Travel Italy on a Budget Avoid These Costly Mistakes

Italy is expensive if you don't know what you're doing. And tourists, they waste hundreds of dollars on things that locals avoid entirely. But you, you'll be smarter than that on your travels. And later in this video, I'll share with you one money-saving tip that saved me a fortune on food in Italy. Booking at the wrong time. Coming to Italy in peak season, July and August, and expecting good prices. But prices skyrocket during those summer months. The place is crowded and even comfort budget hotels charge luxury prices. So plan accordingly. Book in the off-season from November through March when you're going to get much lower prices, fewer people, and just a better experience overall. Now, I don't blame you if you want to avoid the possibility of cold weather. So if you want to have the perfect blend and the perfect balance, well, what I suggest are the famous shoulder months. Well, I'm talking about April, May, or September and October. I really like September. You're going to find a good balance of prices and tourists. It's not the cheapest it can be, but it's not going to be the most expensive. In that time, the flights will be a good price. Not as low as they could be in the winter. The hotels will also be at a decent price too. You'll be able to book into some of these beautiful places and stay near the heart of the city without breaking the old bank. Italy is always beautiful, but in the off-season, it's beautiful and affordable. Even in the winter, Italy is going to charm your socks off. I remember the time my mother visited. She came in November. We gambled a little bit with the weather, and in fact, the weather won the gamble. The rain was coming down. We were walking around Venice. We stepped into a lot of puddles. Our feet were wet. We were cold. But you know what? It was a memory that I'll keep forever. Overpaying for accommodation. Staying in the most expensive and famous city centers like Venice, Florence, and Rome. But prices are inflated in those city centers. You're paying more for the name, the location, than you are for the experience. So stay in budget-friendly places in areas like near the airport. I know it's not glamorous, but this is how you travel Italy on a budget. The other options for you will stay in those secondary cities. Instead of Venice, consider Padova or Verona. Instead of Milan, consider Bergamo. Instead of Florence, base yourself in Bologna. All the major attractions are just a short train ride away. Why spend €300 for a small little place in the heart of Venice, when you can spend €60 and stay in luxury in a little cozy hotel in Padova? You can still stay in those big famous cities, just not next to the main square and the cathedral. A little walk away and you save a lot of money. I remember my brother-in-law. He was planning the family trip to Rome. He showed me the hotel where he was considering booking. And I looked at it. It was a Marriott. Really nice. And he was going to be able to use his credit card points to book it. But when I looked on the map at the location, it wasn't in Rome at all. It wasn't in the city center. And they would need to take a taxi back and forth. And it was going to suck up all of his card points for travel. Instead, I looked around and I found a great Airbnb at a good price in the city center for the whole family for three nights. So that way, when they're hot after a long day of sightseeing around Rome, they can take a shower, refresh before they head back out for an aperitivo. All the charm and everything that you don't find in a Marriott. And you're staying right there in the city center. It just requires a little bit of research. Renting a car when you don't need one. Thinking of renting a little Fiat and exploring the hills of Italy. But driving a car in Italy, renting one, well, it's expensive. You got ZTL, limited traffic zones that you need to be worried about where you can get a ticket. The cost of insurance on a rental car is expensive. The car itself is expensive. You'll have parking fees and you'll have the stress of driving. Not to mention the gas that you pay for here is double the cost you'd pay in countries like the United States. Oh, and pro tip, never go on these horse carriage rides in the city. It's bad for the horses. Really, it sucks. So what do you do? Well, travel in luxury on the trains and save a lot of money. Italy's high-speed trains are great. They'll get you anywhere you need to go practically to all the big cities, to all the little towns. The only time when you might not be able to use a train is if you need to get to those little villages and places like Puglia or Sicily. Well, in that case, you might have to rent a car. If you do rent a car, though, to avoid any extra tickets or anything like that that you may have if you get stopped, make sure you get your international driver's license. No, they don't always ask for that. But if you get stopped without one, you're going to have to pay a fine. Look at this. I recognize your voice. What's your name? Pauli. Pauli, good to meet you. Yeah, I recognize you. You're on the video now. Thank you, Pauline. Pauli from New York. What a wonderful lady. And she's doing it right. Staying outside the city center, taking a bus in every day, traveling for one month around Italy. A lot can be learned from people like Pauli. Trains, well, they're like magic carpets in Italy. They take you to where you want to go Now, if