For 86 years, the Italian Sons & Daughters of America (ISDA) has kept its strong sense of community alive and thriving, becoming one of the largest and most financially successful Italian American organizations in the country. They unite Americans of Italian descent across 48 states and the District of Columbia to celebrate the culture and preserve the traditions our ancestors brought with them from Italy.
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Nicky Positano's YouTube channel, is a wonderfully filmed Vlog of what it's like to live in Positano on the Amalfi Coast. Nicky is a British expat and has lived in Positano for 20 years with her hubby Carlos, daughter Sky and pup Holly. She'll take you along with her in day to day life on her Vespa, climbing the endless steps up and down the Amalfi mountain and in her kayak. Her dialog is witty, fun and informative. GVI highly recommends watching, but be aware, you'll get hooked!
Plan your trip to Sicily with Karen La Rosa. Visit her great website La RosaWorks to check out her stories, recommendations and news about Sicily. Sicily is magical, fascinating and still somewhat of a tourist secret. La RosaWorks hopes to bring some of that magic and fascination your way. You can also find La RosaWorks on Facebook.
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Rafael Di Furia, "aka Rafi D is Me" is an American Expat living in Italy who shares an enormous amount of information about all aspects of life in Italy through his YouTube Vlog channel, Rafael Di Furia, Not Your Average Gringo: the legalities, taxes, customs, healthcare, banking, employment and even applying for dual citizenship. His videos are not to be missed if you're considering a prolonged stay in Italy.
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WhyGoItaly is a comprehensive site on all sorts of travel information and advice. It's kind of a one-stop shopping for all aspects of traveling to Italy.
BridgePugliaUSA is a wonderful resource for information about the lifestyle, art, culture, music, wine and food of Pulgia (Apulia) in Southern Italy. This is by far the best place to discover all that Puglia has to offer the Voyager.
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Tripadvisor is without doubt the best way to find out about hotels, tourist sites, restaurants and travel services in Italy and all over the world. Besides the honest reviews one of the things I love is seeing members' photos. It's one thing to see a staged, professional photo of a hotel, but another thing to see how it looked when a guest actually stayed there.
Booking.com is without doubt the easiest way to find, review and book apartments and hotels all around the world. This site was virtually flawless when booking accommodations.
Balloonintuscany.com is simply the best ballooning experience you can have in Tuscany. Please don't even bother with their competitors.... Stefano more than likely taught them how to pilot a balloon anyway. Stefano and Gianna will treat you like members of their family.... and take you back to their 400 year old country home for apres' flight brunch. Forget the plastic folding tables and cheap bubbly the others slap together. This is a unique experience!
Travelwithkids.tv is a great inspirational resource for parents wanting to travel with small children. They even have a PBS TV show! It is possible to take your kids along if you make things interesting for them!
Annunci.net is Italy's version of Craigslist (which isn't popular there). The structure pretty much mimics Craigslist... select a town and do a search on what you're looking to buy. The site is deemed safe, but as with Craigslist, be careful about how you meet sellers.
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Google Translate is a fantastic tool when researching all things Italian. Use it to paste Italian website text into and you'll get a fairly decent translation. Use it also to create a personal phrasebook (You should be logged into your Google account to make this stick) by saving "favorite" words and phrases. This is invaluable!
Italiakids is a site really tailored to expats living in Italy with children, but there are many resources that would suit the traveler who needs help in planning fun for their kids while in Italy.
SeatGuru is a site that helps you pick the best seats for your flights. You can use the website or the app. Now, which seat is furthest from the bathroom?