Italy has always played well in postcard form, Florence in golden light, Venice draped in mist, Rome with its perfect crumble. But for a growing number of travellers, the real romance lies not in the piazzas or galleries, but in mornings that begin with birdsong and coffee made over a flame, parked somewhere between a vineyard and the edge of a lake.
Recent data from campervan booking platforms like roadsurfer, suggests a quiet shift in how people are experiencing Italy. Rather than ticking off cities by train or queuing at landmarks, travellers are opting for the long curve of the open road, and a different kind of intimacy with the land.
This isn’t van life as Instagram cliché. It’s slower, more rooted. A rhythm shaped by weather and terrain, by the feel of gravel under tyres and the rituals of setting up camp. The top-booked campsites in Italy this year reveal a preference not for extravagance, but for authenticity, small, family-run sites nestled in vineyards, along rivers, and tucked into mountain valleys where the only evening entertainment is a sky full of stars.
In Veneto, among the vines of Valpolicella, a pitch at Corte Odorico doubles as a wine-tasting perch. It’s not the kind of luxury listed in brochures, but a quieter kind, one found in silence between the vines and the smell of earth after rain. Over in Tuscany, near Pisa, Camping Il Pruno blends olive groves with glamping comfort, linen-draped tents among stone terraces and birdsong.
The lakes are still there, of course, but seen from a different angle. At Camping Lido Verbano and The Camp by Maggiore Suites, it’s less about lakefront hotels and more about mornings spent wading into still water before the first espresso. In the Alps, Camping Bergkristall sits over 1,000 metres high, its appeal less about altitude than perspective.
Then there are the working farms. Places like Agri Camping Soul Farm near Milan, where travellers can wake to the smell of hay and walk through vegetable rows before breakfast. These agritourism spots are increasingly favoured by those looking to slow down, avoid crowds, and anchor their days in something tactile, soil, food, air.
What these sites share isn’t uniformity, but mood: a lightness, an informality, a sense of being folded into the landscape rather than imposing upon it. You arrive, you set up, you adapt. Sometimes there’s electricity, sometimes not. The charm, if it can be called that, is not curated. It’s circumstantial.
This kind of travel may not appeal to those who see holidays as a series of reservations. But for others, for those weary of itineraries and high-season schedules, there’s freedom in the not-quite-planned. A dirt road becomes an invitation. A campsite is less a destination than a pause.
In a country often defined by its monuments, there’s a growing appreciation for the space between them. Italy, it turns out, isn’t just a place to see. It’s a place to stop.
