Anna : Hi everyone and welcome back to the Magic Towns Italy podcast. For our first episode of the year, we’re gonna talk about some really cool research with you. We’re diving into the top towns in Italy that expats are looking to move to. What are these towns, the big busy cities like Milan or Rome? Tuscany, some beautiful places in Sicily.
Luca : Bonjour Anna. Je vous souhaite une bonne année.
Anna : Bonne année.
Luca : Avez-vous passé de bonnes vacances de fin d'année ?
Anna : Oui, c'était bien. J'étais à Rome et c'était vraiment, vraiment bien.
Luca : J'ai fait un peu de jardinage à la maison.
I know it’s minus seven outside now, but it wasn’t quite so bad before New Year’s Eve
Anna : you’re brave.
Luca : Well, I have to. Today we’re going to talk about, uh, a, um, topic that I’m very excited [00:01:00] about, that we’ve been working on for some time. We have combined search engine data with usage of Magic Towns Italy own Town Explorer to see where expats are looking to move to in Italy.
You’re not gonna hear from anyone else because they don’t have the data, but we do. And, um, we have quite a few surprises. So on the one hand, we looked at how often people abroad search for moving to specific cities or living in specific cities. And then we looked at, uh, which one of our town profiles are getting the most attention from international visitors.
Ces données couvrent donc à la fois l'étape de l'aspiration, qui consiste à chercher sur Google ce que l'on veut faire de sa vie, et l'étape de la recherche sérieuse dans le parcours de l'expatrié. Nous avons ensuite fusionné ces données pour établir le classement des 20 premières villes sur lesquelles les expatriés [00:02:00] ont jeté leur dévolu en 2025.
Anna : We’re not gonna just read you a boring list of towns, we’re gonna chat about the, you know, the surprising stuff, beyond the data and there’s a bunch.
Luca : So we have big cities versus small town dynamics. There’s some regional trends that are interesting, uh, that are frankly unexpected and there are quite a few under the radar towns that are punching way above their weight. Uh, some of them you may have never heard about, but they’re still in the top 20.
We are going to cover most of the ranking, but if you want to read the entire list and get to the top three , then you have to go to Magic Towns Italy and read the article that Anna published today. So let’s get on with it.
Anna : The first thing is this when people first think about moving to Italy, it’s usually the big cities that pop into their heads.
Milan, Florence, Rome, mais ce que nous avons constaté, c'est qu'une fois que les gens passent du rêve à la planification, beaucoup d'entre eux commencent à s'intéresser à l'Italie, aux petites villes et à la campagne.
Luca : Pour confirmer ce que vient de dire Anna, la ville la plus consultée sur Magic Towns Italie l'année dernière n'était ni Milan ni Rome.
C'était Scalea, a coastal town in Calabria that barely has 11,000 residents. And that must be a big surprise to everyone. On its full ranking basis scalea came in at number six. Although very few people frankly are Googling move to Scalea, it’s an area they discover once they get into the weeds. It is one of those towns that expats discover while browsing and using our filters and, to be fair, the place has a lot going for it. It’s where the sea, it’s very, very affordable and it is one of Italy’s special 7% tax towns, meaning that eligible retirees there, only get taxed 7% for an number of years. A topic that we have discussed time and [00:04:00] time and time and time again. So the tax break is huge for foreign retirees and no doubt adds to this town’s appeal.
Anna : Yeah, but Scalea isn’t the only one actually. That’s the same thing with places like Tricase, which is in Puglia, Belluno, Chieti in Abruzzo.
Why? Because these towns have a lot of what expats say, they’re looking for: affordable homes, real local life, or even really high quality of life scores. Uh, something that you can check on our website, by the way. While the glossy big cities grab attention at first, these small towns often end up winning people, or once they dig deeper.
