My grandmother spent much of her life preparing for a trip she never took.
She talked about returning to the old country as though Sicily were a place she had visited rather than one she had never seen. One of 13 children, she saved money for the trip and bought clothes, even swimsuits, imagining herself thinner and beautifully dressed, walking along the sea in Palermo. She never made it.
I think that unrealized journey was where my fascination with Sicily began.
I grew up in St. Louis in a family that was, in many ways, more Sicilian than American. My mother was 100% Sicilian, although several generations removed from Italy and never having visited. We ate sfincione, which we called “pizza bread,” and involtini on holidays. We didn't have turkey at Thanksgiving.
Our household had its own rules: dress properly to go out, clean before leaving, save everything reusable and open the windows daily, even with air-conditioning. Years later, living in Sicily, I recognized these habits, along with familiar foods and traditions, as pieces of a culture I hadn't realized I had inherited.
My first trip to Sicily was terrible. I arrived in July, stayed in monasteries without air-conditioning and attempted public transportation with far too much luggage. There was no cinematic moment when I stepped off the plane and knew I was home.
I moved years later, during a period of personal and professional change. I was going through a divorce, my children were becoming independent, and I was changing careers. I realized I had a rare window to do something different. So I went.
Eventually, I discovered that all my great-grandparents had come from Italy and that I now lived in their ancestral town. Seeing the abandoned house connected to my great-grandfather wasn't romantic. It was sad. I could imagine restoring it, but I also had to consider why my family had left. It's easy to romanticize returning when you have the privilege of choosing to do so. My ancestors left under circumstances that gave them few options, then built extraordinary lives in America.
I found belonging in Sicily gradually, through ordinary acts of kindness. During COVID-19 pandemic, neighbors brought me food on Easter because they knew I was alone. A tobacco shop owner helped me obtain fresh ricotta from a local producer. My butcher introduced me to regional specialties he made himself. Food became a way to understand the people and place around me.
Most meaningful are involtini, which my family called spiedini. My mother made hundreds, filling thin slices of meat with ingredients such as hard-boiled egg, tomato and hard cheese, then rolling, breading and baking them. Everyone helped. Their smell remains inseparable from Christmas and Thanksgiving, and from my mother, who is gone now. Eating them in Sicily connects me physically to her and to the place where our family traditions began.
Living here has changed how I understand my family. I didn't arrive to discover an entirely foreign culture; I began recognizing where parts of my own life came from.
It also taught me how complicated moving abroad can be. Residency, citizenship, housing, health care, taxes, banking, language and bureaucracy all require practical decisions. As other Americans began asking how I had made the move, I found myself helping them navigate those same questions. That experience eventually became ViaMonde, the relocation agency I founded to help Americans move to Italy and Spain.
Today, I help people explore whether their own version of living abroad is possible and what it would take to make it real. Some seek adventure, others retirement or a deeper connection to their ancestry. For Italian Americans especially, the question can become more personal than “Where did my family come from?” It becomes “What would it mean to go there?”
I've met people in their 90s who knew members of my family and relatives my grandmother never had the chance to meet. I think about what she would recognize, whether she'd approve of my house and how she would feel knowing I built a life here.
Returning doesn't have to mean relocating permanently. It can begin with curiosity: visit your ancestral town, stay several days, eat locally, visit the church or library and talk to residents. Learn not just where your ancestors came from, but what they left behind.
Many small Italian towns are struggling because generations of residents had to leave. I volunteer locally and participate in community initiatives, as do friends and clients I've introduced to the town. Giving something back feels like part of my return.
My grandmother imagined visiting Sicily. I eventually fulfilled that dream, although not as the person she might have imagined. I came as myself and built a future around what I found.
Perhaps that's what returning to your roots offers: not a chance to recreate the past, but an opportunity to understand what you carry from it—and decide what you want to carry forward.
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