Today we’d like to introduce you to Mandy Picchiottino.
Mandy, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My name is Mandy Picchiottino and I own a travel company, Land + See Tours. I help busy professionals by custom-building authentic and immersive travel experiences so they can maximize their vacation time and travel with ease. I also build and operate a handful of international group tours every year. This past year I led groups through Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro.
My business came about organically but in quite an unexpected way. I was a high school Language Arts teacher for 12 years and assumed I would be one until I retired. However, on a family trip to Italy one summer, I sat next to the most interesting man and his wife on the plane, who, ironically, owned and operated their own travel company. They were traveling with a group of retired seniors to the Netherlands and he told me his life story–that he’d been an uneducated farmer, that he had seen a need in his local senior community and started small–taking them on day trips and slowly branching further and further out. He asked me about my career and challenged me to consider taking my students to see the world–promising that it would make a tangible difference in their lives and make the world a more compassionate, empathetic place if more and more students experienced the world at a young age.
I had young children at the time and thought his idea was beautiful but totally unrealistic. The liability alone made me shudder. I kick myself every day that I didn’t exchange contact information with this man, but needless to say, I couldn’t get his challenge out of my mind.
When I went home I reflected on my own opportunities to travel at a young age–how it pushed me and shaped my worldview–how being a foreigner and having to answer for my entire nation shifted my perspective when I saw immigrants in my own country.
At the time I taught in a rural, predominantly white area. There was very little diversity in any capacity–race, political viewpoints, religion. After a racially tense explosion one afternoon in my class I decided it was my duty to provide opportunities for growth not only inside the classroom but to take it outside as well.
I started small–scared as I was, and decided to partner with a big box tour company start. We took one trip a year with anywhere from 20-30 students each time. Slowly, I started to get frustrated with the limitations and rules the other companies had—if something of cultural interest was close-by or we had studied it in class, the answer was steady “sorry, it’s not on the itinerary.” After a few unsafe situations, one too many hotels with bedbugs, and the revelation of some of the company’s more predatory business practices, I decided to take the training wheels off and plan my own tour. It wasn’t enough to expose the kids to the world—we needed to do it ethically. We needed to really interact with the locals and feel the energy of the places we visited. That simply wasn’t happening before.
I didn’t have the backing of a travel agent or anyone to help me, but I formed an LLC and slowly built it from the ground up. I would spend hours researching the depth of each place we planned to visit—what off-the-beaten-path gems were there to uncover? Who could we speak to that walked a slightly different path than our own that would challenge us and cause us to grow? I started calling this my “Anthony Bourdain Experience” and each trip had to have one. Some favorites over the years have been dining with a same-sex Icelandic couple, a member of Parliament for the Green Party in Berlin, monks who brew beer to fund their home for disabled adults, and local farmers just trying to make ends meet. We have met some of the most interesting and inspiring people by having the courage to wander slightly off the beaten path.
Now we have taken thousands of people all over the world and have grown tremendously, weathering the storm of covid, even.
It’s something I’m incredibly proud of and I believe that traveling responsibly involves pushing ourselves beyond our comfort zones, immersing ourselves in the culture, trying to integrate into it, and coming away with a different perspective than we went into it with.
The world is a better place when we see the other people in it and the reflection of ourselves in them.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
There were definitely multiple learning curves on the path, but I’d say the most difficult was the Covid-19 pandemic.
We were forced to cancel all of our tours scheduled for that year and the upcoming year and reimburse all of our travelers–even from our own pocket. Unfortunately, we were never reimbursed for the airline deposits or insurance, so we lost a considerable amount of our own money.
It has taken quite a while, but we are finally catching up financially and didn’t have to close the shop.
It was important to us to make sure that our travelers’ money was protected at all costs.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am definitely a huge fan of Anthony Bourdain. He had an uncanny way of getting people to open up. I also love that he didn’t hesitate to show a place as it truly was–the good, the bad, the underbelly–everything!
On our tours, we seek to find as many locals to interact with as possible. We don’t want only the touristy/whitewashed version of the cities we see–we want to experience them as they truly are–the way Bourdain would.
Our “Anthony Bourdain” experiences on each tour strive to do exactly that and have led to some incredible friendships, challenging conversations, and shifting perspectives.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
I would love to hire a few ambassadors who I can train to lead trips and allow me to take more of a backseat role.
Right now because my children are small I can only lead so many tours, but I’d love to get a few interns to “show the ropes” so that more people had the opportunity to see the world.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.landandseetours.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/land_and_see_tours/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/landandseetours
Image Credits
Mandy Picchiottino, Brooklyn Phillips