Luca : That’s exactly right. So it is a big city dreams versus small town realities phenomenon. The regional capitals a grab attention. People think Milan, Florence, Rome, but when they actually sit down and compare, um, towns that they actually want to live [00:05:00] in a lot of them realize that a smaller city or even a large provincial town might take their boxes better. Come to think of it, you mentioned Belluno. Belluno is a beautiful city in the Alps and, uh, very few people outside of Italy know of it. But, it, ranks on Magic Towns as one of the highest scoring towns. So people appreciate that and they search for it.
Anna : L'argent, les prix de l'immobilier et le coût de la vie sont des facteurs déterminants. Dans une grande partie de l'Italie, les petites villes peuvent être beaucoup, beaucoup moins chères que Milan ou Rome.
Il n'est donc pas étonnant que des communautés d'expatriés commencent à se former dans des endroits comme Scalia ou des villes comme Tropea ou Pizzo.
Luca : L'autre facteur est le mode de vie. Les Pouilles sont, euh, la région qui suscite le plus d'intérêt international sur notre site web en 2025. En grande partie grâce à des villes comme [00:06:00] Bari, qui était notre cinquième ville. Les Pouilles sont très attrayantes pour un certain nombre de raisons. Elles offrent un style de vie balnéaire et un bon rapport qualité-prix. Elles disposent d'une bonne infrastructure. Des villes historiques, une cuisine délicieuse et un budget raisonnable.
Anna : It’s not just for Puglia, same story in other regions. Um, Veneto, for example, had a bunch of towns in the top 20, like Verona, which is beautiful, Vicenza, Belluno, Trévise. Idem pour la Sicile avec Cefalù et Palerme, Ces endroits sont magnifiques, abordables et la qualité de vie y est élevée.
I was really surprised, because Lazio where Rome’s wasn’t there. Lots of people dream about the eternal, yeah, yeah. You’d expect,
Luca : you’d expect Rome would be there, but Rome isn’t even in the top 20 list.
Anna : Yeah. That’s crazy. I mean, lots of people usually go there and think, I would love to move there. When it’s time to get practical and [00:07:00] compare options other places, you know, steal the show.
Luca : It’s surprising how many famous cities are not in the list. Rome isn’t there. Naples is not in the top 20. Pise, La voisine de Florence, célèbre dans le monde entier, n'est pas non plus présente.
Il s'agit là de villes dont tout le monde a entendu parler, mais les données suggèrent que les expatriés se diversifient et envisagent une palette plus large de destinations.
So the bottom line is that Italy offers a wide variety of places to live, and experts respond to that variety. There’s, a little bit of everything in the top 20 from Milan to tiny Scalea, and that confirms that Italy is, Italy’s appeal isn’t confined to one type of town, and maybe that’s the secret source there.
Anna : Pour parler plus en détail des tendances et des villes, nous avons déjà parlé des Pouilles comme [00:08:00] un grand gagnant. D'autres régions comme la Lombardie, où se trouve Milan, et la Toscane, Florence, Lucques, Sienne, La recherche est toujours dominée.
Luca : So we mentioned two or three regions and it’s not like, um, people are not interested in Tuscany or Lombardy. For instance, Lucques ranks very, very high on our list. Although interest in Lucca dwindled materially year on year, it feels like it’s one of those places is peaking off.
What’s notable is that interest is really spread across the country. You certainly have Tuscany and Lombardy representatives, but you also have, towns in Abruzzo, Calabria, Sardinia. We have a town from the interior of Sardinia, that made the top 20, and that surprised us a lot because we think of Sardinia mostly in terms of, seaside life.
Ensuite, nous avons eu Trieste dans le coin le plus reculé de l'Italie, à la frontière de la Slovénie, en 13e position, et Trento en 19e position. Ainsi, chaque coin de [00:09:00] l'Italie avait une ville dans le top 20. Nous en sommes très heureux, car notre objectif est de mettre en valeur toute l'Italie.
Anna : Oui, nous avons été très surpris par la Calabre.
Luca : We’re talking about one of the poorest regions in Italy and in Europe. Just so people understand it isn’t really an expat magnet traditionally.
Anna : Il se pourrait que cela soit en train de changer.
