10 Must Do’s Before Retiring in Sicily Italy

Croce and Carol Amato, veterans on Sicilian living, will share their top 10 must-dos before making this dream a reality.

Envision retiring to a tranquil Mediterranean haven where history, culture, and natural beauty harmonize. With its awe-inspiring coastlines, ancient heritage, and mild climate, Sicily offers an ideal backdrop for those seeking a serene and enriching retirement.

This magnificent island, the largest in the Mediterranean, is not just a visual delight but also a budget-friendly destination where the cost of living is often lower than in many Western countries, providing a sense of financial security for your retirement.

Whether you’re drawn to the lively cities like Palermo and Catania, or the peaceful charm of Sicily’s rolling countryside and coastal villages, this island assures a retirement lifestyle that is both invigorating and deeply fulfilling, sparking excitement and hope for your retirement.

If you’ve ever considered making Sicily your retirement home, it’s a choice that can bring profound change. However, island living comes with its own set of considerations.

Understanding the actual cost of living, learning how to adapt to a slower pace, and preparing for the practicalities of relocation are all essential steps in this journey.
Croce and Carol Amato, who’ve made Sicily their home, will walk you through the essential steps you’ll need to take before making the move.

They’ll offer valuable insights and practical advice on topics ranging from navigating Social Security, securing housing, and managing health appointments to preparing for transportation and selling or storing personal belongings.

Take advantage of this opportunity to gain firsthand knowledge from those who’ve already leaped. Learn what you need to know before deciding to retire in Sicily.

Join us to discover if this Mediterranean gem could be the perfect next chapter in your life.

▶️ Video Chapters:
00:00 – 10 Must-Do’s Before Retiring in Sicily
00:11 – Passport expiration
00:48 – Contact in the U.S.
01:51 – Finances
02:51 – Communication
04:07 – Health
04:44 – Housing
06:01 – Transportation
07:08 – Sell, Give, Store
06:55 – Driver’s License
08:14 – Security
09:17 – Language Prep
10:25 – Visa and Residency requirements

10 Must-Do’s Before Retiring in Sicily

If you’ve decided to move to Italy, you’re going to love this video because we share the exact things we’re doing to prep for our trip. These 10 things will make it easier for you to prepare for travel.

Passport Expiration

Before we even begin, we had to take a look at our passports to make sure they weren’t expired, and our U.S. passports are expiring in two weeks, on October 2nd.

We are actually going to go online, print the form, fill everything out, get two new photos made, two each; 2 X 2, two inches by two inches. And we can get that done at a CVS or Walgreens.

And then mail everything in, and we have to have a check per application, and then we can mail them in the same envelope, but we can even write a personal check. So that’s going to be done in the next week or so. But our Italian passports are good until May of 2025. Correct.

Contact in the U.S.

The next category is Contact, and we will have a U.S. physical address with one of our adult children. We are personally getting rid of any junk mail that comes to the house right now. We have been unsubscribing from emails.

But then we have mostly electronic, but the paper mail that does come, we are contacting them to get off of their mailing list.

We also definitely need a U.S. address for any tax things, or any type of a refund that we might get after we leave this place, and all of those kinds of things.

So you want to also opt out of any mailing lists, and you can call 1-888-5-OPT-OUT, and your name will be removed.

And make sure that you have all the different spellings of your names, all the different variations, whether you use a middle initial or a full middle name, and just make sure they have a list of that, and take care of that before you leave, so that the person taking care of your mail isn’t inundated with stuff that’s unnecessary.

Finances

The next thing is Finances. We got rid of all debt. Yes, we did. We’re debt-free, completely debt-free.

We have set up an emergency fund for something, you know, in case it goes wrong. So we have those funds available, and it’s not going to catch us by surprise. And then we have a savings also that we’ve put together, put aside. Now, it’s growing monthly, but those are things we definitely recommend.

And we have estimated our costs, right? We have experience in Sicily. We’ve lived there before, so we know the general idea of what it’s going to cost.

And we have a budget app that we use online. It’s called EveryDollar, and it’s a really good thing because the transactions that we have just on a daily basis with our debit card show up there.

And we can drag and drop into different buckets and show what we’ve spent, what we haven’t spent, and the different categories of our budget. So it’s a really good visual of where you are financially on the day-to-day.

Communication

Staying in touch is so important. We’ve used apps like WhatsApp for free communication. In Italy, WhatsApp is very widely used, and we also use Signal.

Our phones are paid off, so they are already unlocked. We can use as many SIM cards and eSIMs as we like. We’ll be keeping our U.S. cell numbers as well as getting new Italian numbers when we arrive in Italy.

So together, we’ll have two U.S. numbers and two Italian numbers, and we’ll share the video where we show how we do this very cheaply.

We have decided to cover things up front, right? We have already paid for a car. It’s paid in full. It’s waiting for us over there. We bought our Toyota Yaris. It’s very good on diesel. We get really good mileage.

If you can, pay for things ahead, and you’ll be glad you did.

Understanding Social Security benefits is a really important area for us. Croce is going to be retiring soon, and he will be applying for Social Security in the month of October, right? That’s right.

So he will be applying at full retirement age to get the full benefit that you’re due. I will link in the description the cost of living in Sicily video that we did, because we break down our personal expenses, and you might find that interesting.

