Before my trip to Calabria’s Ionian coast, I thought I knew Italy well, yet this felt like discovering an entirely new destination. It wasn’t simply that it was my first visit, but rather that this corner of Italy, overlooking the Gulf of Squillace and stretching from the province of Catanzaro towards Crotone and Reggio Calabria, exists well beyond the usual tourist trail. It is unfamiliar even to many Italians.
Visitors don’t come here for luxury resorts or bucket-list attractions. They come to meet the people who call this coast home, where community-based tourism isn’t a buzzword but a way of preserving local traditions, sharing daily life and offering a more meaningful way to experience Calabria, one that increasingly aligns with the philosophy behind Italy’s growing Turismo delle Radici (Roots Tourism) movement.
From Lamezia Terme, the road winds over the hills before descending towards the SS106, Calabria’s coastal highway. Then, almost without warning, the Ionian Sea comes into view—its impossibly clear turquoise waters resembling those of a remote tropical island rather than mainland Italy.
This stretch of coastline is part of the protected Baia dell’Ippocampo, a marine reserve known for its population of rare seahorses. For long stretches there are no marinas or ports, just wide expanses of white-sand beaches lined with colourful umbrellas and deckchairs, inviting you to embrace the quintessential Italian summer: a swim in the sea, a crossword puzzle in the shade and, of course, a chocolate and hazelnut tartufo di Pizzo, one of Calabria’s most popular desserts. .
But before that, there’s lunch at Lido San Domenico in Soverato, founded in 1887 and one of the region’s oldest beach clubs. For generations it has been the place where Calabrians living abroad return to each summer, a meeting point where holidays become homecomings and memories are renewed year after year.
To truly experience this corner of Calabria, you must leave the coast far behind as the real soul of the region lies inland, where winding roads climb through ravines and olive groves before opening onto expansive views of the Ionian Sea. These hilltop villages are where Calabria’s culinary traditions were born and where hospitality still feels like a way of life rather than a commercial venture.
You notice it in Franco, the local traffic officer, wiping the sweat from his forehead as he directs cars during an event that, for this village, feels almost extraordinary. You see it in the elderly women leaning from their windows, curious to know who every unfamiliar face might be. In Montauro – a village of barely 600 residents – visitors are still an event in themselves.
Among the people welcoming these visitors is Settimio, Montauro’s unofficial historian. On weekdays he works remotely for Italy’s national energy company, but every spare moment is devoted to the village he grew up in. It is passion – not profession – that leads him through the Church of Saint Pantaleone, unlocking stories that have been passed down the generations.
“Make sure you take a picture of San Rocco,” he tells me, pointing towards the statue with unmistakable pride. “He’s beautiful. And if you’re religious, a prayer to San Pantaleone never hurts.”
Lunch is served inside Palazzo Barberi, once home to the village’s first mayor. In the kitchen, nonna still rolls fileja – also known as pasta al ferro -by wrapping a simple dough of semolina flour and water around thin metal rods. The fileja arrive on a plate coated in homemade tomato sauce spiked with fiery local chilli and are inevitably followed by platters of capocollo and ‘nduja.
“Where there’s nothing, you can do everything” Irene tells me after I ask why she decided to open an artisan workshop in a village this small. It sounds like a contradiction, yet after only a few hours in Montauro it begins to make perfect sense. With no crowds to cater for and no expectations to meet, people here are free to preserve traditions and to reinvent their community on their own terms.
A few streets away I find Nina, patiently embroidering a crimson silk cloak with golden thread. It will be worn during the Feast of San Pantaleone on 27 July, one of the village’s most important celebrations. She belongs to the local women’s association, whose members keep traditions alive—from organising the annual festival to raising money for community projects. Watching her work, it becomes clear that the local heritage here isn’t preserved in a glass case in a museum. Instead it’s stitched, cooked and celebrated by the people who live it every day.
This philosophy runs through every village I visit. Community-based tourism here isn’t about staged experiences or curated authenticity; it’s about creating encounters that can only happen because local people choose to open the doors to their lives.
“Everything here is connected” Angela Donato tells me. “Our roots, our cultural heritage, our food, our landscapes—but above all, our people.”
Angela founded Sognare Insieme Viaggi with exactly this purpose: to introduce visitors to the Calabria that rarely appears in guidebooks. Working alongside regional institutions (including ARSAC, the board for agricultural development) and the Roots Tourism programme — coordinated by Giovanni Maria De Vita at Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she also co-organises the annual Calabria Food Fest, held each year in June. More than a food festival, it reflects the same philosophy behind her itineraries: using local cuisine as a gateway to the people, traditions and landscapes that define this corner of Calabria. Through these journeys, she doesn’t simply showcase places; she reconnects descendants of Italian emigrants and international travellers alike with the communities that keep these traditions alive.
This means spending time with people like Gianni, who makes fresh ricotta, primosale and delicate goat’s cheese each morning on his family farm, Roti Roti. Or the growers who have made it their mission to protect the heritage of the native Tonda Calabrese hazelnut. In Cardinale, where mineral-rich soils have nurtured these trees since the late eighteenth century, preserving biodiversity is not an environmental slogan but an everyday practice for them.
The same dialogue between past and present continues at the Archaeological Park of Scolacium. Beyond its Roman ruins and Byzantine echoes, the site preserves something more unusual: a 1940s olive mill, now part of an industrial archaeology museum. Surrounded by more than 3,500 olive trees representing dozens of native Calabrian varieties, Scolacium reminds visitors that heritage here isn’t frozen in monuments. It is cultivated, harvested and pressed into every bottle of extra virgin olive oil.
After tasting Giovanna Fusto’s organic Carolea olive oil, I couldn’t resist taking a few bottles home.
By the time I reach Squillace, the pattern has become impossible to ignore. Every place reveals another thread connecting memory, craftsmanship and everyday life.
The medieval town, perched high above the gulf that bears its name, is known throughout Italy for its centuries-old ceramic tradition. Yet that heritage feels inseparable from the coast below where I end the day dining on a terrace carved into the cliffs. The natural pools beneath me once formed part of the Vivarium, a sixth-century monastery where fish — including moray eels — were farmed long before the idea of sustainable food systems had a name.
Perhaps that is Calabria’s greatest paradox. One of Italy’s least visited regions is also one of the places that gave the country its very name. For according to one of the most enduring theories, the name Italia originates in this land which was once known for its population of Vituli, the calves that symbolised prosperity in ancient times.
For centuries, Calabria has helped shape Italy’s identity while remaining out of the spotlight. Maybe that is why the Ionian coast still feels like the country’s best-kept secret, not because it is hidden, but because the people who call it home have quietly chosen to preserve what matters most: their traditions, their landscape and the generosity with which they share both.
Italy is known throughout the world, but maybe it’s time more people discovered where its story begins.
All imagery credits are Sabrina Tosato