The September issue of the Dream of Italy newsletter is all about Villa Rentals and is the first media mention for Slow Europe The June 2003 issue of Dream of Italy was their first Special Report on Villa Rentals and it mentioned the site I was running then – Slow Travel. It was the second media mention we had and many more followed. So, this is a good beginning for my new Slow Europe site.

I worked with Kathy McCabe (editor and publisher of Dream of Italy) and Valerie Schneider (Panorama Italy – tours in Le Marche) on the issue. The main article is about my experience with Slow Travel – both this way of travel (staying in villa rentals) and running the Slow Travel website: how I became a Slow Traveler, creating the Slow Travel website and community, renting from agencies vs. owners, changes in vacation rental agencies in the past decade.

Another article is “How to Find a Good Villa Rental Agency” – what we look for in a good agency. We wrote about terms used to talk about vacation rentals – villa rentals, holiday cottages, agriturism, etc. – “you say tomato, I say tomahto”.

Kathy added some great tips for first-time renters. We put our heads together and came up with a three page list of recommended villa rentals for Italy, by region (agencies and estates with cottages).

Subscribe to Dream of Italy or purchase this issue for $10.

Villa Rental – Vacation Rental | Tomato – Tomahto

Scene from the movie “Shall We Dance” with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers singing “Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off”.

“You say either and I say either, You say neither and I say neither
Either, either Neither, neither, Let’s call the whole thing off.
You like potato and I like potahto, You like tomato and I like tomahto
Potato, potahto, Tomato, tomahto, Let’s call the whole thing off.”
- Louis Armstrong, “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”