Health

Another important area we had to think about before retiring to Sicily is our Health. And we had to evaluate things and see when our appointments were.

So I made an appointment at the ophthalmologist because I have a yearly checkup for my eyes. I’m a diabetic, so I go to a specialist to check my eyes. Got a great report from that. Yes, you did.

And then we have labs coming up. We have our annual physical coming up, and that’s basically it. But you want to make sure you take care of all those appointments well in advance of you leaving.

And you can arrange private health care if you’re not entitled to the public health care system in Italy.

Housing

And here we are renters, so we will be giving 60 days notice, written letter, giving our notice 60 days before we leave. And we’re going to leave it in tip-top shape so that we get our security deposit back.

And if you are going to Sicily, Italy, you need to research and look for a home to buy or a rental, and what are the wessites they can check out? Immobiliare, casa, idealista, subito. Yes, and that all ends with a dot IT for eat Italia.

So you can check out those four websites to look for rentals. And a tip that I like to give people is when I was searching in the beginning, I put in Carini, and what did I put in? Sicily. I put in Sicily and nothing showed up.

So you have to put in the province. So when I put in Carini, Palermo, a ton of items showed up. So you have to put in the province of the little town or village or city that you want to search.

So make sure you do that on those four websites. And we have a video that we did for a home tour, and I list those as well. And you can see the different rooms, and we give you a tour of our home in Sicily in Carini, and I go into detail about how I found it.

Transportation

Transportation is a big area you need to consider, and we already bought a car. I do want to share two apps for Italian transportation systems that you will find very helpful. The first one is called Moovit, M-o-o-v-i-t, and that’s for the Italian bus system.

It lists all the stops, the times, and you can even buy tickets on the app. And they’re not perfect with time. Sometimes they’re late. That’s just the way it goes over there, but it’s a really good app.

The second app is Trenitalia, and as it sounds, it’s for the train system, and you can also buy tickets on that app. It has the stops and the pickup times and all of the different transition times or transition places.

So Moovit and Trenitalia are going to be really good apps for you if you’re using the public transportation system.

Driver’s License

The next thing is the Driver’s License. We went to the AAA office to get an international driver’s license. And how much did we pay? We paid about $20. $20 each, yes.

Sell, Give, Store

We have had to make a decision about what to take to Sicily, right? That’s right.
We decided to retire with just one suitcase each, a carry-on luggage, and my purse. That’s it. We’re going to shop in Sicily.

But we are not shipping a car. We are not shipping furniture. We’re not taking boxes or things. We are getting a fully furnished, everything-provided apartment, a beautiful villa, actually.

We’re going to keep it simple. Less is more. The older we get, the less we treasure things, and we just want to keep people front and center and making good memories.

So we will be selling, giving away, and storing just a few personal mementos. Of course, family pictures we’re going to keep. Anything that the kids gave us, any gifts or things like that, we’re going to store in a few storage tubs. And we’re going to store that in one of our adult kid’s house in their garage or something in a corner somewhere.

You know, three, four tubs, and that’s it. The rest will be sold, given away. And make sure you keep your receipts for tax purposes, because you can log that under charity giving.

Security

In this day and age, we’re really concerned about security, aren’t we? Especially when we’re in airports. Yes. To use those charging stations, it really makes me nervous.

So we use a VPN, which is a virtual private network. We use, personally, NordVPN. We’ve purchased that, and we can use up to 10 devices, iPads, cell phones, laptops, whatever, and you’re protected completely from any type of hacker or anybody stealing your banking information. So I highly recommend getting some type of a VPN.

And then we also use AirTags for our luggage, and I bought a pack of four. And you can use — if you have Android phone, you can use any type of GPS tracking.

But this will be the first time we’re using them. And we’re not going to activate them until about a week before we leave so that we will always know where our luggage is, where my purse is, where my little carry-on is.

Of course, that’s going to be with me in the plane, in the cabin of the plane, because it’s going to have our electronics in it. The GPS tracking is definitely suggested, and we won’t be without them now.

Language Prep

The next area is Language Prep, and I am even studying. I am fluent in the Sicilian dialect. I speak a little bit of Italian. I understand a lot of it, 90% of it.

I understand all of Sicilian, because I learned the dialect with your family at home. So I never learned the proper Italian.

However, I am studying and trying to brush up so that I am better prepared. So we highly recommend you take time to learn the language.

Why? Because the Italian lifestyle is slower. They enjoy each moment. They enjoy each other. There’s connection. There’s memories made, and you don’t want to just be limited to expats. You want to be able to connect with the locals.

So I highly recommend YouTube videos, Duolingo app. Google Translate is a must-have, of course, and then get a tutor. If you need one, get a tutor.

You could get one-on-one tutors, four-on-one, or a group setting like a classroom. But I highly recommend you up your game and add to your vocabulary, and you will be really glad you did.

Visa and Residency Requirements

We are Italian citizens. You were born and raised in Italy. I became a citizen by marriage years ago.

But if you do need to check into visa and residency requirements, the elective residence visa, you need to apply at your home consulate.

Whatever state you’re in, that’s the place you need to apply. You cannot do it in Italy, so I want to give you a heads up about that.

Next, you’re going to want to watch Retiring in Sicily vs. Texas, Weighing the Pros and Cons, where we go into detail. So thank you for watching.