you want even more stress-free travel at a lower cost, well, continue to go by train. But instead of the high-speed trains, consider the local regionale trains, the regional trains. Those will get you to and from the big cities, but at a lower cost and a slower speed. Gives you time to really soak in the environment all around you. Taxis, steer clear of those, just like you want to steer clear of those horse carriage rides. They're expensive, really expensive for Italy compared to the rest of Europe. And the drivers have a tendency to take you for a ride, not exactly straight from point A to point B. Steer clear of those guys, the horses, poor guys. And Ubers, well, Ubers aren't that common here in Italy. Ride sharing, it's not that common. They do exist, but it's the upper level service. So not as widespread and very expensive. Blowing your budget on restaurants. Before we get too far into this, I have a confession to make. I'll get to that in a minute. Dining near touristy areas, going for a full multi-course meal every night, and setting down all the time to have your coffee. But in the city centers near the main cathedrals and the sites, you're going to pay inflated prices. And if you're setting down all the time for coffee, well, get ready to pay table service that you might not have seen coming. So how do you save money? You're on a budget. Well, stand at the bar and drink your coffee instead of asking to take it at the table. Where near the tourist sites, you can pay triple the price for coffee just if you sit down at the table. If you want to have a big multi-course meal, well, consider doing that at lunchtime instead of dinner. Because many restaurants, they offer a discount, a working man's menu where you can pay 10 euro for a big menu and be filled up and not have to eat so much at night. Now, here's a great option for you. Get a takeout pizza, maybe a bottle of wine, and go find a beautiful park to sit down in and enjoy the scenery around you. It's truly budget. I mean, come on, who needs a Michelin star restaurant when you have a five euro pizza and a sunset over Florence? I got some more quick tip money saving ideas for you. If you need a quick drink when you're out walking around seeing the sites, well, look for a supermarket, a little grocery store where you can pop in, get your bottle of water instead of buying it from the overpriced kiosk. Same goes before you go on the train. Instead of buying that bottle of water or coffee on the train, get it from a store or a little coffee bar before you go to the train station. If you want to eat, well, instead of spending your money at the high-priced, overpriced restaurants, look for trattorias, osterias. They tend to cost less money. The little hole-in-the-wall places because they're still going to be 10 times better than what you find back home. And another idea, just simply walk out of the center area. Walk a few blocks away. You're going to find more Italians, more of a local vibe, and more authentic food. Oh, and while you're there ready to drink that glass of wine, well, don't order a bottle or order a glass from the bottle. Instead, order vino de la casa. You can get it by the quarter liter, half liter, or go crazy, full bore, full liter of vino de la casa. You're going to be happy. La bella vita. Okay, what's Gregor's guilty pleasure? Well, hold on, I'll get to it. First, do me a favor. If you like this video so far and you're getting budget tips out of it, well, give it the old thumbs up. Hit the like button down below. That helps me out so much with the algorithm. Also, I see a lot of the viewers aren't yet subscribed, so hit that subscribe button down below and join the community. Also, it helps you so you're not going to miss out on any of the upcoming videos. You want to click the notification bell as well while you're down there. If you want to take it a step further and support me and the cause and also get exclusive early bird viewing on the videos, well, you can join my Patreon. Become a patron. You'll get all sorts of goodies. And in addition, you'll get a good feeling of supporting me and what we're doing here on the channel. So thank you very much. Okay, now my confession. Well, I like drinking coffee on a train and having a little bite to eat while it's buzzing down the tracks at 200 kilometers an hour. I don't know. I just love that. Standing there in the coffee cart, talking with the other people, looking out, seeing the countryside whiz by out the windows. It costs a bit more, but I love it. Also, the old vino de la casa. Well, when I was younger, I used to drink a lot more of that. And believe me, you save a lot of money getting the half liter, the litro of vino de la casa. And in a lot of these places, it tastes pretty darn good. But there's something about a bottle and the ticket on it and rubbing my fingers over the design and seeing where it came from and learning about its story and hearing the wine pour out of the bottle and into the big cup. I just can't resist paying for a bottle of good Italian. Okay, now back to regular programming. Okay, now where were we? Yeah, budget travel. Overpaying for attractions. Spending too much on every museum, every tour and every experience. But many museums offer a free day you can visit and many of the big cities offer city passes that can save you a lot of money. So what do you do? Well, go to those free Sundays that exist all around Italy where some museums you can go in