About me

Hello, this is Marco Zannin, owner, writer and photographer of this blog called Diaries of an Explorer.

ME AS A TRAVELLER

Actually I don't know when my passion for travels started: for sure it has been a sum of several things and maybe something inheritated by someone in my family. Until the 17th b-day I mostly travelled with my family around Italy and just few cases I went abroad ( Croatia or Austria). I've always been grateful to my parents as they let me discover my country in deep, instead of going abroad when I was child or a boy.

The year 1997 represented maybe the starting point of everything. The first safari and volunteer experience in Kenya and the trip to the city that so far has impressed much, Rome, gave me the curiosity to discover more about the world.

The year 1998 was important too: in fact I visited Paris in February, then in June I had my first international experience at the Leeds Metropolitan University in Leeds, United Kingdom.

Besides that 3 weeks course the great experience was to be with people from Russia, Brasil, Spain, Mexico, Sweden, Japan, China and England and there were no Italians so I was obliged to speak English all the time. That experience pushed me to do it again but a little bit longer and the following trip to London convinced me even more to discover the world.

"I was born Venetian and Italian, but the curiosity pushed me to live in other countries and my soul became also Spanish and Dutch: maybe I represent the new breed of European citizen, but one day I know I will feel it as tight so I would need to add other nationalities to my soul"

ME AS STUDENT AND WORKER

This story is strongly connected to the first part as the experience in England was decisive in order to choose the course at the university: International Economics of financial markets in Trieste, Italy.

One of my first questions was: "when can I join the Erasmus Socrates exchange project?" - the answer was: "As of the third year". Well not the during the third but during the 4th year I was selected to join this exchange program and had the possibility to spend an entire year in Barcelona, Spain, at the Universitat de Barcelona.

Source: http://maupes.files.wordpress.com

After an initial period that I was going out with other Erasmus students from all Europe, I realized that the real and authentic experience was to meet some locals and try to live and absorb the most I could from their culture and way of life. The result was brilliant: I even worked as a p.r. for a group of discos called Tunnel Group, travelled around Spain and enjoyed major feasts like Las Fallas in Valencia, San Fermin in Pamplona and the Carnival of Sitges.

Back to Italy, in 2005, despite the temptation to come back to Barcelona, I got the degree in International economics and started working two weeks later for a little insurance broker company based in the province of Treviso as account manager.

The job was not that bad as I was always learning something, getting more and more clients but I understood that I was not a real seller, but more a technical person. And most of all, as I could speak Italian, English and Spanish, it seemed to me a bit a waste to use just my native one. And then as I was single at that time the willingness to come back to an international environment (I call it the Erasmus effect) was increasing and increasing. Something incredible happened: I put a resume in English on Monster.com and some companies (all from Holland) started calling me. At the end of June of 2007 I moved to Maastricht (NL) to work for a life insurance company to work in the administration area.

I spent 3 incredible years in this Dutch city with a Mediterranean spirit: I tried to live with the local people and as i was interested to their culture they treated me like one of them. And also I bought an apartment!

Besides this unfortunately the office closed and in July 2010 I came back to Italy - this time the city is Milan. I received an offer from the Italian branch of my company but after 5+ years of experience I decided to resign in order to explore new ventures, such as freelance writing, financial writing and so on.

Later on, I moved back to Maastricht and the new Dutch adventure started! :-)

ME AS AN EXPLORER

But when happened this? probably during the Erasmus experience in Spain...the first travel without booking anything was the trip to Andalucia, the southern region of Spain...at the beginning the trip was just Sevilla - Granada - Cordoba, but then I could spend a night in Cadiz too.

Since that moment (it was 2002), except when the travel consisted in visiting a city (i.e. Berlin, Rome, Prague and so on), most of my travels have been on the road (some of them were solo travels) by car or by train or by bus...it's the best way to travel: you don't have anything planned but you can decide to stay one day more in a place and one less in another one... but also exploring means finding some hidden places or meeting locals in order to know something more about their culture.

Being an explorer means also living curious, improving yourself, being open-minded, taking risks, being excited for a new adventure and living new experiences! :-)  

"During my travels, I never stop walking, exploring, using even half an hour to see an attraction or a place, sometimes I follow the maps and sometimes I follow my intuition"

"I love the magic of Venice, the history of Berlin, the beauty of Rome, Brugge, Prague and Seville, the Mediterranean spirit of Maastricht, the Spanish feasts, the eclectic London, the nightlife of Barcelona and Miami, the Dolomites landscape, the Sardinian sea, the central markets of Nairobi...in another words: I love this world!"   


Some stats:
Cities visited: 120 in 20 countries (plus 7 US states)
Cities where I lived: 6 (Montebelluna, Trieste, Barcelona, Maastricht, Milan, Leeds)
Number of Unesco sites visited: 54
Continents where I have been: 3


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