Our Journey.
We established the Antica Travel Co. cultural travel experiences brand in September 2022 as a natural and timely extension of our award-winning Antica Australis cultural dining experiences, which first opened in an heritage 1927 haberdashery store in the historic village of Carcoar in regional NSW, Australia in March 2020.
The original vision for Antica Australis was for it to serve as a platform for attracting like-minded, curious food and cultural explorers, who would then follow us to Ciociaria for an authentic and immersive culinary and cultural travel experience. As a way to ‘gather our tribe’.
Prior to the global pandemic, for three glorious years from 2016-2019 we hosted our Wild Heart of Italy food & wine cultural adventures through our former boutique food and wine tour company, Silver Compass Tours - which unfortunately didn’t survive the initial impact of the pandemic.
Our mission from March 2020 was focused solely on successfully navigating Antica Australis through choppy waters, keeping the north star of our original vision as our guiding light.
In September 2024, we were finally able to commence making our vision a reality with the launch of our first reinvigorated and personally-hosted Ciociaria Cultural Travel Experiences. Additionally, we co-hosted two gourmet cycle tours through Ciociaria in partnership with fellow Australian operator, Colin Bransgrove of Bespoke Cycle Tours.
From March 2025, we will be relocating from Australis to Ciociaria in central Italy to truly live and breathe our Antica Travel Co. brand, continuing to deliver our Ciociaria Cultural Travel Experiences and Gourmet Cycle Tours while developing a series of new itineraries and experiences.
Our focus has always been on providing truly unique ‘behind-the-scenes’ access and insight into remote and ‘undiscovered’ regions brimming with ancient history and vitality, and in supporting local artisans to continue their traditional practices into the future.
While we design and curate our itineraries ourselves from on-ground lived experience, we engage local guides in each respective region to collaborate in hosting our guests. Our local guides are experienced academics, archaeologists, artisanal producers, culinary creatives and art historians - and our very close personal friends.
We can’t wait to introduce you to our favourite secret corners in the world.
We invite you to follow us off the beaten path and into the extraordinary.
Paolo & Kelly Picarazzi
Founders of Antica Travel Co. and Antica Australis.
Years of research & relevant experience.
We have spent over ten years researching in-depth into the ancient history of the Ciociaria and Molise regions, including seven years of on-ground exploration with the help of an individual team of local academics and archeologists.
Paolo is a Ciociarian native and is descended from the Ernici & Volscii tribes of the original Samnite civilisation of central Italy, and as such he is deeply connected to the land.
As the culinary creative behind the revival of the ancient and traditional cuisine of Ciociaria through the Antica Australis cultural dining experiences, Paolo is a genuine and passionate food & local produce enthusiast.
He was awarded an AGFG Chef Hat for his artisanal craft at Antica Australis in 2021 and Antica Australis in Carcoar was awarded a Bronze in the 2022 NSW Tourism Awards in the ‘tourism restaurants’ category in recognition of our contribution to the local community and the economic revival of the historic village of Carcoar.
Australian-born Kelly has a background in global tourism, with a focus on sustainable and cultural heritage tourism. She was noted as one of the global Travel Massive ‘100 Inspiring Women Travel Founders’ list for 2020.
Passionate & visionary.
We re-design our on-ground itineraries bespoke for every single tour. No experience is ever the same. This is born from our passion and belief in the continual evolution of the regions we are visiting and to align with the personal adventures our curious & cultured travellers are seeking.
