American Family Moved to Southern Italy: Affordable, but Many Drawbacks

I was five months pregnant when my husband and I boarded a plane from Columbus, Ohio, to Rome with two young kids and a third on the way.

It was March 2014, and I was feeling nervous but excited. I was fully convinced we were chasing a beautiful, slower-paced life abroad.

We had just finished our university degrees and wanted something different — something quieter, more affordable, and full of cultural richness.

With the large population, abundance of things to do, and a lot of English-speaking areas, Rome seemed like the perfect place to begin again.

However, living there was trickier and more expensive than we expected. As we scrambled to get settled with a growing family, we realized living in Rome wasn’t sustainable for us.

That’s how we ended up in Mormanno — a small mountain town in the Calabria region with a population of about 2,000. It was quiet, affordable, and safe, with hardly any crime.

On paper, it looked like everything we needed. And yet, over a decade and three more kids later, I still don’t love living in a small town in Southern Italy. In fact, I kind of hate it.

Raising kids here has been emotionally isolating

One of the things I miss the most about living in the US is the community I had. Back in Ohio, family and friends were just minutes away. There were frequent birthday parties and backyard barbecues, and so many people to call when we needed help.

Here, we’re on our own. We’ve made friends over the years, but nothing replaces family and the strong network we left behind.

Raising kids without that support system is hard, especially in a foreign country where so much feels unfamiliar to me.

Teaching my children both English and Italian has been a priority, but it’s made things complicated. They have to learn Italian to succeed in school, but I want them to remain tied to their American roots. This means I’m constantly translating homework and trying to reteach subjects in English.

Although I’ve become fluent in Italian over the years, some of the curriculum still doesn’t make sense to me, which makes helping them learn at home even harder.

I want them to appreciate their Italian surroundings, but I’d also like them to know where they come from — and that’s a balancing act I still haven’t quite figured out.

It’s been tough to watch my kids lose touch with aspects of the culture I grew up in.

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In many ways, small-town life just isn’t for me

Mormanno is quiet and peaceful, which sounds lovely, until you realize that “quiet” can also mean “boring.”

In Columbus, there was always something affordable to do nearby, whether that was heading to a zoo, bowling alley, conservatory, local theme park, or just the food court at the mall.

Although our new town is beautiful and we’ve got some historic sites and a handful of restaurants, there’s not much to do here. It’s not the kind of place where kids can sign up for sports or go to a science center on a weekend.

When we want those kinds of opportunities, we have to leave. Most summers, we spend a few weeks in Rome so we can enjoy activities, food, and events we don’t have at home. For now, it’s a way for us to give the kids exposure to things they miss out on during the rest of the year.

Navigating healthcare has been one of the hardest parts of living here

Coming from a large city in the US, I was used to being able to find a pediatrician, specialist, or urgent-care clinic relatively easily.

In Mormanno, that kind of access doesn’t exist, especially not when it comes to serious health concerns. Over the past several years, our family has faced multiple medical emergencies that made this painfully clear.

When my daughter needed surgery for severe scoliosis, we had to travel all the way to Milan. When I needed specialized prenatal care during my high-risk pregnancy, I went back to Rome.

And when my newborn son needed open-heart surgery just days after birth, we had to be transferred north again to a hospital equipped to handle it.

Compared to the healthcare system in the northern part of Italy, the southern part is notoriously underfunded and understaffed.

It’s common for people to travel long distances for care, and in our case, that meant going wherever the best specialists were — even if that meant temporarily uprooting our lives.

There is a silver lining, though, and that’s the cost. In the US, the kind of care my children received would have likely bankrupted us. One surgery back home can cost thousands, even with insurance.

Here, it’s not even close — we’ve mostly just had to pay out of pocket for a few medications.

I’m grateful for the life we’ve built here, but I’d happily leave in a heartbeat

Although Mormanno is clearly not my hometown of choice, living here really isn’t all bad.

I don’t take for granted just how much money we’re saving on our housing and healthcare costs by living here. Since Mormanno has many cheap houses, my husband and I were also able to become homeowners, a dream that felt out of reach in Columbus or Rome.

Our family of four lives comfortably on what my husband and I make from our copywriting business. We’re also able to put money into our savings each month.

In many ways, being in a small town has shifted my view of success and encouraged me to live a more laid-back life. But after 11 years, I’ve stopped pretending that I love it here. I don’t.

My kids have gotten used to small-town life, but if I had my way (and more money), we’d be living in a bigger city, like Rome, tomorrow.

It wouldn’t fix all of our problems — but, at the rate we’re saving, maybe one day we will.