Airbnb Will Pay Someone to Live Like a Local in Italy for 3 Months
A vacation or time away can do wonders for recharging your mind and body. Even better: an extended break from everyday responsibilities (read: work). Even better than that: a paid-for three-month sabbatical in Italy, where you’ll live like a local, learn Italian, and make (and eat) fresh pasta to your heart’s content. Airbnb is providing an opportunity to do just that.
In partnership with Wonder Grottole, an NGO, Airbnb is proving a taste of la dolce vita in Grottole, a small village in the Matera province of southern Italy. Grottole was built on a mountain and is known for handmade pottery that’s baked in grottos, or caves, that are scattered around the hills. Human settlement in the village dates back to the Paleolithic Period, but now, with only 300 inhabitants in its historic center and over 600 empty homes, it’s a place that’s in endanger of disappearing.
To revitalize the village, Airbnb and Wonder Grottole are looking for four lucky people to move to Grottole this summer and become Experience and Home hosts for three months. They’ll be trained for a month and then immersed in community life, living in traditional homes and spending time with residents to learn various skills like vegetable farming, honey harvesting, olive oil production, and, of course, pasta making. The fab four will, in turn, be hosts for incoming visitors, teaching them the skills they’ve learned. All proceeds from these Social Impact Experiences will be reinvested back into the village.
Vincenzo, the local olive oil producer who will lend his skills to the temporary citizens says, “Visitors coming to Grottole will live in a quiet place, with slow living. There’s no traffic, no chaos, no pollution, good food, and above all, welcoming people.”
Sounds like the ideal destination to get away, and do a little good along the way. To apply for this once-in-a-lifetime experience, head over www.italiansabbatical.com. We can’t promise you’ll want to leave Italy afterward though.
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(Photos via Airbnb)
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