How Much Does It Cost to Tour Italy?
Aug 10th, 2007, 10:52 AM
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How Much Does It Cost to Tour Italy?
We (a family with 2 teens) recently finished a self-guided driving tour of Italy, including Rome, Florence, Pisa, Genoa, Milan, Verona, Venice, Assissi, Sorrento, Pompeii, and more. It was a lot of ground to cover in only 2 weeks, but we feel that we were able to see the highlights of the country -- since we didn't know if we would ever make it back to Italy, we wanted to capture as much as we reasonably could while we had the chance, even if we really didn't have time to fully absorb the finer details.
Anyways, I know that some members have questioned how much they need to budget for such a trip, so here is a rough breakdown of my actual average costs:
AIRFARE = $1400 per person from central US, not from a major hub. I know you can get much better rates by traveling in the off-season, but July (high travel season and high cost flights) was our only option.
HOTEL = $71 per person per day. Many European hotels can't accommodate 4 persons, so we usually had to get 2 hotel rooms. Rooms were middle of the road 3-star type and included breakfast buffet.
FOOD = $29 per person per day. We typically grabbed a light lunch and some snacks during the day and ate at small restaurants for dinner.
TICKETS & EVENTS = $17 per person per day. Naturally, we hit a lot of the big tourist sites, and some (like the Tower of Pisa or the major museums) are pretty expensive at roughly 20 Euro ($27) per person. Gondola ride was about 90 Euro ($125) for the group.
SOUVENIRS = $15 per person per day.
CAR RENTAL = $35 per day, including the mandatory damage waivers. We probably could have traveled exclusively by train, but we decided to primarily travel by car to have the flexibility for choosing our destinations, routes, and times.
OTHER CAR-RELATED EXPENSES = $63 per day for gas, parking, and tolls. Driving in Italy (and parking in the big cities) is not cheap! We drove about 1500 miles total.
MISCELLANEOUS = $8 per person per day. Includes such stuff as internet access, camera batteries, local transportation (trains/taxis/vaporetto) as needed, postage for postcards, church donations, etc.
It's easy to spend a lot more or a lot less on many of these categories depending upon your tastes and preferences, but the above numbers should provide others with a rough idea for budgeting purposes.
Happy traveling!
Anyways, I know that some members have questioned how much they need to budget for such a trip, so here is a rough breakdown of my actual average costs:
AIRFARE = $1400 per person from central US, not from a major hub. I know you can get much better rates by traveling in the off-season, but July (high travel season and high cost flights) was our only option.
HOTEL = $71 per person per day. Many European hotels can't accommodate 4 persons, so we usually had to get 2 hotel rooms. Rooms were middle of the road 3-star type and included breakfast buffet.
FOOD = $29 per person per day. We typically grabbed a light lunch and some snacks during the day and ate at small restaurants for dinner.
TICKETS & EVENTS = $17 per person per day. Naturally, we hit a lot of the big tourist sites, and some (like the Tower of Pisa or the major museums) are pretty expensive at roughly 20 Euro ($27) per person. Gondola ride was about 90 Euro ($125) for the group.
SOUVENIRS = $15 per person per day.
CAR RENTAL = $35 per day, including the mandatory damage waivers. We probably could have traveled exclusively by train, but we decided to primarily travel by car to have the flexibility for choosing our destinations, routes, and times.
OTHER CAR-RELATED EXPENSES = $63 per day for gas, parking, and tolls. Driving in Italy (and parking in the big cities) is not cheap! We drove about 1500 miles total.
MISCELLANEOUS = $8 per person per day. Includes such stuff as internet access, camera batteries, local transportation (trains/taxis/vaporetto) as needed, postage for postcards, church donations, etc.
It's easy to spend a lot more or a lot less on many of these categories depending upon your tastes and preferences, but the above numbers should provide others with a rough idea for budgeting purposes.
Happy traveling!
Aug 10th, 2007, 11:07 AM
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Thanks for the breakdown. This will make it very clear to families what baseline costs are, and where they might want to spend either more or less.
I was a bit surprised when I saw that the additional cost for a car ended up being about $63/day in addition to the rental fee, but it makes sense.
I was a bit surprised when I saw that the additional cost for a car ended up being about $63/day in addition to the rental fee, but it makes sense.
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