Antonella Tignanelli: Traveling Has Probably Been My Biggest Teacher
Antonella Tignanelli started as a chef, but now she arranges spectacular food installations and explores different narratives of the way we eat. With the help of social media she turned into a photographer in order to inspire others and to find inspiration herself. She divides her life equally between traveling and work. Not missing a day without taking a captivating pic, she seeks to share adventures, colors and joy of traveling. Here’s what she has to say about her personal travel experience.
What do you love about travel?
I love almost everything about traveling, I travel quite a lot and I try to divide my life between work and travel almost in equal parts, that's how important traveling is for me. What I love the most about it is to get out of my comfort zone, to discover different cultures and idiosyncrasies (food included) and to be able to save all of the images, sensations and tales of it both in my mind and in less abstract means like photography, video or writing. I think I'm a big collector of memories and that takes place mostly when I travel.
What do you loathe about travel?
Loathe is a big word, but I'd say I really don't enjoy it when I go to a city or country where it's hard to get good food or it's normal to get sick. I definitely don't enjoy getting sick while I travel.
Do you have what is called “a travel bug”? If so, where do you dream of travelling to next?
I definitely have the travel bug and some of the many destinations I would love to go next that I haven't visited are Egypt and India.
What is your most memorable travel adventure?
Hard to say, but definitely one of the best things I've done was going to Tokyo alone and getting lost a million times and having those moments of being lost became my major attraction during the trip.
Have you learned anything valuable during your travels? If so, can you share with others.
I have learnt a huge amount of things while traveling, traveling has probably been my biggest teacher. I think you learn a lot about how versatile you and others can be, and if you're not, you definitely start becoming more and more versatile the more you travel, especially if you don't go only to five star hotels and fancy restaurants. I think I just learnt how to observe and let in the world that surrounds me, and that's something I find very important.
Have you ever had any travel related mishaps? If so, how did you solve them?
OMG so many!!! Many times there were cultural misunderstandings, especially when I was younger. I remember this one time they almost kidnapped me in Costa Rica. Then something very similar happened to a me and a friend when we were in Istanbul and got into a car with two guys we barely knew and they understood we were gonna spend the night over at their place and when we refused they locked the doors for us, creating a horrible scene! After trying to communicate with them without panicking they finally understood we were serious and took us home.
What’s the one thing you cannot go without when traveling?
As Antonella says, in one way or another travel will push you to go out of your comfort zone. Both good and scary experiences such as getting lost in a foreign city might make you more versatile and independent.
