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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: Hi Anna. Happy New Year.
Anna: Happy New Year.
Luca: Did you have a nice, uh, end of year break?
Anna: Yeah, it was nice. I was in Rome and it was really, really nice.
Luca: I have been, uh, home actually doing a little bit of gardening.
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.
So this covers both the aspiration stage, kind of Googling what to do with your life, and then the serious research stage of the expat journey. Then we have blended this data together to provide the ranking of the top 20 towns that expats [00:02:00] had their eyes on in 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.
So, you know, Milan, Florence, Rome, but, what we found is once people go from just [00:03:00] dreaming to actually planning, a lot of them start looking at Italy, smaller towns and countryside instead.
Luca: To confirm what Anna just said, the single most viewed town on Magic Towns Italy last year was not Milan or Rome.
It was 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: One big thing is definitely money, property prices and cost of living. In a lot of Italy, small towns can be way, way cheaper than in Milan or Rome.
No wonder we are seeing expat communities starting to form in places like Scalia or towns like Tropea or Pizzo.
Luca: And the other factor is lifestyle. Puglia is, uh, the number one region for international interest on our website in 2025. Thanks in large part, towns like [00:06:00] Bari, which was our overall number five town. Puglia is pretty appealing for a number of reasons. It offers seaside lifestyle, and value for money. It has good infrastructure. Historic towns, lovely food, and a reasonable budget.
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, Treviso. Same for Sicily with Cefalù and Palermo, these places are beautiful, affordable and the quality of life is high.
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. Pisa, the world famous, neighbor of Florence is also not there.
These are all cities that everyone has heard about, but the data suggests that expats branch out and consider a massive, wider palette of 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: So, talking about the trends and towns in more detail, we already talked about Puglia being like [00:08:00] a big winner. Other regions like Lombardy, where Milan is and Tuscany, Florence, Lucca, Siena, still dominated the search.
Luca: So we mentioned two or three regions and it's not like, um, people are not interested in Tuscany or Lombardy. For instance, Lucca 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.
Then we had Trieste in the, very far corner of Italy bordering Slovenia, coming in at number 13 and Trento number 19. So literally every corner of [00:09:00] Italy had, one town in the top 20. And that makes us very happy because our goal is to highlight all of Italy.
Anna: Yeah, we were really surprised about Calabria.
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: This might be changing actually.
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: I would say Florence.
Anna: Yeah, exactly. Like Florence only came in at like eight, something like that. And we saw about 25% fewer moving to Florence searches in 2025 compared to the year before.
Luca: That is a incredible drop. 25% drop in interest year over year is just massive.
But honestly, are you surprised? All those headlines about, over tourism, about, the town of Florence, restricting users of Airbnbs? All those pictures about the place being just swamped the tourists and the cost. I [00:11:00] was not that surprised. In fact, uh, I would be surprised if Florence is still in number eight next year.
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 Loreto in Marche and Lodi in Lombardy, for example. Both saw their search interest drop a lot in 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: So, which towns saw the biggest jump in interest in 2025 compared to 2024?
Luca: A few names jump out. Bologna 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
Speaker 4: food.
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: Yeah. Rome itself, although it is not in the top 20, is growing. We saw a 15% increase in interest year over year.
Another one is Trento. Maybe that ties into with those programs, getting the 100,000 grant if you go move to Trentino and renovate a property. And mind you, not if you move to Trento, but if you move to some remote villages in the mountains, but still, you know, it is getting more attention to the region.
Anna: Yeah, Trento must be a really, you know, organized city.
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: What about Verona? I think that that one climbed too, right?
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 Venice or Milan. And it is stuck between the two cities. So maybe some of the Milano Venice crowd has cast its eye on Verona instead. Siena and Pisa also had notable growth, perhaps for the same reason, adjacent to, um, major spots, but not quite so expensive. And 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: We already talked about some fallers, um, Florence Loreto, Lodi, but also, I saw Vicenza dropped and even Lucca, which was really surprising despite rankings super high on the list. Uh, I mean, nothing too crazy. They obviously still made the top rankings, but it shows how trends go up and down.
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, right?
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.
So to wrap it up,
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: To find out, who got the top spots and to see the full list of the top 20 towns for expats in Italy you can visit our website and read the full 2026 edition record.
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: Yes. And we will be live on our podcast next week again to talk about the secret surprises in our list of most searched towns by expats in 2026. Bye everyone.
Anna: Bye.