About Us

Two Sites. Two Different Voices. Meet Martha and James

We've been visiting Italy for over 20 years. These days we spend 5 months a year there. We write. We photograph. We make maps and  video, review lodging, cook, and learn many things from our Italian neighbors. He, a former engineer, race car driver, cook, and archaeologist, writes and blogs about Italian places, history, Italian cuisine, archaeological sites and culture on Wandering Italy. She writes about the joys of bella Italia on Martha's Italy. A former teacher, she knows how to make the directions to every off the beaten track clear enough so anyone can understand them.

We both began our travel writing careers long ago with the rising star called about.com. We learned a lot about writing for the web, but when the star began to wane, we went out on our own and feel vitalized as we think about approaching things in a more modern way with our ability to access technologies we weren't allowed to use at About. Interactive maps? Yep, we make 'em now.

We are Martha Bakerjian and James Martin. We serve travelers in the best way we know how. And we are very happy people.

We get around in cars, hot air balloons, and, as you see, trains.

Our Readers

Our readers tend to be highly educated, mature travelers, mostly from the United States and Italy. They like to walk, just as we do--perhaps on Roman Roads in Sardinia, as shown on the right. Along with walking they tend to like and respect the elements of nature that fuel them. They eat artisan foods. They take cooking classes; they learn to make cheese like Sardinian shepherds make Pecorino Sardo.

And these things are exactly the things we like to cover.

Press Trips

While a majority of our information is gathered on self-financed trips, as is common in the industry we accept a limited number of press trips per year. 

We are in Italy for a minimum of 5 months per year. If you have a trip planned while we are in northern Tuscany, it is quite possible we can get to the gathering point inexpensively via car or train. 

We work with both the tourist industry as well as private individuals who just want to show off their little corner of Italy. Like many travel writers and bloggers, we offer an array of social media options for getting the word out. However, we believe that your promotional needs are better served by compelling, detailed articles expertly written by folks who are aware that their readers might not know how to get to a small village or who can't manage to order a desired dish in an Italian restaurant in which the waiter doesn't speak English. Heaven help the squeamish when he brings out the whole, unbutchered animal to explain your options while using his hand as if it were a cleaver.

In short, we'd rather provide you with a number of concise, evergreen articles so that our readers and even novice travellers can be fully informed--and which have a value and lifetime exceeding that of a million and one tweets quite easily. 

To contact us, use the contact button on the upper right of this page.