Living Abroad: City-Dwellers, Can You Thrive in a Small Town?

Living abroad can be exciting and challenging at the same time. If you are a city-dweller considering a move to a small town, here are some words of advice before you make the leap.

Remember that scene in Disney’s animated version of Beauty and the Beast where Belle is walking around the quiet, little town with all the townsfolk singing “Bonjour, bonjour, bonjour, bonjour, bonjour”? Well, anyway, this is how I picture idyllic small town living. You buy your bread from the baker, your fish from the fishmonger, eggs from the egg farmer. Everyone knows you and you know everyone. How quaint.

I had this picture in mind when I started practising law. I moved to Belleville, Ontario, Canada (population when I lived there…just short of 50,000) which was in my head the equivalent of “small town livin’”. I had a tiny apartment in an old house, I could walk to work and the downtown core and bought my first car to meet clients in nearby cities. In my mind, I could be a small town girl, no problem. I would spend my free time sipping coffee in the town’s coffee shop whilst reading a book and gazing out the window to wave at the locals, I would go to all the local festivals, and, of course, I would buy my bread from the baker and eggs from the egg farmer. What transpired in reality was a very lonely, stir-crazy, extroverted lawyer with no social network who spent time watching paint dry, making trips to Dairy Queen and then to the gym to counteract the Dairy Queen purchases. After a year, I was so bored, I moved back in with my parents (hey, we’ve all done it, don’t judge) in the booming metropolis of Kingston, Ontario, Canada just so I could have some semblance of a social life and something, anything, to do.

Fast forward to 2023, after a decade of living in Toronto, Canada’s largest city, I had this “small town livin’” experience in mind when we selected a town to live in for our move to Italy. So much time had passed since the Belleville experience and I was much older, leading me to reason that yes, I could adjust to small town life much easier this time around. We also convinced ourselves that after years living in the chaotic, loud, congested downtown core of Toronto we would take to small town life for the sheer quiet alone.

Sometimes we need a few reminders for a lesson to really solidify, right? My second kick at small town living took me to a tiny Italian, land-locked town of less than 7,000 inhabitants. There, Sarah and I learned that we are not cut out for small town life, nor will likely be in the foreseeable future. We can cope and keep ourselves entertained, but it is a huge adjustment, even at this middle stage of life when regular evenings at house parties, bars or nightclubs are behind us (mostly).

Living in a small town means adjusting to the town’s cadence — many days and evenings, our town is virtually silent, apocalyptic even. This is largely due to the fact that it is the winter time, so Italians find it cold at 15 Celsius / 59 Fahrenheit whereas Canadians will sit shivering on a patio in a light sweater just for the chance to be “out” in the winter. Many homeowners here also live and work up north and venture south in the summer for the warmer weather. 

Smaller towns operate on their own schedule, versus the “24/7” availability of almost anything that you’ll find in larger North American cities, e.g. if you want to eat lunch at a restaurant in our Italian town it’s simply not possible. Some restaurants open some of the time for dinner after 8pm — that’s it.  Small town life also means the unavailability of many things to which you may be accustomed in a larger city. 

Finally, I’d argue it’s harder to break into a social circle in a smaller community. For example, Toronto has thousands of active Meet Up groups, community centres, clubs, active dating apps to meet people and build a friend base; whereas, in Belleville, I started my own hiking group to make friends as there was a lack of other options. If you are facing a language barrier (see: our currently very broken Italian) it’ll be even harder to socialize with the locals who likely have well-established social circles already. 

Although small town life isn’t for everyone, I’d be remiss if I didn’t also tout its positive points (even for born and bred city dwellers). It is ridiculously quiet in our small town, and dark, no sirens, no one yelling in the streets at 2:00am, no chaos. It’s the epitome of peace — perfect for a good night’s sleep and a restful day at home. The pace due to the above-mentioned operating hours and lack of amenities, is also much slower. Time moves like honey in our tiny town. You wouldn’t know it from the speed of the vehicles that do pass through town, but everything else moves at a crawl. Talk about effective de-stressing! 

Additionally, this has the benefit of turning us into, begrudgingly at times, more patient people. If you know you cannot go out for dinner until the restaurant opens at 8:00pm, then what’s the point of being impatient if it takes an extra 15 minutes to buy your groceries because all the cashiers are on a cigarette break? Just like in a hot climate, where people tend to move slower to avoid heat stroke, small town living can help you slow down, breathe and exercise greater patience.

Finally, in my experience, people are, by and large, much friendlier in smaller communities than in a hectic metropolis where everyone is racing through the day. I recall meeting a couple when my wife and I went to a Second City show in Toronto. They were from a smaller city in Alberta and it was their first visit to Ontario’s capital city. They asked “why does everyone move so quickly here?” Astute observation! We could only reply with a shrug, “everyone has somewhere they need to get to”. I’m not living Belle’s small town, musical life, but we do say “bonjour” or rather “buongiorno” to everyone we see. And despite our pitiful accents and strange attire, most of the locals respond back.

Once you adjust to the cadence and figure out how to keep yourself entertained, small town living can truly have the calming effect you may be looking for as you search for your dolce vita.

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