Donna Moderna, the Mondadori Group brand that is the point of reference in the women’s segment, with a total audience of around 11 million users (Source: Nielsen Media Impact Data Fusion, December 2020), is launching a special insert with the issue on newsstands this week dedicated to the latest Italian holiday trends: slow and sustainable tourism, which focuses on the discovery of the country’s historical and natural wonders.

From medieval towns to the cities of art, hikes immersed in nature to beautiful cycleways, and from panoramic railway routes to the unmissable spots for campervan enthusiasts, this special insert of the magazine edited by Annalisa Monfreda explains how readers and users can enjoy a “slow” holiday that is consistent with the enhancement of often forgotten cultural assets and landscapes.

“We talk about ways of travelling that people are finding increasingly attractive but often struggle to adopt because they think they might not be appropriate for their physical capacities or are just too uncomfortable.  But this is not true, as we see from the stories of people who have tried, sometimes almost by chance, these ways of travelling and never looked back. The itineraries that we have selected are ideal for beginners!” commented Donna Moderna editor, Annalisa Monfreda.

A 24-page journey, broken down into four chapters each introduced by a travel influencer and dedicated to holidays on foot, in a campervan, on bicycle and by train respectively. Each chapter includes six trips presented in six profiles, full of information about travel times, distances and the unmissable stops along the way, as well as a range of practical and original suggestions to make the best of your holiday.

Starting with itineraries strictly on foot, with panoramic walks through Tuscany, Sicily, Trentino-Alto Adige, Emilia-Romagna, Campania and Sardinia. They will be introduced by an interview with the singer-songwriter Jack Jaselli, who, though born in Milan, is an inveterate wanderer, and who has made an 800-km trip on foot along the ancient Via Francigena, from Pavia to Rome.

This is followed by the narration of Anna Luciani, couch-surfer and low-cost traveller who, armed with a video-camera, has travelled the length and breadth of Italy along with her partner Simone Chiesa, interviewing foreigners who have settled in Italy. Her suggestions will guide readers along routes that can be made by campervan and the discovery of landscapes and the food and wine specialties of Valle d’Aosta, Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto, Umbria and Calabria.

Introducing the chapter dedicated to cycling holidays, through the mountains and along the coasts of Piedmont, Liguria, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Trentino-Alto Adige, Veneto, Lazio and Sicily Sicilia, we will have the Como-born cycling influencer Francesca Giani, an authentic ambassador of the concept of sustainable mobility.

Meanwhile, the pages that look at train-based itineraries that cross the country from North to South, from Alto Adige to Puglia, by way of Piedmont, Liguria, Tuscany, Marche, Abruzzo and Molise, will be accompanied by the words of travellers Tiziana Nuvoli and Stefano Floris, well-known for having travelled around the world always and only by train.

At the heart of the special insert is a poster with a pull-out map designed to bring together all of the proposed itineraries, the unmissable attractions and hints and suggestions about how to move around in each region that you can take with you.

Lastly, there will be the Donna Moderna online community involvement: in fact, the entire special will also be available on the web, while on social media the brand’s more than 3 million fans (Source: Shareablee + Pinterest and Tik Tok, May 2021) will find photos of the most beautiful itineraries and individual stop-offs, a map that can be screenshot and saved as well as interactive video stories with a survey to identify the most attractive destination. Plus, by using the hashtag #donnamodernainviaggio, users can also have the chance to see their own photos shared across all of the magazine’s social media channels.

The Donna Moderna special dedicated to slow holidays in Italy has been warmly received also by advertisers, confirming the positive trend in the brand’s advertising sales, both print and digital, since the beginning of the year.