Skip Rome, Florence, Venice, and drive through a quieter Italy. My 15-day slow travel itinerary through Umbria, Tuscany, Cinque Terre and Rome — trails, wine, olive oil, and zero tourist mobs.

I walked the Via di Francesco through Umbria — Assisi, Spello, Spoleto — and found the Italy nobody puts on a highlight reel. Here's what that actually looks like.

In 2012, when I visited Tuscany for the first time, I did things that most first-timers do – tick marking all the attractions, travelling everywhere by car, shopping at Florence’s Via de’ Tornabuoni boutiques, eating four-course Italian meals with a bottle of Brunello di Montalcino, climbing the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and spending hundreds of…

Whenever I visit an offbeat place I am always fraught with an anxiety whether I should tell people about that place or not. In the garb of tourism we are destroying the ecological balance. You’ll hear lot of people use ‘Ecotourism’ in their sales pitch. But very few understand it. One such place where it is…