If you’re coming to Italy and need advice, Fosca D’Acierno has you covered. She’s already lived all of it. An expat in Italy since her university years, she worked with students at Stanford University for over two decades before forging her own path. Since then she has started her own podcast 15 with Fosca, consults for travelers to Italy, volunteers with mental health charity Progetto Itaca, is a board member of Women’s International Network (WIN) and even recently appeared on Italian reality TV show Best Weekend with Francesco Panella.
What brought you to Florence?
The first time was as a study abroad student. I did the Syracuse program for a whole year. Back in the U.S. I started a PhD, but I wasn’t sure about an academic career. My professor suggested I spend some time in Florence before finishing the doctorate. I never finished it. The Stanford thing happened because the director and I had both gone to Brown, and had various acquaintances in common. I reached out and she said, “Why don’t you come in for a chat?” That turned into a 23-year long career.
The decision to move on from Stanford and open your own consultancy business must have been a big call after so many years in the same place.
The pandemic changed a lot. I could no longer sustain that kind of job with the demands of everything else in my life: two aging parents across the Atlantic and a teenage daughter I was raising alone. Striking out by myself has been the most difficult and rewarding thing I’ve ever done, but I went into it naively. I had studied literature. I’m a writer, an artist, a podcaster; not a business person. All of a sudden I found myself in entrepreneur mode. I had to learn the ins and outs of being a freelancer in Italy. I had always had a paycheck, an identity and, all of a sudden, I was reinventing myself, but not really. I was just doing what I’ve always done, but for a different audience.
So, what do people ask Fosca?
I do high-end travel design focusing on sustainability. I help my clients have authentic experiences and advise digital nomads as well as people who want to come abroad for a longer period of time. Beyond that is the podcast, which is a labor of love.
Tell me about some of your guests.
I recently released an important episode on voting with two representatives from Democrats Abroad. I had Savannah Boylan and Ashwin Muthiah, founder of unPinned Wine, as well as Elia Nichols, who just did a TED talk. The idea was to give people an understanding of Italy, the beauty and the underbelly because how else can we combat this terrible overtourism that doesn’t have any notion of the culture? Everything we see on TikTok and Instagram is not reality. I also pay a lot of attention to young people and try to highlight the difficulties they face in Italy.
On overtourism, in your opinion, what can we do to protect, not just Florence, but other cities around the world facing similar issues?
I have a take, but not much of a solution. In my own little way, I try to get information out there with the podcast and my clients. There is so much to see in this country, and if you’re coming for the first time, you want to go to Florence, Venice and Rome. I’m not telling anyone not to do that, but to do it responsibly. People are paying attention. Clients ask me if people are going to squirt water guns at them like in Barcelona. Italy has always been friendly to tourists, but living here year round, I only get to experience the city a couple of months a year, and that window is narrowing. We must create a tourism that gives and not only takes.
You were just on Italian TV in Best Weekend with Francesco Panella. Tell us about that.
We had to compete for who chose the best lodging, food and experience in Chianti: I chose Villa de’ Ricci di Rignana, yoga in a vineyard with slow life coach Sandrine Kom and Castello di Verrazzano. Francesco Panella is an Italian expat in New York, so he liked that I, an expat from New York in Italy, took him to Giovanni da Verrazzano’s birthplace. I didn’t win, but I was tied with the person who did up until the very end, losing by just one point! I’m really flattered to have been the only non-Italian chosen as a local expert since the history of the Chianti is so international. It was the best experience of my life. It changed me and took me outside of my comfort zone: there’s a reason I’m a podcaster! It’s a wonderful program and its goal is the same as mine: to elevate Italy’s magnificent hidden gems.
