Seven years ago today we landed in Aviano, Italy to begin what was supposed to be a three year adventure living in bella Italia. Seven years later we’re still here, and ironically as you read this, we’re packing up for a move to Bordeaux, France. I dreamed of living in Italy for years and that was only intensified by my own Roman Holiday as I flitted around Italy with my friend Jess in 2006, and then quickly returned for a trip to Rome and Paris with my mom in 2007. I jumped for joy when Tim told me he’d gotten assigned to Aviano Air Base and my dream of living in Italy was about to be fulfilled.
I cried when we landed at Aviano and I stepped off the plane to some of the ugliest buildings I’ve ever seen and the pungent stench of cow manure. Living in Italy has turned out to be everything I’ve ever imagined and nothing like I expected all at once. So I thought it was only fitting today to dish a little on what it’s like for us living in Italy, starting a business and what’s next.
On Living in Italy
Clearly we have the travel bug, otherwise this website wouldn’t exist. And though we traveled before moving to Europe, my visited countries list was a paltry 12. Tim’s was even less. We added seven countries in our first six months living in Italy and we love how incredibly easy it is to jet off to another country on a weekend.
It’s the jet set life I’d always dreamed of having and here we are seven years and 60 countries later. The travel and opportunities that have presented themselves as a result are definitely one of the top perks of living in Italy, though we definitely don’t intend to stay in Italy forever.
We like living in Italy, but we don’t love it. Mainly we don’t love it because of the weather. Under the Tuscan Sun this is not. To be honest, I don’t keep tabs on the weather in Tuscany, or any other part of Italy unless we’re traveling there, and I do believe it is better in other parts of Italy.
Our weather in the Friuli Venezia Giulia sucks, with a capital S. We receive a whopping 58 inches of rainfall annually. That’s about 5 inches per month. In other words, it rains ALL THE DAMN TIME.
We moved to Italy after spending 11 years living in the desert, first in Las Vegas and then Phoenix, where both have around 330 days of sunshine and only 7 inches total annual rainfall. It’s been seven years and I honestly still haven’t adjusted to so much rain.
And don’t even get me started on the humidity. Come July and August, I want nothing more than to escape the unbearable heat and humidity.
The rain might put a damper on our mood at times, but it’s the Asian tiger mosquitoes that drive us insane. When it’s not raining, we still can’t enjoy being outdoors at our house because we’re literally being eaten alive 24/7.
These aren’t your average mosquitoes, folks. Italy is infested with the Asian Tiger Mosquito, which is an extremely aggressive mosquito that is active both day and night. They bite all the time (even right through your clothes) and they’re not only bothersome to people, but also dogs, cats, and other animals.
I’ve literally not been anywhere with mosquitoes as bad as they are in Italy. Not even parts of Asia we’ve traveled. Our dog, Emma, doesn’t want to stay outside long because of them. At least 10 fly in every time we open the door to let her out and they drive Tim nuts to the point that neither of us sleep very well because they buzz by his ears in his sleep. Bonus for us, the European Environment Agency (EEA) says that Italy is the most infested European country.
There are some other inconveniences too, like dealing with internet that I swear is slower than my dial-up AOL circa 1998. Or that my Fisher-Price sized washing machine sounds like a jet engine taking off and takes hours to wash a miniature sized load of laundry.
And remember all that rain? I need it to be sunny in order to hang my laundry out to dry. I’m generally at the mercy of the weather especially when I want to wash sheets, towels, and blankets.
All that rain and humidity also makes dealing with black mold a way of life. We’ve been really lucky to only have a small amount of it in a few corners of our house. But many others we know have had horrible black mold infestations to the point of having to throw our furniture, clothing and shoes because of it.
But it’s not all bad. We take all the rain, mosquitoes, and minor inconveniences in stride because there are things we love and are definitely going to miss when we eventually do move. One of the things we’ll really miss and is a favorite thing about living in Italy is the fresh, local produce, meat, and markets where you get it all. Italy is undoubtedly a foodie heaven.
