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Jaid Newstead moved to Bari, Italy in May 2024. She was 33, fresh off a plane from Toronto, and had chosen the city almost by chance. She had originally been thinking about Monopoli, until someone she’d met while travelling in Lecce suggested Bari instead. She hadn’t looked the city up. She didn’t speak Italian. She had no job, no apartment lined up, and – at least on paper – no plan whatsoever.
Two years later, she’s still here. She has a boyfriend she calls “the love of her life”, a job in the wedding industry, and an Instagram account (@jaidinthelife) with nearly 60,000 people following along.
Prima del salto
Jaid moved to Toronto at 19 – like a lot of people from small towns, the big city felt full of possibility in her twenties. And for a while, it was. She made friends, built a life, and had a good time doing it. But somewhere around 30, she started feeling a shift she couldn’t shake:
“When you’re in your twenties you’re like a sponge, you’re still figuring out who you are. But then I started nearing my thirties and I just…didn’t feel connected anymore. And it’s hard to change when the norm of your life has been so consistent for ten years.“
She tried to fix it the usual way, trying to break her routine a bit to try new hobbies – volleyball, embroidering, painting. But nothing really clicked. And the job situation wasn’t helping. She’d gone back to school for marketing and advertising communications and eventually got a job at an ad agency – but the pay was so low she was working a second full-time job on top of it just to make rent. Nine to five, five days a week, plus another job most evenings and weekends. “I was burnt out, constantly trying to figure out who I am and who I want to be in this next chapter. It was a lot to juggle.”
Five Weeks That Changed Everything
However, the ad agency job had one perk: you could lavorare da remoto for a few weeks during the year. So when Jaid decided she needed to get out of Toronto for a bit, she booked five weeks in Italy to travel solo and see what happened.
She spent time moving around, but the part that really got her was two weeks in Puglia. Being six hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time meant her whole morning was free. She’d wake up, go for walks, swim in the sea, sightsee, and only clock in to work in the afternoon. “I just loved it so much”, she said. “And I really felt like I was getting to meet the next chapter of me.”
When she flew back to Toronto in October, she told herself it was probably just the holiday high. Eat, Pray, Love syndrome. It would pass. But it didn’t.
“Within a month of landing, I was like – I’m going to figure out how to move there. And within seven months, I was here.”
Landing in Bari: The Visa, The Work and The Apartment
Jaid moved to Italy on the Youth Mobility Visa – a bilateral agreement that lets Canadian citizens, aged between 18 and 35, live and work in Italy for up to one year. “I had just turned 34, so I was like, if I don’t apply for this now, I’m going to regret it for the rest of my life.”
She applied on a Monday, expecting it to take months. Just four days later, by Friday, she had her visa. After a couple of months spent selling her things in Toronto, she landed in Bari, thinking she’d stay for one year. On the Canadian side, the process had been smooth and well-organised. Activating it at the questura in Bari was another story.
“I got there and it was just… hordes of people waving papers. I spoke zero Italian, but fortunately I found a girl that spoke a bit of English. The staff was very kind, but they had apparently never seen this particular visa before and had to call the boss to figure out what to do with her. So I was thinking, I’m probably going home in two days. There was so much back and forth.“
It got sorted in the end. But then came the apartment search. Before leaving Canada, Jaid had emailed landlords from Toronto – hundreds of messages, maybe two replies. She booked an Airbnb for her first month in Bari, assuming she’d find something longer-term once she arrived. But even in person, barely anyone replied: “I cried every day. I thought I was going to be literally homeless. And then, two days before my Airbnb was expiring, the landlady I’d been talking to for three weeks finally said yes.”
Her advice now is simple: if you’re moving to southern Italy and don’t parlare italiano, use a real estate agent if you can. In her case, a local contact put her in touch with one, and he handled the calls, messages and mediation. Just bilancio for it properly: renters usually pay the agent’s fee, often around one month’s rent, plus a deposit upfront. And if you have any local contacts, lean on them: “They’re very people-focused down here. They want to meet you in person. Nobody’s checking their email.”
Finding a Job, and Meeting Giovanni
About a week after arriving, Jaid wandered into a little restaurant around the corner from where she was staying. She ordered wine, some taralli, and relaxed for the first time in days. The manager asked what brought her to Bari. When she said she’d just moved and was going to start looking for work, he asked if she wanted to work there. “Do you speak a little Italian?” She said yes – then went home and spent four hours on Duolingo.
