A private 12-month experience for families. Ten families a year.
Stop Visiting Italy. Start Belonging To It.
A private year-long experience for families who want more than a trip to Italy. Who want a real relationship with the country, its people, its language, and their own story.
Thirty minutes. No itinerary. No pitch.
This is not a tour.
It is not a villa with a language tutor attached.
It is not a heritage vacation, a genealogy package, or two weeks with a private guide.
All of those things end when the plane lifts off the runway.
I build the thing that doesn't.
Before
“Italy is somewhere my family comes from.”
The Belonging Year
After
“Italy is somewhere my family belongs.”
The Belonging Year
Twelve months. One family. One Italy that becomes yours.
- 01 · ROOTS — Discover your Italian story.
- 02 · LANGUAGE — Learn the Italian you actually need at the table.
- 03 · PLACE — Find the places that become yours.
- 04 · PARTICIPATION — Stop observing Italy. Start taking part.
- 05 · RELATIONSHIPS — Build a relationship with Italy that outlives the trip.
No two families experience Italy the same way.
So I don't hand them a template.
I design around how they learn, what they love, where they come from, and what they want Italy to become for them.
What your family has when the year is over
- A private onboarding that maps where your family actually starts.
- Six Kit Italia, delivered to your door. Magazines, maps, recipes, printed missions. Italy arriving in the mail, six times a year.
- Two private sessions a month, designed around your family, not a syllabus.
- A private channel for your family and me. You write, I answer.
- Asynchronous Capitana Access, all twelve months.
- Introductions to the people I trust here. Artisans, cooks, growers, master craftsmen. Named, personal, arranged in advance.
- Your Italy Blueprint: the twelve-month roadmap, built from your own story and written in month one.
- A week in Italy, designed day by day around your family. For three of those days I am at your side in person. Then I step back — and your family orders, asks, jokes, and takes part on your own. That was the plan all along. Never a tour.
- Your Family Belonging Blueprint: what your family carries forward, written down in month twelve.
Anyone can visit Italy. Very few families get to have their own.
Who is la Capitana?
I'm Fabiana Stringa. Born in Genoa. I live under Etna.
For twelve years I've worked with families who wanted a way into Italian life, including American military families stationed in Sicily who had to make it work for real, not for a holiday.
My method is visual, game-based, built around how each person actually learns. It works especially well for neurodivergent learners.
A dad from Calgary ordering tomatoes like a local. A mom from Boston in tears at a trattoria because she finally felt close to her kids again.
They weren't buying a language. They weren't buying a trip.
They were building a relationship with Italy, and with each other.
So I gave it a name.
This is not for everyone.
It is not for families who want to see Italy in ten days.
It is not for families who want a checklist of cities.
It is not the fastest way into the country, and it is not the cheapest.
Ten families a year. That is the entire capacity.
Questions families ask
Is Belonging in Italy a tour or a travel package?
No. It is a private twelve-month experience with a designed week in Italy inside it; nothing is sold as an itinerary, and travel logistics are handled separately with trusted partners.
Do we need Italian roots to join?
No. Families with Italian heritage and families with none at all take part; what matters is a real pull toward Italy, not a surname.
Do we need to speak Italian?
No. Language immersion is part of the year and is built around the situations your family will actually live in Italy, not a textbook.
Is it only for families?
It was designed around families, and most people arrive as one. But “family” here means the people you want to belong with: a couple, a parent and an adult child, two sisters, a small group of close friends. If you are on your own and the pull toward Italy is real, say so on the call — the year is designed around who shows up, not around a headcount.
What is the investment?
The investment is shared in The Belonging Call, a 30-minute conversation, because the year is designed around each family. Travel, accommodation and on-the-ground partner services are paid directly to those partners.
One conversation. Then you'll know.
The Compass Call is thirty minutes. You tell me about your family, where Italy sits in your story, and what you want it to become.
I'll tell you honestly whether the Belonging Year is right for you.