How to Not Spend $6k on 10 Days in Italy

Rome, Italy's Coliseum at dusk with rich blue sky and stunning yellow lighting in the arches

Everybody dreams of vacationing in Italy, but many never get past the dreaming part because they assume it’s just too expensive. How much does it cost to visit Italy anyway?

I’m embarrassed to report that I spent $6,000 on 2 people for 10 days, not including flights. Yes, really, and no, that’s not normal. Let me tell you why that wasn’t necessary.

While some destinations truly have above-average costs (looking at you Switzerland and Iceland), Italy isn’t that bad.

What actually happens is people tend to spend more on food and tours here. Understandable! I did the same thing. There’s a lot of really cool places to see and delicious food to eat.

But there’s also the issue of when you’re booking. We booked flights just 2 months out and lodging and tours just 2 weeks out from our travel dates.

I’m a seasoned traveler who knows better, and I still fell into this trap because…life.

We’ll look at exactly how much I spent in every category for my trip for 2 to Italy: lodging, food, activities, transit, and miscellaneous.

Then, I’ll point out all the mistakes so you can do better than me and not spend $6k. Your trip should cost quite a bit less than mine!

Let’s dive into the numbers.


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What You Need to Know First

Venice, Italy's Grand Canal with buildings lining the sides
Venice’s Grand Canal

Our total spend was just shy of $6000 for two people in Italy for 10 days (I still cringe at that), but what is that $6k paying for?

You can visit Italy for quite a bit less and for quite a bit more, depending on your trip style and when you go. For the record, I plan to aim for “quite a bit less” in the future.

We had some unique outside factors driving up prices for our trip, which I’ll discuss, but mostly I just didn’t leave enough time for planning.

Yep, even the pros can get behind and book later than they wanted and quite literally pay for it. That’s embarrassing to admit, but it’s just real life. It happens. I’ll do better next time.

Before we get in-depth with the numbers, let’s outline what our trip included and what it didn’t.

IN: Our Ambitious 12 Day Itinerary

The itinerary we followed was ambitious.

It was like a taster menu of central Italy, hitting 8 different cities in just 10 days in country. (We lost 2 full days to travel.)

We changed lodging 4 times, stored our luggage each time, and had to pay one-time rates for transit each time.

The more you move, the more it’ll cost you.

That’s a price we were willing to pay in order to see more on this trip, though. 

Here’s how we spent 10 days in Italy (12 counting travel only days):

  • Day 1: Fly Out
  • Day 2: Rome
  • Day 3: Rome
  • Day 4: Naples & Pompeii
  • Day 5: Pisa & Florence
  • Day 6: Cinque Terre
  • Day 7: Florence
  • Day 8: Bologna
  • Day 9: San Marino & Rimini
  • Day 10: Venice
  • Day 11: Venice
  • Day 12: Fly Home

OUT: The rest of Italy

Italy’s got a lot to see, and even though we had a packed itinerary, we left out some big areas.

We didn’t even try to fit in the northern Italian cities, Lake Como, or the Dolomites, never mind anything south, east, or west of Naples.

The Amalfi Coast is so close to Naples, but we opted out for this trip to make time for other sites in central Italy like Pisa and San Marino.

We covered a lot of ground, but we didn’t visit the entire country, by any means.

IN: Lodging for 3 adults

All the numbers I discuss in this article are for 2 people, but we actually traveled as a group of 3 adults. One of our college friends joined us in Rome.

Why does that matter if we’re not including his food, transit, etc.? Because we shared lodging.

Finding a hotel room in Italy for 3 adults is darn near impossible. Finding rentals with 2 bedrooms is doable but costs more than 1 bedroom or studios, obviously.

Honestly, this is the second biggest reason our budget went off the rails.

We divided costs 3 ways, so the lodging costs reported here for 2 people are higher than what they could be if you were booking accommodations for just two.

The budget felt that the most in Venice and Rome.

No, I’m not blaming our friend for my budgeting mistakes, but having enough room for 3 adults instead of 2 is just harder and more expensive.

