FRIENDS

Grantourismo is our baby. A personal travel experiment. An innovative project. A new way of working as much as travelling.

Every now and again Grantourismo will form friendships, sometimes very special friendships, as we did with HomeAwayUK for a year from February 2010 until February 2011. Our relationship with HomeAwayUK was the first for Grantourismo and a first-of-its-kind partnership that redefined the relationship between travel companies and travel writers, and we’ll always treasure it. Read more about that partnership and what it involved here.

We also formed friendships with other travel companies (listed below) and every now and again we will form new friendships with like-minded travel and tourism bodies, businesses and organizations. If you believe in slow and sustainable travel, experiential travel, local travel, and you think that giving something back to the places we visit is a nice thing to do, and you want to work together, get in touch.

These are some of the partnerships we’ve formed that we’ve been pretty fond of:

About HomeAway.co.uk

Based in London and founded in 1996, HomeAway.co.uk connects travellers with home owners and managers, providing access to a huge variety of great value, unique accommodation worldwide. Their worldwide sites have the largest selection of homes available online, with over 450,000 properties travellers can browse for free and book with confidence. Finding and booking a holiday home rental is as easy, quick and secure as booking a hotel. In 2010, HomeAway.co.uk sent Lara and Terence around the world to stay in 36 of their holiday rental properties around the world, and use the homes as a base for a wide array of enriching experiences. Lara and Terence blogged about their experiences living in the properties and exploring the destinations on Grantourismo. To read about those experiences, take a look at our archives from January 2010 until March 2011.

HomeAway.

About Viator

Viator.com is the traveler’s one-stop-shop for researching, planning and booking destination activities in more than 450 destinations worldwide. They offer thousands (and that’s no exaggeration) of adventure activities, city tours, off-the-beaten-path experiences, educational tours, theater and show tickets, city passes, day trips… you name it, they probably offer it, all hand-selected by the Viator team, and all available at your fingertips on the award-winning Viator.com website. With a little help from Viator, travelers can easily wear the hat of a true local as they ride a bike through the streets of Amsterdam, shop the markets in Marrakech, or surf the big waves of Hawaii. Find out more by reading the Viator Travel Blog or follow Viator on Twitter.

viator

About Context

Context organizes stimulating scholar-led walking tours, gastronomic dinners with food experts, bar-hopping wine appreciation courses with qualified sommeliers, engaging site-visits, and other compelling travel experiences in the major cultural capitals of Europe and the USA. With group sizes limited to six people and docents drawn from local universities, research institutions, and museums, Context’s ‘seminar-style’ walks are designed to help the erudite traveller appreciate and defend a city without overrunning it.

CONTEXT

About Rail Europe

Rail Europe is the UK’s leading specialist in tickets and passes for rail travel around Europe. They’ve been helping travellers heading for the continent for around a hundred years as the UK arm of the French National Railways (SNCF). So whether you simply want to get from the UK to the continent by rail, or you’re planning a European-wide rail adventure, they will be able to provide the right ticket or pass option for you. The newly relaunched website – www.raileurope.co.uk – makes it easy to find information on what to expect on European trains, at the stations and once you reach your destination as well as top tips to make booking your tickets and the actual journey easier.

Trourist

Trourist is a social network for people seeking to live their travel destinations, not merely visit them, and a meeting point for people who travel to be connected with the world, not disconnected from it. At Trourist you’ll be able to seek travel experiences from friends or other travelers with similar yearnings and let them in on your secrets, the real experiences that make your city – or ones which you’ve been to – so special.

Trourist.

About AFAR Media

AFAR is a multi-platform brand for experiential travelers who have the desire and the means to immerse themselves in other cultures, to engage with local people, and to enrich their own lives. AFAR Media will take its audience to the real experience of travel. Their mission is to inspire and guide those who travel the world seeking to connect with its people, experience their culture, and understand their perspectives. The company will pursue this mission by seeking to capture the true essence of experiential travel: connection between the traveler, a place, and its people.