Beyond Remote Work: Why Community Is the Real Reason to Stay

Remote work has opened the door to living anywhere, but choosing where to live is only the beginning. In this joint talk, Elisa Lo Blanco and Salvatore Rotolo explore what it really takes to return to Southern Italy and build a sustainable, fulfilling life beyond the big cities. Elisa shares her personal journey of coming back after 15 years away, leaving stable corporate jobs to embrace a slower, more intentional lifestyle between Salento and Sicily.

Through remote work, her family was able to return to their roots, settle in the small town of Licodia Eubea, and actively invest in the local territory: from starting a new agricultural project with 500 olive trees, to creating Lycoworking, a rural coworking space and community hub hosted in a parish oratory. Her story shows how individual choices can generate real economic, social, and cultural impact in rural Southern communities.

From there, the talk widens its lens. Salvatore builds on this experience to address a crucial question: why remote work alone is not enough to make people stay. Coming back (or choosing to live) in places like Sicily requires more than a good internet connection or a flexible job. It requires an ecosystem: people, relationships, shared spaces, and collective projects that make everyday life sustainable, stimulating, and human. This is where RadicaHub comes in: a community born to connect remote workers who chose to stay (or return) to Sicily, transforming individual decisions into a shared movement. Through events, coworking exchanges, workations, and local collaborations, RadicaHub works on the “invisible infrastructure” that keeps people rooted: belonging, mutual support, and a sense of possibility.

Together, Elisa and Salvatore argue that the future of digital nomadism and remote work in Southern Europe depends not just on mobility, but on community-driven ecosystemscapable of turning return into permanence and work into a tool for local regeneration.