Jul 30, 2026
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Add us on GoogleDebra Coltune spent more than a decade hustling through Las Vegas — navigating gridlocked traffic, juggling motherhood and work as a food critic while trying to keep up with a city that never slows down. Today, her mornings begin with a stroll to a local market where vendors greet her by name and ask about her children and her dogs.
In 2024, Coltune traded Vegas for Carloforte — a village of fewer than 6,000 people on the island of San Pietro, off the southwestern end of Sardinia. She’d visited in 2023 to judge a local tuna festival and fell immediately in love with the landscape, the pace and the sense of calm. So, she moved there with her two children and two poodles, she told CNN.
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“Las Vegas was all flashing lights, constant energy and a fast-paced rhythm,” she says. “In contrast, Sardinia is serene. The island moves at its own gentle pace, surrounded by natural beauty and a calm that touches every part of daily life.”
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The changes and costs
Coltune’s transition came with a deliberate financial strategy. Rather than buying immediately, she leased — first paying $2,500 a month for a furnished seafront villa while she assessed whether island life would suit her family. Once convinced, she found a more affordable rental at $800 a month. She still owns her Las Vegas home and returns to visit family, including two older children who remained stateside.
The cost-of-living contrast with the U.S. is stark. Carloforte’s food scene is built around the local harvest, at prices well below what she’d spend for comparable quality in Vegas. She now drives a small Citroën ideal for the island’s narrow roads, but often doesn’t need a car at all and can walk to most errands instead. She’s found work as a promoter for the yearly Girotonno tuna festival and as a consultant to local restaurants.
“I miss some of the U.S. luxuries, like the shopping malls where everything is right there, and the wide roads,” she says, “but honestly, the island fills me with such joy. It just grounds me in a way that Vegas never did.”
Sardinia is also recognized as one of the world’s Blue Zone regions associated with exceptional longevity and wellbeing — a factor Coltune cited explicitly as part of her reasoning.
“One of the main reasons we chose this move was to embrace a healthier lifestyle in a true blue zone, where longevity and wellbeing are part of daily life,” she says.
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Why more Americans are looking to leave
Coltune’s story resonates at a moment when interest in leaving the U.S. has reached historic levels. According to a 2025 Harris Poll survey of more than 6,300 Americans, about 40% have considered moving outside of the country in the next couple of years, with up to 52% believing it would improve their quality of life and/or financial stability.
The top motivators include: lower cost of living (49%), dissatisfaction with the political climate (48%) and desire for better quality of life (43%). Italy ranked fifth on the Harris Poll list of most-desired destinations.
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A separate 2025 expat survey by Greenback Tax Services, which surveyed 1,145 Americans including 719 current expats, found that 35% of those still living in the U.S. are seriously considering moving abroad, with 16% planning to do so within a year.
The financial reality
Coltune made the decision to lease rather than buy specifically so her family could experience their new home first — a strategy that paid off when she later found a home at a third of her original rental cost.
That’s a huge financial benefit, but what’s harder to see from the outside is the tax complexity.
Americans living abroad remain obligated to file U.S. federal tax returns regardless of where they live, as citizenship, not residency, determines filing requirements. Italy also imposes its own tax rules, residency requirements and bureaucratic processes that Coltune describes as complex to navigate.
Residents must pay Italian personal income tax on worldwide income, while non-residents are taxed on income earned in Italy. According to Wise’s guide to Italy expat taxes, rates for residents run from 23% on income up to roughly $32,260 (€28,000), rising to 43% on income above $57,600 (€50,000), plus additional regional and municipal taxes.
That means Americans who become Italian tax residents must navigate two tax systems simultaneously. The Greenback survey found that 83% of current U.S. expats describe the U.S. obligations as stressful, and 67% cite managing dual tax systems as their main financial challenge.
For families weighing a similar move, Coltune’s experience points to a consistent lesson: start by leasing if you aren’t sure, do your research and allow plenty of time to make decisions. The financial upside can be real, but it doesn’t arrive without effort.
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With a writing and editing career spanning over 15 years, Emma creates and refines content across a broad spectrum of industries, including personal finance, lifestyle, travel, health & wellness, real estate, beauty & fitness and B2B/SaaS/tech.
