Why Puglia? The Italy I Keep Coming Back To
There are places you visit once and love. And then there are places that somehow keep pulling you back.
For me, Puglia is the latter.
I’ve travelled extensively over the years, but there is something about this stretch of Southern Italy that gets me every time. Maybe it’s the impossibly blue Adriatic. Maybe it’s the ancient towns, the extraordinary food, or the way everyday life still seems to spill out onto the streets.
I suspect it’s all of it.
It starts with the sea
I am completely blissed out by Puglia’s coastal towns.
The water can be an unbelievable shade of blue. It’s clear, warm in summer, and as wonderful to swim in as it is to simply sit beside and watch.
But what I love most is that the sea isn’t treated as something to visit. It’s part of everyday life.
Families arrive for the day. Children play in the water. Grandparents sit nearby. People swim, talk, laugh, eat, and somehow hours disappear. There’s something incredibly joyful about watching generations of a family enjoying something so simple together.
I can sit there for ages just people watching.
Then there are the towns
Walking through Puglia can make my relatively young Canadian sense of history feel almost comical.
There are cathedrals, stone buildings, tiny cobbled streets and entire towns that had already lived many lives before Canada became a country.
But it isn't only the grand history that fascinates me. It's the ordinary life happening inside all that history.
Laundry hanging overhead. Someone sweeping the stone outside their home as though the street were an extension of their front room. Neighbours talking from balconies. A bucket being lowered from an upper floor to collect groceries.
I love those moments.
They remind me that these aren't beautiful historic towns created for us to admire. People actually live here. The ancient and the everyday coexist, and somehow that makes both more interesting.
And then there is the food
I could probably write an entire journal devoted to eating in Puglia.
Puglian food is extraordinary in its simplicity and its connection to place. There are sun-ripened tomatoes, exceptional olive oil, creamy burrata and mozzarella made that morning, beautiful breads and fresh pasta made from durum wheat, and seafood from the Adriatic and Ionian seas. Travel from one town to the next and the pasta shapes, recipes and even the pastries change, with pastry-shop windows revealing another local speciality everywhere you go. The food is fresh, seasonal, largely unprocessed, and bursting with flavour.
I also love the way people shop for food. There is far less of the weekly stock-up mentality I'm used to at home. There is a wonderful rhythm of buying what is fresh and available, and cooking around what you find.
Grocery shopping itself feels personal. Someone is serving you. They know the food, and often they know the people buying it. These relationships can stretch across generations, from the family behind the counter and the grandfather who ran the shop before them to the families who have been coming through the door for years.
Food becomes another thread connecting people to their community, and I find that incredibly beautiful.
Perhaps that's part of what fascinates me so much about food when I travel. Food isn't simply something we eat. It tells us about agriculture, history, family, and tradition.
You begin to understand a place differently once you've tasted it.
But ultimately, I think it's the people
This may be the part that keeps bringing me back.
I love the warmth and expressiveness of people in Puglia. There is eye contact, affection, compliments, kisses on the cheek, animated conversation, and an ease with showing emotion that still catches me by surprise. Men embrace other men. Someone you have only just met might invite you to dinner. Connection seems to happen naturally, without the reserve I am accustomed to at home.
And I think so much of that warmth can be seen in the way people live. In the rituals, traditions, and ordinary moments that bring people together every day.
In the early evening, people come out for the passeggiata, strolling arm in arm through the streets and piazzas, often with nowhere in particular to go. The point is not the destination. It is the walking, talking, seeing familiar faces, and simply being out in the world together.
Then there is aperitivo, that wonderful pause between the day and whatever the evening might bring. You sit down for a drink and somehow a beautiful spread of little things to eat appears alongside it. You talk, laugh, people watch, and linger. It is not dinner. It is simply another reason to spend time together.
I notice the care people take in how they present themselves too. People seem beautifully put together for an evening walk, a coffee, or aperitivo. It is not dressing up for an occasion. It is a natural part of everyday life, and I love that.
As a woman who often travels on my own, I notice the openness even more. There is something wonderful about being looked in the eye, acknowledged, spoken to, and included. It creates a feeling of connection very quickly and, perhaps more than anything, makes me feel more alive.
Of course, I am not suggesting life in Puglia is perfect. But I am inspired by how much value seems to be placed on family, food, friendship, and time spent together.
Maybe that is what I keep responding to. Life does not always seem to need an occasion there. An espresso and something sweet at the bar. A swim in the sea. An evening stroll with someone you care about. Aperitivo in the piazza. Dinner that goes on much longer than expected.
Simple things, enjoyed fully.
Perhaps that's why I keep returning
Every time I go to Puglia, I discover another layer.
A town I haven't wandered through. A food I haven't tasted. A tradition I knew nothing about. Someone whose story changes the way I understand the place.
And that's the kind of travel I love most.
Not simply seeing somewhere, but getting close enough to begin to understand it. Eating what grows there. Learning from the people who live there. Paying attention to the small habits, rituals, and traditions of everyday life.
Perhaps that's what keeps pulling me back.
Puglia is extraordinarily beautiful, but more than anything, I'm fascinated by the way people live there.
And every time I leave, I find myself already wondering when I can return.
And it’s why I want to share Puglia
The more time I spend here, the more I want other people to experience Puglia this way too. Not simply seeing the towns and coastline, but meeting the people, tasting what is grown and made here, cooking together, gathering around beautiful tables, and getting close enough to a place to understand something about how people actually live.
That is really where the idea for Wild Rise in Puglia began. I wanted to create the kind of journey I would want to take myself: intimate, thoughtful, full of extraordinary food and places, and shaped by the people and traditions that make this region so special.
