Thinking about renting or buying in Italy? Before you fall for the Instagram daydream, you need to hear the reality most guides won’t tell you. From shady leases to crumbling villas with ‘for sale’ signs older than you are, this is the brutally honest roadmap to surviving Italy’s real estate jungle — and making smart decisions without losing your mind (or your money).

If you’re applying for a visa to Italy (or basically doing anything official across borders), you’ll run into this mysterious word: apostille. It’s not a pasta. It’s not a neighborhood in Florence. It’s a bureaucratic stamp of approval that tells a foreign government your documents are legit. In this post, I break down what it is, when you need it, and how not to screw it up — because nothing says welcome to Italy like your FBI background check being rejected over a missing s

How to avoid the biggest mistakes when moving to Italy.