Creating transformative journeys that can change people's lives is what unites everyone in Apical's large community.
No one can understand and explain it better than the guys from Travel The Unwritten who, precisely during a trip to Kenya, thought, dreamed and conceived their project.
We met with them today and asked them to tell us how their idea came about and what obstacles they are facing along the way.
Hi guys, your project is a beautiful one and we would love to introduce it to our community, but surely you can do it better than we can, so we'll leave the floor to you now!
Hello, and thank you very much! We are Travel The Unwritten, a team that organizes group trips to Africa and Latin America, only to those countries where we have real country knowledge. We want our travelers to visit places that spread projects for the well-being of our planet's ecosystem in a human and environmental sense.
The idea to create this project came about after we took a trip together to Kenya, a place where one of us lived as a cooperator for two years. We felt a desire to bring to others the experiences we were fortunate enough to be able to live. To date, we have developed the upcoming itineraries, created the website, the invitation-only telegram channel where we are releasing the first content, and hope to start this summer with the first groups.
Really interesting! As you know, there are several tour operators organizing trips to these areas, what do you think distinguishes your project from others?
We say our trips are not for everyone*! We want to propose something different: exploration, adventure, transformative experiences, meeting people and cultures for people with a common mindset on issues of sustainability, human and environmental, and supporting development, not welfarism. This is what distinguishes us from others
In part you have already answered this, but what do you want the impact of Travel The Unwritten to be on the territories you traverse and the populations you encounter?
We want to promote encounters with diversity, we believe in travel as a personal growth experience, and we want to contribute to the development of the areas we visit in a sustainable way.
From what we have seen in these months you are a very close-knit and above all determined team, have you encountered difficulties and obstacles on your way?
Of course, difficulties are there for everyone! The main obstacle for us was to go from ideas to reality! Creating all the tasks and getting them on the ground. Fortunately, Apical's Pilot Program helped us a lot to have clear blocks to develop and carry out in proper time.
By the way, how did you get in touch with Apical and why did you decide to participate in the Pilot Program?
The Pilot Program was recommended to us by a friend. We decided to participate because we found an entity that could support our innovative drive.
Then the comparison with the other projects was really interesting. I think the desire to create transformative experiences is the common denominator of all the projects in our Pilot edition. Then of course everyone declines it according to the field in which they are placed.
It was great to see how comparing even unrelated projects can enrich individual projects so much.