All of us on the UnTours team have been here for 20 or more years, which is a good thing, given how knowledge intensive our work in Europe is. So when Andi Cancelliere Sheehan, our Italian UnTour Director for 25 years, left our staff during COVID, it was hard to imagine how to fill those…
The Basilica of Sacré-Coeur’s distinctive white dome floats above Paris, a landmark visible from all quarters of the city. Anchored in Montmartre, the beautiful church has been witness to the neighborhood’s evolution, from bohemian artists’ hive to tourist hotspot. Its slopes and benches have hosted generations of young loungers, bohemians, and lovers. The Sacred Heart…
Jonathan Coleman is the Co-CEO of the UnTours Foundation. He just returned from his first trip to Switzerland, on a Swiss UnTour. Here are his impressions. When traveling, one meets interesting people. It’s an inevitable truth and an undeniable draw for those of us who feel the need to travel deep within our souls. When…
Our Castle UnTour in Bavaria is a unique program, where guests stay in comfortably furnished apartments in a medieval castle. They are hosted by the baron and his wife, and generally treated regally. Manfred and Lilo reported missing their guests when travel was shut down. (They are photographed below.) So they were delighted to host…
Hal Taussig founded UnTours back in 1975, long before the peer economy or the internet. His tour company created a new way to travel, and he built a business that supported local economies in his host communities in Europe while promoting a low-impact travel model that connected Americans with new cultures and ideas. Hal ran…
Recently our colleague Joao, from Sintra, Portugal, was cleaning out some old paperwork and stumbled upon a thank you note from UnTourists whom he had hosted during the tragic events of 9/11, back in 2001. Joao hosted the first iteration of our Sintra UnTour back then (which was simply the Portugal UnTour, as we had…
This far into COVID, I think some of us are tiring of our own cooking and the drabness of our grocery shopping routines. So, a little inspiration from the Mercados Municipais Estefânia in Sintra, a small but popular food hall in town that offers fresh produce and a wide range of foodstuffs. It is a popular…
…And we’re back! Italy was the first country in Europe to shut down, so it felt particularly satisfying and a little poetic that it was one of our first countries to welcome UnTourists this summer. The Lorenzis and the Moormans were our first guests in Italy, the first UnTourists to return to Italy since 2019….
Every ten years the Netherlands hosts a massive exposition on plants and flowers, a nod to its role at the international epicenter of all things green and blooming. Each decade’s show is a big deal, drawing visitors from around the world and appealing to horticultural professionals and the general public in equal measure. The next…