I suppose it depends on where you live in the US. Admittedly growing up in Pennsylvania, I remember picking bushels of strawberries, having fresh apples in the fall, and my mom purchased all of our meat from the local butcher who had his own cows and pigs right there on the farm. In my own adult life though, fruit and veggies came from Albertsons, where everything was imported. Meat was packaged and I honestly couldn’t tell you where it came from.
I guess all that rain is good for something, because our markets are filled with seasonal local produce that is fresh and far less expensive than buying produce in the US. I get sticker shock when I’m back in the US and buy produce and (gag) the honey in the bear. My honey is so local that the beekeeper lives down the street and it costs just €5 for 500 grams. I pay a visit to the local butcher and buy meat for the week for usually around €20 for five nights of dinners. It’s definitely cheaper to eat healthy in Italy.
Let’s not forget about wine! If I get sticker shock over fruits and veggies, buying wine in the US damn near gives me a heart attack. We have access to some really good wine at ridiculously cheap prices. And when I’m having one of those days where the other stuff just frustrates me to no end, I have a glass of wine with dinner. Wine makes everything better.
On Travel Blogging and Work
You may be wondering how it is that two Americans came to live in Italy. It’s the second question people ask us when they meet us (the first is which is our favorite country). If you’ve paid a visit to our About Us page, then you know that Tim is in the US Air Force and we are in Italy because he is currently assigned to Aviano Air Base.
I was working at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix when we found out we were moving and discussed telecommuting with my boss. We worked out a trial arrangement since my position in social media and communications was easy enough to do from anywhere I had a reliable internet connection.
Grand Canyon University was a fantastic place for me to hone my social media and communication management skills over the last seven years, and all the support and creative freedom I’ve had there has certainly had a direct impact on this website, speaking engagements, and that we’ve become digital influencers in the social space.
I left Grand Canyon University in 2015 to focus on the business we built. It was tough to give up location independence and seven weeks of vacation each year, but we came to a point where our life goals changed. We started looking ahead to Tim’s quickly approaching retirement, and the independence of owning our own business and digital travel publication became our new goal.
If you’d told us that we’d have more than two million annual readers and would be doing things like working with Volvo and Visit Sweden to promote the Volvo Overseas Delivery Program or any of our other projects on a now long list, we’ve had told you that you were crazy.
We never talk about the behind-the-scenes, so indulge us for a moment. This blog also turns seven years old this month and we do get messages from people asking us how we did it. It’s been a long road of traveling on our own, putting together business plans, gobbling up everything on professional blogging that we could find online, attending conferences, and writing, writing, and writing some more to get here. It is extremely hard work, but we love it and the hard work has started to pay off.
Luxe Adventure Traveler was named as one of the top travel blogs to watch in 2013 by the Huffington Post and has been featured on CNN, Telegraph, BuzzFeed, USA Today, and Travel + Leisure. As a social media expert, I’m now speaking at top conferences in both the travel and higher education industries including ITB Berlin, UBTech, Society of American Travel Writers, and TBEX.
So What’s Next?
Tim still has a few years before he can retire from the military. In the meantime, we’re using that time to continue to build our website and use it as a vehicle for other endeavors.
We have goals to open a tour business in Bordeaux after Tim retires. We’re also doing awesome things like licensing some of our photography for use in advertising campaigns, serving as brand ambassadors and working on various digital tourism campaigns. And we’ve got some other exciting things in the works that we can’t talk about just yet.
We love working and traveling together, and ultimately the goal is to continue to grow this business so that we can both do it full time and continue to live in a comfortable home base in Bordeaux, a city we both love. We hope that you’ll continue along on this awesome ride with us and will be inspired by us to live a life of adventure of your own!
