Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Michael Goldstein is a journalist and playwright based in Los Angeles. Italy is one of the world’s most beloved countries.

Finding your own patch of peace – and finding it on the cheap – isn’t always easy in Italy. But fortunately for holidaymakers, Umbria isn’t much like the rest of the country. The landlocked region ...

In Umbria, just a 90-minute drive from Rome, Ellen Himelfarb discovers some of Italy’s most striking ‘ghost villages’ – towns of haunting beauty where mere handfuls of residents struggle to keep their ...