Side Note: I should mention that our friend is 6’-5” and does not fit on a twin size bed. You can sometimes find hotel rooms in Europe with a queen and a twin, meant for a child. Our 6’-5” adult friend simply would not fit on a bed that size.

OUT: Airfare

Why am I not including airfare in the total cost? Because it will vary drastically based on where you fly from, fly to, and how patient you are when looking for a flight deal.

We flew from Charleston, SC to Rome via Philadelphia. On the way home, we flew from Venice to Charleston via Philadelphia. That’s not exactly a common route.

If you live near a hub airport, you have the advantage with international flights. They’re almost always cheaper than flying from a regional airport to a hub to an international destination. Not always, but often.

Because we were meeting up with a friend, we also had unique constraints on which flights we could take so that we all arrived at similar times.

Flexibility is key when looking for flight deals, and we had to sacrifice some of that in order to coordinate with our friend.

We actually timed it so well that we were right behind him in the immigration line in Rome, despite arriving on different flights!


No two budgets are ever truly the same.

Your airfare will be different than mine, and you will have different lodging, food, or activity preferences than me. That’s fine.

This cost breakdown is to give you an idea of how much 10 Days in Italy could cost if you wait too long to book.

I look forward to returning and pricing out a trip when we have no constraints and more time to plan ahead.

Total Cost Breakdown: 10 Days in Italy

We spent $6,000 for a 10 day trip for two to Italy (not including airfare). No, I don’t feel that’s a typical or fair cost.

That breaks down to $600 per day or $300 per person per day. Clearly, something is off.

As I mentioned earlier, most of that is inflated lodging due to having 3 people. (But the $6,000 only includes our 2/3 of the total lodging cost.)

We were also in Italy, though, so we ate a lot and well! But somehow, our activity budget exceeded our food budget.

Lastly, our transportation costs were higher than normal because we moved cities so often. We took a lot of trains between cities.

Here’s the cost breakdown by category:

  • Lodging: $2,643
  • Activities: $1,502
  • Food: $1,042
  • Transportation: $703
  • Miscellaneous: $110
Pie chart showing Italy trip costs as percentages by category
Budget categories as a percentage of total spent

Let’s look at each category and discuss why these costs are so high and how you can drastically reduce them.

Lodging: $2,643

Basically, this trip is the perfect example of how not following my vacation planning tips will screw you over.

We spent a whopping $264 per night on accommodations, which is pretty close to double what we’d normally pay.

Not everywhere we stayed was this expensive. We got a decent rate in Bologna and Florence. It’s Rome and Venice that killed our budget.

We booked flights just 2 months ahead of our trip dates, which was bad enough, but then we didn’t book anything else, like lodging or tours, until just 2 weeks out.

I know. I’m still in awe (in a bad way) of the poor planning. Life was not sunny at the time is the only excuse I’ll offer.

When you try to book lodging in Italy in the busy season with only 2 weeks’ notice, you have slim pickings.

We couldn’t even find a rental in Rome that wasn’t the same price or more expensive than a hotel. We ended up in a hotel, but we had separate rooms so couldn’t split that cost.

Our need for lodging for 3 adults did not do us any favors in the budget department.

The lodging that cost the most? Venice, hands down.

We stayed in Venice, not on the mainland, which is already expensive, but then we needed 2 bedrooms and preferably not in the basement. It’s probably the most I’ve ever spent on lodging, but it was a nice space.

Don’t do what we did!

Book far ahead for busy season, at least 3-4 months.

Consider neighborhoods that are city center-adjacent and easily accessible by transit. For Venice in particular, consider staying on the mainland, although lodging in Mestre will fill up just as fast.

Activities: $1,502

Our second highest expense in Italy was guided tours. Highly unusual for us! I typically prefer to explore historic sites and museums without a guide because I want to see it all, not just the highlights.

I might book a tour to get an overview of an area first, but then we’ll stay and explore on our own afterwards. Or even better, get the audio-guide for a “guide without a guide” experience!

