Lindsay Marie Morris

Working in tourism was never on Amy Chambers' roadmap. As a student at San Diego State University, she immersed herself in cell and molecular biology, not language or culture.

But a study abroad trip to Florence in her twenties changed everything. What began as a detour became a lifelong passion, leading Amy to spend months at a time in Italy over the past two decades. Along the way, she cultivated deep friendships and a nuanced understanding of the country and its culture.

That love of la dolce vita inspired her to cofound the Scappare Travel Club (from the Italian word for "escape") with fellow Italy enthusiast Maria Goldman, whom she met while studying Italian more than a decade ago. The LLC officially launched in January 2024.

Although she still maintains her career as a nurse practitioner in urgent care, internal medicine, and pediatric psychiatry (negotiating time off for extended stays in Italy), Amy pours equal energy into her business. By design, the company offers intimate, small-group tours that eschew conventional tour operators in favor of a trusted network of local friends, opening doors to sights, foods, and experiences that most travelers never encounter.

Amy discussed the origins of Scappare, the philosophy behind its boutique approach, and why sharing Italy with others has become such a personal calling.

Where did the idea for the Scappare Travel Club come from?

The idea for it started a long time before we formed the actual company. I went to study in my twenties and lived in Florence for a while.

It took a little while for me, but after I assimilated, I felt a sense of home there, not in the same way I feel at home here, but with a sense of belonging. And it opened something in my heart.

I felt a different way there. I developed a deep-standing love for the Italian way of life, and when I left, I felt the need to return. So, I did the next year and kept going back year after year.

I also wanted to learn more about the culture and the language. So, I spent the next 10 years studying Italian and learning Italian. And once I learned the language, I went back even more because, for me, learning the language is like the key that unlocks the door to a whole different culture, way of doing things, and way of looking at things: eating, relating to people, conversing—all of it.

Italy is now a meaningful part of my life, one that I hold dear and cultivate. Starting the Scappare Travel Club came from that. It came from my love affair with Italy. It's nice for me to see that love affair develop in other people, too.

Scappare Travel Club Co-founders Maria Goldman and Amy Chambers enjoy an aperitivo in Pienza, Italy.

How did the business idea become a reality?

I met Maria 12 years ago while studying Italian at the Italian Cultural Center here in San Diego. She was learning Italian at the same pace that I was.

As a nurse practitioner by day, I have been able to spend two to three months a year in Italy, so I've been able to realize my dream of sharing the magic of Italy with other travelers. And people began to want to experience what that was like.

So, Maria and I got together and thought, "What if we could do this formally? Maybe even people who don't think they want to go to Italy could experience its magic—but in a way that's different from typical tourism."

My dear friend Andrea drives us around Tuscany, and our friend Massimo is a nationally licensed tour guide in Sicily from Ragusa. We love to share backdoor experiences with small groups. You eat at restaurants that tour companies don't send you to. You meet our friends, you become friends, too.  

Amy with Local Friends in Montepulciano, Italy

Share the significance of the name Scappare.

It means "to escape" in Italian, and I wanted to name the company after this concept. I wanted the name to be a hybrid of Italian and English, like me.

I'm from California, but I wanted to include Italian words, and I actually received a lot of pushback about that. I heard, "If you name your company with an Italian word, no one's going to know what you are. No one will know what it means. They won't know how to look you up. It's going to be confusing."

I felt that people would be able to relate to the feeling of getting on a plane and escaping their everyday routine. That feeling of escaping and flying away is the best. For me, knowing Italy is on the other end of that destination is a very important and meaningful feeling. Escaping to Italy is my love in life. 

Not that your life here is not important, but escaping to Italy is just the best thing ever. It's the best place on earth, according to me!

So, I wanted to have that feeling front and center in the name of my company.  There's some fun in explaining it to fellow travelers. And when I do, people can relate even though it's not in English.

Amy with her friend Paolo, who leads Florence walking tours for Scappare Travel Club.
 

What does that concept look like in practice?

Our signature trip is the Florence and Tuscany trip, and our Italian friends arrange the ground transportation. We have Paolo, a friend of mine whom I met years ago, who does walking tours of Florence.

Many people organize tours, and they take larger groups than we do. We want to maintain the boutique, small-group experience.

With us, you're traveling with friends. Maria and I (at least one of us) are always there on the trips. We're not necessarily doing all of the activities, but we are there in the background or in the foreground, so that our guests have a familiar face close by.

We like to get to know our guests; we don't just put together a tour and say, "Okay, go have fun." We are there with them.

Many tour companies work with destination management companies in Italy and create packaged tours that they pay for. While we do work with destination management companies (sometimes for the bare bones of the tours), we don't package everything with them. We actually pay extra to use our own people that we know and trust.

Maria and I go on research trips and meet people. We vet every single hotel. We meet tour guides ourselves.

We want people to see the authentic Italy. Not a restaurant that's front and center in the Piazza, where you'll be overcharged or there's a tourist menu, but the restaurant five blocks away, where you might have to walk, but Massimo's friend owns it.

Scappare Travel Club guest Glenn shares pasta he made in class as part of a farm tour in Tuscany. 

What advice would you offer to someone who wants to pursue a similar path?

Be prepared to take out the trash and do all of the things. It's not just about your vision.

I love Italy and I love to talk about it, but when you're starting a business, there's a lot of nitty-gritty work on the backend, and things I've had to learn how to do on the business side that are new to me. But I'm willing to do it.

I started this company because of my love for Italy. I love the feeling I get when I go there. I love the culture. I love its history. I enjoy discussing it with people. Italy has done so much for me personally in my life.

