Moving to Italy? 10 Unbeatable Reasons to Choose Abruzzo

Ciao, piacere di conoscerti…nice to meet you. Every time I drive from Rome toward Abruzzo, there’s a motorway sign where Lazio ends and my region begins. I count down, five, four, three, two, one, and the moment we cross it I honk the horn and shout “back in Abruzzo!”. My kids tease me about it. I confess I do it even when I’m alone in the car. That should tell you something about how I feel about this place.

I was born and raised in Pescara, I keep a house in Penne, and over the years I’ve helped foreigners visit Abruzzo, buy property here, and move here for good. So if you’re thinking about moving to Italy, here are my ten honest reasons to look at Abruzzo before anywhere else. Honest means honest: I’ll also tell you what’s hard.

In short: moving to Abruzzo gets you sea and mountains half an hour apart, some of the lowest property prices in Italy, towns where people still know each other, and Rome two hours down the motorway. It isn’t polished for tourists, and that’s exactly why the people who move here tend to stay.

1. Sea and Mountains, Half an Hour Apart

This is the line I tell every first-time visitor: Abruzzo is the only region I know where, within half an hour, you can go from the mountains to the beach. Ski in the morning, then have a seafood dinner or an aperitivo by the sea the same day. It sounds like a brochure. It’s just geography.

The coast runs for about 130 km along the Adriatic: long sandy beaches north of Pescara, coves, pebbles and the old wooden fishing platforms called trabocchi to the south. I know that coast well because I spent my teenage summers working as a lifeguard on the Pescara beach, in the years when every high school had “its” stabilimento and you went where your school’s crowd was. For pure natural beauty, though, my pick is the southern stretch in the Chieti province, and Punta Aderci near Vasto above all.

Turn inland and you have three national parks: Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga, Maiella, and the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise park, the oldest in the Apennines. Around a third of the region’s territory is protected, which is why Abruzzo gets called the greenest region in Europe. When you live here, that’s not a statistic. It’s your Sunday.

2. Your Money Goes Further Here

In 2008 a real estate agent showed me a house in Penne that was literally falling apart. I barely knew the town, but I fell in love with both, bought the house anyway, and rebuilt it exactly as I had imagined it. It became my shelter, the place I hid and recharged every time I came back from living abroad. I could afford to do that because this is Abruzzo, not Tuscany.

Property here is among the cheapest in Italy, and daily life follows: groceries at the weekly market, a dinner out, a season of small pleasures that in Rome or Milan would need a second salary. I won’t throw numbers at you in a blog post, because numbers age badly and I’ve seen too many recycled ones online. I keep the real figures, town by town and with sources, in my Real Cost of Abruzzo index. And if buying is on your mind, start with my guide to houses for sale in Abruzzo.

One tip from my own story: don’t look only at the big towns. The hill towns and villages are where the value is, and often the views too. We love Abruzzo, we love Penne, and Penne cost me a fraction of what the same house would cost almost anywhere else in Italy.

3. History You Live Inside, Not Visit

Abruzzo doesn’t put its history behind glass. Rocca Calascio, a fortress first raised in the tenth century, still stands at 1,460 metres, one of the highest in Italy. Medieval hill towns like Santo Stefano di Sessanio are not museums; people live there, shop there, argue in the piazza there.

Every August, L’Aquila holds the Perdonanza Celestiniana, the yearly pardon established by Pope Celestine V in 1294 and recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage in 2019. In 2026 it runs from 23 to 30 August, and this year of all years is a good one to see it: L’Aquila is the Italian Capital of Culture 2026. Down on the coast, the trabocchi still stretch their wooden arms over the water as they have for generations.

Living here means these things stop being sights and become your calendar. The procession is your weekend. The castle is your walk. It is essential for me to pass on this bond, and it’s the part of Abruzzo no listing portal can sell you.

4. The Food I Grew Up On

Let’s start with arrosticini, the thin lamb skewers we grill by the hundred. The best I’ve ever eaten are at Da Stefano in Conaprato, between Penne and Farindola. That’s not a hot take, it’s a position I’ll defend at any table. Then there’s maccheroni alla chitarra, pasta cut on a wooden frame strung like a guitar, usually under a lamb ragù.

My family still makes its own olive oil on my father’s land at Alanno, the village his side of the family comes from, about 30 km from Pescara. As a child I spent days picking olives there; today the little house on that land is our barbecue spot. That kind of food chain, from your own trees to your own table, is completely normal here.

And the wine. Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is our red, and I mean it when I say I can smell home when I drink it. For whites, look for Pecorino, Passerina and Trebbiano. In summer the region fills with sagre, the village food festivals; there are hundreds, and my method is simple: just plan and go.

5. People Who Treat You as a Guest

There’s a word you’ll learn quickly: campanilismo, the fierce pride in your own bell tower, your own town. It can look closed from outside. In practice it means people here belong somewhere, and once they decide you belong too, you’re in for good.

I’ve brought many non-Italian friends to Abruzzo over the years, and their reaction is nearly always the same: shock at how beautiful it is, and how unknown. Then they meet the people, get fed beyond reason, and the region does the rest. I love when I see people who like my region.

Nobody here performs hospitality for tourists, because there aren’t enough tourists to perform for. What you get instead is the real thing: neighbours who notice you, shopkeepers who remember you, tables that always have one more chair.

6. Rome Is Two Hours Away

My family lives in Rome, and I drive to Abruzzo constantly, even just for one lunch or a walk. It’s about 210 km from Rome to Pescara on the A24 and A25, roughly two hours, mountains all the way. That countdown at the border sign I told you about? You’ll have your own version soon enough.

