Truly Expat

Truly Expat ✈️ Expat turned full-time traveller
🌏 Authentic travel stories & hidden gems
🎙️ Podcast host | Travel guides
📍 Currently: Singapore
👇 Latest adventure

Not the Italy day I had planned. If you’ve ever had to wing it in a foreign hospital, you know. Tell me I’m not the only...
03/10/2026

Not the Italy day I had planned. If you’ve ever had to wing it in a foreign hospital, you know. Tell me I’m not the only one 🇮🇹

Started the morning in the emergency room in Sorrento.

Ended the day admitted to hospital in Vico Equense.

What to do in between visiting hours? Explore the streets for some fresh air, good food and a little bit of sanity.

Turns out this area is very good at distracting you.

Italian train business class: worth it? Yes. Here’s why.About 3 hours, city centre to city centre. Faster than getting t...
02/10/2026

Italian train business class: worth it? Yes. Here’s why.

About 3 hours, city centre to city centre. Faster than getting to the airport and back.

Seats are 2+1, so no climbing over strangers

Free drink and snack. No trolley chasing.

Business class: not a luxury, just a better way to travel

Florence to Naples in business class. 3 hours, wide seats, a free drink and snack, and you step off right in the city. Would you pay the extra? 🚆 Save this for your Italy trip.

🚄

The Florence steak worth planning your night around 🥩If you’re in Florence, you have to try a proper bistecca alla fiore...
01/10/2026

The Florence steak worth planning your night around 🥩

If you’re in Florence, you have to try a proper bistecca alla fiorentina, and we found a great spot for it.

Regina Bistecca is just a few meters from the Duomo, and it’s all about the steak:

Chianina IGP beef, dry-aged and grilled over charcoal.

The setting is part of the fun too

The same address was home to the Gonnelli antiquarian bookshop for over 140 years, and the old stone and brick walls give the dining room real character.

Easy to find, easy to love, and perfect for a special night out in Tuscany.

📍 Regina Bistecca
Via Ricasoli, 14r, 50122 Florence, Italy

Heading to Florence? Save this post for your trip and book a table before you go. Been already? Tell us what you ordered in the comments. 👇

29/09/2026

This is how my dream trip to Italy started.

Day 1 - landed in Milan
Day 2 - picked up my husband from the airport and headed to Florence, where we met the kids.

28/09/2026

One Week in Valencia Just Isn’t Enough

Great company, paella by the beach, and sunsets that made us not want to leave.

27/09/2026

It’s world tourism day!!!

I didn’t discover the world. It undiscovered me.

Somewhere between the ninth country and the ninth time I got hopelessly lost, “seeing the world” stopped being the point. Tourism Day always gets flooded with pretty sunsets — but nobody posts the part where a stranger walks you home because you asked for directions in broken everything, or the tour group who became your people by day three.

That’s the tourism I actually believe in. Not ticking boxes. Getting undone a little, in the best way.

Comment with the place that undid you — not your favourite trip, the one that changed something. I’ll reply with mine, and I’m picking one comment to feature in this week’s newsletter.

Golden sand, cold sangria, and the original paella eaten right where it was invented — Valencia doesn’t need to try hard...
27/09/2026

Golden sand, cold sangria, and the original paella eaten right where it was invented — Valencia doesn’t need to try hard.

Valencia doesn’t need to try hard.

Beach day → sunset → the ORIGINAL paella.

The perfect weather for swimming, relaxing and soaking up the sun

Patacona beach - more local, less tourists

They say summer is over in September - I beg to differ

A rose and sangria, at sunset on the beach…

Eating paella where it was actually born.

Not a coastal dish. Never was.

Chicken, rabbit, saffron, socarrat — the real one.

This is what paella was before tourists showed up.

Save this before your next Spain trip.

25/09/2026

This is València 🧡

Where orange blossom meets ocean breeze, and old-world charm sits right next to the future. If you’ve never put this Spanish gem on your list, let this be your sign.

- 🏛️ Wander the City of Arts and Sciences — futuristic architecture that looks straight out of a sci-fi film
- 🍊 Sip fresh orange juice on nearly every corner (Valencia practically invented it)
- 🥘 Eat the original paella where it was born and skip the touristy versions elsewhere
- 🎨 Explore the Central Market (Mercado Central) — one of Europe’s oldest and largest fresh food markets
- 🌊 Relax at Malvarrosa Beach, right in the city

Solo, with friends, or joining one of our small-group trips — València deserves a spot on your travel list.

👉 Which spot are you adding first? Drop a comment below.

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