Stephanie Rafanelli, Freelance Journalist Profile

Articles

23 best things to do in Florence, from lesser-known Museo Stibbert to trending Vivoli

1 week ago | cntravellerme.com | Stephanie Rafanelli |Erica Firpo

The concept of a "new Florence" might seem like an oxymoron; like the new Botticelli or Michelangelo, two masters of the Renaissance that the city of the Rinascimento has leaned on for the last five centuries. Florence is so rich with artistic and architectural wonders; who can blame the conservative Florentines for resting on their laurels or sore-footed visitors for having the sensation that the great Tuscan capital is just one big stifling museum?
Volcanoes, witches, and wild beauty: inside Italy’s secret isle of Panarea

4 weeks ago | cntraveler.com | Stephanie Rafanelli

All products and listings featured on Condé Nast Traveler are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. “I traveled the globe looking for a home. Then I came to Panarea and found one—with the whole world within it.” This scrawl, attributed to one “Mastro Ciccio, 1920”, is chalked in dialect on the entrance to his Aeolian island home.
Volcanoes, witches, and wild beauty: inside Italy’s secret isle of Panarea

1 month ago | cntraveller.com | Stephanie Rafanelli

“I travelled the globe looking for a home. Then I came to Panarea and found one – with the whole world within it.” This scrawl, attributed to one “Mastro Ciccio, 1920”, is chalked in dialect on the entrance to his Aeolian island home. It is a beautiful door, faded and peeling, but still singing to me as I pass by barefoot. And it’s the same cyan as the waves that skirt this tiny car-free island in the Tyrrhenian, moving like a boundless sea of torn silk.
Viva la revolución! Südamerikas Kulinarik-Star ist Kolumbien

1 month ago | cntraveller.de | Stephanie Rafanelli

Auf Entdeckungsreise durch die Kulinarikszene Kolumbiens. Chapinero Alto, Keimzelle von Gogotás kulinarisher Revolution, könnte glatt als Hamburger Nobelviertel durchgehen. Läge es nicht 2600 Meter über dem Meeresspiegel und wüchsen nicht überall gelbe Trompetenblumen. Ansonsten: Villen aus rotem Backstein, die eben auch der Hansestadt gut stehen würden, säumen die Alleen in der Nachbarschaft.
How Philippe Starck created Madrid's coolest new hotel

Feb 25, 2025 | thetimes.com | Stephanie Rafanelli
Campfires and close encounters: is this the world's most intrepid sleepover?

Feb 21, 2025 | cntravellerme.com | Stephanie Rafanelli

The Kalahari sprawls across Botswana like a great tawny beauty shadowed by Camel thorn trees and vultures’ wings, delivering some of Southern Africa’s most epic, deserted and diverse landscapes with horizons that seem ablaze at dusk. And I am about to get close to them. Not only in the small luxury eco-camps for which this sparsely populated nation is known, but closer: out in the open, face-to-face with the wild, ringing silence of the night.
where A-listers pretend to be shipwrecked

Feb 7, 2025 | thetimes.com | Stephanie Rafanelli

There's something about spying the atoll of Tetiaroa through the tiny window of a Twin Otter plane that reinforces the fragility of our oceans. One of the Society Islands in French Polynesia, 33 miles north of Tahiti, the atoll's 12 islets are encircled by an unbroken coral reef - like a living cell with a clear aquamarine nucleus dropped in the Pacific.
Across Colombia, a new generation is reclaiming the nation’s rich food heritage

Feb 6, 2025 | cntravellerme.com | Stephanie Rafanelli

Chapinero Alto, the locus of Bogotá’s food scene, could just about pass for London’s Hampstead – aside from the 2,600 metres of altitude, the yellow trumpet bushes and the emerald surrounds of the Andes. The broad avenues of this smart district are lined with mid-20th-century red-brick mansions designed by French Colombian architect Rogelio Salmona, who reimagined Eurocentric modernism for a post-independence Colombia.
Campfires and close encounters: is this the world's most intrepid sleepover?

Jan 14, 2025 | cntraveller.com | Stephanie Rafanelli

The Kalahari sprawls across Botswana like a great tawny beauty shadowed by Camel thorn trees and vultures’ wings, delivering some of Southern Africa’s most epic, deserted and diverse landscapes with horizons that seem ablaze at dusk. And I am about to get close to them. Not only in the small luxury eco-camps for which this sparsely populated nation is known, but closer: out in the open, face-to-face with the wild, ringing silence of the night.
La Posta Vecchia

Nov 20, 2024 | traveler.es | Stephanie Rafanelli

Multiple Buying Options AvailableProfundamente romano, La Posta Vecchia se encuentra junto a las arenas negras de la playa de Ladispoli, a tan solo treinta minutos en tren del barrio de Trastevere. Este edificio, que fue oficina de aduanas de los Estados Pontificios, se construyó en 1640 como pabellón de caza para la familia Orsini, propietarios en su día del castillo adyacente.