A guide for a dreamy trip through Italy — tips and ideas to start building your travel adventure!

After taking a two week trip through Italy, starting from the very North down to the Southern coastlines, I took some time to put together a few tips and recommendations from our time there.

Check out a breakdown of each place, or scroll all the way down for some overall tips and and ideas from our whole trip!

TRAVEL SCHEDULE —

We found it easier to count places by how many nights we stayed in each, since sometimes there were half days with travel between locations.

I. Night 1-3: Varenna, Lake Como

II. Night 4-6: Vernazza, Cique Terre

III. Night 7: Florence

IV. Night 8-9: Rome

V. Night 10-12: Atrani, Amalfi Coast

VI. Night 13-15: Polignano a Mare, Puglia

VII. Night 16: Milan

LOCATION RECOMMENDATIONS —

Each place we visited had such unique characteristics, local cuisine, and endless exploring to do! Here is a little breakdown of some favorites from each — hopefully these recommendations can be a start to planning your own time in each place. These are just a FEW favorites, and barely scratch the surface of what each of these places have to offer!

OTHER TIPS TO GUIDE YOU —

TRANSPORTATION —

• Trains — we used the train system for majority of our travels between places. Download the app Trenìt! to book tickets in advance and look through trains schedules and options. This was especially helpful to plan out our days ahead of time. The train system is amazing and very easy to use!

• Maps — use Google Maps to search locations and figure out transportation options between them (ie. taxi, bus, ferry, walk, etc.). I got a travel pass plan on my phone so that I could have data, 100% recommend doing this!

• Taxis — we took taxis 2 or so times, you can call and schedule a cab when you are ready (similar to Uber, but they typically arrive within 2-3 minutes). Look up local taxi company numbers for the area you are in.

• Other — We also used scooters (download the app in advance), although not the most budget friendly it was a fun way to see some of Rome. We rode ferries in several locations, this was an easy system and a great affordable way to be out on the water between towns.

APPS TO HAVE —

• Audio tours - these were GAME CHANGERS. Unless you plan on booking tours at every historical site, it can be a bit overwhelming to see all these incredible places and not have the history and knowledge about them. We ended up using audio / podcasts to guide us through some of the well known sites as well as doing “historical walks” through some of the larger cities. I recommend checking out Rick Steve’s free audio tours - you can either download the app or find them on Apple podcasts or Google play.

• Trenìt! - I mentioned this above, but it was incredibly helpful to have this app for planning our train schedule as well as buying tickets in advance. Some train platforms were so small that they did not have a ticket booth of any type, so this also was handy for those instances.

• Google Maps - most accurate, and helpful for all directions (Tip: check ahead of time to see how close your airbnb/hostel/hotel is to the train station or airport you arrive into to, that way you can plan ahead of the chaos on how to get from point A to B and what form of transportation makes the most sense).

PACKING —

These are a few items that I found really helpful to have for both the travel over there, and then also traveling around with JUST carry-on sized bags for almost 3 weeks with short stays in each location.

A FEW OTHER TIPS —

Groceries — We would try and stop at grocery stores on day 1 of each place and get eggs, fruit, veggies since most of what we consumed eating didn’t seem to have have much of these things. We would make eggs in the morning before going to get our cappuccino and cornetti, to make sure we were getting some protein at the start of our day! Then, vegetables and fruit were nice to have throughout the day, since we ate A LOT of pasta, pizza, focaccia, etc. and not a lot of fresh produce.

Language — We didn’t run into any major language barriers, but I think it’s important whenever visiting another country to not just “assume they’ll understand me,” and to put a bit of effort into learning at least a few key phrases in the language spoken there.

Study up — To tag onto the point above, I think it’s always good to research a country you’re visiting and learn about / try to understand the culture. YES, you’ll still be a tourist, but there are so many ways that you can be a tourist and follow a certain level of cultural etiquette. For example, there are different things to know when eating at restaurants in Italy or clothing you need to wear for being respectful when going in specific historical sites. Take a little bit of time to learn about where you’re traveling to, and do your best to respect the way society flows there!

Flights - domestic air travel is incredibly affordable! We finished our train journey down South and bought a one way ticket from Bari, Puglia to Milan (where our international round trip ticket was out of. Definitely Consider checking out air travel domestically!

Where to stay — we used Airbnb for most of our trip, it was nice to have a living area for us to work remotely as well as a kitchen space! We also used Hostel World to find great hostels, and they share helpful information on location as well.

Thinking of traveling international and want some moments documented? Let’s chat — I can help you piece together your dream of a trip, whether it’s for an elopement, big wedding celebration, or just YOU TWO wanting to hang out somewhere extra special! I’m always down to jump on a plane to somewhere new!