News: Airbnb Wants to Pay for You to Live in This Italian Village for a Whole Summer

Four lucky people will get to live and work alongside locals on an all-expenses-paid sabbatical in the hillside town of Grottole in southern Italy.

If you’ve ever dreamed of taking three months off, you’re not alone. According to a recent survey by Airbnb, one in three respondents in the United States said they needed a sabbatical to avoid burnout at work. And if you’re anything like the many survey respondents who said they’d use their sabbatical to meet new people and discover other cultures, keep reading.

This summer, Airbnb wants to send four volunteers on a three-month sabbatical in Grottole. The hillside village is located in southern Italy’s Basilicata region—a 30-minute drive west of Matera, Europe’s 2019 Capital of Culture.

Today, only 300 inhabitants remain in Grottole’s historic center and more than 600 houses sit empty. To help save the village from disappearing and draw more visitors to Grottole, Airbnb is working with Wonder Grottole, a local NGO that focuses on urban regeneration. The two companies will send four people on an all-expenses-paid sabbatical to live and volunteer in Grottole as Airbnb Experience and Home hosts alongside locals.

Source: AFAR