As you travel the world, you continuously run across things you never thought you might. Some are big, some are minor.
All Uncle Ben is good for in the states is rice, but it seems he has been secretly spending some time south of the border. If you want mexican food products in Italy, Uncle Ben’s runs the market. In fact, his little monopoloy is such that tortillas (not very good ones) cost $0.50 each
Michael Kovnick is the Co-founder & CEO of Culture Discovery Vacations, the small-group cultural travel company he's run as a direct operator since 2006. An Italian-American who's spent 40+ years with one foot in The USA and the other in Italy, he built CDV around a simple, stubborn idea: keep the majority of every travel dollar in the local community, and treat guests like family instead of customers. He's a CTIE-certified travel professional, published in 2025 on the anti-extractive tourism model CDV is built on. He still writes here about the gap between how Americans and Italians see the world... and which side got it right.