The Hilltop & The Hill

Santeramo en Colle sits on a hilltop in the Puglia region of southern Italy — a place of ancient olive groves, dry-stone trulli, and generations of families who built their lives from that rocky, sun-drenched ground. It is where our grandfather's story begins.

Like so many of his generation, he crossed an ocean carrying little more than his name, his faith, and the memory of that hillside. He landed in Akron, Ohio, where he settled on North Hill — a neighborhood that would become home to thousands of Italian immigrants building new lives without forgetting the old ones.

Two hilltops. One colle in Puglia, one hill in Ohio. The same roots, different soil, the same determination to build something that lasts.

We believe travel is one of the most powerful ways to carry heritage forward. When you stand in the piazza where your grandparents danced, or walk the same cobblestones they walked before boarding the ship — something shifts. The story becomes yours, not just theirs.

Our family has always traveled together. Twenty-five of us, sometimes more, from grandparents to grandchildren, coordinating itineraries, sharing meals, getting lost on purpose, and finding our way back to each other at the dinner table every night.

That experience — messy, joyful, logistically chaotic, and deeply worth it — is what drove us to build TripSheet Travel. Because every family deserves to travel with intention, not just convenience.