A few months into working there, she met Giovanni. At first, it was just one of those small, passing encounters you don’t expect to become anything. But they started talking, eventually went for a drink, and have been together ever since.
“He is the most amazing person ever. I’m genuinely crazy in love“. From the beginning, Jaid was honest about her visa situation. She didn’t want the relationship to feel like a way to stay in Italy – “I’m not 90 Day Fiancéing you, I promise”, she joked. In the end, it was just two people deciding to trust each other and see where it went.
But the relationship kept growing. By the time her visa expired, they were ready for the next step: applying for a convivenza di fatto – a registered domestic partnership – which qualified her for a five-year renewable residency permit through family ties.
The Culture Shocks
Dinner at 9:30 or 10pm. Five-hour lunches. Shops that close every afternoon from 1:30 to 4. Old men at the post office who come in, scan the room for someone they know, and leave without doing any post office business whatsoever: “At first I was like… what is happening in here? It’s like a little party at 9am.”
The pace of life in southern Italy is genuinely different, and Jaid is honest that it takes some adjusting. “Everything moves slower. At the beginning I’d plan to do something in the afternoon and show up to a closed shop. Now I’ve learned to plan my day around it.”
E poi c'è il everything-in-person culture. Getting her Italian phone number, for instance, took three separate trips to the Fastweb store – each time her permesso details weren’t in the system yet, and each time: come back tomorrow. No email, no phone. Just show up again. On the banking side, she quickly realised that an Italian account wasn’t worth it – as a foreigner she was being charged a monthly fee just to have it, plus extra for every transaction. She uses Wise now, which covers most of what she needs, including her salary.
Her lifestyle has shifted in other ways too. The patente di guida is still on the to-do list, but it’s not exactly urgent. She walks to work every day and has come to love it – it’s just part of how her day flows now.
Is Bari For You?
We asked Jaid, in her opinion, what kind of people would love Bari, and who might struggle a bit.
“Bari is for people who want to slow down a little bit in life. The way of life here is very natural – we’re by the sea, everything moves at a slower pace. For someone that’s ready for that, it’s the right place.”
But according to her, if you need a big expat social scene ready-made and waiting for you, Bari might be a harder landing: “There aren’t many foreigners here compared to Roma o Milano. The locals have often known each other since childhood, and it takes real time to get a foothold. The winter is slow. Really slow. Not much happening, not much open. If you’re someone who needs constant activity, or a wide choice of international restaurants, it can feel a bit limiting.”
Moving somewhere completely alone, with no safety net, has a way of teaching you things about yourself that nothing else really does. You figure out how to be okay with your own company, stay open to people without depending on them. Slowly, without even realising it, you start to feel at home – in the place, and in yourself.
Two Years On
When Jaid started to post her videos online, she didn’t think about building an audience. She started because when she moved, she was alone, and filming herself and posting it was a way to stay connected with people back home: “I’d just talk to my camera. I was showing things I was learning, where I was going, what I was eating. It brought me a lot of joy in those moments when I didn’t have anybody. It made me feel connected back to Canada.”
Today, she has more than 60,000 followers, and her DMs are full of people saying “I wish I could do that.“
“When I receive these kind of messages, I remember myself when I was in Canada, and was dreaming of starting a new chapter in my life. So for anyone thinking this at the moment, I just have one question: why don’t you? We have one tiny little life to live. Why not make it as big as you can?“
Italy changed Jaid in ways she didn’t expect. She describes herself as calmer now, more patient – “dealing with La burocrazia italiana will do that to you” - e genuinely lighter. Happier: “I feel connected to myself in a way I hadn’t for a long time”, she said. “I don’t know how else to put it. Just lighter.”
The thing she comes back to, when people ask her what made her actually do it is this: she trusted her gut for the first time in her life. Every time the doubt crept in during those seven months of planning, she’d go back to the original feeling. The one she had in Puglia, walking around, swimming in the sea, feeling like herself for the first time in years: “When you feel it really deep in your bones, it’s easier to find again when you flutter away from it. And it’s always there.”
If Jaid’s story inspired you and you’re thinking about moving to Italy, check out our Esploratore della città. It helps you find where you should live in Italy based on your interests and preferences. You can filter by property prices, proximity to the sea, airports, internet connection, healthcare quality, and much more.
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