Frank says
Congratulations on all the success Jen! You certainly work hard on your blog and you deserve all of it. I sense a new home in the not so distant future? Good to know the good and the bad, didn’t know some of the negative aspects (mosquitos would also drive me crazy). I agree with you that one of the great things about Italy is the wine and when we get back from Europe we’re always outraged by how darn expensive it is to drink here. Damn. But we’re off to Prague for 3 months so looking forward to working on that beer belly…
Keep up the good work,
Frank (bbqboy)
Jennifer says
Our time in Italy is starting to wind down. We have about 2 years left in Italy and no doubt it will go by very quickly. Enjoy Prague! It will be much cooler (than sweltering Italy is right now) and quite lovely at this time of the year.
Jesse says
I lived 7 years in italy, have complaints, common sense, its not the USA, so I don’t whine
Eva Barnett says
I am considering a civilian medical job that I have been offered at the base. I got nervous when you said you hated the weather and smell. Then I found it really hilarious, because I am from Georgia. Here we have sweltering humid summers, I actually looked it up and Georgia also has about 5″ of rain a month. I have lived out the country around cows a lot of my life. I had to scroll down and see, and sure enough you are not from the southeast lol I loved how you described all the wonderful things though about the area and I am really about to make the decision to say yes. Thank you!
Suki F says
Sounds like you have been having a great time! I don’t live there but the time I have visited it has been amazing.
Jennifer says
Glad to hear you’ve enjoyed your visits to Italy, Suki! It is a lovely country to visit.
Shikha (whywasteannualleave) says
What an incredible journey for you all, literal and metaphorical! Sounds like you have put an enormous amount of effort into your blog and a huge congratulations to you on such well-deserved reward and success from it! I love reading it and even though mine is a little and newish blog, I’m always inspired to keep working at mine when I read yours!
Jennifer says
Thanks so much, Shikha! Comments like yours are what encourage us to keep plugging along. 🙂
Jennifer says
Hi there. If it were up to you and your husband, where in Europe would you live? I’m a USAF Veteran and now my husband and I both work at the local VA Hospital in Prescott, AZ so we are very familiar with the Phoenix area as well. Just today, we both found potential jobs posted for Aviano at grades which are very enticing. We also have three children, one is 10 years old and the other two are 2.5 year old twins. We love it here in Prescott and mainly it’s due to the climate, laid back way of life, but it is starting to grow even more. We are both originally from FL and DO NOT miss the humidity nor mosquitos. We moved here due to my last assignment as an AFROTC instructor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and I had to separate due to medical reasons. It’s been 11 years now in Prescott and are considering going overseas; however, do not want to regret the move. We absolutely would love to travel Europe, but how feasible is it really with children and with fairly busy work life? As a Veteran and US government employee, what type of healthcare would we have access to? I do miss the USAF (separated 6.5 years ago), but have also heard it’s changed a lot…not sure exactly how. Should we apply to these positions? I am hesitant now after reading this blog…
Jennifer Dombrowski says
Hi Jennifer,
Actually, we now live in Bordeaux, France by our own choice. And we absolutely adore it. It’s entirely different to when we lived in Italy in so many ways – first, we live here simply because we want to. There is no base support and living in Bordeaux has nothing to do with the military, so we have to do everything on our own – visa, carte de sejour, French health care, getting our French driver’s licenses, finding a place to live, opening bank accounts, and absolutely everything. But every headache with dealing with all of that has absolutely been worth it. Also, the weather is 1000% times better and there are no mosquitoes at all.
I can’t speak to what kind of healthcare you’d have access to. I can tell you that we are provided with none from Tricare, though because we are opening a business in France and pay taxes here, we are entitled to the healthcare here. It’s been wonderful for the last more than a year that we’ve been living in Bordeaux and emergency doctors have even come straight to our apartment when I was too sick with a blocked sinus cavity to even get out of bed. At Aviano, I was so over dealing with the incompetent doctors I’d get assigned on base that I got to the point where I had to be extremely sick to even consider going on the base.