Luca : I think people may do well to start looking into Calabria now before it’s, too late. And I say as someone who doesn’t live anywhere near Calabria. So just looking at the data. The flip side is, what didn’t happen at the regional level? No, we said no Rome. And the Campania also, that’s the region where Naples is, uh, doesn’t have anything represented in the top 20. This may surprise some people, but many expats, and I say this, having talked to a, a bunch of them are a bit wary of large chaotic cities and in the case of [00:10:00] Naples, perhaps, quality of life, infrastructure, concerns that they may have played into, why it is not more popular and Tuscany is also quite interesting, right, Anna?
Anna : Yeah. It’s super popular with expats and has always been actually. But guess which famous Tuscan city didn’t rank as high as you’d expect?
Luca : Je dirais Florence.
Anna : Oui, exactement. Florence n'arrive qu'à huit, quelque chose comme ça. En 2025, environ 25% de moins que l'année précédente se sont déplacés pour effectuer des recherches sur Florence.
Luca : C'est une baisse incroyable. La baisse des intérêts de 25% d'une année sur l'autre est tout simplement énorme.
Mais honnêtement, êtes-vous surpris ? Tous ces titres sur l'excès de tourisme, sur la ville de Florence, restreignant les utilisateurs d'Airbnbs ? Toutes ces photos de l'endroit submergé par les touristes et les coûts. Je [00:11:00] n'ai pas été très surpris. En fait, euh, je serais surpris que Florence soit encore en huitième position l'année prochaine.
I think it’s gonna go even lower.
Anna : I mean, if you can pay less, and the quality of life, it’s higher. Obviously you’re gonna choose other places. But it wasn’t the only one. A couple of mid-size towns that had some hype before seemed to cool off to like Lorette dans les Marches et Lodi en Lombardie, par exemple. Ces deux régions ont vu leur intérêt pour la recherche diminuer considérablement en 2025.
Luca : To be fair, not from huge levels. So what we learned from this is that trends can change very fast. This is one of the things we’ve been saying for months. Some of our readers might be tired of us saying it, but expat cycles are fast and furious.
Places that are not on the map have become extremely popular overnight, prices go to the roof. Uh, and then, a couple of years later, interest goes down, I think, Florence and Lucca are two prime examples of this. And, actually I’m mostly [00:12:00] interested in who is going to rise and grow over the next couple of years.
Anna : Quelles sont les villes qui ont connu la plus forte hausse d'intérêt en 2025 par rapport à 2024 ?
Luca : Quelques noms sautent aux yeux. Bologne was a major riser., Relocation-related searches for Bologna, about 16% higher year over year. That’s the biggest jump of any large city. Bologna ended up in number four on our list and it seems to be getting more attention than ever.
The airport is getting more efficient and bigger and the town has got some major headlines on the Financial Times, the Guardian, so people are waking up to it. A couple of articles on the newspaper came, put a town on the map. It is also more affordable and less chaotic than Milan or Rome. There’s a high speed, train line to Milan. I know people that live in Bologna, but commute to Milan on a daily [00:13:00] basis, so that’s not surprising.
Anna : Yeah. Usually people that live in Bologna are really proud to live in Bologna, but it’s, it’s beautiful. I personally, I absolutely love it and I, and the
Intervenant 4 : la nourriture.
Anna : The food is amazing. The food is amazing. People are amazing. They’re really, really welcoming. I love Bologna. I’ve been hearing Bologna called the Digital Nomad friendly city lately. But what else was climbing fast?
Luca : Oui. Rome elle-même, bien qu'elle ne figure pas dans le top 20, est en pleine croissance. Nous avons constaté une augmentation des intérêts de 15% d'une année sur l'autre.
Un autre est Trento. Peut-être que cela est lié à ces programmes, à l'obtention d'une subvention de 100 000 euros si vous déménagez dans le Trentin et que vous rénovez une propriété. Et attention, pas si vous déménagez à Trento, mais si vous déménagez dans des villages isolés dans les montagnes, mais vous savez, cela permet d'attirer davantage l'attention sur la région.
Anna : Oui, Trente doit être une ville très organisée.
