Stanley Tucci Wants You to Vacation Like an Italian
Americans are bad at taking time off. If you’re one of the lucky workers that does get paid vacation days, you’re likely not using them all (only 23 percent do, according to a 2017 Glassdoor study). So here is a gentle reminder from Emmy award winning actor and creator of “Searching for Italy”, Stanley Tucci, to schedule that PTO this summer.
Partnering with S. Pellegrino, Tucci is encouraging Americans to prioritize an extended vacation and the duo is giving one winner $10,000 to take time off and summer like an Italian.
“In Europe in August, unless you’re running a restaurant or a hotel, you’re off. Italians have always been really good at that,” he tells me over Zoom. “Americans might say that’s people being lazy, but I don’t think so. I think it’s people being smart, because you can’t be productive if you don’t have the proper amount of downtime. It’s like not getting enough sleep. [The fact is] that we do need time off and that we need time together. And one thing that Italians always do is that they spend time together. Families spend time together. Friends spend time together.”
Celebrating summer “Tucci style”, Stanley told me, means “not doing a lot.” He and his family will be heading to Italy this summer (the region of Le Marche, specifically) and renting a house where the average day might look a little like this: “Making big lunches (with wine and S. Pellegrino, of course), the kids swim in the pool, maybe a nap in the afternoon, and then you wake up and you cook again,” he laughs. I don’t have kids, but this is exactly how my favorite summer vacations go.
But a relaxing vacation doesn’t require international flights; you can have an Italian summer right at home. “On a Saturday or Sunday, make a big meal with your family, invite your friends over (or those family members you actually like). The great thing about the Italian way of life is that kids are always connected, they’re not an adjunct,” Tucci says. “Make a huge — what they call in Italian dialect — a spaghettata, a huge thing of spaghetti and everyone sits and eats, grill a great steak, make a great side dish, and [explore Italy] region by region I think would be the cool way to do it.”
If you do want to head to Italy this summer, Tucci recommends Sardinia for somewhere a little off the radar. “I’m going to Sardinia to start filming [for the show],” he says. “Brits and Europeans might go to Sardinia more than Americans might. Having been once before, I have to say the food is really really really incredible.”
Visit S. Pellegrino Summer now through June 27, 2022 to enter. One grand prize winner will receive a $10,000 cash prize to take an extended summer vacation, as well as a summer’s supply of S.Pellegrino and S.Pellegrino Essenza. Ten first prize winners will also receive a summer’s supply of S.Pellegrino and S.Pellegrino Essenza.