When I moved to Italy on a student visa, I had romantic ideas of what life would be like. But in reality, it was full of surprises. In this video, I share some of the culture shocks I experienced while living in Northern Italy—from the housing hunt and the language barrier to the differences in daily routine.
In this video, I share my full experience studying Italian at a language school while living in Italy for 8 months. I cover what to expect as a beginner, why immersion helps (and when it doesn’t), how language school can make or break your progress, and what surprised me most along the way.
In this video, I leave behind the constant noise of the city for a few quiet days in Varenna, a small town on Lake Como. What I found wasn’t just peace — it was perspective. This is a personal reflection on productivity, stillness, and the two sides of ourselves that are always in tension: ambition and presence.
Venice during Carnival is a wild mix of tradition, performance, and mystery. We spent four days getting lost in the alleys, sipping spritz in local bacari, and exploring the history behind the masks—and it turns out Carnival is a lot more than just costumes and crowds. In this video, I share what surprised me most: the resilience built into the city, the roots of the festival, and how getting lost in Venice is kind of the whole point.
Most people see the Cinque Terre in peak season — wall-to-wall tourists, crowded trails, packed trains. But what happens when it’s empty? We visited during a stormy weekend in the off-season and experienced a completely different side of this iconic part of Italy. Quiet streets. Closed trails. Locals living their lives. And a rare glimpse of what these five cliffside villages were like before mass tourism.
I lived in northern Italy for eight months while my wife applied for her Italian citizenship. We settled in Alessandria and I commuted daily to Torino to study Italian full-time. In this video, I’m sharing some of the biggest lessons I learned—about culture, language, bureaucracy, trains, food, and what it really means to move to another country. It wasn’t always easy, but we came away with some unforgettable experiences and a deeper understanding of what it means to build a life in Italy.
This video explores how the practice of “Slow Looking” can transform the way art, travel, and life are experienced. Drawing from a college art class assignment at the Barnes Foundation, the story demonstrates how spending 30 minutes with a single painting revealed unexpected lessons about connection and attention. It also shares a personal travel moment in Milan—moving away from the rush of sightseeing to fully immerse in the experience of the city.
I’m in Turin, Italy. In this video, I explore how to get oriented in a new city quickly. This is how we spent a day in the city getting to know it, from a “free walking tour” to a museum visit and a spontaneous event.
I moved to Italy. This story started decades ago when my wife’s grandmother left Mussolini’s Italy, setting off a chain of events that eventually led us back here. In this video, I share how we ended up living in Italy, from navigating the complicated Italian visa process to be able to stay here long term. It wasn’t easy, but, after a year and a half of planning and figuring things out, we made it happen!
How to Save Money for Unforgettable Travel Experiences
Do you ever feel trapped in a cycle of consumerism, constantly buying things you don't need, only to feel empty and unfulfilled afterward? I made this video to express how I feel sometimes when I find myself mindlessly buying and how I motivate myself to get back on track by prioritizing experiences over material possessions.
Social media often fuels our desires and perpetuates a sense of inadequacy, and it's easy to fall into the trap of mindless consumption. What if, instead of chasing after the latest gadgets and trends, we choose to invest in experiences that enrich our lives and create lasting memories?
There’s a certain transformative power of travel. Here I use a road trip I took across Spain to uncover the profound emotional rewards that come from conscious saving and spending.
I give a few action steps and practical tips, that I’ve found useful to reallocate funds for the experiences that truly matter. From auditing our subscriptions to downsizing our possessions, every small change brings us one step closer to realizing our dreams of exploration and discovery.
This journey isn't just about saving money—it's about embracing a mindset shift that prioritizes living fully and authentically. It's about recognizing the value of experiences over possessions and seizing the opportunity to create a life we'll look back on with pride. Your 99-year-old self will thank you for it.
**Always check with your bank to ensure they don’t charge for multiple transactions to and from your savings account. A separate checking account can work instead of savings if the maximum number of transactions with your savings account is too limiting.
Music from Artlist:
Bishara Haroni - Fantaisie-Impromptu Op66
Tristan Barton - Revelations
Menga Corta - La promesa
Dan Zeitune - Masari
Dan Zeitung - Todo Mundo
The occasional stock asset from Envato Elements
This video is an introduction to a new series, documenting my process of becoming location-independent.
Apple Watch Ultra 2 Spec Ad, created for an editing competition by Mitchell and Stephen at TMS Productions in collaboration with Shade, is an AI tool that catalogs your footage and allows you to search for particular clips by typing in a description. In the spirit of using AI tools for video creation, the voice-over was generated using Speechify ( https://speechify.com ) with permission from Mitchell at TMS Productions.
Shot by TMS Productions: https://www.tmsmedia.io/
Shade: https://www.shade.inc/
Speechify: https://speechify.com/
Editor: Ian C Francis
Geniusscript Editing Service: www.geniusscript.com
This is a collection of shots taken traveling in Europe and Southeast Asia. I'm interested in cultural points of view and history, the interaction of tourism and local communities, self-expression through art and craft, and our relationship with nature, specifically focusing on agriculture and the use of natural resources.
This is a short promotional advertisement for a video editing service I created called GeniusScript.
These are 3 of my favorite books for long-term travelers!
1. 'Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel' by Rolf Potts, is all about the philosophy of travel and the mindset to bring to the table.
https://www.amazon.com/Vagabonding-Un...
2. 'Goodbye, Things' by Fumio Sasaki, is a great book for letting go of all of the things that are anchoring you down to one place.
https://www.amazon.com/Goodbye-Things...
3. ‘The Pathless Path' by Paul Millerd, is a great book for anyone who feels unfulfilled with their work and dreams of living a life outside the boundaries of the usual, "default path" of: school, college, internship, job, retirement, travel.
https://www.amazon.com/Pathless-Path-...
Travel is one of life's greatest teachers. Here's 5 lessons/skills that I've learned over the course of several years on the road.
Over the years I've found that there's a way to really immerse yourself in a place and a culture. Slow travel is the key to really understanding a place. You'll find that if you stay somewhere long enough, it'll begin to feel like home and when you leave you'll always miss it.
Filmed in: Spain, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Argentina
Situated in Ubud less than 1 mile from the Ubud Palace, Kama Ayu Bungalow features accommodation with an outdoor swimming pool, free private parking, a garden, and a terrace. The property is conveniently located with easy access to all of Ubud's most popular attractions.
I made this video to talk about the sometimes dangerous sides of travel; how being unprepared or uninformed can effect your travel experience.