You can scroll endlessly through property sites, trawl Facebook groups about campsites for sale and make spreadsheets with pros and cons. We've done all of that. But the moment you know you've found the right place, you feel it. You smell it. You hear it in the silence between the crickets.
This is what our search looked like.
The boot is big. Very big.
Italy looks straightforward at first glance on a map. A boot, a couple of islands, done. But anyone who knows the country knows that every region is a world of its own. Its own character, its own rhythm, its own scent. And we wanted to taste them all before making a choice.
Geert has been in love with Naples for years. The city won't let him go. The chaos, the energy, the pizza that tastes like nowhere else, the people who talk with their hands and wear their hearts on the street. He's been there several times and every time he leaves reluctantly. Campania has something raw and untameable about it. He'd already discovered Puglia too, with its white masserias, olive groves stretching to the horizon and turquoise water you can't stop staring at on Google Maps. You don't forget places like that. They move into your head and refuse to leave.
Together we went bigger. Sardinia was the first stop, an island that looks as though God designed it on a particularly good day. Wild coastlines, deserted beaches and a feeling of the end of the world in the loveliest way. Sicily was the opposite: loud, proud and full of contrasts. Stromboli smoking away, markets that shout, cannoli that change your life. Tuscany we did too, of course. One has to. Rather like visiting the Eiffel Tower. Beautiful? Absolutely. But it felt as though we were walking through a postcard that had been sent by far too many people.
And then we drove into Le Marche. And it went quiet in the car. Not because there was nothing to see, but because there was so much to feel.
Le Marche, the best kept secret
If you tell most people you're going to Le Marche, you get a blank look. "Where exactly is that? Isn't it next to Tuscany?" Correct. And that's precisely the charm. Le Marche is what Tuscany was thirty years ago. The hills are there, the villages too, the olive groves and the vineyards as well. But it's rougher. More honest. Less in the spotlight. And on the other side of those hills lies the Adriatic coast, with cliff edges and beaches that give you the feeling you've discovered something the rest of the world doesn't know about yet.
What also struck us: there are already a surprising number of Dutch campsite owners in Le Marche. People who thought exactly the same as us, but are one step ahead. That gave us confidence.
"Le Marche is what Tuscany was thirty years ago. Rougher. More real. Less in the spotlight."
The click
You don't buy a campsite based on photographs. We knew that already, but we only truly felt it when we set off to visit a few. Small-scale campsites, tucked away in the hills, with views that make you stop mid-sentence.
We stood on a terrace looking out over a valley where a village sat on a hill as though it had been there for a thousand years. Perhaps longer. No traffic to be heard. Just wind, birds and somewhere in the distance a dog barking. The air smelled of lavender and dry earth. Daphne looked at me. I looked at her. We said nothing. We didn't need to.
That was the feeling we'd been searching for.
Oh, and Jim
We don't travel alone. Jim, our three-year-old Australian Shepherd, simply comes along. We even bought a van for it, big enough for Jim to lie comfortably and for us to bring a few things. Jim prefers not to leave our side. Where we go, he goes. Where we stop, he sniffs. The thought of him soon running through his own stretch of Italian countryside, with a ball and a terrace full of attention, makes the dream just that bit bigger.
What now?
The search has begun, but is far from over. We know where we want to be. We know how it should feel. Now the real work begins: finding, negotiating, turning dreams into plans and plans into reality.
This season we're managing Villa Alwin Beach Resort on the coast of Le Marche. We're learning, looking and getting a taste of the life we want to lead. Meanwhile, we're keeping our eyes open for that one place that calls our name.
Because that place exists. We've already half found it. You can feel it.