About My Bella Vita

Learn all about what inspired My Bella Vita and why we love organising private tours of Southern Italy

Welcome to My Bella Vita

My Bella Vita Travel, LLC was created by Cherrye Moore, a native Texan who has spent the last 20+ years traveling to and living in central Calabria.

The company’s heart and soul are in Calabria, Italy, where we create Bespoke Small Group Tours and Private Heritage Vacations in Calabria. My Bella Vita Travel’s blog was the first English-language website dedicated to Calabria and we were the first company to specialize in heritage tours in Calabria.

Since 2007, we have hosted hundreds of families and groups and helped them rediscover their Calabrian roots. We have also added other southern Italian regions to our portfolio and now create custom vacations for travelers within Italy.

You can join Cherrye and the team at many points throughout the year for our Best of Calabria and Malta Tour, our Food and Wine Tour of Calabria, or our one-of-a-kind Small Group Heritage Tour of Calabria, an exploration of Calabria’s diverse landscape, food, and culture that combines small group tour experiences with a private visit to your family’s ancestral village.

My Bella Vita Travel is registered as an LLC in the state of Texas and all business, banking, and legal processing is conducted in the US.

How It All Began

My Bella Vita started as a blog circa 2006 when Cherrye relocated from southeast Texas to central Calabria. In the days before Facebook, Twitter, Skype and Instagram, it served as a way to keep connected to home while sharing the details of her new day-to-day life with her Calabrese husband, Peppe.

With few English-language websites accurately depicting modern-day Calabria, Cherrye soon found herself advising, consulting and planning trips for readers. Meanwhile, the B&B she’d opened with her husband was busy assisting travelers with ancestral research, translations and heritage tours.

The business quickly grew and expanded to cover all regions “south of Rome” and it wasn’t long before the pair realized they needed more hands on deck. Their team grew and Cherrye and Peppe were finally able to realize their dream of splitting their personal time between her native Texas and his Catanzaro. In 2015 they bought a home outside of Beaumont, Texas and currently divide their time between the US and Italy.

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What Makes My Bella Vita Different?

We know you have an ever-growing number of choices when it comes to choosing a travel planner/tour provider. To help you decide, here are a few things to consider about My Bella Vita Travel.

100% Local

All of the B&B owners, agriturismi chefs, cooks, drivers and guides you will encounter on our tours are small, family-owned businesses, Italians who love their region or people who have lived in southern Italy for years.

Authentic Southern Italy

We want you to feel like a local while you are here, and that includes taking you to little-known places where the owners don’t speak English or in some cases … even Italian – just their local dialect!

VARIETY

Eating meals every day at a hotel is sad – and boring! On our tours, we experience the local culture through the food, wine, and music that is available at a variety of restaurants, trattorias, farms, and private villas throughout the country.

WELL-PLANNED

Most travelers don’t enjoy rushing – and spending five or six hours a day in the car is exhausting! Our tours are planned to maximize your experiences without keeping you on the road all day. We don’t wake you up at dawn and return at midnight just so we can make your itinerary look more robust. No checklists or flag-following here. We want you to experience southern Italy and that includes relaxing and enjoying the scenery … just like they do!

CUSTOMIZED

With our custom vacations and private tours, you choose what is important to you and we plan the itinerary around that. You won’t have to go to vineyards, tour churches and museums, or visit medieval villages if those things aren’t interesting to you.

Who Uses My Bella Vita Travel?

Travelers who want more than a basic “highlights” tour that can be found anywhere
People who want to be immersed in local culture
Those who want to absorb the energy of the villages we visit
Anyone who enjoys meeting locals
Travelers who enjoy practicing their Italian first-hand
Those who prefer boutique tour experiences over large group sightseeing tours
Travelers who don’t mind spontaneous tours given by proud villagers we meet on the street
People who realize that “a trip of a lifetime” is just that – and they aren’t willing to risk it with a run-of-the-mill company with offices in other countries.