What does it actually feel like to raise your kids in an undiscovered Italian village? Ten days. Real locals. Real life. This is your family's test-run for la dolce vita.
"We've been having the 'we should move to Europe' conversation for three years. This is finally a way to actually feel it before we commit."— Family from our interest form
What ROOTS & Future actually is
Over 300 families filled in our interest form. The same question kept coming up: "What would make this a YES for us?" The answer was almost always the same — we need to feel it first. We need to know if our family could actually live this way.
ROOTS & Future exists for exactly that. Ten days of village residency where you're not a tourist — you're trying on the life. And Italy has timed it perfectly: October is chestnut harvest season, when the whole village comes alive for its most important time of year.
You'll meet village elders, visit an artisan workshop that's been open for three generations, and forage for chestnuts with a local farmer. These aren't staged experiences. They're introductions.
Your kids spend two full days at a local children's art studio. They make pizza with kids from the village. They hike with a guide who grew up here. And each child is paired with a local kid their own age — a real friendship, not a programme.
There are properties available in this village at prices that are almost impossible to believe compared to where most of you are coming from. If you're curious, we'll arrange informal walks. No agents. No pressure. Just looking.
We cap at 5 families. Everyone eats together, hikes together, explores together. By day four, your kids are inseparable. By day ten, you're already planning how to come back.
Who ROOTS & Future is for
Worldschooling families
You're already rotating through countries. Japan, Spain, Peru, wherever the year takes you. Ormea is your October. A real base. A real village. A real autumn in the Italian Alps.
Families considering a European move
81.5% of our interest-form families said moving abroad is one of their primary reasons for being here. This village residency gives you 10 days of real data before you commit anything. What it costs. What it feels like. Who's there.
Families who want something real
No move planned. No agenda. You've been saying "one day we'll do something like this" for years. October in an Italian chestnut village, with children who will never forget it, is one day.
Who you are actually meeting
The hotel has been in the same family for generations. The restaurants are run by the people your children will make friends with. The craftspeople who lead your workshops live here. Every person you meet in this programme is someone you would call a neighbor if you ever did move here. By the time you leave Ormea, that part is already done — you won't be starting from zero. You'll already know people.
Village Skills — what we've always called workshops
The museum curator spent decades collecting, restoring, and cataloguing every object in his museum. Nobody paid him to. He did it because someone had to. When you walk through those doors, you are paying for his time — and every euro goes back to the museum. The woman who teaches you to sew has been making things for this village her whole life. What you make in that session is yours to take home. The woodcarver learned from his father. Your children learn from him. These are not activities. They are introductions to a life that still exists here.
Your nonna and nonno
There are people in Ormea who remember when the mountain paths were the main routes between communities. Who know every family in every house. Who can read the season by the smells in the market. Nonna and Nonno are among them. They walk with you through the village at their own pace, on their own terms — the markets, the ingredient sources, the places they've known their whole lives. This is not a tour. It is what happens when you stop being a visitor.
Your cooking class, your guides, your language teacher
The woman who teaches you to cook learned it from her own nonna. The Italian language teacher's family has lived in Ormea for four generations. The guides know the mountain trails because they grew up on them. Every class, every session, every tour is led by someone for whom this village is not a destination — it is home.
The Destination
Mountain air. A cold, clear river below the old town. Chestnut forests on every hillside. Medieval streets that lean into each other at odd angles — built before cars, before tourism, before anyone thought to make them pretty for visitors. They just still are.
90 minutes from Turin airport. 45 minutes from the Ligurian coast. The families we've talked to had never heard of it. That, honestly, is the whole appeal.
Ormea · May 2026
Piedmont · Province of Cuneo · Val Tanaro · Maritime Alps
750m above sea level · Limestone peaks reaching 2,000m+
~1,700 residents · Multi-generational families · Not a tourist town
Turin Caselle (TRN) · 90-minute mountain transfer included
This is not a destination that peaks in August. October is when the mountains come alive for their most important season.
