AWAY TO ITALY
Weekly stories, travel tips, and planning tools to help you experience Italy more authentically—plus a special 7-day welcome series to help you start planning with clarity and confidence.
🇮🇹 Three rooms. October. Val d'Orcia.
I’m sitting in Tuscany as I write this, which feels like the right place to tell you about il dolce far niente — the sweetness of doing nothing. Not the guilt of doing nothing. Not the restlessness of doing nothing. The actual sweetness of it. Most people come to Italy intending to find that. They book the trip, they imagine the slow mornings, the unhurried afternoons, the long lunches that drift into evening. They picture themselves finally exhaling. And then they build an itinerary that...
🇮🇹 The door Mimmo doesn't advertise
There's a door in Grottaglie, Puglia, with no sign on it. Behind it, a man named Mimmo has been working clay with his hands for longer than most people have been alive. When you step into his studio, you aren't just entering a workshop, you're standing over a secret that remained buried for centuries. A few years ago, while restoring a small corner of his garden, Mimmo moved the earth and uncovered an opening that shouldn't have been there. Beneath the ground, he discovered a hidden...
🇮🇹 There's a hand-selected team you don't see
🇮🇹 I don't do this alone A few weeks ago, I was on a call with a colleague I work with in Tuscany. I was describing a couple I'd just taken on — active, outdoorsy, the kind of people who light up when you mention hiking trails and long days outside and waking up to nothing but sky and green. Two days later, as we started collaborating on the trip together, she told me: "Amy, I know exactly where this couple needs to be." A recently renovated property on the Tuscan Coast. Built entirely around...
🇮🇹 Someone else is sleeping there right now
Someone is staying at Borgo Santo Pietro right now. They're waking up to the Tuscan hills through an open window. Breakfast in the garden. No agenda. Nowhere to be. They booked that room fourteen months ago. I think about this a lot — the person who's already there, in the exact place someone else has been dreaming about. Here's the thing about the Italy that people like you are looking for — the kind that doesn't feel like a typical tourist itinerary, that actually gets under your skin and...
🇮🇹 They said Palermo. I asked why.
They knew they wanted Sicily. Palermo, maybe. Catania. The usual names that show up when you start Googling "where to stay in Sicily." But when I asked why—why those cities, what drew them there—they paused. "We just… heard they were beautiful?" So here's what I did. I asked them what they actually wanted to experience, and they wanted to feel. Not see. Not check off. They wanted slow. Relaxed. Food-focused. Culturally immersive. A balance between incredible experiences and days where they...
🇮🇹 The afternoon a stranger cried in Lucca
Why would a grown woman cry in the middle of a piazza? Not from pain. Not from fear. From beauty. A couple of months ago, in Lucca, I stumbled onto an impromptu open air opera performance in a piazza. No stage. No tickets. Just a handful of singers who opened their lungs to the afternoon air. And right next to me — this woman. Maybe sixty. Maybe seventy. Standing so still, eyes wide. And then the tears came. She didn’t look embarrassed. Didn’t wipe them away. She let them fall. Because...
🇮🇹 You don't need 1,000 photos to remember Italy
I don't take tons of photos when I travel in Italy. I used to. Camera roll full of the same shot taken twelve different ways. Trying to capture everything. Worried I'd forget. But here's what I learned after 30+ years: The best memories aren't in the camera roll. They're in the details I took time to notice—and the small ways I recorded them. Let me show you what that looks like. Photograph the details, not the landmarks. The door knocker. The hand-painted tile. The espresso cup. The way the...
🇮🇹 "We Should Go To Italy Together!"
It starts in the group chat. Someone says, "We should go to Italy together!" Everyone's excited. Hearts and fire emojis.❤️🔥 "Yes!" "Finally!" "Let's do it!" Then... silence. Because someone has to actually plan it. Someone has to research the regions. Compare the hotels. Figure out if six people can fit in one car or if you need two. Find restaurants that take reservations for groups. Coordinate everyone's opinions—and everyone has opinions. That someone? It's always one person. Usually the...
🇮🇹 Why are you going to Italy?
She'd been researching for six months. Pinterest boards. Saved Instagram posts. Browser tabs that wouldn't close. And then she said something I hear all the time: "I just don't know where to start. And I'm terrified of getting it wrong." So I asked her a question I ask every client: Why are you going to Italy? Not where. Why. She paused. Thought about it. And then she said: "I'm burned out. I just need to breathe." That's when I knew exactly what to design for her. I've been asking this...
🇮🇹 Amalfi Coast or Puglia?
She wanted the Italian coast. But she didn't want the crowds. She wanted authentic food culture—family-run trattorias, fresh seafood, recipes passed down through generations. But she didn't want to eat at restaurants designed for tourists. She wanted turquoise water and whitewashed villages and that particular quality of light you only get on the Italian coast. But she wanted to feel like she'd discovered something. Not like she was following everyone else's itinerary. And she was going in...
Weekly stories, travel tips, and planning tools to help you experience Italy more authentically—plus a special 7-day welcome series to help you start planning with clarity and confidence.