without paying a price. I'm thinking of Pompeii. The first Sunday of each month, they open the doors for free. The same with the Uffizi Art Gallery here in Florence. Just be prepared on those first Sundays of the month, you're gonna see long lines. You need to get there early to avoid the long lines. The locals know about it and they exploit this as well. The other thing you can do, well, that involves getting a day pass or multi-day pass. Rome has it, Florence has it. In Rome, it's called the Roma Pass and you can find it on the romapass.it and Florence is called a card. So you go to ferenzecard.it and that's the Italian spelling of Florence and in Rome, instead of Rome, it's Roma. So romapass.it, ferenzecard.it and these will get you into several of the big ticket places. If you're going to hit up multiple places, you can save some money doing so by having that pass or the card. The other thing is prioritize. So yeah, you wanna go visit the big famous places like the Colosseum in Rome, like the Duomo in Florence or the Last Supper in Milan but prioritize what you want to see. You can't see it all unless you have one year but even then, you probably won't see it all. An example, my sister planning a trip to Italy and she said, well, Gregor, do you think we'll be able to do the Duomo, the Tower of Pisa and the Colosseum all in those two to three days that we have when we're in this area before we head down to the beaches in Puglia and I was like, ah, no, let's take out one of these, keep that one and do that one. So we prioritize, we're also saving a little bit of money and giving ourselves a little bit of breathing room and relaxation time. Another option for you, well, consider the free things you can do. There are a lot of free things all around us and by that, I mean, Rome, stroll around Piazza Navona in Rome, Trastevere, go around that neighborhood in Rome, it's so beautiful. Here in Florence, go to Santa Croce, walk around that whole area, the whole neighborhoods, take photos, get coffees, it doesn't cost much. Piazza Alle Michelangelo and the Rose Gardens below. Why pay for those museums and those big tours when Italy practically hands you free things to do if you just time it right? The budget hack that changes everything. Before we get to that, let me know, drop down in the comments, have you ever made a costly mistake during your travels? Share with me, confess, what is it? We've all been there. Let me know down in the comments. Remember I said I'd share with you one simple change that saved me a fortune on food? Well, here's the secret word, aperitivo. No, that's not just a spritz. In some places, that's a spritz and an endless buffet of food. In some of these bars, maybe not near the big tourist attractions. Don't want to upset the Italians on their bikes. When you're out for an aperitivo in some of these little bars, they're going to bring you out endless plates of food, slices of pizza, and you can, with one drink, get so much food in you and really enjoy the experience and save a lot of money at the same time. Aperitivo hour, it's important to know when it is. They're usually around six o'clock to eight o'clock, depending on some villages and towns because some of those towns really embrace it. The drinks cost a little bit of money and you get a lot of food. In some places, you have to pay for the food so it kind of ruins the experience. Young Gregor, when he first moved here to Italy, didn't have a lot of cash to spend on food. Well, that's how I survived. I mean, come on, one drink, endless snacks. Now that's my idea of a dinner deal. That lady nearly mowed me over on the bicycle. Ma scusa, le strade, the marciapiedi, the sidewalks, they don't exist. We have to walk in the streets. She had plenty of space. Now, what's a simple and free hack to save you a couple euro each time when you're out and about and you want to be refreshed? Well, be familiar with Italy's, yeah, fountains. They're free. If you've got a water bottle, an old plastic water bottle, you can save it, get some free water, fill up your bottle and you're ready to rock. These are fancy ones. They have aqua frizzante, sparkling water and normal still water. But you'll see fountains all around Italy, places for you every time to save a few bucks, a few euro and why not? Don't believe the Italians when they tell you, oh, that water's not safe. It's not drinkable because it is. Never pass it up. Good, clean water and free. Unless you see a sign that says non potabile. In that case, maybe you shouldn't drink it, but you can do what you want and you could save some euros along the way. Now there's some great news because I made an Italy insider e-guide that you can download, have offline, in your pocket, on your phone for when you're traveling around Italy. Has all sorts of things in there, how to get to and from Italy, how to get around Italy once you're here on the ground for la dolce vita, what to see, what to do, things like what time you can eat, where you can go to eat and suggested travel itineraries, all that and more. There's a link to download it in the description. Italy can be a budget traveler's dream if you know the tricks. Plan smart, eat like a local and let the trains do the driving. There's one word, well, actually some phrases that could save you a lot of money when you're traveling here in Italy. It was a lot to put in this video, so I made a whole separate video about it. You can watch it here next. See you there.