# Roots travel in Italy: the trip, not the paperwork > 442,000 US travelers came to Italy for family in 2025, staying 11.9 nights against 8.7. Where they go, when they arrive, and what we will not cover. URL: https://myitalia.it/themes/roots-travel Last updated: 2026-09-02 In 2025, 442,000 travelers from the United States came to Italy to see family or friends, 7.2% of all US travelers, and they stayed 11.9 nights against 8.7 for those on holiday, which makes them the longest staying American segment in the country. ## What this page covers, and what it never will 442,000 people a year need logistics rather than legal advice, so this page covers the journey: finding the town, reaching it, where to sleep, what is open and how long to allow. It does not cover citizenship by descent, and it will not. Those rules are changing and still before the courts, and a page that is wrong on this subject harms real people. For anything about requirements, ask the Italian consulate that covers where you live, note the date you asked, and treat everything else you read online as out of date. ## The geography is the exact inverse of the tourist map Calabria takes 25 times the share of nights from US family visits that it takes from US holiday travel, Abruzzo 20 times, Marche 10 and Puglia 6. Meanwhile Lazio and Veneto go the other way, drawing far more holiday nights than family ones. The absolute numbers explain why nobody writes for you. Calabria recorded 8,143,970 overnight stays in 2024, 1.75% of the Italian total; Abruzzo 7,176,204, 1.54%; Molise 456,284, 0.10%. These are the regions where the villages are, and they hold a rounding error of national tourism. ## December and January, not July US family travel peaks in December and January, the 2 months when the general American travel calendar is thinnest. That is the opposite of the holiday pattern, and it has practical consequences: cheaper flights, colder houses, shorter museum hours, and relatives who are actually at home. Most of those nights are spent in a relative's home rather than in a hotel, so the accommodation question that dominates Italian travel writing barely applies here; the exact share exists in the Banca d'Italia microdata and is not yet a verified figure on this site. The domestic pattern points the same way: 38.3% of Italian domestic trips to the south are stays with family, not bookings. ## The towns have emptied since your family left Molise had 285,940 residents on January 1, 2026, down 14,576 in six years from 300,516 in 2020, a fall of 4.9%. Similar arithmetic runs through inland Calabria, Abruzzo and Basilicata. This is not atmosphere, it is logistics. Fewer residents means fewer buses, fewer places to eat on a Tuesday in February, and a town hall with reduced counter hours. Plan the visit around a working weekday morning, not around a Sunday. ## You may not hear the Italian you studied Calabria protects three historic linguistic minorities by law, under regional law 15 of October 30, 2003 implementing national law 482/1999: Albanian, known as arbëreshë, Greek and Occitan. It runs an institute for each, at San Demetrio Corone, Bova Marina and Guardia Piemontese. If your surname comes from one of those communities, the local language is part of what you are visiting. Which towns fall inside each area is set by provincial boundaries and not listed in the law itself, so we cannot publish a town list yet. ## What we do not have yet, in plain terms 4 things a roots trip needs are missing here because no verified source exists for them yet: the opening hours and appointment rules of civil registry offices, how to reach parish archives, the legal standing of records on the state archive portal, and whether interpreters can be hired locally. They are logged as gaps and will appear when a primary source exists. Meanwhile the region pages that matter most for this trip are [Calabria](/regions/calabria), [Abruzzo](/regions/abruzzo), [Molise](/regions/molise), [Puglia](/regions/puglia), [Basilicata](/regions/basilicata) and [Sicily](/regions/sicilia). ## FAQ ### When is the best time to visit my family's village? December and January are the peak months for the 442,000 US travelers who come to see relatives, against a July peak for holiday travel. Winter means the family is home and the village is not empty, but also shorter museum hours and colder houses. ### How long should