Hi! I’m Darinka and I was born in a quiet little “one horse town” by the peaceful sides of Lake Maggiore almost 4 decades ago. I moved to England as soon as I could get out of it and graduated in Photographic Arts from Westminster University in 2004. After that I’ve been on an endless journey through many countries and lived in every continents –except the poles. Life has taken me on a roller coaster of adventures. I’ve done any sort of crazy job you can imagine, from teaching English to Laotian kids to massaging poker player’s heads in casinos. I’ve been a bikini bartender, I owned a restaurant, I’ve been rich, I’ve been poor, I’ve slept in squats and five stars hotel and absorbed as a sponge the journey who made me into what I am now.
About 4 years ago, after a very painful heartbreak, I decided the time for change had arrived. (WATCH MY TED TALK -ENGLISH SUBS AVAILABLE) I was tired of adapting to the world around me and wanted to take matter into my own hands. I quitted my job and I decided to simply focus on my passions: TRAVELING, WRITING, PHOTOGRAPHY, and DREAMING. So I started my own project. I walked 3000 km from the very bottom of Italy to the top, with a diary, a camera, no money and a box in which I collected people’s dreams. I called it walkaboutitalia. The performance of walkabout was a search of what’s left of our deepest desires in a society that struggles to monopolise everything, even fantasies. Walkabout was an expedition in search of trust and solidarity, a journey among the external and internal landscape of my country and its people.
My long walk first turned into a blog and soon after into a book, and to promote it I traveled all around Italy again, but this time with an electric bamboo bicycle and a small chariot attached to it in which I carried up to 60 books at the time. My first book has been a little editorial success in Italy and encouraged me to keep writing and share my stories.
I’ve now written and published a second book: Mondonauta (english version to come out in 2019 fall) and subsequently its success I’ve decided to fully dedicate myself to adventure travel and writing. I’m currently cycling and sailing across the globe and working on my third book.