Honestly, we’d never make a choice to go back and live in Northern Italy. I didn’t have a single friend in the seven years we lived there. I’m convinced I had a vitamin D deficiency from the lack of sun and incessant rain. I wasn’t a happy person there and it affected a lot of areas of my life. Everyone I know remarks on what a change they see since we moved to Bordeaux.
All that said, Aviano is situated pretty well for traveling much of Western Europe. It’s easy to go a lot of places over a weekend and to take advantage of every holiday you get. But realize that I travel and run this website for a living, so our travel patterns are definitely not the norm.
Lauren says
Hi Jennifer,
Where did you live while stationed at Aviano? Were the mosquitos worse closer to the mountain? We are moving there soon and scoping out the possibilities. Is there anywhere you would recommend we avoid?
Thanks for any help!
Jennifer Dombrowski says
Hi Lauren,
It really depends on what your needs are. We donn’t have kids and wanted a more Italian experience. At the time, we had a shepherd mix that we didn’t feel an apartment was a good living situation for so we strictly looked at houses with yards.
Also, depending on when you arrive, finding a house can be extremely competitive. We arrived in what they call the height of PCS season and anything available went extremely fast. In reality, unless you have endless funds to pay out of pocket to stay in a hotel or in lodging on base, you’ll be settling for a place that works.
We ended up in a little town called Prata di Pordenone. We had a village I could easily walk to that had several grocery stores, restaurants and a weekly market. We were only about 10 minutes from the freeway, which was important as I traveled at least twice a month for work (this website is my full time career).
We were a good 30 minutes drive from the base, though. I rarely went there and my husband didn’t mind the drive too much. But for many people, that is way further than they want to live from the base. A lot of people aim to be within 5-10 minutes drive of the base.
If we were to choose now, we’d want to live in Pordenone or Sacile. These are the largest towns, both about 20-30 minutes drive from the base. Both have a train station and are quite close to the freeway. Both would give us the city center European life we enjoy, while still being relatively close to mountains for hiking and beaches.
As for the mosquitoes, they are everywhere in Italy. It’s a massive problem because Italy is so rainy and damp. There’s plenty of standing water for them to just breed and it never really gets cold enough for them to die. Screens aren’t typical, so if a house has screens on at least some windows you’ll have struck gold.
Hope that all helps!
Hope that helps!
pd says
I’ve spent a lot of time in Italy and have never encountered a mass amount of mosquitos. I’ve spent a lot of time from Rome all the way to Naples and Capri. I’ve also been to Venice twice and each time I was in Italy I stayed a minimum of 30 days. I’ve never even put mosquitos and Italy together.
I plan to move to Italy in October. I’m sure your long time stay has given you a great account of your experience…but was it really that bad?
Jennifer Dombrowski says
We ended up living in Italy for just over 7 years. We’ve now lived in Bordeaux, France for two years and it’s an entirely different experience. We absolutely love Bordeaux and plan to stay permanently.
While we’ll always go back to Italy to visit, we won’t return to live. It’s truly incredible how different the experience of living in two countries next door to each other is.
The Asian tiger mosquito infestation continues to be a problem all across Italy. There’s even been cases of mosquito born illnesses since 2017 because of the mosquito problem. We couldn’t ever open windows and just opening the door to rush in or out would let several in. We spent countless nights attacked in our sleep. Our dog even refused to stay out in the yard because she would get swarmed.
We don’t have mosquito problems in Bordeaux. Our windows are always open.
The internet is also world’s different. It’s incredibly fast in France, where the internet not working for periods of time was a daily occurrence in Italy. It’s a tinge better in bigger cities in Italy, but the infrastructure just doesn’t exist in the country. And when your entire career exists online, internet isn’t a convenience – it’s a necessity.
There’s so many other aspects of living abroad that we much prefer in France over Italy, both cultural and bureaucratic.
Was it horrible? No. Would we chose to live there again? No.
