Roberto Lombardo

I was born in the splendid city of Trieste on a sunny winter day in 1982 with the Bora wind blowing. Having grown up in an Italian-Slovenian bilingual family, I proudly consider myself multicultural, a child of that formidable intertwining between populations and historical events that are the hallmark of these places. Even as a little child I liked to wander with my imagination among maps, in search of places and adventures. Once I was old enough, I started to travel independently and from then on, I have never stopped. Neither have I ever stopped exploring the area surrounding my home, falling head over heels in love with Slovenia’s mountains and green woods. Amazing in all seasons, Slovenia has always been the ideal destination for excursions in the open air, so close to Trieste that you could round off a day in the mountains with a sunset dip in the Adriatic. 

Over the years, my desire to study what I saw and to understand the people and the places I encountered better became stronger and stronger. I graduated in anthropology, focussing my research on the footprints that tourism leaves behind in developing countries. Travelling to these places, I rediscovered the importance of traditions, popular culture and the true value of time marked by the slow pace of nature.

With a view to studying valid sustainable tourism projects, I ended up living with the peasants on the Ethiopian plateaus for a while. There in the mountains I had the opportunity to give a helping hand in creating new ways of upgrading the territory’s human and natural heritage sustainably. I was convinced I could do likewise on the plateaus back home, by promoting a concept of travelling that combines the intuitive knowledge of the locals with the curiosity of a wayfarer who never wants to give up searching.