Chestnut harvest. In the Alps, chestnuts have fed families through winters for centuries. October is the harvest — families go to the forest together, fires are lit in the piazzas, local markets fill with the season's crop. You'll take part in this alongside local families, not as spectators.
The landscape is extraordinary: golden larch forests, copper-coloured hillside vineyards, crystal-clear mountain air after the summer heat fades. The tourist crowds are gone. The restaurants have their seasonal menus. The village feels inhabited by its actual inhabitants again.
Wine harvest is also happening in October — the vineyards around the valley are pressing their grapes as the season turns. The valley carries it.
Early October = peak harvest. Families forage together. Roasting over open fires is a centuries-old tradition here.
Cool and crisp: 12–20°C by day. Mountain air. Layers recommended. No humidity.
The village is inhabited by locals in October. You'll experience real daily life, not a version staged for summer visitors.
Nearby towns hold market days throughout October. Local cheeses, cured meats, wine, chestnuts, honey. We'll go together.
There are people in this village who have lived here for 80 years. Who remember when the mountain trails were the main routes between communities. Who know every family in every house.
The village has artisan workshops still operating — wood carvers, textile workers, local craftspeople. A wine producer. A gelato maker who has been making gelato the same way for decades. A mountain rescue school that has been educating foresters for a century.
During the village residency, your family will be introduced to Nonna and Nonno — active village elders who still live and work in the village. They walk with you through the markets, the ingredient sources, the places they've known their whole lives. These are real relationships, not a cultural exchange exercise.
Wood carving, textile work, gelato, wine — all still practised here by families who chose to stay.
We arrange introductions with long-term village residents. Real conversations. Real stories. Unscripted every time.
The village has an active forestry training school with orchards, wine production, and guided forest programmes. You'll visit it.
There are properties available in this village. For families who want to explore further, we can arrange informal real estate walks on free time.
Ormea from above · May 2026
We've built this for mixed-age families. There are activities that split children and adults, and activities that bring everyone together. No one is left in a hotel room.
Children's art lab (full day). Forest foraging and chestnut roasting. Pizza-making evening with local children. Woodworking workshop. Kids' pizza party.
Wine tasting with a local producer — in the village. Cooking class with a village cook. Optional real estate exploration. Textile workshop. Italian language sessions.
Guided mountain hikes. Market day trips. Coastal day trip. Village elder meetings. Farewell dinner. Gelato lab. Italian karaoke night.
Babies in arms through teenagers. Solo parents welcome. We cap at 5 families so every child has peers in the group.
By air: Fly into Turin-Caselle airport (TRN). This is the most direct option. Flights connect from most European hubs and some intercontinental routes via European connections.
Airport transfer: We arrange minivan transfers from Turin airport to the village on arrival day (October 2) and return on departure day (October 11). This is included in the residency fee. The drive takes approximately 1.5 hours through increasingly beautiful mountain scenery.
By car: If you're already in Europe or prefer to hire a car, you can also drive directly. The village is easy to reach by road and has free parking.
Turin Caselle (TRN) · Transfer included in residency fee · ~1.5hr journey
Genoa (GОА) via Ligurian coast road · Nice (NCE) via French Alps · Milan (MXP/LIN) 2.5hrs
Also reachable by road from anywhere in northern Italy. Free parking in the village centre. Road is good all the way in.
The Ligurian coast — sea, fish markets, harbour towns — is 45 minutes away. We go there as a group during the village residency.
The Experience
Every day has a focus — but nothing is over-scheduled. You'll have mornings that are free and evenings that surprise you. The full day-by-day itinerary is available to enquiring families.
Request the Full Day-by-Day Itinerary →What's Included
One fee. No surprises. Here's what it covers:
Not included
Flights to and from Italy · personal expenses and shopping · gratuities · and anything outside the scheduled programme.
How it works
Every person in this village residency is matched with a local. Not a guide. Not a host. A friend.
Every adult in the group is matched with a village elder — your own host grandparent for the week. You walk the market together. You sit in on the cooking class together. They show you where they grew up, what they built, what they are proud of. You don't need Italian. They don't need English. By Day 4 you won't notice.
