Wow, thanks for all the great tips.

No decaf coffee... Yikes!!!

Bookmarking?

More worried about the cash thing then anything else. Oh that and trying to figure out where to eat! LOL

Donna - don't fret! Decaf is available in most places; just ask
for 'deka' and you should get some
form of it.

Yes, you can certainly have decaf coffee in Italy. Cafe decaffanato, cafe hag... just say a couple of words and they will let you know they understand. I have had many cups of decaf coffee in Italy. Many.

Someone told me that you can get Euros here in the US before you go, is that true?

Donna, Yes you can order euro from your home bank or purchase them thru a money exchange like Thomas Cook. It will cost more than if you wait until you get to Europe because of fees and lesser exchange rates given. That's why many people wait and use an ATM at their arrival airport.

BUT to take the worry out of the money thing, here's what I do...

I always take:
$500 cash in USD (kept in 2 places)
ATM card
1 credit card

Supplemented with one of more of these:
$200-500 cash in local currency
travelers checks for emergency use
a second credit card

If you take 500 cash in Us dollars, then do you have to exchage it somewhere?
I see there are the American Express Travelers Check Card, do you think establishments would take that?

bookmarking

Yes, WillTraveller, real baby. I hear it's a scam used often.

Few places in Europe will accept the American Express card. Visa and Mastercard only, in my experience. I usually take my AM card, but have only used it in large chain hotels.

The AM Cash card - the kind you "fill" with bucks before you leave - is a really bum deal, IMHO.

:-)

I really like the Earworms Italian language audiobook that you can download from Itunes. We listened to it on the flight to Italy (I listened to it twice and my husband listened to it once) and the basic phrases definitely came in handy.

In addition to the money belt, bring a lock. I know that some may think it paranoid, but not all hotel rooms have safes, and if you want to leave any valuables in your room, you should lock it in your suitcase.

Instead of photocopying your passports, I would suggest scanning them and emailing them to yourself and to a friend/family member at home in case anything happens.

I don't think Thomas Cook has existed in years, they were bought out by Travelex a long time ago, I think.

Amex hasn't sold their travelers checks cards since last Fall, they don't have that product any more. Visa has something similar, but if you did buy such a prepaid card (I would not at all recommend that, but if you did for some reason), why would you want an establishment to accept this? It should certainly be usable in an ATM to get cash, which I presume is exactly why you would want it. If any hotel or store etc would accept it, they would just as easily accept a credit card, anyway, so why wouldn't you use a credit card?

Coins in Europe are worth way more than an American quarter...

Be wary of throwing coins around like its nothing...

Most everything good tip has already been said so will only offer a couple of them. 1st Naples is the worse for pickpockets and rip offs according to my Italian friends and the travel books.
We got an education from our tour guide he was adamant that we not go certain places in Naples and watch each other at all times to avoid rip offs.

Don't fall for the gypsy women at the churches holding out cans boxes whatever for money. At a couple of the churches that we went to the door way was narrow and it appeared she was the person to pay in order to get in. We knew better but others didn't.

One funny thing about them was.. once we went to one of the church sites and about a block away we saw a small group of gypies hovering around each other suddenly one of the women we had seen came running up and plopped down at the bottom of the steps with her can crying out in pain indicating that she was a poor sick handicapped sole. DON'T fall for them it's a big con.

I would recommend that you get a street guide to Rome, like the A-Z Guide, and start marking it up as you are making your plans. Having a street guide is handy when you consider that the listing of street names runs 130 pages.

Once you have a guide, every time you read about a restaurant, cafe, church, shop, or anything else, that you might want to see, you can either mark it on the map, or add the map coordinates to your "ToSee" list, or both.

If you don't want to carry around something that large (6"x7"), the Moleskine City Notebook: Roma is half as big, has maps of central Rome, too. However, in the Molskine, all the streets aren't always shown or labeled so I recommend the bigger A-Z guide. After you've marked it up, you can always photocopy the most important pages, and leave the book in your hotel room.

We had both, but since I waited until we got to Rome to buy the A-Z, I ended up transferring some of the important sites, so I had them both places.


You can order the A-Z from :
http://www.azmappe.it/eng/index_eng.php

You can find the Moleskine on their web site or Amazon.com

You might also want to check out the ATAC site. That's where you can find maps of the bus lines.

http://www.atac.roma.it/

You can locate the routes that run near your hotel and print out the maps.

I will be in Rome for 10 days in June and we are staying in an apartment. We are expected to pay for the apartment in cash when we check in. I am worried about carrying that much cash on the train from the train station into the city. How have others handled it? I could take a taxi but that would cost significantly more.

Sorry- I meant traveling on a train from the airport into the city.

For language lessons, go to www.My Daily Phrase/Italian
and you can download (free) 100 5-minute lessons which as it says give just a phrase in each lesson.

Put on your Ipod or MP3 player and take it on the plane. the only drawback is they are produced in Glasgow, Scotland, so you may speak Italian with a Scottish accent!

<<I am worried about carrying that much cash on the train from the airport train station into the city. >>

Can you get the cash just before you must pay, after you reach Rome?

I don't know where you are staying, but a typical car fare from the airport to central Rome is about 40 euros. If there are two of you, you'll spend about 20 euros to take the train into Rome and perhaps more to take a bus, metro, or cab to the apartment . . . might cost about the same.

I also create an email to myself that contains all the important credit card/bank/passport information.

I'm taking with me on the next trip a small handheld voice recorder so i can whip it out and make notes for journaling later, identify photos, as well as general documentation for future reference.

If you are using your cell phone - be sure and get all the necessary numbers to use once you are over there. I got the cell phone rep to give me exactly the info about calling back home, calling a place in the city I am in, and most importantly the number to call once I'm on my trip and having difficulty. My phone did not immediately work - I called the cell phone number I had been given and they worked me through changing some of the settings on my phone and then...voila...it worked!!

And I seem to always find ways to use several sizes of ziplock bags that I take with me...they are invaluable.

I bookmarked this awhile ago and just finished reading everything in preparation for my trip coming up this week. Thank you to everyone for such great tips, and to Donna for originally posting.

I have a "don't forget" for photographers:

When I'm visiting places that look similar (ie The Cotswolds, the 5 towns of the Cinque Terre), I take a photo of a map or sign showing the town's name before taking any other pics in that place. That way, when I'm going through 1,000s of photos back home, I can easily differentiate between each of the destinations I visited.