Moving to Italy With Kids: What Nobody Tells You About Small-Village Life

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What does it actually look like to spend time living in an Italian village with kids? That is the question behind everything we have been building in Ormea, a 700-year-old village in Piedmont, Italy. Real community. Real slow life. Real Italian school-age kids as neighbors.

If you have ever caught yourself scrolling photos of Italian villages and quietly wondering whether your family could actually live there, this one is for you. Moving to Italy with kids is a dream a lot of families carry, and also one most people talk themselves out of, because the internet makes it look either impossibly complicated or falsely simple. You have seen the one euro house headlines. What they leave out is that the one euro house often needs two hundred thousand euros of work, and there is almost nobody left in the village to do it.

There is a slower, saner way to find out if village life in Italy is right for your family. It starts with a story.

We have loved Italy for years

Long before we had kids, Italy had our hearts, and we kept going back. In 2019 I had an idea I could not shake: a place where people who wanted more than a vacation could actually live for a while, work, and go deeper. Not in Rome, not in the cities already drowning in tourists, but in the small villages, learning from the locals who hold all the stories and skills but no longer have enough visitors to keep their town alive. It was my answer to overtourism. Move the energy away from the crowded cities and toward the smaller places that have far more cultural richness and far fewer people to share it with. The kind of place a seasoned traveler, or anyone craving a slower pace, would love far more than one more crowded piazza.

Then life happened. The pandemic hit, I got pregnant, and the whole idea went on the shelf.

Worldschooling brought it back

After the girls came along, we started traveling full time as a family and joined several worldschooling cohorts along the way. Living that life is what made me realize the Italy idea had never actually died. If anything, becoming a mom made it clearer. My kids did not need another summer camp. They needed to go deeper too.

Fast forward a few years, and we ended up in a small town tucked in the mountains of northern Italy, where Liguria meets Piedmont. We went in the off season, when it was quiet, and something clicked. Every single day felt like the worldschooling we had always wanted for our kids. We were not visiting the village. We were living in it, with the kind of support around us that most families never get when they travel. It was the thing I had sketched out in 2019, except real, and better, because now it had my children in it.

So I asked the town a question

I asked the locals a simple thing: would you want to help me recreate this, but for more families? And the answer, from basically the whole town, was yes.

Here is why it works. This town fills up a little in summer and then empties out for the rest of the year. There is not enough year round infrastructure to keep people, so the population keeps shrinking and the houses keep going up for sale. But it is not a ghost town. It still functions. It still has its culture, its people, its rhythm. It is not a place you have to build from zero. It is a place worth helping survive. Local people are helping me put this together, and the town’s forestry school, one of its real treasures, is genuinely excited to be part of it.

Real Italy, not tourist Italy

This is for the family that wants to feel like they actually landed in the middle of Italy. Not the packaged version, the real one, where you fumble through Italian and your neighbor helps you anyway, where your kids play with local kids, where the days are slow and the learning is woven into ordinary life. It is for people a little tired of being shuffled around in programs built for vacationers, when what they really want is to go deep: worldschooling, a new language, places off the usual map, an experience that feels organic and real.

And it is for the family seriously dreaming of moving to Italy who wants to test drive it first. Before you buy the one euro house and discover the two hundred thousand euro renovation, before you commit to anything, you get to actually live it for a bit and feel how it fits. Slow travel, moving abroad, investing, relocating, and building real community, all in one place.

The reel that started it

I made a short reel about this dream, and it clearly struck a nerve, because it brought thousands of you here. If you want to feel it in ninety seconds, watch it here.

The villages worth your attention are the ones that still have their people, their daily rhythms, their local trades, their piazzas with actual residents rather than just summer visitors. That is the Italy we fell for, and it is the Italy we keep coming back to build something inside of.

If this is your dream too

I am keeping the town itself close for now, but I am gathering the families who feel this pull so we can build it together instead of alone. If that is you, come get on the list and I will keep you close as it takes shape: stan.store/bravefamilytravel. The first thing there is the interest form, and it is how I keep everyone in one place.

Moving to Italy does not have to be a leap into the dark. It can start with a handful of slow days in a real village, among people who actually want you there. That is what we are building.

What family travel insurance actually costs

We never travel or live abroad without it. Here is the live price from SafetyWing:

Xoxo, Marae: your travel mom bestie
www.bravefreetravel.com

Living in an Italian Village with Kids: What Families Ask

What is it actually like to live in an Italian village with kids?

Slower, richer, and louder than you expect. Kids play in piazzas instead of screens. Neighbors bring food. Life runs on market day and the rhythm of school bells. In Ormea, our kids joined cooking classes with the local nonna, explored the medieval streets freely, and made friends without a shared language inside 48 hours. It is the kind of childhood that feels impossible to explain and impossible to forget.

Do I need to speak Italian to visit or move to an Italian village?

For a short immersive stay, no. Small villages are used to limited-Italian visitors, especially families who come with genuine curiosity and respect. For longer-term living, even basic Italian makes an enormous difference in how welcomed you feel. Our ROOTS Italy program includes Italian language sessions and intentional community time specifically to bridge that gap from visitor to neighbor.

How do I access the ROOTS Italy village programme?

ROOTS Italy brings worldschooling families to Ormea, Piedmont for 10 days of real village life. You stay at a local hotel, join cooking classes, nonna matching, and Italian lessons, and experience what it would actually feel like to live here before committing to anything. Visit www.bravefamilyroots.com for dates, pricing, and the full experience overview.

Moving to Italy With Kids: Frequently Asked Questions

What visa do families need to move to Italy from the US?

The most accessible routes for American families are the Elective Residency Visa (for those with passive income or savings, roughly €31,000/year for a family), the Italy Digital Nomad Visa (launched 2024, for remote workers), or Italian citizenship by descent (jure sanguinis) if you have Italian ancestry. None of these are quick; budget 3-6 months for the application process from your local Italian consulate.

Is it realistic to live in an Italian village with children?

Very realistic, and many families find it transformative. Italian villages have strong school systems (small classes, genuine community investment in children), safe streets for kids to roam, and a pace of life that most families describe as the antidote to the overscheduled, screen-heavy childhood they were leaving behind. The main challenges are language (your kids will learn Italian, which takes 6-12 months) and finding a like-minded community, which is growing fast as more international families choose village life.

Where is the best Italian village for families with young children?

Piedmont, Tuscany, and Umbria all have active small-village communities welcoming new families. Ormea in Val Tanaro (Piedmont) is a personal favourite: mountain air, real community, jaw-dropping scenery, and a 10-day immersion programme specifically designed for families who want to test village life before committing to a move. Details at www.bravefamilyroots.com.

Shop Our Amazon Picks

We put together everything we actually travel with for Italian village trips, organized by what you’ll actually need:

• Italy Village Trip Essentials (ROOTS Packing List), everything we packed for 10 days in Ormea, Piedmont
• Worldschooling Supplies (Ages 2–8), books, art supplies, and hands-on learning tools
• Browse all 13 lists, packing lists, Japan gear, Spain essentials, and more

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