Tailor-made travel in Italy

Italy, arranged by someone who lives there.

We pair you with an independent travel designer for your region — someone whose phone holds the right numbers — and they build a trip that exists exactly once.

Start with a conversation See how it works

For independent travel designers

You already know Italy. Build a practice on it.

Sakè brings you travellers who want exactly what you know, and takes the quoting, payments and paperwork off your desk. You keep the client, your taste, and most of the commission.

Apply to join What we look for

All of Italy

From the Dolomites to Sicily, each region with designers on the ground

+500

Travellers looked after so far

48 hours

From your first note to a designer replying

Selective

Only a small share of the designers who apply are accepted

What we will not compromise

There is the guide who has walked the same ridge in every season.

There is the table at the back that was never on a booking system.

There is the house with six rooms and no sign above the door.

And there is one person who knows all three by name.

That person is your travel designer.

Which is why the list is deliberately short.

People, not platforms

Your designer has a name, a region and a reputation. Many do this alongside another life, which is precisely why they know the places rather than the listings.

A very short list

We turn away most applicants. What reaches you is a handful of designers we would send our own families to, each vouched for by someone who has travelled with them.

Made once, for you

No catalogue, no tickets bought in bulk, no itinerary that forty other people took last summer. Your trip is drawn from a blank page and it stays yours.

How it works

Three steps, one person looking after you.

First

Tell us the shape of it

Where you are drawn to, who is coming, roughly when, and how you like to move. A few lines are enough — we will ask the rest.

Then

Meet your designer

We introduce the one designer we think fits, and tell you why. You speak with them directly. If the chemistry is wrong, we introduce another.

Finally

They build it, you go

The itinerary is drawn from scratch and refined with you. Bookings, timings, the person meeting you at the station — all theirs to hold.

The designers

A few of the people you might be introduced to.

Giulia M.

Val d'Orcia · Wine estates, slow driving routes

Moved to Pienza eleven years ago and has been pouring other people's wine ever since. Plans trips around harvests and long lunches.

Luca R.

Amalfi & the islands · Boats, coastal walking

Grew up on the water near Praiano. Knows which coves are worth the crossing in June and which are worth it only in October.

Sofia B.

Dolomites · Huts, high routes, family walking

Mountain guide in summer, architect the rest of the year. Builds routes that end somewhere warm with something worth eating.

"We had booked Italy ourselves three times before. This was the first trip where nothing felt like it had been sold to us."

Elena & Marc, ten days in Puglia

Start planning

Tell us where you are drawn to.

No commitment and no quote yet. We read every note ourselves and reply with the designer we think is right for it, and why.

Why join

Everything around the work, handled.

Most people who are brilliant at planning travel give up on it for the same reasons: finding clients, chasing payments, and the hours that never get billed. That is the part we take.

Travellers who already want you

We match on region and on how someone likes to travel, so conversations start warm. No cold outreach, no bidding against four other designers.

You keep most of the commission

A clear split, published up front, with no tiers to climb and no annual fee. Supplier commissions are collected and paid out by us on a fixed schedule.

The back office disappears

Quoting, contracts, payments, insurance and supplier admin run through Sakè. You spend your hours on the itinerary and the client, which is the part you are good at.

A name that vouches for you

Being accepted is a signal in itself. You travel under your own name with Sakè behind it — the brand introduces you, it does not replace you.

Joining

From application to your first traveller.

First

Apply in ten minutes

Your regions, how you travel, and one trip you have put together that you are proud of. We read applications weekly.

Then

A long conversation

An hour on a call, and we speak to someone who has travelled with you. This is where most applications end, and we say so honestly either way.

Finally

Onboarding and first matches

We set up your profile, tools and supplier terms, then start sending travellers your way. Most designers take their first enquiry within a few weeks.

What we look for

The bar, stated plainly.

We are not looking for the biggest book of business. We are looking for people whose knowledge of one place is unreasonably deep.

1Lived knowledgeYou have spent real time in your region, not a research week. Preferably you still go back for your own reasons.
2Relationships you can call onHosts, cooks, guides, makers and skippers who pick up when your name comes up. Direct, not through an agency.
3A point of viewYou plan a recognisable kind of trip and can say what you do not do. Generalists tend not to make it through.
4Care with peopleSomeone we can put in front of a traveller on their most expensive trip of the decade, without checking in afterwards.

Accepted designers carry the mark on their own site and profile. It stays with you as long as you are with us.

"I had been planning trips for friends of friends for years and never once charged properly for it. The difference now is that it is a job."

A founding designer, Puglia

Apply

Tell us what you know, and where.

Applications are read weekly and everyone gets an answer, including a no. If it is a yes, we will ask for a call and one reference.

Do you know one corner of Italy unreasonably well?

We are building the founding group of designers now, region by region, the length of the country.

Looking for a trip rather than a job?

Tell us where you are drawn to and we will introduce the designer who knows it.