Kate Chooses Reggio Emilia for Her First Overseas Trip Since Cancer, Arriving 13 May
For her first official overseas visit since her cancer diagnosis, the Princess of Wales has chosen Italy. Kensington Palace announced on Wednesday that Kate will travel solo to Reggio Emilia in northern Italy on 13 and 14 May, in what represents one of the most significant milestones in her gradual return to royal duties.
It is her first extended official foreign trip in nearly three and a half years. Her last official overseas visit was to Boston in December 2022, when she accompanied Prince William to the Earthshot Prize ceremony.
Kate announced she was undergoing chemotherapy for an unspecified form of cancer in 2024, and announced she was in remission in January 2025. She has since gradually returned to public duties, though she has not joined William on any of his recent foreign engagements.
Why Reggio Emilia
The destination is not accidental. The visit centres on the Reggio Emilia approach, an educational philosophy that places relationships, the natural environment and community at the heart of a child’s development, and has influenced schools and early years settings around the world.
Early childhood development has been Kate’s primary campaigning focus for more than a decade. She founded The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood in 2021 to raise awareness of the importance of early years experiences in shaping long-term outcomes for individuals and for society.
Palace aides said the visit was an important moment in the expansion of the Centre’s work on a global stage, connecting its Shaping Us Framework with leading international approaches to early years education.
The timing of the announcement was deliberate. On the same day, the Centre published a new resource, Foundations for Life: A Guide to Social and Emotional Development, a 109-page guide aimed at practitioners, carers, parents and volunteers working with babies and young children.
In the guide’s foreword, Kate writes: “While our society often focuses on academic or physical milestones, research consistently shows that it is our earliest relationships, experiences and environments which lay the foundations for our future health and happiness. The quality of our connections, with ourselves, with others and with the world around us, shapes how safe we feel, how we relate, and how we process experiences throughout our lives.”
Italy as a Statement
The choice of Italy carries weight beyond the educational programme. Reggio Emilia gave its name to one of the most influential early childhood philosophies in the world, developed in the years after the Second World War by educator Loris Malaguzzi and the families of the city. Its emphasis on the child as a capable, curious learner shaped by environment and relationships has been adopted and adapted by schools across Europe, North America and beyond.
For Kate, whose public work has consistently argued that the first years of a child’s life determine outcomes across health, education and wellbeing for decades to come, visiting the source of the approach is both symbolically and practically significant. She undertook a similar trip in 2022, travelling to Denmark to study their education system and visit the LEGO Foundation Playlab in Copenhagen.
The visit to Reggio Emilia will be watched closely, not only for what it signals about the Princess’s health and return to full duties, but for what it says about Italy’s place in the global conversation about childhood, education and the kind of society we want to build from the earliest years up.
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