BEHIND AWAYO
Before AWAYO, there was the journey.
I’m Francisco. For years I travelled, worked and lived abroad. Over time, that experience became a way of observing, listening and designing journeys with more intention.
BEHIND AWAYO
Before AWAYO, there was travel first.
For almost twelve years I lived, travelled and worked abroad. I started with a Work and Travel experience in the United States and, after graduating from university, I decided to leave a more or less orderly life behind and move to Italy.
At that time, I still associated living abroad with a rather naive idea of success. As if leaving, changing countries or building something far from home automatically meant moving forward. Later, I understood it was not that simple.
I spent time in Italy, France, Switzerland and Spain. France was where I lived the longest, working seasonal jobs between the French Alps and the Atlantic coast. I worked in hospitality, gastronomy, service, mountain environments and with travellers from many different countries.
I moved between languages, cultures, codes, different teams and very different ways of understanding life. There were incredible experiences, but also intense seasons, setbacks, solitude, adaptation, uncertainty and lessons that can only be understood once you go through them.
Travel shaped the way I see
Over time, I understood that travelling, for me, was not only about arriving in a city and visiting its typical places. Something happened when I moved closer to nature, away from urban noise, walking, looking, breathing and entering another rhythm.
The mountains began to occupy a very strong place in the way I travel. Walking became a kind of meditation in motion: the body moving forward, the mind quieting down, the landscape putting things into another scale.
I also became increasingly interested in everyday life: local food, music, language, schedules, pauses, conversations and customs. Some things travel with people: a dish may appear, with variations, in very different parts of the world; a word may sound familiar in distant languages; music can reveal migrations, mixtures and ways of living.
Sometimes travelling by bicycle, sometimes with a backpack, sometimes working seasons, sometimes moving less like a tourist and more like someone trying to understand how a territory works from within. That way of travelling shaped a way of seeing: observing how people live, how a place is organised, what rhythm it has, what is shown and what remains outside the postcard.
That mix is where AWAYO begins
AWAYO comes from that mix: experience, intuition, listening and criteria. Years of travel, work abroad, languages, mountains, hospitality, mistakes, routes and conversations with people from many places.
Because listening also means interpreting. We are not here to sell destinations as if they were postcards. We want to bring you closer to a more conscious, more careful way of travelling, one that is more connected to the moment you are living.
First, understand. Then, organise. And only then, design a journey that makes sense.
START
If something is already calling you
Tell us what kind of trip has been on your mind. We organize it together and define the best way to turn it into a real journey.