Your kids are paired with local children their age. They make pizza together, go to art workshops together, and by Day 3 have stopped noticing the language gap. Your children leave with a real friend. And you leave already knowing people in this village.
Italian immersion — no classroom required
Every day includes a little Italian: a phrase to learn, a challenge to try, a conversation to stumble through. You practice with your nonna. Your kids practice with their village friend. One evening a week, the whole group eats together and speaks only Italian — badly, joyfully, and with a lot of wine.
Village Residency Pricing
October 2026 is the founding cohort — the first five families through the door. 2027 opens at higher rates. If you're considering it, this is the moment.
Nine nights accommodation · every meal · 15+ activities and experiences · Italian language programme · airport transfers both ways · welcome basket of village goods. Flights, personal expenses, and gratuities not included.
Deposit is non-refundable. Balance due September 2, 2026.
ROOTS & Future 2027 — Early Access
October 2026 is 5 families only. If it's full or the dates don't work, 2027 opens two village residencies: May and October. Families on the 2027 list get first access before any public announcement, at founding rates.
Join the 2027 Early Access List
Who's behind ROOTS & Future
Brave Family Roots · bravefamilyroots.com
Newsweek · ABC Nightline · @bravefamilytravel · 178K
Our daughter has been exploring the world since she was born — 27 countries and counting. We've always believed the best education a child can have is one that happens in the actual world: real communities, real seasons, real people.
We visited Ormea in May 2026. It stayed with us. This is the Italy that hasn't been packaged yet — where the harvest still matters, where families know every name on every street, where October means chestnuts and the whole village comes alive together. We left wishing other families could feel what we felt there.
ROOTS & Future is built around that belief — to bring families to the parts of Italy that remain genuinely Italian, and to create the kind of local connection and cultural immersion that changes how your family sees the world.
Latino American family — raising our kids around the world. We'll be in the village with you, October 2–11, our two alongside yours.
A rough shape of the 10 days
This is just the feeling of it.
You arrive. The village has been waiting.
Fri Oct 2 — welcome lunch, first walk, dinner together at the school that's been here since the 1800s
The people who built this place show you what they made.
Sat Oct 3 — museum morning, cooking class, and your first afternoon with your nonna or nonno
What Sunday looks like when you actually live here.
Sun Oct 4 — kids in the art studio all day, adults at a wine tasting with the local producer
Into the mountains. Into the craft rooms.
Mon Oct 5 — morning hike with views, woodworking for the kids, a long dinner, and Italian karaoke
Anna's chestnut forest. Best gelato of your life.
Tue Oct 6 — foraging and roasting in the woods, picnic lunch, optional night hike to the castle
All day on the trail. The views earn their reputation.
Wed Oct 7 — full-day guided hike across Val Tanaro, back down to dinner at the square
A day at the Ligurian coast. You needed it.
Thu Oct 8 — bus to the sea, free lunch, sea light, back before dark
Market morning. The kids take over the kitchen.
Fri Oct 9 — guided market trip, children's pizza night with local kids
Bikes, needle and thread, the dinner you won't want to end.
Sat Oct 10 — e-bike tour through the valley, farewell dinner with the whole village
You leave knowing you'll be back.
Sun Oct 11 — farewell brunch, goodbyes, departure
Fill in the form below. We send the complete itinerary and all pricing details within 48 hours.
Questions
Reserve your place
The village is holding space for five families. Choose your next step.
Ready to reserve
Pay the €500 deposit. Your spot is held immediately. Your welcome pack arrives within 48 hours — the full day-by-day itinerary and everything you need before October 2.
Pay €500 Deposit →Balance due September 2, 2026
Still exploring
Fill in the form. We send the full day-by-day itinerary and all the details you need to say yes — within 48 hours, no commitment required.
Send me the details →2 minutes · no commitment
October 2026 full? Dates don't work?
Join the 2027 Waitlist — May or October2027 opens two residencies. List members get first access at founding rates.
A Brave Family Roots experience · bravefamilyroots.com
Questions? contact@bravefamilytravel.com
