A three-day life-changing adventure with Panoramica founders
Meet Panoramica founders during a creative hikes in the Dolomites, Italy, and enjoy the whole studio concept in one place and time, totally offline. Share experiences during day-walks, discussions on creativity, card games, funny challenges, and great Italian food. Become friends with other locals and learn about their way of life in the wild nature.
Overview
“Creative hikes in the Dolomites, Italy”, is a three-day life-changing adventure with the founders of Panoramica creative studio: Ivan Kuznetsov and Irina Kudres, outdoor journalists and photographers with 20 years of professional, travel and creative experience combined.
This is the quintessence of the studio and the most unique experience you can have with it. It contains everything we talk about and can offer — creativity, sports, nature, and positive communication leading to new friendship. All this happens offline in the only non-touristic part of the Dolomites, namely the three mountain communes of Feltrino, Belluno, and Premiero. We organize these hikes not as a travel agency but in cooperation with the locals: the official tourist office and association, various companies, and just our very good friends. In three days we will know each other, share life experiences and just reboot and have fun. Some new words and phrases in Italian (and even Russian) will help you to understand this area better, communicate with people, and make a positive impact on their lives. From them, you will learn their life vision and some practical tips on how to live simpler, hike stronger, and create better.
The creative hikes will appeal to anyone already familiar with Panoramica’s creative work, but who wants to experience it in a direct way and also to show the results of their labors. In one way or another, the hikes give a positive energy boost to all three parties — you, us, and the locals.
I want life to be different after the hike, because it just can’t be the same.
— Irina Kudres, photographer, Bergamo, Italy, after her first hike in the Dolomites in September 2018
Locals
Ivan Kuznetsov and Irina Kudres — co-founders of Panoramica creative studio in the Italian Alps.
They met in the Dolomites during one of the first creative hikes that Ivan organized in September 2019. He first came here in March 2013 to take part in a year-long volunteer project of Legambiente, the largest environmental association in Italy. Ivan lived in a former school, ran workshops for children, led excursions in the mountains, participated in all the village festivities, and wrote and published, with the help of crowdfunding, a book about it all, “The mountain keeper.” (Ridero, 2014). The book is forthcoming in English in Panoramica in 2025. He liked these places so much — both the nature and the people — that he stayed mentally here, and made 10 new shorter trips of about a month each to Lamon over the next 7 years. Irina came to the Dolomites for the first time from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where she worked for an international startup, with frequent trips to Munich, Germany, on the other side of the Alps. They moved to Italy together in 2020, enrolling at the University of Bergamo to major in “Planning and management of tourism systems”. So along the way, they have found another home in the Italian Alps and visited many other places in between and beyond.
Since 2013, they have organised 11 creative hikes for 32 people from Russia, Israel, Canada, Italy, and other countries. Add to that the four week-long volunteer camps for Italians and foreigners and several short excursions that Ivan helped lead while working at Legambiente and you get over 100 people who have already came to Lamon with us, and liked it.
Highlights
• A group from 2 to 6 people
• Totally offline
• 3 days: talks, hikes, games
• 300 euro/person
• From May to October
Contents
The creative hikes lasts three days, where everything is mixed. Nevertheless, in general, the first day is about getting to know each other, the second day is about hiking, and the third day is about creativity.
Day 1: Meeting with Panoramica founders
We will meet before lunch at the train station in Feltre, a town 100 km north of Venice. It is one of the “gateways” to the Dolomites from the south. From here we will take a bus to the town of Lamon higher up in the mountains at 600 meters (30 minutes). In the village we will help you check into your hotel, have lunch together in one of the bars, and go for a walk around the village. In the evening, we’ll have dinner at a pizza place to celebrate the trip. In total, we have about 10 kilometers to walk already on the first day. The day is about getting to know each other, Lamon and its inhabitants, and the Dolomites, but we’ll start talking about creativity and other things right away. This is not a classic tour, so don’t expect historical facts and stuff.