Kira says
Developing one’s opinions on Italian weather mosquitoes etc from a stay in Pordenone is like doing the same after living for a few years in Greensville, NC. You can only speak for your own specific experience. Italy enjoys, in many regions, a wonderful temperate weather. Mosquitoes are in most areas a little bit more than a nuisance (except, of course, in humid places).
France is a beautiful country and I am glad you are enjoying your stay. But if you make part of your living from a blog on travels, please make it real.
Jennifer Dombrowski says
I didn’t develop my opinions on weather and mosquitoes from a stay in Pordenone. Yes, we lived in Pordenone but as we’re travel professionals that earn our living from running our site as a respected online travel magazine, we traveled extensively in Italy with multiple trips to every single region with the exception of Sardinia.
It’s also a known fact that Italy is infested with mosquitoes, particularly the Asian Tiger mosquito since the 1990s. So much so that blood donations have been halted for various time periods, as recently as last summer because of the mosquito-borne illness Chikungunya.
We more than “keep it real”. We’re journalists and check our facts. Perhaps you should as well before you just go passing judgements based on a single post you read, which was very much about our experience living in Pordenone.
Grant says
How did you turn your 3 year assignment into a 5 year assignment? Asking because I just got orders to go back to Aviano.
Jennifer Dombrowski says
Tim’s assignment was 4 years, then he extended for an additional 3 year assignment. We spent 7 years total at Aviano.
Steven Ast says
Hey, JENNIFER: my wife. And I will be in Venice 16 Sept,2019 and we want to visit my wife’s father’s birthplace in Aviano.
We’re looking for a tour guide to meet us in Venice,take us to Aviano and environs and back to Venice.
Any recommendations?
Jennifer Dombrowski says
Hi Steven,
There are no guided tours to Aviano. There’s honestly nothing to see in the town itself. It’s incredibly small and you can walk the entire town in an hour or two at most. There’s a train station in Aviano, so you could take the train there. Obviously you are going to see your father-in-law’s birthplace. You could honestly quite easily just enter the address where he grew up in Google maps and walk over. I wouldn’t personally pay for a guide as there just isn’t really anything to guide you through. I’d suspect the town is now quite different than when your father-in-law was born there. It’s located just a few minutes down the road from the main Aviano Air Base and overrun with military families. There are two other satellite parts of the Air Base that are located right in Aviano itself. Even the restaurants have Americanized their menus and aren’t very good. There’s a handful of shops, a church on the main square, and a few cafes.
You might like to visit Sacile (also has it’s own train station), which is a bit bigger than Aviano and has a nice market on Thursdays. Sacile is a pretty town situated on the river and nice to stroll around, though beyond the market there also really aren’t any attractions. There are some nice restaurants in Sacile. Pordenone is the largest town in the area, and also has a train station. There’s a market there on Wednesdays. There’s a lot of shops and nice restaurants and cafes.
STEVEN AST says
thanks, Jennifer, you are so kind to answer.
Augusta says
Just returned from a 2 week visit to Aviano. We were both military and stationed t Aviano for four years in the early 2000s. I adore everything about the area and did from the moment my feet touched the ground. Everywhere I’ve lived, and I mean lived, not visited, had draw backs from Korea to Italy. Try living in North Dakota. I can’t find a single thing to whine about Friuli. But keep spreading the bad word. It keeps the tourists out.
Tom says
Hi Jennifer from Tom in Scottsdale AZ
I was sent to Aviano and no one could tell me where it was not on any maps. The TO found it on a 1917 Rand McNally map. I was expecting to go to England when my orders were changed while on leave in NYC. It was for a 2 year tour which was quickly extended and again twice more for 5 years. Once I knew I was there for a long tour I got to enjoy the local life, learned the language and a few dialects, went mountain climbing and skiing with local guys. The food was great, especially the mushrooms we gathered in the mountains and one guy’s wife cooked for us with local Merlot and bread.
Paradise! I have not been back in 20 years I will go again. Those mosquitos have reached the US. Thanks for the memories!
Tom