![\"Italy](\"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/9-3.jpg\")
<\/p>\nOne of the themes that I return to often on my blog concerns the connection between Italian-Americans and the culture of the \u201cOld Country.\u201d I like to explore the parallels as well as the points of departure, and reconcile the misconceptions held by many of us second and third generation descendants. In other words, I want to be part of the conversation that helps me and other Italian-Americans gain some reality-based knowledge of the country where our families came from.<\/p>\n
Of course, the only real knowledge comes from first-hand experience\u2014you must go see it for yourself<\/strong> if you\u2019re interested in some version of the actual truth. The nostalgia-drenched stories around the Sunday dinner table are emotional and fun, but they can also give a distorted view of a country that existed only in the hearts and minds of homesick immigrants.<\/p>\n My friend Anthony recently made such a journey of rediscovery, and brought along his whole \u201cnew\u201d family to meet the \u201cold\u201d family in Italy. Furthermore, they were there for forty days and were able to enjoy their experience on a modest budget. Well, I\u2019ll tell him the rest of the story\u2026<\/p>\n Thanks, Rick.\u00a0 Ciao everyone, my name is Anthony Fasano (yes, I\u2019m Italian, Italian American), and just three years ago, I couldn\u2019t even tell you from where in Italy my great grandparents emigrated.\u00a0 Then, one day, after starting to think seriously about where my family came from, it hit me:\u00a0 My grandparents, who had all the knowledge of our family history, were aging, and if I didn\u2019t find out everything I could from them, I might never find out.<\/p>\n Over the next three years, I spent countless afternoons at my grandparents\u2019 kitchen table, asking questions. Along with online tools, I used the information they gave me to:<\/p>\n It was life changing.<\/p>\n I know Rick prides himself on sharing information with you that makes it easier to travel to and enjoy the beautiful country of Italy.\u00a0 So, along those lines, I want to share an excerpt from my book Forty Days in Italy Con La Famiglia: How to Research your Italian Roots and Travel to Italy on your Own Terms<\/em>. While my book outlines how I achieved all of the things I listed above, here I want to focus on how our family of five was able to travel Italy on a budget in forty days.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n As a point of reference, I want to share the cost of our trip.\u00a0 For forty days, for our family of five, it cost approximately $11,000 out of pocket.\u00a0 I say \u201cout of pocket\u201d because we rented out our home in New Jersey – the $11,000 amount is after I credited our cost with the rental income.<\/p>\n If you examine that number more, it didn\u2019t even really feel like $11,000.\u00a0 In fact, it felt like much less.\u00a0 If we were home, we would still have had regular food and living costs, and we most likely would have sent the kids to summer camp.\u00a0 We would have also taken our usual week-long vacation to the Jersey Shore.\u00a0 Therefore, our real expense was probably closer to $5,000 or $6,000.<\/p>\n Keep in mind that credit card reward points covered our flights to and from Italy.\u00a0 This went a long way towards keeping our costs down.\u00a0 Also, know that of the forty days in Italy, we stayed nine nights with relatives at no cost to us.<\/p>\n Here are some strategies we used to keep costs down.\u00a0 Your budget and vision for your trip may be different than ours, so traveling on a tight budget might not be as important.\u00a0 Either way, you may find some of these helpful.<\/p>\n Food can be a huge source of expense in Italy.\u00a0 Now, of course, one of the main reasons for visiting Italy is to experience the food, no doubt about that.\u00a0 However, if you are traveling for an extended period of time, then depending on the location, restaurants can start to get very expensive.\u00a0 Some of the best mozzarella di bufala<\/em> (mozzarella from the milk of buffalo) that we ate was purchased at the deli counter in a supermarket. If you are traveling without children, and you are in remote areas of Italy, you can eat out very inexpensively on a regular basis.\u00a0 You will find family-run restaurants in most small villages where there is no menu, but there are large, fresh, delicious, authentic Italian meals.<\/p>\n In my book Forty Days in Italy Con La Famiglia<\/em>, not only do I go into detail on all aspects of my family research, language learning experience, planning and travel through Italy, but, along with the book, I also offer you access to a companion website that provides resources you can download to do exactly what I did. \u00a0<\/a>Click here for a video with some more information about how you can use the book for you and your family.<\/a><\/p>\n BIO<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n Anthony Fasano is a proud Italian American whose family comes from both the regions of Campania and Sicilia.\u00a0 His professional background is in engineering, where he now provides career coaching for engineers.\u00a0 He has created several successful podcasts that have been downloaded over two million times, but his favorite is The Italian American Podcast<\/a>.\u00a0 He has authored several books, including a book for engineers titled, Engineer Your Own Success<\/em>, published by Wiley Press, as well as a series of children\u2019s books he co-authored with his now 10-year-old daughter, titled Purpee the Purple Dragon<\/em>. \u00a0<\/a>Click here to see a video of Anthony explaining how you can benefit from his trip of a lifetime to Italy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the themes that I return to often on my blog concerns the connection between Italian-Americans and the culture of the \u201cOld Country.\u201d I like to explore the parallels as well as the points of departure, and reconcile the misconceptions held by many of us second and third generation descendants. In other words, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[304,451],"tags":[481,309,182,141,381],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6729"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Italy on a Budget<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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The general perception Americans hold of travel to Italy is that it is very expensive. If you commit to traveling on a budget, it doesn\u2019t have to that way.\u00a0 We are by no means wealthy, and we were also traveling with three young children, so in order for all five of us to be able to afford forty days in Italy, we had to be extremely frugal.<\/p>\n\n
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