Canadian who moved to Italy living life like a rom-com without high cost of living – Daily Hive

Jaid Newstead’s life in Italy is straight out of a rom-com.

Last year, the former Torontonian moved to Bari, a quaint, picturesque town by the Adriatic Sea. During her first week there, she was having a glass of wine at a restaurant and making small talk with the manager, who offered her a job when he found out she was new in town.

Four months later, while working a shift at the restaurant, she locked eyes with an Italian man who would become her boyfriend.

Her life wasn’t always like a movie.

After returning to Toronto from her first solo trip to Italy in 2023, Newstead couldn’t get la dolce vita off her mind.

“I felt very free and liberated and creative… I felt sincerely, very heartbroken about leaving. I felt like my soul had grown attached in such a short amount of time,” she told Daily Hive over the phone.

The 34-year-old was working remotely, so she spent the days relaxing at the beach, having leisurely lunches and taking naps before clocking in on Eastern Standard Time.

Flying back to her life in Canada, she was hit with the reality of the not-so-sweet life.

She worked as a copywriter for a big ad agency in Toronto, but it wasn’t enough to support the soaring cost of living in the city. After her nine-to-five, she worked from 6 pm to 1 am as a server at a restaurant to afford rent and a comfortable lifestyle.

“I was exhausted all the time, but I had to do it to make ends meet,” she explained.

Newstead realized that she was no longer passionate about her career and was also outgrowing the Toronto lifestyle, having lived there for over 15 years.

So, she took the plunge and moved to Italy on the Youth Mobility Visa (formerly known as the Working Holiday Visa), available to Canadians between 18 and 35.

“You know what, if not now, when am I going to actually do this?” she said. “So, that was the push that I needed. I need to do this now, or else I will regret this my whole life.”

Packing her bags

Newstead says obtaining the Youth Mobility Visa is simple — you just apply at the nearest Italian embassy or consulate.

That involves filling out the application form and providing a recent passport-size photo, your passport, a copy of your roundtrip flight reservation, proof of sufficient finances (a minimum of €1,900, or about C$2,800) for 12 months, a health insurance policy, and other requirements that can be found on the Italian consulate’s site.

The former Torontonian says she expected to hear back from the consulate after a couple of months because she booked her flight for April 30, 2024, but sent her application in February. She ended up getting her visa five days later.

“It gave me a lot of time to mentally prep, which I’m very thankful for,” she said. “A lot of see you laters with family. It allowed me time to slowly sell my things and figure out storage.”

Newstead says she even quit her copywriting job a couple of months before the trip so she could focus on prepping for the big move. She continued to work her restaurant job, which, she says, ironically, made her more money than her position at the ad agency.

The visa she obtained did not require her to secure a job in Italy. However, she did land the server position at the local restaurant and is starting to work on paid collaborations through social media. She’s also still doing some freelance copywriting for companies in Toronto.

“There’s no atmosphere of needing to spend money”

Regarding housing, Newstead booked an Airbnb for the first month and easily found an apartment by the sea, thanks to the help of real estate agents.

Her apartment is €750 (around C$1,100) monthly, which she says is considered expensive in Bari. Based on her apartment hunt, Newstead says the average rent there is between €300 to €600 monthly (C$440 to C$885).

Despite paying rent on the higher end in Bari, Newstead is still paying only about half the amount she did for her apartment in Toronto.

“I was living in a one-bedroom, but it was very small, and I was paying $2,200 a month,” she said.

The 34-year-old says in Bari, she has a two-bedroom apartment with a big balcony and tall ceilings.

“My apartment right now is probably three times the size it was in Toronto. The architecture, like the old tiling from like a hundred years ago. It’s just stunning,” said Newstead.

She also doesn’t pay for WiFi because she can get 200 gigabytes of data for €7 (C$10) monthly, so she just hotspots her devices.

Housing isn’t the only thing that’s more affordable in Bari. She says groceries are also cheaper and more high quality.

Newstead spends about €30 (C$40) a week on groceries in Bari, compared to her $100 weekly grocery bill in Toronto.

“The food you get back home and the quantity versus quality is not good,” she explained. “I wasn’t eating well back home because I was trying to make ends meet.”

She says her diet in southern Italy consists of fresh seafood and quality produce, meat, cheese, and bread.

Even eating out doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. She says a more high-end dinner date for two people, which includes a bottle of wine and four dishes, would come out to around €125 (C$185.26).

“I could go and get focaccia for €2, and it’s like the size of a medium-sized pizza. Even if I want to grab a spritz, it’s €5, or a beer would be €2,” she said.

Travel is also cheaper. Newstead says a train ride from Bari to the nearby town Monopoli is only €3 (C$4.45), and a train ride to Napoli costs her only about €30 (C$44.46). It was a welcome change from what she says were “insanely overpriced” C$40 to C$90 one-way Via Rail rides to visit her dad in Brantford, Ontario.

She says even plane rides to other European cities are affordable.

“If I wanted to go to Austria tomorrow, I could find a flight for maybe €30,” she said.

Newstead does acknowledge that her salary isn’t great. She says she makes around €1,100 monthly, which is a little over C$1,600. After rent, she has around €350 left over to spend. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but she says because of the lower cost of living, it’s quite easy for her to live within her means.

“I found in Toronto that you’re out with your friends having $18 cocktails. You can go for a walk and end up spending $50,” she explained. “Here, you go for a little €1 espresso chatting with friends, and you go for a beautiful walk.”

Newstead says you can spend a lot of money there, but people usually don’t.

“They just kind of sit around, and they [live] slow — it’s nice. There’s no atmosphere of needing to spend money everywhere you go,” she added.

Positives and negatives

Newstead did face some challenges during her move.

She says the first month was stressful because she had trouble obtaining a residence card. Since Bari is a smaller town in Italy, she struggled to get information about the document.

“It was just a big mess. I felt very stressed,” explained Newstead. “Imagine I don’t get this residency card and I have to go back.”

The language barrier also made it difficult to settle in.

“The restaurant I work at is not in a tourist area, so it’s all locals. Trying to navigate the very, very large language barrier, I would try to pronounce things. Some people here were very rude about my pronunciation,” she recalled.

The former Torontonian says little cultural differences in personality bothered her at first because it was all new to her.

“But I think now because I know the place, I know more people, it feels more welcoming,” she said.

Nine months after moving from Toronto, she can fully appreciate the Italian lifestyle.

“There’s such a sense of community here in terms of family and friends. The way people communicate here is so loving and so passionate,” she said.

It’s a sense of community she says she could never really find in Toronto. And, of course, it helps that her daily life is set against a backdrop of the Adriatic Sea.

Newstead says she has no desire to move back to Toronto after her visa runs out in three months.

Canadians can renew the Youth Mobility Visa for a second time, but they’ll have to return to Canada to do that, which Newstead doesn’t want to do if she can help it. She’s hoping her work will sponsor her so she can change her visa to a work permit, and she is looking at other options like getting a student visa.

“I really feel I love my life and I love who I am here. I think I’ve been waiting in Toronto for that chapter to close, so I don’t really want to open the door again.”