Because we booked so late, though, we started running out of options.

The Coliseum in Rome was sold out of general admission tickets, so we booked through a tour company which included a guide, access to the Coliseum floor (an upgraded ticket), and access to Palatine Hill and the Forum area.

It was a great tour, even in the pouring rain, and our guide kept offering info well past the allotted time limit of the tour. It set us back $125 per person though!

I wasn’t about to go to frikin’ Rome and not go inside the Coliseum, though, so we paid it. Ouch.

FOMO is a budget-killer, friends. So is not booking ahead, or taking the time to figure out how to DIY it.

Rome, Italy's Coliseum at dusk with rich blue sky and stunning yellow lighting in the arches
Rome’s Coliseum at dusk is pure magic

Everywhere we DIY’d or got a sightseeing pass, we had very reasonable $30 or less per person sightseeing days.

Everywhere we booked guided tours so we didn’t have to figure it out ourselves, we paid around $100+ per person. It got out of hand fast.

The $60 guided tour we chose for Pompeii was 100% worth it. There’s no signage inside so having a certified archaeologist explain everything was perfect. Probably could have found an audio guide for less, though.

Exploring the Cinque Terre in a day is totally doable by yourself with a little prep. Instead, we paid for a tour from Florence for $146 per person.

Loved our guide, saw lots of cool stuff in all 5 villages, experienced both the train and the ferry, hiked between two towns, and didn’t have to worry about transportation between Florence and La Spezia, but it could have been A LOT cheaper if we’d DIY’d it.

Overall, our activities budget should have been nearly a fifth of what we spent. I can’t believe we overpaid by $1200 for laziness, basically. Do as I say, not as I do.

Food: $1,042

Spending about $100 per day for food for 2 people isn’t great but isn’t terrible, either. It was around $60 per dinner, $40 for lunch (in restaurants, not takeaway), and less than $10 for breakfast.

We came to Italy to eat, no qualms about it.

We didn’t hold ourselves to a food budget too tightly because it was one of the main goals of the trip. We always had nice dinners, usually had semi-nice lunches, and always had cheap, convenience store breakfasts.

We also ate gelato every single day we were in Italy. Sometimes, twice a day. There was even one day where the guys had it 3 times! (I passed on the last one, stuffed from dinner.)

Gelato was only like $3 each, but that adds up over 10 days. Not a budget buster, but equivalent to adding another dinner to the budget.

Dinners were about $30 per person, and lunches were $20-25 per person.

That’s higher than normal for us, but it includes splitting the cost of an appetizer (which we normally don’t get) and beverages with no refills. For context, we don’t drink alcohol. That’s just the cost of soda in Italy.

We could have reduced our food costs simply by eating as we normally would, with more local and street food options for lunches and more self-control at dinners. That wasn’t our goal on this trip, though.

Four tiers of marble columned arches on the front of the Pisa Cathedral
Pisa’s Cathedral, right next to the famous Leaning Tower

Transportation: $703

At $35 per person per day, I was surprised by our final costs for transportation in Italy. Why was it that high? Because we moved around a lot.

But also, airport parking at home was $100. Ugh.

Normally, I love a good sightseeing or transportation pass. It’s a great way to get a discount and keep costs down.

However, the Trenitalia rail pass is not worth the money. Even for how often we moved between cities, it wouldn’t have covered the cost of the pass, so we didn’t get them and saved ourselves $120 each. (Rick Steves agrees with this assessment, by the way.)

We bought everything individually: single trip transit tickets in cities, saver fare Trenitalia tickets between cities (when possible), and the odd Uber ride or two in Rome.

Local trains, trams, or buses in places like Rome, Naples, and Pisa were about $2 each. Venice’s day pass was $27 per person, though.

We Ubered only twice in Rome, and it was about $25 each ride to get across town faster than the trains.

Good to Know: They’re all Uber Black/Uber Lux in Rome. Your driver will be wearing a suit and will show up in a Mercedes.

We walked everywhere in Florence, Bologna, and San Marino because it was close enough together.

