We are considering a relocation to canton Ticino and plan to enroll our 5 and 8 year olds in the state run school system. We both work from home so commuting is not an issue, so we are trying to narrow down a list of cities/towns/villages to consider which we will then visit on a trip later this year.
We are both English speakers and will need to come up to speed on Italian, so a location with access to a language school for adults would be important. We like the idea of being near the train line so we could take trips without too much hassle and not require a car. We are used to lots of elbow room and acreage where we live now and I'm wondering if something less densely populated outside of Locarno, Lugano, or Bellinzona with a bit more garden yet still easy access to the train might exist.
We don't need any night life and are mainly moving for the school system. We traditionally have not been city people, but it seems like life in a Swiss city would be different (much better?) than life in a US city, so perhaps a smaller city like Locarno might be a good fit. We just don't like the noise, traffic, tourists, and general busyness that come to mind when we think about city life.
A standalone house would be ideal, but we could certainly make a flat work provided it had dedicated laundry. Monthly rent budget is roughly 5,000 CHF.
Thanks in advance for any recommendations!
The cities in CH are small anyway.
I would recommend just being in Lugano - easy to reach Zurich or Milano from there, access to all amenities you may need for the kids and a wonderful little town.
As your kids grow up access to activities will be important and those are not there in a village. If you both work you don't want to be driving the kids about.
Lugano and its surroundings it's definitely a good choice.
If you don't need to commute to Lugano daily, also Mendrisiotto is a good place I would consider and very close to Italy.
Generally speaking, you need a car in Ticino. Public transport is nowhere as convenient as in Zurich city for example.
With your budget you can basically live anywhere you like in Ticino.
Not entirely true. A house near Lugano could well exceed that.
I have to wonder, why Ticino? Is that where the employer is based so for permits it is easier to live in the same canton?
If you would find challenging to rent a property for 5k for a family of four in Ticino then you are an idiot.....anywhere in Ticino.
Then it goes without saying that if you want a castle that budget may not be enough...
In the locarno area if you want access on foot to the train while not being in the city center you can look at tenero, gordola. If you are OK with taking a short trip with bus or bicycle to the station then throw in minusio, near the lake front or on the hilly side.
You can find homes with your parameters everywhere though especially with that kind of budget, you just have the research the specific location.
No, not an idiot. But you have no idea of what the OP's requirements and standard of living is. Lake view on the Monte Bre or Collina d'Oro could well be above 5K.
As few people on this forum actually live in Ticino the OP might want to join this group for expats in Ticino
https://www.facebook.com/groups/luganofriends/
to be able to get to the main train lines to outside of the canton without inconvenience, you will have to deal with living in the city.
With the massive budget you have for rent you will be able to get a nice chill place, just forget about acreage and stuff, especially private.
If you can deal with taking the S-bahn for a bit before taking the main train, you have more possibilities, but these are usually not the prettiest valleys.
If you can accept driving to the station and paying for parking, a lot more possibilites exist.
A car-free lifestyle in ticino will impose some limitations and is not really practical if you want a house with a big garden in a valley. If you are in lugano, bellinzona, locarno then it's doable if you like the bicycle (or have lots of time and live along the trunk bus line that runs frequently), but you should not be too far from the city center.
I have Italian heritage and, along with my children, am an Italian citizen, so learning Italian and living somewhere more culturally Italian appeals to us.
The weather also plays a part. We are currently living in the Northwest of the USA and are growing tired of the 9 months of gray and wet with only 3 months of sunshine. My understanding is that much of the rest of the country is closer to that than Ticino is. We don't ski or do winter sports (yet!) so that does not really have any influence, either.
All that said, we're certainly looking forward to exploring the rest of the country. It seems to have so much variety to offer even within the borders.
Thanks, yeah I'm discovering there are some pretty nice options in the Lugano zipcode within this price range. Combining that with the fact that my wife and I speak only English, it's likely we will find the transition much easier in a larger city where vendors are more likely to speak English without frowning too hard.
If we were to decide to have a car and pay for parking at the station, where are some other places you would recommend? I'm actually concerned Lugano is going to be too hot, so I'm curious if there are options a bit further north that keep temperatures under 27oC.
If the weather is important....then yes live in Ticino.... I moved to Zurich in 2016 from Ticino and I still miss the weather.
English in Lugano?
First English speaker I met in Lugano 30 years ago was the bass player of Gotthard (who once chewed me out for not using DU after I hadn't seen him in 15 years, he's from Solothurn, but neither of us spoke much Italian back then). My wife used to make me go out on Saturdays so that she could have some alone time.
Tom
Heh, so I'm wrong about this, eh? Are we English speakers out of luck in Ticino until we learn Italian?
My daughter's roommate speaks fluent English, but never to me.
Same with everyone I've ever worked with, other than a couple non-native Italian speakers.
Tom
I actually don't know lugano very well, I don't know if there is always enough parking at the station, if you don't get a GA and rent one, it will cost 43.- a day. If you get a car, you will tend to use the car to your final destination to avoid things like this...
The well-off English-speaking expats assemble in Collina d'Oro AFAIK. I understand why, it's close and it's on the hill.
But you have a bus every 22 minutes only (which is good for a hillside village), which stops at midnight.
You risk becoming a taxi driver as soon as your kids are teen-agers, or maybe they'll buy a motorbike.
Going north in ticino doesn't help against the temperatures, only going up. And the bottom of the valleys (where meaningful amounts of people live) are at low altitude even further north. Biasca and Cevio sit at 300 m. You'd have to move to Airolo to notice a difference. But the climate gets cold in the winter as well then, and it's shadowy, and a village.
Tbh if you want sunny winters in Europe you will have to deal with several weeks a year >27°C and fair humidity.
The vendors won't necessarily speak english outside of luxury shops, but don't let that stop you. You would struggle learning the language if you don't really need to learn it.
My wife is born and raised in Gentilino (Collina d'Oro these days), the Hermann Hesse trail bordered their property until we sold it 9 years ago.
Neither she nor family nor friends speak English. Just saying.
Tom
Learning the language of the place where you live makes your life so much easier in so many situations, that it's not even possible to come up with a thorough list. Don't think of the interactions with your colleagues, think of the small, every day things: the supermarket cashier, your car mechanic, the hairdresser, the baker. You will get by with the school teachers, and the teller at the train station, but you'll feel so much more at home by speaking the local language.
I have yet to meet a school teacher in Ticino who can speak English.
Tom
Oh, absolutely. We have every intension of learning the language and integrating fully in to the culture.
I was just hoping to find a location that would allow us to ease in to that process a little, rather than ending up sonewhere we cannot communicate to anyone.