Day 2: Hiking in the mountains
For the whole day we will go on an easy hike to the Lagorai and Pale di San Martino mountains. These are two neighboring major ranges in the Dolomites, the largest by area, up to 3,000 meters. Depending on the season and weather we will climb a mountain plateau, a pass, a spruce forest, and just walk to the villages of Fiera di Premiero and San Martino di Castrozza. During the hike, you will learn about the peculiarities of living in these places in harmony with nature and how the locals make sense of these landscapes through their art. They are architects, painters, sculptors, athletes, guides, and many others. We’ll eat at one of the bars or cafes along the way and take the bus back to Lamon for dinner.
Day 3. Doing creative activities
In the morning we will play a unique game that we created specifically for these hikes based on best questions from the many interviews that Panoramica’s founders have recorded over the years of their work. It will help us to get to know each other on an even deeper level, and for you to get to know yourselves better. After lunch, we will walk to a lost forest lake near Lamon through many smaller villages. In the evening, we will continue to chat about creativity and other topics with dinner at one of the restaurants, or again at a pizzeria. In the evening of the same day or the next morning, we will wish you a happy journey back on your return trip from Lamon or from Feltre, depending on your transportation.
Reviews
This great journey has given me mountains of new things. I’ve learned a new side of myself that I’ve never seen before.
— Tanya, photographer, self-employed, Moscow, Russia
I don’t know how the hike would have turned out if Ivan hadn’t believed in us. But he did, and it was worth a lot. He blessed us to take the hard route instead of the easy one: “I can see that you will make it!”
— Natasha, manager in the game testing group at NVIDIA, San Diego, California, USA
The main impression is not even how beautiful the mountains it is, but understanding of what incredible heights you can climb.
— Katya, web data analyst at T-Bank, Moscow, Russia
Read more reviews from Creative hikes participants and get inspired for your life-changing journey to the Dolomites.
All hikes data
• Title: Creative hike. A three-day life-changing experience with Panoramica studio founders
• Locals: Ivan Kuznetsov, Irina Kudres
• Publisher: Panoramica
• Date of first publication: June 2024, updated: July, 2024
• Languages: English, Italian, Russian
• Format: a group of 2 to 6 people, offline. We are children, families and couples-friendly.
• Duration: 3 days, it doesn’t have to be the weekends
• Season: May to October
• Dates: when it is a good weather
• Start: Lamon or Feltre. You need to be here from 9 to 14 o’clock with Trenitalia train or your car. Belluno, Treviso, Venice, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Trento, and Bassano del Grappa are the nearest cities in 2–4 hours ride
• Finish: Lamon, evening of a third day or the next morning. On Sundays there are no buses to/from Lamon
• Level of hiking difficulty: middle, preferably in good physical shape, we’ll be doing a lot of up an downhill walking
• Max altitude difference: 300 meters at Feltre — 2,700 meters at Pale di San Martino (but it’s not all on foot), max walking is 500 to 1000 meters up and down per day
• Total hiking distance in three days: about 30 km, 10+ km each day
• Food and drinks to expect: a picnic at the lake, family pizzeria, breakfast in hotel or B&B, packed lunch for hiking from a supermarket, three course dinner and breakfast in a mountain hut; drinks in a bars.
• Things to take: good hiking boots or shoes, jacket, raincoat or umbrella.
• Cost: 300 euro per person by bank transfer to Italy some time, generally a week, before a hike; discount for 4+ people; travel, accommodation and food at travelers’ expense, but we will help you to organize your trip and stay
• Gifts: one of Panoramica’s paper books of your choice, postcards, and some other paper products.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask at ciao@panoramica.studio.
Impact
By participating in these creative hikes you are not only discovering the region through outdoor activity you like or want to try for the first time but becoming a part of Panoramica creative studio, a friend and a family member, as we say in Italy. Making these hikes possible we are helping to development of sustainable tourism in the region and building a bridge between it and your place. This leads to positive changes both on a trail of your life and the life of a local communities in the Italian Alps: Feltrino, Primiero, and Belluno in the Dolomites.
Go to Ivan’s and Irina’s profile pages or to the Panoramica Studio page.