Author @TravelCDV

Michael Kovnick

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.

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Culture

How to avoid getting ripped off as a tourist in Italy

When you are traveling, sometimes you can just feel it. You go to pay for something, and you just know that if you were a local, you would have paid a much lower price. You are an ‘unsuspecting tourist’, and they will take you...

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Culture

Baseball, Italian Style

On my last trip to Italy, I was hoping to attend an Italian NFL football game. Actually, it was the ‘Silverbowl’. Unfortunately, Paola wasn’t feeling well, so we ended up skipping it. Still, while browsing one...