I allow for an ancestral village visit? US travelers visiting family stay 11.9 nights in Italy against 8.7 for holidaymakers, and most of those nights are in a relative's home. Two or three nights in the town itself is realistic if you are also seeing cities. ### Which regions do Italian American travelers actually go to? Calabria takes 25 times the share of nights from family visits that it takes from holiday travel, Abruzzo 20 times, Marche 10 and Puglia 6. The map of roots travel is the inverse of the map of cultural tourism. ### Will this site tell me how to get Italian citizenship? No. Citizenship by descent is in legal flux and a wrong page causes real harm, so we cover the trip only: the town, the 11.9 nights, the connections. For requirements, ask the Italian consulate for your area of residence and note the date you asked. ### Is it hard to reach a small southern town without a car? Often, yes. Molise's regional capital, Campobasso, has no direct train from Rome at all, and it has lost 14,576 residents in six years, which thins bus timetables too. Check the connection before you book the nights. ## Sources | Fact | Source | Confidence | Valid until | |---|---|---|---| | Nel 2025, 442.000 viaggiatori statunitensi sono venuti per parenti e amici (7,2%) fermandosi 11,9 notti contro 8,7; vanno in Calabria 25 volte e in Abruzzo 20 volte piu' del turista in vacanza, e arrivano a dicembre e gennaio. | [Banca d'Italia, Indagine sul turismo internazionale](https://www.bancaditalia.it/statistiche/tematiche/rapporti-estero/turismo-internazionale/) | medium | 2027-07-31 | | L'americano resta 9,04 notti ma solo 2,92 per struttura, con 1,19 destinazioni secondarie: cambia letto circa tre volte per circa 2,2 localita'. | [Banca d'Italia, Indagine sul turismo internazionale](https://www.bancaditalia.it/statistiche/tematiche/rapporti-estero/turismo-internazionale/) | medium | 2027-07-31 | | Nel 2024 Calabria ha registrato 8.143.970 presenze turistiche. pari al 1.75% del totale nazionale | [Eurostat](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/statistics/1.0/data/tour_occ_nin2) | medium | 2027-07-31 | | Nel 2024 Abruzzo ha registrato 7.176.204 presenze turistiche. pari al 1.54% del totale nazionale | [Eurostat](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/statistics/1.0/data/tour_occ_nin2) | medium | 2027-07-31 | | Nel 2024 Molise ha registrato 456.284 presenze turistiche. pari al 0.1% del totale nazionale | [Eurostat](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/statistics/1.0/data/tour_occ_nin2) | medium | 2027-07-31 | | Il Molise ha perso 14.576 abitanti in sei anni, passando da 300.516 residenti al 1° gennaio 2020 a 285.940 al 1° gennaio 2026 (-4,9%) | [ISTAT - Demografia in cifre](https://demo.istat.it/app/?i=POS&l=it) | medium | 2027-06-30 | | La Calabria e l'unica regione italiana che tutela per legge tre minoranze linguistiche storiche insieme: con la legge regionale 30 ottobre 2003 n. 15, in attuazione della legge statale 482/1999, riconosce le parlate albanese (arbereshe), grecanica e occitanica, e istituisce tre istituti regionali - a San Demetrio Corone per gli arbereshe, a Bova Marina per la comunita greca, a Guardia Piemontese per quella occitana. | [Consiglio regionale della Calabria - Banca dati leggi regionali](https://www.consiglioregionale.calabria.it/bdf/api/BDF?numero=15&anno=2003); [Normattiva - Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri](https://www.normattiva.it/atto/caricaDettaglioAtto?atto.dataPubblicazioneGazzetta=1999-12-20&atto.codiceRedazionale=099G0557&atto.articolo.numero=2&atto.articolo.sottoArticolo=1) | high | 2029-12-31 | | Al Sud il 38,3% dei viaggi domestici pernotta da parenti e amici: una fetta del turismo interno verso il Mezzogiorno e' rientro in famiglia, non prenotazione. | [ISTAT, I flussi turistici anno 2024](https://www.istat.it/comunicato-stampa/i-flussi-turistici-anno-2024/) | medium | 2027-07-31 | ## Image https://media.myitalia.it/media/theme.pratico.v2.1600.jpg Author: VallVit. License: CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0). Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Roma_Termini,_binario_14_(2020).jpg ## Other languages - it: https://myitalia.it/it/temi/roots-travel.md - es: https://myitalia.it/es/temas/roots-travel.md - fr: https://myitalia.it/fr/themes/roots-travel.md - de: https://myitalia.it/de/themen/roots-travel.md