We retired in Italy after visiting once over a decade ago. After selling our US home, we live a cheaper, slower life.

• Glenda and Randy Tuminello moved to Italy in December 2022, after selling their home in Texas.
• They're leasing a centuries-old home, which they moved into sight unseen.
• The couple, both 70, say healthcare and groceries cost less in Italy than in the US. 

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Glenda and Randy Tuminello, both 70, who left the US in 2022 to retire to southern Italy. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Randy: I worked in ministry as a youth minister and then as a senior pastor. We had pastorates in Arkansas, Michigan, and Arizona. We've also lived in Oregon, Washington, and Texas, where we moved in 2017.

Glenda: We met in college in Arkansas and were married a year later, in 1973. We now have three children and six grandchildren.

During my career, I worked alongside Randy in ministry, as a teacher, and in clothing and interior design. I retired in 2018. We were planning for Randy's retirement in 2019, and the thought ran across my mind that we could celebrate by spending a year in Italy, which we'd visited in 2008. We loved it so much.

Everything was being planned, and we were both so excited, but then all of a sudden, Covid came, and our plans came to a screeching halt.

During Covid, we began thinking about living in Italy and started to plan for our retirement there. We left the US and arrived in Italy in December 2022.

Randy: It's always been a feeling deep within me to want to move to Italy. My grandfather emigrated from Sicily in 1916. It's a lifestyle change, but one that we were looking for. It's safe and it's economically very positive from a retirement standpoint.

You never know what the future holds, but I think at this point, we're extremely happy with where we're living.

We moved into our new home, sight unseen

Glenda: Researching and planning for the move took about a year. We sold our home in Texas in 2020 and moved to Washington again to be with family while we were preparing to move.

Randy: We worked with the Italian consulate in San Francisco to get all the documentation for our elective residency visa. Within eight days of arriving in Italy, we had to apply for a "permesso di soggiornio," a residence permit, which we are still waiting to receive.

Glenda: We moved into our new home sight unseen. I found our two-story villa in Polignano a Mare online two months before we arrived. It was beautiful and too good to be true. We're about 70 footsteps from the Adriatic Sea.

Randy: It's the quintessential Italian villa. It has adequate rooms for a retired couple wanting to entertain family who came to visit.

The building is centuries old. It's inspiring to think that you're part of a community with that kind of rich history, particularly coming from America, where everything is basically less than 200 years old.

Leaving the US was daunting but exciting

Glenda: I enjoyed every bit of our time in the US. We got to live in different areas of the country, and we've kept good, close friendships. It's been a wonderful journey.

Randy: After spending around 15 years in full-time ministry in the US, I started my consulting practice and did that for nearly three decades before retiring in 2021. Leaving the US was daunting but exciting. I'll never forget the plane coming in on the landing in Rome, taking this huge breath, and being a bit intimidated. I had this sense of, "Wow, this is it. This is going to be totally different from anything you've ever done in your life."

From day one, we stepped into Italy and felt that this was where we belonged. The only barrier has been language. We've been here a year now and speak Italian a bit better, but some three-year-olds do better than us.

Retired life in Italy is cheaper

Glenda: When we lived in Spokane, Washington, we didn't get to know people that well. It was a large city, and everybody was going their way and living that quick, quick life.

Here, it's the opposite. You don't rush through a meal, as it's an insult to people. We've got quite a few friends from America who live here as well, and the friendships are so close because it's almost like you're on another planet together.

Randy: I've been learning to slow down and be a little bit more patient. People walk so slow here.

In America, if we wanted to go to the mall, we'd get in the car and drive 30 to 45 minutes in traffic. Here, we walk five minutes to a train station, take a train, walk another five minutes, and we're right there.

Healthcare and groceries cost significantly less.

Before we moved to Italy, I was still running my consulting practice. I was making trips every couple of weeks, which Glenda would accompany me on. I was working 50 to 60-hour weeks pretty regularly.

The cost of living in the US was so high. I wanted to be careful not to continue to eat into our savings.

Living here, I now spend my time playing guitar, doing our budget, and cooking with Glenda in the kitchen.

We were initially going to buy a home in Italy but opted to lease instead. The owners offered us a "four plus four" lease agreement, where the terms stay set for four years with a mutually agreed option of another four years at the end of that.

I got tired of maintaining a home in the US. If we had a major breakdown, we'd have to spend several thousand dollars fixing that. Because we're leasing, we don't have all those financial storms that can crop up. We love the choice we made and would do it all over again if we were given that choice. We're having a ball.

Glenda: We probably wouldn't ever buy a home here, or at least we're not thinking about it now.

I do miss our family back in the US, but it's wonderful to video call with them, and we have dreams of them being able to come over here and visit us.