About

I’m Antonio Cangiano, born and raised in Italy. I write about the country I know best.

This publication exists because the Italy most English speakers encounter online is not the real Italy. The TikTok videos are made by people who have been there twice and romanticize the country too much. The travel guides, by those who visited for two weeks. The expat blogs, by Americans and Brits who moved three months ago.

What you get is a country reduced to its highlight reels: rolling Tuscan hills, perfect pasta, la dolce vita. Charming, marketable, but also misleading.

Italy with Antonio is the other view. Regional guides written from the inside. Cultural reality checks that do not dress up the frustrations. In essence, practical knowledge about the things that actually matter when you are planning a life in Italy.

The goal is not to romanticize Italy and not to scare you away from it. The goal is to give you the kind of honest picture and insider info a trusted friend in Italy would give you.

I live with Alicia, my Canadian fiancée. She is as interested in Italy as I am, in some ways more so, and a lot of what I write is shaped by the conversations we have about the country, its quirks, its rhythms, and what a life there actually looks like. When I write for would-be expats, I am writing in part for her.

Who I am writing this for

This publication is for people seriously thinking about moving to Italy. Travelers, Italy lovers, and curious readers are welcome and will find plenty here, but the person I am writing to most clearly is someone at some stage of a relocation decision.

You might be years out, perhaps considering a retirement in Italy. You might be six months away, deep in visa paperwork. You might already be here and still figuring out how to actually live in the country you moved to. If any of that sounds like you, this is built for you.

What you get as a paid subscriber

Three posts a week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Some free, some behind the paywall.

Paid subscribers get every post including long-form guides, the full archive, access to a private WhatsApp group where I answer questions about Italy, and Linguetto Premium when that launches later this year. Founding subscribers additionally get free access to any Italy-related digital product I release, including future video courses and ebooks.

What else I do

Alongside this publication, I build Linguetto, an adaptive Italian language learning platform. If you came here interested in the language rather than the country, that is where you actually want to be. Linguetto is free to use in alpha and paid subscribers here get premium access when it launches later this quarter.

A final word

You do not need to be a paid subscriber. There is a lot of free writing in the archive and I will keep publishing free content for readers who want to follow along without paying. If the work becomes useful enough that you want more of it, the paid tier is there. Either way, thank you for being here.

Grazie mille,
Antonio