A custom heritage journey to the town your family came from, with the research done before you fly and a driver who knows the road.
An Italy heritage trip is the one where a grandmother stands in the square her mother left, and her grandchildren watch. It is a journey of genealogy, discovery and legacy at once. It is the most personal trip we plan and the one that needs the most work before anyone flies. Trips 2 Italy has planned heritage journeys to Italy since 2003, for Italian American families going back to Abruzzo, Calabria, Sicily, Campania and the Veneto, for families with one name and one village, and for families with nothing but a ship’s manifest and a surname.
We do the research first. Then we plan the days in the village with nothing else in them, arrange the driver who knows the hill roads and the guide who speaks the dialect, and build the rest of Italy around the visit so the family gets both the roots and the trip. This page is how it works.
Heritage trips arrive with different amounts known and different people at the center. These are the four we plan most, and each changes what happens before the family flies.
A parent or grandparent who was born in Italy, or whose parents were, going back with the children and grandchildren. The village is known, and sometimes cousins still live there. We contact them ahead, arrange the day, book a long lunch, and make sure the person at the center of the trip has a driver, a chair in the shade and all the time in the world. This is the trip our multigenerational Italy vacations page is built for.
The family knows a surname and a province, and little else. Before the trip our researchers in Italy work the civil records, the parish registers and the emigration manifests to find the town, the house and, often, the relatives. The family flies knowing where it is going and who is waiting. The days in the town are planned around the records office, the church, the cemetery and the street.
Several households of one family, gathering in Italy for the first time in the town their great grandparents left. It is a reunion and a heritage trip at once: a base near the village, a private dinner with the Italian cousins, a day in the town, and the rest of the week for the family. Our family reunions in Italy page covers how every household books separately and the organizer stays on vacation.
A family pursuing Italian citizenship by descent, or simply wanting the documents, traveling to the comune to obtain birth, marriage and death records in person. We arrange the appointments at the records office, the translator, the driver and the time in the town, and we plan the rest of the trip so that a week of paperwork becomes a week in Italy with a morning of paperwork in it.
Because the village is not on the way to anything. The towns Italian families left a century ago are in the hills of Abruzzo, Calabria, Basilicata, Molise and inland Sicily, at the end of roads a map does not show, with a records office open three mornings a week and a church whose keys are held by a woman two streets over. A family that arrives on its own spends the day it has finding the door. A family that arrives with us spends it inside.
Our planners in Italy do the research months ahead, make the calls, arrange the appointment at the comune, find the priest, and, when there are relatives, reach them first so the visit is expected. The driver knows the road. The guide speaks the dialect. And the day has nothing else in it, because the family will want to stay longer than it planned.
First conversation. We ask what the family knows: names, dates, the town if there is one, the region if there is not, the ship if anyone remembers it. Then our researchers in Italy work from there, through civil records, parish registers and the manifests, to confirm the town and, wherever possible, the house and the living relatives. We send the family what we found before we plan a single day.
Then the trip. One or two days in the village, with the records office, the church, the cemetery, the street and, if there are cousins, a long lunch. A base within an hour’s drive, because the village rarely has one. A private driver for the hill roads. A guide who speaks the local dialect and can translate a grandmother’s Italian and a cousin’s. And the rest of Italy around it: Rome or Naples on the way in, the coast or the countryside on the way out, so the children get the Italy they were promised and the grandparents get the Italy they came for.
Most American families of Italian descent trace back to the south: Campania, around Naples, Salerno and Avellino. Calabria, in the toe. Sicily, especially the provinces of Palermo, Agrigento and Messina. Abruzzo and Molise, in the mountains east of Rome. Basilicata and Puglia, in the heel. Smaller numbers came from the Veneto, Friuli, Liguria and Piedmont in the north, and from Lazio and Tuscany in the center. Each region kept its records differently, each village has its own customs, traditions, architecture and monuments, and each has its own way of receiving a family that comes back, which is why the genealogy research is done by people who live there.
The regions also make different trips. A family going back to Abruzzo pairs the village with the Adriatic coast and Rome. A family going back to Sicily pairs it with Taormina, Etna and the Greek temples. A family going back to Campania has the Amalfi Coast and Pompeii an hour from the village. See our Abruzzo travel guide, the Sicily travel guide and the Naples travel guide for what surrounds the town.
The genealogy research, done in Italy before the family flies, with what we find sent to the family in writing. The appointments at the records office and the church, and the introduction to relatives when there are any. A private driver from the airport onward, and for the hill roads. A guide in the village who speaks the dialect and can translate for the family. The base within reach of the town, hand selected for the ages traveling. The rest of Italy, planned around the visit: the private guides, the timed entries, the boat, the cooking class, the days at the coast. A day by day itinerary with every name, time and address. And our planners, reachable for the length of the trip, in Houston and in Italy.
