Silent Steps – Walking among nature, people and intentional communities

By Andrea Safir Stagliano – Organizer, Facilitator and Educator of Silent Steps

Silent Steps, known in Italian as Passi di Quiete, is a project created by Safir and Giovanni in Italy, offering mindful journeys between ecovillages and intentional communities. Because of its unique combination of walking, silence, meditation and community life, it is probably unique in Europe and perhaps even in the world.

This year marks the fifth year of Silent Steps journeys. Over these years, in Italy, we have connected around 40 communities and welcomed almost 200 people on our walks.

The experience brings together several different dimensions.

First of all, there is contact with nature. This does not necessarily require travelling far from cities: often, just a few kilometres and the immersion in a forest are enough to reconnect with the landscape, with our bodies and with natural rhythms.

There is also contact with ourselves, encouraged especially through mindful walking and walking in silence. Silence is the way we usually travel from one community to another. It is not, however, an absolute silence: the journey naturally alternates silent walking with pauses to talk, share, connect and enjoy moments of conviviality. We also offer meditation practices while walking.

Then there is contact with others. People join the journeys to discover ecovillages and intentional communities, but they often find another community that they did not expect: the temporary community that emerges among the walkers themselves.

And finally, there is our relationship with the communities we visit. We do not simply arrive at our destinations. We approach them slowly and consciously, walking through the territories in which they are located and taking the time to explore the landscape and understand the places we are entering. Once we arrive, we have the opportunity to meet the people who live there, listen to their stories, exchange experiences and engage in meaningful conversations.

In this sense, Silent Steps is much more than a trekking experience. It is a way of connecting people, territories and communities through slowness, silence, nature and encounter.

A project supported by the ecovillage network

In Italy, the project has been supported from its very beginning by RIVE – Italian Ecovillage Network, which currently provides permanent patronage for all Silent Steps journeys.

Over the years, Silent Steps has also received attention and support from several media organisations working on sustainability, social change and alternative ways of living, including Terra Nuova, Italia Che Cambia and Mezzopieno.

At European level, the project has also begun to develop relationships and visibility. For the past few years, GEN Europe, the European ecovillage network, has occasionally shared information about Silent Steps journeys and activities.

Journeys that can transform a life

Over these years, we have seen how an apparently simple experience – walking from one community to another – can have profound consequences.

Some people joined the journeys knowing the world of intentional communities only by name. Through the experience, they were able to encounter it directly and experience it in a deep and intense way.

Others discovered walking in silence and meditation while walking, practices that they later continued to integrate into their everyday lives.

Friendships and meaningful relationships have developed, and in some cases even romantic relationships have begun among the walkers. Some people, after discovering new communities and different ways of living, have chosen to move to a community or relocate to a different area.

This is why we can truly describe these journeys as transformative experiences: experiences that do not necessarily end when the journey is over, but can continue to generate changes in people’s lives.

An open project for Europe

Today, Silent Steps is an open project, eager to meet new collaborators: people who would like to imagine and develop journeys between intentional communities in other parts of Europe.

The participants themselves are becoming increasingly international. Almost every journey now includes someone coming from outside Italy, bringing different languages, experiences and perspectives.

At the same time, we are looking for people who would like to join the Silent Steps project and develop new journeys abroad. We are happy to share the experience we have gained over these five years, including our methodologies, practices and everything we have learned along the way.

For Silent Steps to grow, we do not simply want to replicate a format. We want to meet local people and communities and co-create new journeys, allowing each territory and the communities living there to shape the experience.

Looking towards 2027

We are already exploring new international developments.

One of the possibilities we are currently working on is a cross-border journey through Italy, Slovenia and Croatia, in the area of the Karst and Istria, travelling through territories that have historically and culturally always had a strong cross-border dimension.

A collaboration in Germany may also emerge.

At the same time, we like to leave room for the unexpected and for possibilities that arise through new encounters.

The winter of 2026–2027 will therefore be an important period of planning: we want to use it to imagine and develop the journeys for the following summer and, more broadly, to expand the international network of Silent Steps.

Because the desire for the future is simple: to keep walking, to meet new communities, to cross new territories and to create connections between people who might otherwise never have met.