Not every place that moves her ends up becoming a trip. That is Yfigenia Moreno Aponte’s first rule. A graduate of our Master in Travel Journalism, she has founded YFI Moreno Viajes de Autor, her own brand of small-group, author-led journeys. If you have ever wondered how to design a curated trip that is more than another tour, her method is a good place to start: it looks far more like reporting a story than packaging a holiday.
What is a curated, author-led trip?
A curated trip is a small-group journey designed by one person with a clear point of view on a place. The itinerary is built like a story, not a checklist of sights.
Yfigenia describes it as a limited-edition journey through a territory that has been researched, interpreted and cross-checked before it ever becomes a route. What sets it apart from a standard tour is not luxury or the number of landmarks. It is the narrative thread that links every stop, every meal and every conversation.
From financial planning to travel journalism
Yfigenia did not come from the travel industry. For years she worked as a financial planning adviser, speaker and coach in Venezuela, helping people organise their decisions and think about the future.
Travel had always been central to her life, but the master’s gave her a craft for looking at places. As she puts it in one of her articles, working as a travel journalist taught her that behind the obvious there is almost always another story. That idea sits at the heart of her project.
Today she connects both worlds through one question: what life do we want to build, and how do we want to live it? Planning protects the future; travel reminds us what we are protecting it for.
How to design a curated trip in 6 steps
Yfigenia laid out her process in a LinkedIn article (in Spanish), How do you choose a territory for an author-led journey? Read it with a journalist’s eye and you will recognise every stage.
1. Start with a question, not a destination
Her starting point is never “what should we see”. It is a question: what can this place reveal that the familiar view leaves out? It is the same question a journalist asks before pitching a story to an editor.
2. Research it as if you were writing a feature
Before setting foot there, she studies the place’s history, memory, culture, food and present-day reality. She looks at how communities live, what role women play, how the local economy works and where the tensions lie between conservation, tourism and everyday life.
3. Listen to the people who know the ground
Next come conversations with locals, fellow travellers and inbound tourism specialists, the people who know the real distances, seasons, access and limits. One detail matters: these interviews are not meant to confirm an idea she already has, but to challenge it.
4. Test it on the ground
A place can be captivating in the imagination and still not be ready for a coherent, safe, slow-paced journey. The reverse can also happen: a craft or an almost invisible story reveals the real reason to go.
5. Apply a filter, and learn to say no
To become an edition, a territory has to meet five criteria:
- It has something to say beyond the postcard.
- It allows a route with logic, rhythm and purpose.
- It has local partners who know and respect its reality.
- It encourages encounters, not just visits.
- It leaves travellers with a question, a connection or a new way of seeing.
If it fails, there is no trip. In her words, curating also means saying no.
6. Build the itinerary like a story
Only then does the itinerary take shape, not as a list of places but as a narrative sequence. Every transfer, every meal and every conversation is there for a reason. Even the quiet moments are part of the structure, just as in a well-crafted travel feature.
Sicilia Susurrada, the founding edition
The first YFI Moreno journey is Sicilia Susurrada (Whispered Sicily), subtitled “between volcanoes and olive trees”. Yfigenia did not choose the island because it was fashionable, but because it held a story worth telling from a different angle.
She is drawn to a Sicily that preserves and transforms at the same time, and above all to its women: those who hold together families, kitchens and crafts, revive traditions, work the land or lead cultural and tourism projects. The trip is built around those voices, with time to sit down, listen and understand why a family still prepares a recipe the way it has for generations.
For Yfigenia, one of the great luxuries today is exactly that: having enough time to observe.
What does travel journalism have to do with designing trips?
More than you might think. The skills at the core of the Master in Travel Journalism (researching, interviewing, finding an angle and structuring a story) are exactly what anyone needs to design travel experiences with a real identity.
Travel journalists learn to seek out local sources, to distrust first impressions and to shape raw material so it makes sense to someone else. Yfigenia has taken that approach from the page to the experience itself: instead of writing the story, she invites travellers to walk through it.
Her path widens the map of what our graduates go on to do. Some move into newsrooms, like Bianca Timofte; others publish their own projects, like Alba Martí’s ethical guide to visiting Mapuche communities. You can browse more in our Student Work Showcase Hub. Yfigenia has chosen to build her own business.
What you can learn from her story
- Your previous career is an asset. Coming from another field is not a drawback; it may be exactly what gives your project its personality.
- Method matters more than inspiration. Emotion opens the door, but research decides whether the trip exists.
- Local sources are the heart of the journey. Without partners on the ground, there is no authentic experience.
- A clear angle sets you apart. In her case, women and the way places are changing.
- Sharing your process is communication too. Her LinkedIn articles explain how she works, and that builds trust before she sells anything.
Travelling to understand
Yfigenia’s work shows that travel journalism does not end on the page. The same discipline that produces a strong feature can produce a curated trip with soul: ask questions, listen, verify and tell the story with intent.
As she writes, perhaps the point of travelling is not to escape our lives, but to return to them with different eyes.
If you want to learn how to research places and turn them into stories, whether for a publication, a project of your own or journeys you design yourself, the Master in Travel Journalism at the School of Travel Journalism is a great place to start.