Luca : It’s not my favorite. I spent some time there, it’s pretty, just not, [00:14:00] not very culturally stimulating. Sorry. People from Trento don’t shoot me. That’s just my opinion.
Anna : Et qu'en est-il de Vérone? Je pense que celui-là a grimpé aussi, n'est-ce pas ?
Luca : Yeah, Verona, saw a 7% uptick in interest in the year. Verona’s a gorgeous town. It is getting a, larger expat population, we can see that in our own Facebook groups. So people are definitely more interested in it and it is well connected. It is quite urban, but it is not huge. It is a little bit less expensive than Venise ou Milan. Et elle est coincée entre ces deux villes. Il est donc possible que certains des Milan La foule de Venise a jeté son dévolu sur Vérone. Sienne et Pise ont également connu une croissance notable, peut-être pour la même raison, à proximité de lieux importants, mais pas aussi chers. Et Bolzano, Trento’s northerly neighbour, also had a little bumper, four, 5%. There’s [00:15:00] a lot of smaller cities that, that are getting on the radar.
Anna : Nous avons déjà parlé de quelques perdants, euh, Florence Loreto, Lodi, mais aussi, j'ai vu Vicence et même Lucca, ce qui était vraiment surprenant malgré le fait qu'elle soit classée très haut sur la liste. Euh, je veux dire, rien d'extraordinaire. Ils ont évidemment continué à figurer dans le haut du classement, mais cela montre comment les tendances évoluent.
Luca : And it doesn’t really mean that a place is not popular anymore, but a spike may have normalized.
Anna : I’ve also heard about, this little coastal town, which is called in Liguria. Yeah. Bordighera, n'est-ce pas ?
Luca : Yeah. Bordighera. I would bet there only one in a hundred of our listeners has heard of it. It’s a small town on the Ligurian Riviera near the French border. Picture pretty palm lined.
Famous in the 19th century, actually had an expat community in the 19th century. Especially with British expats, it hasn’t been on the radar for [00:16:00] modern expats until this year. So it went from effectively zero such interest to a meaningful blip.
It did not make the top 20 list. Next week we’ll talk about some of these, uh, spots that are becoming interesting that haven’t quite made the, highest tier of the rankings. I would bet that this will be a town that’s going to show up on expats’ radars in the future, and all it takes is a single viral article or a post on Instagram, and suddenly they catch fire. So we shall keep a close eye on.
Pour conclure,
Anna : Our 2025 data, shows a two path journey for experts looking for the sweet life. On one path you’ve got the big dreams where cities like Milan or Florence capture people’s imagination. On the other path, you’ve got the practical research phase where people often end up drawn to Italy’s smaller, more livable [00:17:00] and cheaper towns, as they get serious about moving.
Both parts lead to something good though. Italy’s incredible diversity, means there is really something for everyone.
Luca : That’s right. Italy has more than 7,000 municipalities. We own Magic Towns track almost 2000 of them with our expat profiles and the top 20 list, uh, really reflects, uh, that mix you are referring to Anna, that mix of everything, the large metropolis, the little long hamlets, uh, and the up and coming regions.
Anna : Pour savoir qui a obtenu les meilleures places et pour voir la liste complète des 20 meilleures villes pour les expatriés en Italie, vous pouvez visiter notre site web et lire le dossier complet de l'édition 2026.
Luca : And if you are planning to move to Italy, you want to get ahead of us doing next year’s list of top towns, so you can use the Town Explorer, use dozens of filters to find out which town suits you. All the [00:18:00] way from quality of healthcare to how far you are from the beach to the quality of the beach waters, you’re gonna be bathing in and a lot more, and, uh, that way you won’t be following the herd. It will be the herd following you. Did you like that Anna?
Anna : We’ll see you over at Magic Towns.
Luca : Oui. Et nous serons de nouveau en direct dans notre podcast la semaine prochaine pour parler des surprises secrètes de notre liste des villes les plus recherchées par les expatriés en 2026. Au revoir à tous.
Anna : Au revoir.
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