I started the company to promote that feeling, that affinity. I want to share that. 

People start companies for all kinds of reasons: for profit, necessity, or as a hobby. Mine was for the genuine love of Italian culture and people. So, keeping my day job and starting slow was the way to go for that. Eventually, I'd like the company to grow so that more people can experience the magical feeling I have felt.

Scappare Travel Club guests Carol, Carol, and Pamela in Calabria, Italy  

What do you ultimately hope to share?

When we travel, we expose ourselves to things outside of our own bubble. And when we expose ourselves to different things that, at first, are uncomfortable, like the discomfort of being in a different place with a different language, it breeds tolerance. The less exposed we are, the less tolerant we become.

Italy is an incredibly special place. I've traveled to lots of places in the world, but, in my opinion, there is no place like Italy. There is no place like the culture and the people, the language, the way of life; it speaks to me.

I want to show people the magic that it is. And I know not everybody will be as passionate as I am, and people have different affinities towards different places, but Italy is amazing! It's magical. It draws you in. It'll make you want to go back.

I want people to see and experience that.

Amy at Mercato Centrale in Florence  

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Nonno Gaetano Agnello would have been 109 years old today. Or was it today?

As the story went, the Agnello family was never entirely sure of the exact day when his mother, Maria Squadrito, gave birth to him in Santa Flavia, Sicily. His birth certificate was filed weeks later. 

Nonno had two brothers, Pino and Salvatore, and two sisters, Anna and Agostina. It was through Agostina that he met his future wife, my Nonna Concetta, who lived in the neighboring town of Porticello. Nonna told us that he would act as a priest and baptize the girls' dolls.

In the summer months, he enjoyed swimming in the Tyrrhenian Sea. He was quite the diver and must have been a strong swimmer, as it's been said that he swam all the way out to Castello di Solanto, once a holiday home of the King and Queen of Naples. 

Nonno's father, Salvatore, was a veteran of World War I, and for his service, he was awarded a business license. He opened a tabaccheria in Porticello, where his portrait hangs to this day (between pictures of Jesus and Saint Joseph). That store remains in my family, now owned by Nonno's great-nephew and my cousin, Massimo. It's just down the street from Chiesa Di Maria Santissima Del Lume, where Nonno was baptized and married. 

In 1938, Nonna's family left Porticello, while Nonno remained in Sicily. When Italy joined the war on June 10, 1940, he was sent to serve with the Italian Army in Cagliari, Sardinia. But in later years, he rarely, if ever, discussed what his service entailed. And when anyone asked, he was quick to add, "My loyalty was with the king," meaning Victor Emmanuel III over Benito Mussolini. 

Source: Wikimedia Commons

But the reality was less black and white. Nonno and Nonna had both participated in Fascist youth groups. Why? Well, for one thing, there was little choice.

The Fascist youth organization Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB), founded in April 1926, was closely tied to Italy's education system. Boys and girls were divided by age into groups focused on physical training, discipline, and loyalty to the regime. Membership was compulsory up to age 11 (extended to older children in 1937). Staying enrolled brought benefits such as jobs and scholarships, while opting out meant limited access to education and civil service, and often marked families as potentially antifascist.

Nonno, like many of his compatriots, was likely conflicted. He'd been groomed to be a loyal Fascist, but as a soldier, he was poorly equipped, with outdated uniforms, weapons, and technology. In Cagliari, he would have endured years of relentless bombings, with conditions becoming especially deadly in 1943, when U.S. Air Force bombers began operating from airfields in Algeria and later Tunisia.

Nonno on a return trip to Italy, likely in the 1960s. He was the only member of his nuclear family to emigrate to the United States. 

But he shared none of that. He would change the subject and turn the page in his ever-present, worn English dictionary to a new word on which to quiz me on vocabulary. Language was important. He'd struggled with learning English enough to know that. At other times, he'd pose philosophical questions, such as, "If space is fixed but time has moved, can one truly meet themselves in the same location?" One day, he handed me a weathered copy of The Divine Comedy, a treasured gift I keep on my shelf to this day.

His interests extended beyond the books. He had a green thumb. Along with rows of All-America Rose Selections award winners, he grew fruits and vegetables from seeds shipped from Sicily. Among these were his prized cucuzzi, which grew to the size of extra-long baseball bats in a six-foot-tall cage, and tomatoes, which he would sun-dry for Nonna to use as tomato paste. 

He also loved animals. In addition to his two dogs, Heinie and Jude, who ate a version of whatever Nonna was cooking that night, he loved to watch and feed a backyard squirrel friend he'd named Nutty. 

And he had a sense of humor. During one family visit, he approached Nonna and asked, "Why don't you kiss me like you used to?"

Nonna laughed. She had just seen him place a hot pepper on his tongue. She loved him, but she knew better.

Nonno passed on May 1, 2004. Nonna refused to celebrate Mother's Day that month and wore all black for the next year and four months until her own death on September 23, 2005. Beneath a single gravestone, they were buried side by side.

Nonna Concetta and Nonno Gaetano with their children, JoAnna, Salvatore, Santa Maria, and Maria, in 1966

Nonno and Nonna are gone, but their stories and lessons remain with us. Through their love, loyalty, and resilience, they left a legacy that not only shaped their own family but also the values we carry forward today. Their experiences inspired me to write The Last Letter from Sicily, a story about a promise that guided two young lovers through even the darkest times: to find each other, no matter the distance or the war. I am honored to share that story with the world.

Nonna Concetta, Auntie Jo (Giuseppina), my mother, Santa Maria, and Nonno Gaetano at my First Communion ceremony. 

Learn more about The Last Letter from Sicily, inspired by my grandparents' story.