity to concentrate on one area rather than going from place to place in Italy like so many tours do, is really the way to do it. You really learn so much more about the actual lives of the Italians in these various regions. So we're looking forward to going with your company hopefully in another year or two to the Amalfi area and some of the other areas that are available to do this type of touring.

Courtney: Oh, that's awesome. We're so excited to have you on those upcoming tours. And I love that advice. That's such good advice to just spend that time and make sure that you really get that time needed for those different places.

Donna’s Next Trip

Courtney: So you kind of mentioned a little bit about Amalfi and everything, but what's next on your bucket list? What's up next? Where's your next adventure?

Donna: Well, we're actually leaving very... In about three weeks for... We're part of a dive group. So it's a scuba diving group that we've gone with them to Raja Ampat and also to Maldives and Sri Lanka. And so they've put together a trip that's going to New Zealand for touring New Zealand for about 10 days. And then we're going to be diving in the Ningaloo Reef, which is on the Northwest of Australia. It hasn't been impacted, decimated like unfortunately, the Great Barrier Reef is apparently not at all what it used to be. So Ningaloo Reef is much more pristine and we're hoping to dive with whale sharks, it's known for that. So we'll see how our luck goes.

Courtney: Oh, that sounds so exciting. That sounds like such a fun time.

Donna: Yeah.

Courtney: Awesome. Well, we're super excited that you had such a great time with us in Italy and we're excited to have you on future tours with us and excited for all those upcoming adventures that you have. Did you have any other last things that you wanted to mention about anything?

Donna: I would say that I just hope that you guys are successful because it's a different business model I'm sure. I haven't seen any other tour companies that do it the way you guys do and I congratulate you on trying it, trying a different way of leading groups. So I really wish you the best of success.

Courtney: Thank you so much. Yeah we really appreciate that. We love hearing that feedback from people that have traveled with us and yeah, we're really excited to bring this type of travel to so many more people. So thank you so much for traveling with us and for being willing to give this feedback. And we love hearing about this experience that you've had.

Donna: Great. Well, I keep telling our friends about it because it is something that I think... Especially my husband and I are in our 60's and so for us to have this kind of adventure, being certainly of a different type, I think that I would just encourage others in our age bracket to not worry. That the way you guys organize it, even though it doesn't... On the outset, it seems anxiety-provoking, that it's actually incredibly easy and really well done. The other people that were on the trip all enjoyed it very much too. So I just think that it's a great way to travel.

Courtney: Oh, awesome. I'm so glad to hear that. Yeah, we love people of all ages joining us on our tours. So that's really awesome to hear. Okay, well thank you so much for joining us on this podcast and sharing these experience with us. We've loved hearing them and being able to just chat with you about this a little bit. And we're looking so forward to having you join us on more tours in the future and being able to hear from you again as you experience those future tours with us.

Podcast made in partnership with Acanela Expeditions

Theme Song - I’ll Just Be Me by Gravity Castle