Get the latest tech news

The Italian towns selling houses for €1

The long read: Frustrated with my life back in the US, I was captivated by the idea of a new home – and new life – for less than the price of an espresso. So I travelled to Italy to find out whether it was too good to be true

This used to be a question I’d ask myself or others at dinner parties, but two years ago, as new parents facing the unsustainable costs of Bay Area life and the looming threat of middle-age atrophy, my husband, Ben, and I took to the internet in earnest with the notion of reinventing our lives somewhere new. Eventually, they found it in Sedini, this breezy, hilltop town in northern Sardinia where the bells of several churches rang at noon, and, from a distance, the white-stone houses appeared stacked like antique toys on a rickety shelf. Fresi, Sedini’s deputy mayor, had spoken to me at length about the food festival the town held each autumn, in which families opened up their wine cellars, and farmers their barns and living rooms, so that people could share their harvests with one another.

Get the Android app