The Slow Travellers is a tour operator that crafts slow-travel journeys rooted in nature, cultural depth, and community-powered experiences.

While Smaranda was talking passionately about her regenerative business, I noted the elements that emerged and traced the connections hinting at the essence of her project.

Smaranda started as a freelance tour guide and recognising the need to make local experiences more visible to foreigners, she built a platform where locals could offer experiences directly to travellers. Her motivation has always been to show the real Romania; the beauty of its nature and how people live and work in alignment with it.

She recognised that while many travellers preferred to rely on familiar platforms like Airbnb, these channels often fail to capture the full richness of Romania she wanted to bring into focus. The deeper issue, however, was a widespread lack of accessible, reliable information about the destination. For those choosing to travel independently, without the guidance of a tour operator, the chances of discovering the authentic, lived experience of Romania were significantly reduced.

In response, she set out to build a platform where tourism service providers – especially independent freelancers – could showcase and pin their unique, locally rooted experiences, reducing reliance on traditional tour operators. Yet, after a thorough validation process, she encountered a clear reluctance from providers to adopt this model.

This insight led her to rethink her approach. She transitioned into becoming a tour operator herself, curating what ransformative journeys – personalised travel experiences that not only immerse visitors in Romania’s landscapes, culture, and communities, but also actively support and integrate the very local experiences she initially sought to promote. A great example in her network is Boots on Roots of Cristina Cucu who organise explorations in the Carpathian wilderness.

We spoke about the potential of slow travel in making these regions thrive while staying aligned with nature. Through the concept map we co-created, we can see clearly the essence of her work and can also immediately see where we can connect. One idea was to connect with Nature Desks of Ioana Biris to start offering workations that become transformative journeys for both the traveller and the hosts. Ioana’s interview is already planned and will be coming up soon.

This is Cobana’s mission: blending global and local voices towards a regenerative future. Not to have them set up more structures that drain the energy of the work, but to connect them so the work is compatible and strengthens the global impact that we need.

Watch this space for more interviews and blending.