Trips between cities were pretty reasonable, only about $10 per person including luggage when we were able to book saver fares.

The problem was when we couldn’t get the saver fare. Our one-way ticket from Rome to Florence was $47 per person. Ouch.

Overall, booking earlier would have helped slightly with the train fares between cities, but otherwise, these are pretty fair costs for transit in Italy. We just did more transiting than normal.

Miscellaneous: $110

Our miscellaneous expenses were luggage storage at train stations on travel days and the $5 fee to get our passports stamped in San Marino.  #worthit

On travel days, we weren’t going to lose a whole day to explore because we couldn’t check into our new rentals until late afternoon, so we stored our bags and came back for them before dinner.

We used reputable companies that were housed inside the train stations. There are other, cheaper options, but I highly prefer the security of the shop at the train station.

It broke down to about $10 per bag.

This isn’t an outrageous amount and clearly not what broke our budget. There’s nothing I’d change in this category.

Statues in various poses in a side room of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy
Part of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence

What Else You Can Tweak to Reduce Costs

Here’s the short list of what I’d do to reduce this budget if we were to do this trip again. Tweaking even just one of these could save you a chunk of change.

  • Time of year you visit
  • More time ahead to plan and book
  • Itinerary
  • Lodging options
  • Activity options

Time of Year

Our trip was May 1-12. It doesn’t matter that it was the very beginning of the month and summer season. May is busy season in Italy, period.

Time your trip for shoulder season instead.

You’ll have smaller crowds, milder temperatures, and more reasonable prices.

Plan Ahead

While we didn’t book extremely last minute (like our first Oahu trip), we also didn’t book early enough for an international trip.

Book 4-6 months ahead for an international trip. More if you find an excellent flight deal!

Itinerary

Moving cities costs money. Reduce the number of cities you visit, and you’ll reduce the cost even if the total trip length is the same.

You could spend 10 days just in Rome and still not see everything.

And you’d never pay for luggage storage, train tickets between cities, or that emergency Uber when you thought you were going to miss your train.

Keep it simple, and you’ll keep your costs down.

Manarola, Italy on the Cinque Terre showing off its brightly colored homes on the rocky cliffside
Italy’s Cinque Terre is worthy of your time, even on a cloudy day!

Lodging Options

We already talked about how our lodging costs were inflated because we were traveling with 3 adults rather than just two. Our lodging would have been cheaper if we hadn’t needed the second bed.

I’m also a shameless hotel girlie, for lack of a more sophisticated phrase.

I want to earn or use loyalty points on my hotel stays, so I tend to book chain hotels. You could also use a service like Booking.com to find a local hotel with good reviews and the amenities you’re used to.

Hostels and private room with shared space rentals are not on my radar, even though both will be much cheaper than a hotel or whole house/apartment rental.

If you’re traveling with a family group or kids, a rental could be the better option for you. Nothing like having a real bedroom for the toddler to sleep in rather than being nap-trapped in a hotel room.

Whatever you choose, your lodging costs should be several hundreds of dollars lower than ours were.

Activity Options

For this trip, we booked a lot of expensive tours. That’s not like us. I typically prefer the self-guided option so we’re not rushed by a guide.

However, because we were booking so late for the busy season, regular admission tickets had all sold out. The only way to get in to some of our must-see sites, like the Coliseum in Rome, was via a tour operator who still had room in their block of tickets.

Once again, we were literally paying for our mistake in not booking earlier. There would have been more options and cheaper prices if we had booked earlier.

You could choose to do only free sightseeing, or at least a better mix of guided and self-guided options, to reduce your trip budget.

Happy travels!


Headshot of Rachel Means at Clingmans Dome in Smoky Mountains

About the Author: Rachel Means

With six-figure student loan debt and only 10 PTO days per year, Rachel started traveling the world. A decade later, she’s paid off her loans, changed careers, and been to 42 US states and 17 countries. She’s an expert at planning and budgeting for travel and loves to help others do it, too! Read her full story here.


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