What is not included is anything that hurries the day in the town. A heritage trip is measured by the hour a family spends in a doorway, and we do not schedule against it. If the family is deciding between planning the search itself and working with us, our article on an Italy travel expert versus planning it yourself is an honest account of what changes.
The village rarely has a place for a family to stay, so a heritage trip bases within an hour’s drive and pairs the visit with the region around it. These are the pairings we plan most.
Best for families from Basilicata, inland Campania and northern Calabria. A base in the cave city of Matera, the hill villages a driver’s hour away, the Ionian coast for the children, and Naples on the way in. Our guide to Puglia, Matera and Basilicata covers the region for families. See the Matera travel guide.
Best for families from Palermo, Agrigento, Messina and the interior. A base near Cefalu or Taormina, the village by private driver, and the rest of Sicily around it: Etna, the Greek temples, Palermo’s markets and a beach for the cousins. See the Sicily travel guide.
Best for families from Avellino, Salerno, Benevento and the villages behind Naples, which is where the largest share of Italian Americans trace their roots. A base on the Sorrento peninsula, the village an hour inland by driver, and Pompeii, Capri and the Amalfi Coast for the rest of the week. See the Amalfi Coast travel guide.
Whether we can find the town from a surname alone. Often, and we tell the family honestly how far the records go before the trip is planned. Whether relatives will want to meet them. Almost always, and we reach them first so nobody is surprised. Whether the children will be bored. Not if the trip has the coast, the boat and the cooking class around the village day, which is how we plan it. Whether the grandparent can manage the hill town. Yes, with a driver at the door and a day with nothing else in it. Whether it can be part of a larger family trip. Yes, and the Italy family vacations hub covers how the pieces fit.
A relaxed 10-day, land-only family journey through Italy’s south: Rome by electric tuk-tuk, seaside Gaeta, the ruins of Pompeii, the island of Capri, the street food of Naples, and
Bring the whole family home to Abruzzo. A relaxed 11-day multigenerational journey through ancestral hill towns, shared kitchens and castle-crowned peaks, from Sulmona and L’Aquila to a grand finale
A bright 10 day summer family vacation in northeastern Italy, combining Udine as a relaxed home base with hands-on cooking, storybook day trips, and a coastal finale in Trieste.
An Italy heritage trip, sometimes called a roots trip, a genealogy journey or an ancestry journey, is a family vacation built around a visit to the Italian town a family’s ancestors came from. It usually includes research before the trip to confirm the town and find living relatives, one or two days in the village with the records office, the church and the cemetery, a private driver for the hill roads and a guide who speaks the local dialect, and the rest of Italy planned around the visit so the whole family gets a full trip.
Often, yes. Our researchers in Italy work from the surname, any dates the family remembers, the region if it is known and the emigration manifests to narrow down the town, and then through the civil and parish records to confirm it and, wherever possible, find the house and the living relatives. We tell the family honestly how far the records go before we plan a day around them, and we send what we found in writing before the trip.
In most cases, yes. When the research turns up living relatives we contact them ahead of the trip, explain who is coming and why, and arrange the visit so it is expected and welcome. A long lunch with the Italian cousins is often the moment the whole trip was for. When no relatives can be found, the visit to the town, the church and the records office is still planned with a local guide who knows the community.
Yes, and it should be. Most families spend one or two days in the ancestral town and the rest of the trip in the Italy around it: Rome or Naples on the way in, the Amalfi Coast, Sicily’s coast or the Adriatic on the way out. The children get the boat, the beach and the cooking class, the grandparents get the village, and nobody feels the trip was only paperwork. We plan the whole itinerary as one trip with one team.
We arrange the appointments at the comune’s records office, a translator, the driver and the time in the town so a family can obtain birth, marriage and death records in person, and we plan the rest of the trip around those mornings. We are travel planners, not attorneys, so the citizenship application itself and the legal questions around eligibility should go to a qualified professional. We make the trip to obtain the documents run smoothly.
Tell us what the family knows, the names, the dates, the town or the region, and who is traveling, using the planning form on this page or by calling our Houston office at 713-952-4055. A Trips 2 Italy planner will talk through what can be researched and what the trip around the village should hold, then our researchers in Italy go to work. Once the town is confirmed we send a first itinerary for the family to react to, refine it together and book everything.
A heritage trip is the one the family will still be talking about in a generation. Since 2003 Trips 2 Italy has taken families back to the towns their ancestors left, from the hills of Abruzzo to the interior of Sicily. Tell us what you know and we will find the rest. Call 713-952-4055, toll free 1-866-464-8259, or start with the planning form.
The other kinds of family trips we plan, each on its own page, and the family vacations hub they all belong to.
