Why We're Moving Back to Italy — The Real Story of What We're Preparing to Leave Behind

Moving Back to Italy: The Real Story of What We're Leaving Behind

If you follow me on social media, you've probably seen the Tuscany content—the golden light, the rolling hills, the sense that slow living is always just one flight away. What you haven't seen is what's been happening behind that content for the last couple of years—or why Stefano and I have finally decided that moving back to Italy is no longer something we're saving for someday.

The fear. The panic attacks on airplanes. The conversations I didn't know how to start with my husband.

This is the real story of why we're going back.

The First Departure — Why We Left Italy in 2013

Stefano and I didn't leave Florence because we wanted to. We left because the economics made it impossible to stay.

Stefano's Partita IVA — his freelance handyman business — wasn't earning enough. Italy's job market wasn't working for us, and I'd been teaching English long enough to know I was ready for something else.

The plan, which was very much Stefano's idea, was practical and optimistic at the same time: move to the United States, find a good paying job, build real savings, and eventually retire back in Tuscany.

A detour, not a departure.

What we traded was a slower life — the kind of life where you stop and talk to people, where time moves differently — for something faster and less socially connected. We gained financial stability. We lost something harder to name.

For a long time, the trade felt worth it. And then, gradually, it didn't.

Why We're Moving Back to Italy Now

I want to be honest here, because I think that's the only version of this story worth telling.

The thing that moved this decision from moving back to Italy someday to now wasn't a romantic awakening. It was fear.

Specifically, it was fear for Stefano's safety as an legal permanent resident (immigrant) in the United States given the current political climate — ICE detentions, people being taken off streets in Chicago, Minneapolis, Houston, Maine. People who had done nothing wrong. People who weren't criminals.

I started having panic attacks on flights, at airports, not knowing what might happen to Stefano at the border or through the closed down Global Entry. We had conversations I never thought we'd have — like what the protocol would be at his workplace if ICE showed up.

There is reassurance. There is no certainty. That distinction still weighs on me.

Stefano is a strong, calm presence. He doesn't panic easily because he goes on facts not feelings. But he felt the weight of my fear, and I think that's part of what shifted for us. When someone you love is carrying terror on your behalf, someday stops being good enough.

And then, this past February, my brother's best friend suddenly passed away. He was too young. Way too young. I'm not going to say more than that because it's not my story to tell in full — but I'll say this: grief has a way of cutting through the noise and reminding you what's actually true.

You stop having the luxury of someday.

You stop being able to pretend that the life you want is something you'll get around to eventually.

He didn't get the life he was slowly building with his wife and two kids. That hit me hard, and it still does. If there was any part of me still clinging to hesitation, that was the moment it fell away.

I had also spent years feeling emotionally stuck — attached to the belief that I'd simply never live in Italy again.

That story I'd been telling myself turned out to be just that: a story.

What Moving Back to Italy Will Mean for Us

I'm not going to dress this up as an adventure with a guaranteed happy ending, because I don't think that's fair to you or to us.

Italy still doesn't pay well. Stefano turns 50 this year, and the job market there is harder for older workers — that's just the reality. We don't have a family safety net in Italy the way we do in the United States. And my business, Truly Italy, has been running since 2019 and is not yet consistently profitable. We are not returning from a position of financial security. We are returning from a position of intention.

A friend of mine, Ashlyn, says that "exposure leads to expansion" — and I believe that. An old philosophy professor I'm still close with once wrote to me a quote when I had a hard time deciding if I should move abroad:

"The royal road to achieving genuine satisfaction in life is going the bloody hard way" -Wittgenstein

That the most important decisions in life have to be done the bloody hard way, risk over comfort. I think about both of those things often.

This return isn't a leap into the unknown the way my original 2009 move to Florence was — when I packed up and moved abroad to live with a friend I'd met on Skype named Marco, and my friend Laura who once helped me make rent when I came up short. I've had friendships in Tuscany since 2002, when I studied abroad.

I know what real community there looks like. That matters.

Preparing for Our Move to Tuscany

We are looking for an apartment in Radicondoli — a small Tuscan town — that we plan to eventually convert into an Airbnb for supplemental income. We haven't left yet. We still need to sell our house in the US, downsize, and donate a significant portion of what we own. We're also moving with our three cats, which adds its own layer of logistics.

I'm taking my time on purpose. I know what it feels like to walk into a home and know immediately that it's right — that's how I felt about the house we're in now. I want to feel that same certainty about wherever we land in Tuscany.

I refuse to rush it, and I refuse to manufacture urgency around a decision this significant.

That's not how I want to live, and it's not how I want to share this journey with you.

The Ending Isn't Written Yet

This isn't a story where I've figured it out and I'm reporting back from the other side.

We are in the uncertain middle, and I think that's worth saying plainly. We're moving toward something that feels true — grounding, connection, presence, community, being with people instead of screens — while knowing the practical questions aren't all answered yet.

I'll tell you more when I know more. That's the only promise I can make right now.

If you want to follow this story as it unfolds — along with honest, unhurried guidance on slow travel and life in Tuscany — the best place to do that is my email list. Grab the free Slow Tuscany Starter Kit and I'll send you what I know, when I know it.

The next chapter is still being written — and I'd love for you to be there when it is.