Grantourismo is go!

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‘Grantourismo’ or ‘grand touring’ is the style of travelling we’ve been practicing since January 2006, when, with a slew of guidebooks and travel articles under our belts and a year’s worth of travel writing work lined up, we embarked on a one-year travel experiment. Putting our worldly possessions into storage in Dubai, we took to the road to live out of our suitcases so we could bounce around the planet from project to project.

Our aim was to travel the world, find out whether we could make proper careers out of travel writing and
photography, whether our marriage could survive the challenges of life on the road, and to write a book about our experiences. Following one-too-many offers that were all too good to refuse - everywhere from Thailand to Buenos Aires - we were still on the road four years later...

For us, the original idea of The Grand Tour, a slow, extended journey aimed at learning about the local culture, arts, language, and people of the places the grand tourists travelled to, has always been appealing, so we began to think about how we might take the concept of ‘grantourismo’ or ‘grand touring’ a whole lot further.

Like the original grand tourists, we wanted to undertake a more experiential style of extended travel. Terence has a passion for cooking and there are still a few musical instruments he hasn’t yet mastered, while I have dabbled in everything from bellydancing to badminton. We are up for (almost!) anything and have tried our hands at all kinds of things from learning how to train elephants in Thailand to Terry playing at Master Chef in a Michelin-starred restaurant kitchen in Mallorca. At each place we visit, we endeavour to learn some of the language, although not always successfully!

So we came up with a project and a plan: a year-long trip involving two weeks in each place within which time we would attempt to learn as much about the place, its culture, and its people, and also learn how to do some things, cook a dish, learn a skill, learn some of the language... we found a sponsor, HomeAway Holiday-Rentals, and our project is currently underway.

We've joined TravelBlog.org so we can get your feedback on the project, seek your advice from time to time, and share our own experiences with you. We'll update you here from time to time or feel free to come visit us at Grantourismo! too.

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