Italy's Robinson Crusoe Leaving Isle of Budelli After 32 Years

Mauro Morandi arrived to the uninhabited Isle of Budelli in 1989, and he never left.

Located off Sardinia’s northern coast, Budelli is considered one of the most beautiful islands in the Mediterranean Sea, so beautiful that Morandi couldn’t bring himself to leave.

The timing was fortuitous three decades ago: after Morandi stumbled across Budelli during a sailing trip, the isle’s existing caretaker was on the verge of retirement and offered him the job.

**The famous pink beach of the Budelli island with a view across the sea to the island of Santa Maria off the North East coast of Sardinia.**

Morandi used solar panels for electricity, caught rain water to stay hydrated, and he says he never caught a cold during his time on Budelli, which served as a WWII shelter decades ago.

Now, 32 years later, La Maddalena national park authorities are evicting him as they transition the island to a hub for environmental education.

The man who cast himself away from society will now reenter a world much different than the one he left in the late ’80s.

Morandi, originally from Modena in northern Italy, said he was moving into a small apartment on nearby La Maddalena, the largest island of the archipelago, The Guardian reports.

“I’ll be living in the outskirts of the main town, so will just go there for shopping and the rest of the time keep myself to myself,” he said. “My life won’t change too much, I’ll still see the sea.”