For flying, Abruzzo Airport in Pescara has direct routes to more than twenty destinations, including London, Brussels Charleroi and Milan, and even a direct Luxair flight to Luxembourg, where I spend my working weeks. Trains run along the Adriatic coast, and the motorways make the rest of central Italy an easy day out.

One warning from experience: the classic first-timer mistake is underestimating how big Abruzzo is. Basing yourself in one spot and day-tripping everywhere is feasible, but tiring. When you scout the region before a move, give yourself time and pick two or three bases.

7. Four Real Seasons, Four Different Regions

Spring is the best time here, and I’ve written a whole seasonal guide about why. Personally I also love summer: beach in the morning, mountains in the afternoon, a sagra in the evening. That rhythm is the whole point of living here.

In the mountains, the Gran Sasso cable car climbs again to Campo Imperatore at about 2,130 metres, running for the summer 2026 season after its renovation. A few years ago I summited Corno Grande, at 2,912 metres the highest peak in the Apennines, and it’s still one of my proudest days in these mountains. On the coast, the Via Verde cycle path follows the old railway line for 42 km between Ortona and Vasto; most of it is open now, with a few sections still being finished.

And winter is underrated. Snow, cold, cozy. I love to be at home with my fireplace, and I’ll defend an Abruzzo winter against any tropical beach you can name.

8. A Small Expat Community, and Why That’s Good

Let me be straight with you: the expat community in Abruzzo is small. If you want the ready-made international bubble of Tuscany or Puglia, you won’t find it here. There are active online groups where foreigners in Abruzzo trade advice on bureaucracy, builders and town choices, and they’re genuinely useful. But they’re a network, not a parallel society.

I think that’s an advantage. Being one of few foreigners in town means you’ll learn Italian faster, you’ll be adopted by actual Abruzzesi, and your life will happen in the piazza, not in a Facebook group. The people I’ve helped settle here confirm it: the ones who integrate best are the ones who came precisely because the bubble doesn’t exist.

If you’ll be working online from here, I’ve mapped the practical side, connectivity included, in my guide to Abruzzo for digital nomads.

9. Healthcare You Can Rely On

Italy’s national health service, the Servizio Sanitario Nazionale, covers residents, foreigners included, once you register with your local ASL office. Abruzzo has its main hospitals in the province capitals, Pescara, Chieti, L’Aquila and Teramo, plus a network of smaller clinics, and a private sector if you want shorter waits for specialists.

Two pieces of advice from someone who has walked foreigners through this. First, learn some basic medical Italian before you need it; English is not a given in a small-town ambulatorio. Second, ask your neighbours. Abruzzesi take health matters seriously and will happily point you to the right doctor, and possibly come with you to make sure you understood everything.

10. Room for a Second Act

I left Pescara at 16. I’ve lived in Naples, Modena, Turin, Livorno, and then abroad for years. Today I work in Luxembourg, my family is in Rome, and Abruzzo is the fixed point the rest of my life turns around: one week every summer with my kids, so they keep the bond with the homeland, and the Penne house whenever I need to recharge. Now, even more, many years later, I am Abruzzese.

I tell you this because most people who move here aren’t starting a career, they’re starting a chapter. A slower one, with room to restore a house, plant a garden, learn a language, work remotely with the Gran Sasso out the window. Abruzzo doesn’t hand you a new life. It gives you the space and the low costs to build one.

The Honest Part

I promised honesty, so here it is. Outside Pescara and the coastal railway line you’ll need a car, full stop. Italian bureaucracy is slow and Abruzzo’s is no exception; patience is not optional. English is limited outside the cities. Mountain towns get very quiet in winter. And local jobs are scarce, so come with a pension, a remote job, or a business that travels with you.

If what you want is international schools, nightlife and everything in English, Abruzzo will frustrate you, and I’d rather tell you now than after you’ve bought the house. If what you want is Italy as Italians actually live it, keep reading.

Questions I Get About Moving to Abruzzo

Where should I live in Abruzzo?

It depends on the life you want. Pescara gives you the beach, services, trains and the airport. Hill towns like Penne or Atri give you views and the best value; that’s the choice I made. Sulmona is the classic mountain base with its own rail line. Rent for a few months before you buy anywhere.

How much does living in Abruzzo cost?

Less than almost anywhere else in Italy, but “cheap” means different things in Pescara and in a mountain village. I maintain current, sourced numbers in the Real Cost of Abruzzo index rather than letting figures go stale in an article.

Is there a tax break for retirees moving to Abruzzo?

Yes. Italy offers foreign pensioners a 7% flat tax on foreign income for up to ten years if you move your tax residence to a qualifying town in a southern region, and Abruzzo qualifies. As of April 2026 the population ceiling for eligible towns was raised from 20,000 to 30,000 residents, which added several Abruzzo towns to the list. The rules have conditions, so confirm your case with a commercialista before you plan around it.

Do I need a car in Abruzzo?

Almost certainly yes. The coast has a decent train line and Pescara is walkable, but the villages and mountain towns that make Abruzzo worth moving to are car territory.

Should I visit before deciding?

Please do, and in more than one season. Start with my Abruzzo travel guide and my reasons to visit Abruzzo to plan that scouting trip properly.

So that’s my case. Not unbeatable because a headline says so, but because after a life spent leaving and coming back, I still count down at that border sign. If the move is getting real and you want to talk it through with someone born here, that’s exactly what my Work with me page is for. Ci vediamo in Abruzzo!