How can you leave a place better than you found it?
The future of cities will not be determined by the number of visitors, but by the depth of their engagement.
Photo credit: Rodrigo Van Peteghem
We are a collective reimagining tourism as a practice of reciprocity. Using Marseille as a living laboratory, we create long-lasting projects and memorable experiences where residents and visitors collaborate.
More than a city, Marseille is a bridge between Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. A capital of the Mediterranean. A model for resilience. A hub of social innovation. A metropolis where diversity is a tour de force, a hotbed of the key issues of today, providing potential solutions for tomorrow.
Photo credit: Caroline Dutrey
Regenerative travel asks a fundamental question: how can visitors leave a place better than they found it? Moving Marseille connects travellers with social innovators, food activists, feminist collectives, urban farmers, and entrepreneurs reshaping the city from the ground up.
“Not sightseeing. Co-creating.”
Photo credit: Camille Chapuis
These are not finished projects. They are active experiments shaping Marseille from the inside. Through our Urban Field Trips, you enter them.
8 hours at dock, 8 useful hours. The city comes aboard. Passengers meet the city. The ship becomes an actor in the territory.
Residents and tourists share Marseille aboard the Colorbüs, exchanging their experiences and vision of the city.
Hotels and their neighbourhood as mutual partners in hospitality, encounters, and new activities.
Young people from all walks of life in Marseille developing their own guide to the city for young visitors.
The Marseille Way is a training programme and collective project that uses Marseille as a learning tool rather than a destination. Each participant brings their own idea or a real question, developing a societal project through that case in collaboration with the group.
Together, participants make the frameworks of the power of place their own, learn how to set up projects within the social and solidarity economy, and use Marseille as a shared field of practice, first online and then during a field trip to the city. In return, they jointly make a small, concrete contribution to a local city maker or association, so that reciprocity is built into The Marseille Way.
The programme by Camille Chapuis, Joke Quintens and a series of collaborators runs over two months. The Marseille Way helps people to approach their own projects in a particular way: systemically, regeneratively and hands-on. We do not offer theories, but rather frameworks for thinking that enable participants to see things differently and develop their own thinking. This is achieved through working on a specific case of their own, drawing on Marseille, through collaboration within the group and their own cohort, and through the development of a collective project (led by a member of the group) in Marseille.
Participants leave with a sharper question, a first step already taken, the beginning of a network in Marseille and a method that works anywhere.
Immersive field trips that explore Marseille through its communities, neighbourhoods, social innovations and urban practices, open to individuals and tailor-made for groups.
Want to explore these initiatives from the inside?
Discover our Urban Field Trips →years of experience with immigration
HISTORYWhere diversity is a tour de force.
CITYCitizens, collectives and places inventing new answers.
CITYA living laboratory of urban transformation.
OUR LENSA city that has risen again at every turn in its history.
CITYThe most exciting cities are rarely the capital.
OUR LENSA bridge between Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
CITYThat question is at the heart of everything we do. We design and curate immersive Urban Field Trips that offer a meaningful exploration of Marseille through its communities, neighbourhoods, organisations, social innovations, cultural initiatives and urban practices.
Our field trips are created for curious visitors who want to understand the city from the inside out through personal encounters, inspiring conversations, site visits, and critical reflection. More than just discovering Marseille, participants are invited to engage with the people and projects they meet in ways that create mutual value, ensuring their visit positively contributes to the city and its communities.
We design Urban Field Trips around a specific theme, often connected to a cultural event, festival or urban initiative taking place in Marseille, and carefully curated multi-day learning journeys for organisations, institutions and networks, tailored to your interests, objectives and participants. Working with groups of six or more, each programme is shaped around the themes you wish to explore and the outcomes you hope to achieve.
We also believe that meaningful exchanges are reciprocal. Rather than simply asking what Marseille can offer you, we invite you to consider what your group can contribute in return, whether through knowledge, expertise, partnerships, research, storytelling or new collaborations. Below you will find some of the field trips we have already designed, as inspiration, as well as a request form to start a conversation about creating a bespoke programme that matches your ambitions and interests.
Connecting with Marseille through its rooftops.
A three-day Urban Field Trip exploring Marseille from above. Rather than simply learning about rooftop initiatives, this field trip invites participants to experience them firsthand. Together we discover a different cityscape, moving from roof to roof to explore hidden places, unexpected views and inspiring initiatives that reveal the untapped potential of "les toits". Along the way, we meet the organisations, architects, artists and citizens who are opening up these spaces for community, culture, ecology and social innovation.
The journey is guided by a central urban question: Who has the right to the sky? Instead of remaining inaccessible or exclusive spaces, rooftops can become shared urban commons that foster encounter, inclusion and new ways of living and experiencing the city.
Over the course of three days, we discover Marseille from above. Together we explore a series of remarkable rooftops and viewpoints to experience the city from a bird's-eye perspective. From these elevated spaces, Marseille's history, its relationship with the Mediterranean, its resilience, its vibrant civic initiatives and its tradition of grassroots activism unfold in new ways. Along the journey, we meet with urban practitioners, organisations, residents and changemakers who shape and activate these places, exchanging experiences, ideas and perspectives. Through walks, site visits, conversations, workshops and shared meals, we explore rooftops as architectural landmarks, public spaces, urban commons and ecological laboratories. Together we reflect on questions of access, ownership, inclusion and the future of our cities, while discovering how rooftops can become places for culture, biodiversity, community life and democratic experimentation. The programme combines inspiring encounters with critical reflection and practical exchange, concluding with a collective conversation on how Marseille can become a Mediterranean pioneer for the Right to the Sky and how participants can contribute to that ambition through their own knowledge, networks and practice.
