Why one Italian travel writer hates selfie culture, laments the way people approach travel today
Marco Ferrarese talks about the sense of adventure that brought him to Asia and why contemporary travellers make him sick
Crashing out I was born in 1980 and grew up in a small town called Voghera, close to Milan, with my parents and elder brother. My father didn’t like to go far from Italy, or Italian food, so each summer we went to the southern coast.
The only thing I really remember from early childhood was from when I was about seven years old. My brother and I were sitting in my father’s little yellow Fiat. The keys were in the ignition and I managed to start the car. It felt like an out-of-body experience – I saw the car rolling down the hill and smashing into a wall. The car was completely destroyed, but my brother was fine and I only had a nosebleed. After that accident I started stammering very badly and could barely talk. I had to spend time in a hospital for speech problems.
Home alone My best friend was called Paco and I spent a lot of time with him and at his house. His parents were hippy types and instead of going to the seaside, his father jumped in his camper van and went to Norway or France. I was attracted to this.
There wasn’t much to do in our small town, but it had a big music scene. When I was 12, Paco and I started a band. I really liked heavy metal music and horror movies back then. At school people bullied me because of my stammer. I used the horror movies and things that were unconventional to lift myself a bit because I couldn’t really talk.
It took me until I was 14 or 15 and playing in bands to get over this – punk rock helped me to talk. Our first band was called Home Alone; it was a pop-punk band with Italian lyrics and our parents drove us to gigs. Later, when our guitarist turned 18 and got a car, it was easier to get around.