Meet Otti, the otter behind beaVita

If you've spent time on our website, in one of our vans, or scrolling through anything we've put out, you've already met him: a small otter, usually floating around with a rather relaxed attitude, sunglasses on, one paw resting on a bright life ring. His name is Ottavio, but everyone calls him Otti.

We didn't design the mascot first and figure out what he meant later. It happened the other way around: we already knew who we wanted to be, and Otti was the shape that idea ended up taking.

Start with the name. "beaVita" reads two ways. To visitors from outside the region, it simply sounds like “la bella vita”: the good life, the beautiful Italian way of living. In Veneto, though, the phrase "fare beaVita" usually isn't a compliment. It describes someone who doesn't work much, who gets by without really trying. We picked the name on purpose, to turn that meaning around.

Real "beaVita," to us, isn't about doing nothing. It's about being rich in time rather than money: being able to sit down for dinner with your kids on a Tuesday, not just Sundays, or read a book in the middle of the afternoon without feeling guilty about it. Getting there takes work: you have to keep improving at what you do, but never lose sight of time as the actual goal.

That's a lot of philosophy to fit into a logo. An otter seemed like the right fit. They float, they rest, they enjoy the water, and they don't seem particularly interested in making life more complicated than it needs to be.

The life ring Otti holds onto is the same idea: you don't need much to have a good time. A cold spritz, good company, a view worth stopping the van for: that, to us, counts as living well.

Otti isn't just a logo we stuck on the website. He's meant to describe how we actually try to work, our team included. If a guide adds an unexpected stop because the weather has suddenly turned perfect, or a driver finds a Plan B when the original itinerary no longer works, that's Otti's logic in practice.

None of that means we take it easy, though. We care deeply about what we do: about safety, about quality, about the people we work with and the places we share with our guests. We just also believe that travel should be fun. It should leave you with stories to tell, places to remember and, hopefully, a little more time spent enjoying the world around you.

So, when you see Otti around beaVita, that's what he's there to remind you of: time is the real wealth, ours as much as yours for the day you spend with us. And sometimes, the best thing you can do with it is simply float for a while.