Connecting with Marseille through its Third Places.
A three-day Urban Field Trip dedicated to the rich ecosystem of third places across Marseille. Participants explore a wide variety of spaces and initiatives throughout the city, from cultural hubs and creative factories to community centres, social enterprises and hybrid venues. Through site visits and conversations with founders and practitioners, we examine functions and missions, governance models, economic sustainability, community engagement, urban regeneration, cultural production of third places.
Through years of collaboration with local communities, cultural organisations and city-makers, we have built an extensive network of social innovators who are shaping Marseille's many tiers-lieux, community hubs and civic initiatives, and invite participants to immerse themselves in Marseille's living laboratory of urban transformation.
Together, we explore during this journey places where vacant buildings and underused sites have been reimagined as spaces for culture, community, entrepreneurship and social innovation, while also discovering the wider social, historical and political context from which these initiatives emerge.
Over the course of three days, we discover Marseille through the places where the city comes alive: its tiers-lieux, public spaces, cultural hubs, community initiatives and unexpected meeting points. From emblematic locations such as Mucem and La Friche Belle de Mai to grassroots initiatives in neighbourhoods across the city, we explore how Marseille's third places create new opportunities for encounter, creativity, solidarity and social innovation.
Third places are spaces where people meet, exchange ideas, build communities and imagine new futures together. In Marseille, they take many forms: former industrial sites transformed into cultural ecosystems, abandoned buildings brought back to life, neighbourhood cafés, shared gardens, social restaurants, artistic spaces, hybrid workplaces and places where residents organise themselves to respond to local challenges.
Throughout the journey, we meet the organisations, urban practitioners, artists, residents and changemakers who develop and activate these spaces. Through walks, site visits, conversations, workshops and shared meals, we discover how initiatives such as La Friche Belle de Mai, Yes We Camp projects, L'Épopée, Le Couvent, La Fabulerie, Chez Marthe, Le Tiers-Lab des Transitions and many others contribute to a more inclusive and creative city. We explore how these places emerge from local needs, how they are governed, and how they navigate questions of access, ownership, sustainability and long-term impact.
The programme combines inspiring encounters with critical reflection and practical exchange. Together, we reflect on how third places can strengthen communities, support ecological and social transitions, and contribute to new ways of making cities. The journey concludes with a collective conversation on what Marseille can teach us about creating more open, connected and collaborative urban futures and what each participant can bring back to their own context through knowledge, networks and new partnerships.
Connecting with Marseille through its Food.
A three-day Urban Field Trip focused on the power of food to connect, inspire, and empower. Marseille is redefining what a culinary capital is today. Together, we will meet chefs that celebrate the city's diversity, accessibility, and female-owned restaurants; explore how cultures preserve and share their identity through food; and visit culinary social impact projects that strengthen community, create jobs, and enhance food systems.
Connecting with Marseille's women and their projects.
A three-day Urban Field Trip dedicated to the women who shape Marseille.
Marseille is protected by a woman, a golden Madonna and Child statue beaming from its iconic church. Resistance fighters like Mélanie Manouchian became activists here. A wealth of nonprofits work to support, gather, and empower women.
Yet, the city's strong feminine influence has remained largely hidden. This trip unearths their stories then and now. And that the future is female in Marseille.
Around International Women's Day, we invite participants to discover Marseille through a gendered and intersectional lens, exploring the stories, struggles, creativity and leadership of the women who shape the city. This three-day field trip goes beyond celebrating individual achievements: it reveals how women across generations and backgrounds are creating change through culture, politics, entrepreneurship, solidarity, activism and everyday community action.
Throughout the journey, we meet women who are transforming Marseille in different ways: from artists and chefs to activists, social entrepreneurs, community organisers and political leaders. Through encounters, conversations, workshops and shared experiences, we explore themes such as representation, equality, sisterhood, inclusion, body and identity, feminist approaches to public space, and the role of women in shaping more just and resilient cities.
The programme takes us to inspiring places and initiatives across Marseille, including cultural institutions, grassroots organisations and feminist spaces where solidarity, care and empowerment come together. We discover the work of female collectives, meet local changemakers and explore how women are building new forms of support, creating opportunities and opening up spaces for voices that have too often been overlooked. We also engage with Marseille's vibrant cultural scene through exhibitions, artistic encounters, food experiences and participatory workshops that invite reflection and exchange.
We curate Urban Field Trips for groups of 6 to 15 participants (and larger groups upon request). Together we design a programme around your objectives, combining inspiring visits, workshops, conversations and encounters with Marseille's most innovative organisations and communities. Every programme is facilitated in your preferred language and designed to create meaningful learning, exchange and lasting connections.
Speaking French, English, Dutch, Spanish, and with our partners, German, Arabic, and more.
Social designer and regenerative development practitioner, power of places, culture and migration history.
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Leader in social innovation and entrepreneurship, with deep expertise in European projects.
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Storyteller sharing authentic Marseille narratives on food, lifestyle, and travel. Published in the NYT, The Guardian, and more.
LinkedIn →Residents, visitors, organisations, everyone is welcome to the table.
Design your own Marseille learning journey. Tell us about your group, your interests and what you'd like to explore.
A project, a partnership, a question, or just want to say hello. We reply within 48 hours.
