By Federica Valnegri
Hi everyone! My name is Federica, I’m 33 and I’m one of the tour leaders at World Unique Journey.
For now I’ll be taking you to discover Africa, but new destinations are coming soon. I can’t wait to share them with you and, with great pride, to take you to discover them around the world.
I’ve always loved travelling, since long before 2018, but that was the year that changed things for me. I decided to set off on my own, and I fell in love with Africa. That was the moment I realised travel would no longer be just a passion, but something I wanted to make part of my life.
During Covid I started exploring Switzerland more, and its hidden places. And since I have two elderly dogs at home and didn’t want to be away from them for too long, I learned to plan short trips, sometimes really short ones! I’ve done 50 hours in Iceland, 48 hours in Menorca and three days in the Lofoten Islands.
And do you know what I realised? That you don’t need weeks to live a special experience. It isn’t about seeing everything and rushing from one place to the next, but about choosing carefully what to discover and living each destination well, even when time is short.
I think that’s what makes me a little different: I love looking for unusual destinations, routes off the usual track and places that may not be on everyone’s list. But I also love the better-known destinations, especially when I can discover them from another perspective, through authentic experiences and in contact with local people.
For me, getting to know a place also means tasting its flavours, listening to the stories of the people who live there, discovering its traditions and really trying to understand its culture. It’s one of the things I love most about travelling: coming home with something more, not just with beautiful photos.
In recent years I’ve fallen in love with Northern Europe, its landscapes and the feeling it leaves you with in front of such vast nature. I love chasing the northern lights and driving for hours through Nordic landscapes without meeting a single person. But at the same time, I’m madly in love with the sea too: its sound, its scent, that sense of freedom it gives me.
With World Unique Journey I’d like to share all of this with the people who will travel with me, and also with everyone who will simply be part of our community. I’d like to pass on what I’ve learned while travelling, and all those little things a journey sometimes leaves inside you without you noticing straight away.
Because if you ask me what travel is to me, the answer is simple: travel is life. It’s emotion, discovery, scent, feeling. It’s stepping a little out of your daily routine, letting yourself be surprised and coming home with a different way of seeing things, even if only a little.
And that’s exactly what I’d like to share with you: not just places to see, but experiences to live, people to meet and memories that stay.
Because for me, the beauty of travelling is exactly this: never knowing quite how much a place or an encounter will stay with you, but always wanting to set off and find out.
