Florencia Cuneo: when travel journalism becomes a tool to rethink food

Florencia Cuneo did not enter travel journalism through a classical vocation or the usual path of someone chasing destinations, landscapes, or trends. Her entry into this field arises from a deeper, structural concern: the nutrition of populations and the way the global food system has been rapidly deteriorating the quality of what ends up on plates in different regions of the world. At the intersection of food, territory, and culture, travel journalism appears to her as a strategic tool rather than an end in itself.

Her perspective starts from a certainty that runs through all her discourse: eating is not an isolated or purely biological act, but a sociocultural practice intimately linked to nature, political decisions, production systems, and the identity of peoples. From this understanding, Florencia conceives travel journalism as a space to investigate, validate high-quality information, and generate new narratives that enable deep reflection on how we travel, what we consume, and which models we sustain.

Although she does not define herself as a career journalist, her connection to tourism as a social and cultural phenomenon goes back to early experiences. Trips such as those to Maragogi in Pernambuco, Brazil, in the early 1990s, or to Chiloé in Chile, marked her initial contact with territories where the relationship between community, natural environment, and food practices retains a strong identity that is hard to ignore. These journeys, more than professional milestones, served as seeds that over time found a conceptual channel.

Far from positioning a tourist trip as a turning point, Florencia acknowledges that one of the experiences that most shaped her was preparing food for malnourished children in peri-urban areas of Córdoba city. There, food ceased to be theory and became urgency, care, and a political act. This experience reinforced her understanding of food as a right and as a concrete expression of structural inequalities, but also as a possibility for transformation.

Today, Florencia sees travel journalism as a dissemination tool with enormous potential. It is not just about telling stories of destinations, but about validating information, contextualizing practices, and providing evidence that enables more conscious decision-making. In her approach, travel journalism can and should engage with sustainability, health, and food sovereignty agendas without losing rigor or depth.

When it comes to storytelling, she does not cling to a closed philosophy. On the contrary, she expresses the desire to create original narratives that reveal destinations from fresh perspectives, capable of lifting the veil on the obvious. Her interest is not in repeating formulas, but in finding criteria that allow territories to be read from less-explored angles, especially those linked to food and the everyday practices of communities.

Within the ecosystem of the World Travel Journalism Organization, Florencia clearly identifies the topics she wants to promote. Her focus is on recognizing and revitalizing identity-based food practices,those that engage with the environment and are friendly to the planet. Faced with the advance of industrialized food as a global commodity, she proposes recovering the value of eating as a complex and profoundly human cultural act.

For her, traveling is not only moving from place to place, but a way to connect realities. What inspires her to keep exploring and telling stories is the possibility of contributing new ways to society through her expertise, linking knowledge already known with that which emerges along the journey. Each territory thus becomes a living laboratory where one can observe, learn, and reframe understanding.

Florencia is also aware of the challenges faced today by travel communicators. Among them, she emphasizes the need to promote ideas that allow tourism to actively contribute to sustainability agendas. In her view, tourism affects all aspects of social, economic, and environmental life and therefore cannot remain detached from major contemporary debates.

Her profile is built in a powerful, hybrid zone. She is not a traditional travel journalist, nor does she intend to be. She is a professional who uses journalism as a bridge between food, culture, territory, and collective consciousness. In times when travel narratives are often reduced to fast consumption, her approach invites pausing, observing, and rethinking.

In every potential article, in every future investigation, there is an underlying question that guides her path: how to influence better food decisions through knowledge of territories and their practices. That question, far from being exhausted, expands with each journey, each experience, and each story told.

In this way, Florencia Cuneo embodies a form of travel journalism that does not seek to dazzle, but to understand. A journalism that does not limit itself to showing, but proposes, questions, and connects. A journalism that understands that traveling can also be a way of caring.