I am completely new to traveling, well i usally travel with my father which alleviates me from all responsablilities. I am planning a trip to Itialy for two, me and my best friend from LA to Rome for about 10 days. Budget around $5000.00 USD. excluding air fare. To my knowledge, i am making a spread sheet, to clearfiy and well simplify my cost in catagories, lodging, food, transportation, tour expenses, and emergency. I Usally base my expenses with my daily life in los angeles, but more on the budget side.

When creating a expense report should i use EURO, or USD ??

place of intrest in italy- 2 days in rome, 2 in milan, 2 in firenze, 3 in naples, and 1 in rome again.

What i was wondering is how many months in advance do you start making reservations?

how do you start planning for a trip? what is the first thing you start with?

any advice on hotels, B&B, in or around the cities that i am going to ?

Some advice when planning a trip?? what not to do? what worked for you?

Tips on saving for a trip?


thank you all for your tips, advice, personal experiences, and knowledge, appreciate it alot. thank you.

First thing is to start thinking in euros as that's what you need to plan for.

Sounds like you've already decided where you want to visit but consider that they are all big cities and only show you one side of Italy. Consider travelling immediately to Florence on arrival and ending in Rome if that's where you fly home from. Minimising the number of hotel stops makes for a more relaxing holiday. Think about what you want to experience, not which places you want to visit. Don't necessarily restrict yourself to the famous places.

I look at folio books with lots of pictures to give me an idea of which places I'd like to visit and I read travel books such as LP, Rough Guide, Insight, etc. If I see a place of interest, I'll follow it up with an internet search.

Lots of hotels are available on the internet so that's a good place to start searching.

Tips for saving - every time you open your wallet think about how many coffees or gelati that would buy in Italy.

The thing I always start with is gatering as much information about the country as possible. Try and find special places that are of the beaten path. I just put everything in a word document and start orginasing later.
Once I've figured out where to go we decide what we want to see and do in those places that way we know how many day's we'll need to spend there.

When we know we're we want to go and what tours we'd like to take we'll have a rough estimate of the costs. After that we know how much is left for meals and hotels.

B&B's I'll book as soon as we know a date, hotels usually take me a little longer.

Spread sheets are a good idea for organizing a trip, which after all is just another project.

We set up a calendar and mark travel days and days in the place. If you arrive in the city midmorning and leave the second day, you don't really have two days there. This makes a big difference in what you can see. They also show whether you are bouncing around too much, which I think you are.

I have a packing list and use the spreadsheet to figure out what days I will wear each item so I don't go crazy with boredom or with having to do a lot of laundry.

A couple of specific comments about your proposed trip. I have a young friend who is a major fashionista. Milan was to be the great experience of her trip, while her husband looked forward to Venice.

When they got home, she said that Milan was not remotely as good as she had expected and she loved Venice as much as her husband.

More time in Naples than in Rome? Doesn't make sense to me, but you may have a special reason. If not, skip Naples and divide the time saved between Rome and Florence so you will have time to get out into some of the rest of Tuscany, Lucca, Siena, and Pisa are all within day trip range.

I agree with dreamon about going directly to Florence. You will be too beat to do much that day in Rome so you might as well get to Florence and check into your hotel. Then finish up in Rome.

Is the $500 a day for the two of you?

I always start by skimming travel guides at the bookstore to figure out points of interest near where I'm going and then using the internet to see if I'm really interested in visiting. And as for hotels, Google streetview is really helpful as it lets you see what the hotel and neighborhood are like before you book.

Because you're so pressed for time I might consider skipping either Milan or Naples. Italy isn't that small a country and with your current plan you're going to be spending more time travelling than sightseeing. Unless you really had your heart set on Milan I'd save it for another day. It was nice, but like Ackislander said, it didn't really meet my expectations.

Is your flight set already? Because flying into or out of Florence or Naples would simplify your trip immensely.

Always start with the basics:
WHEN---HOW LONG---HOW MUCH??? The rest will fall into place. Allow an average of 3 nites per destination, and make the next one a max of 4 hours from the last.

Here is your budget:

http://www.slowtrav.com/italy/planning/budget.htm

Look into flying open jaws (multi-city), say into Milan and out of Naples or Rome. It costs about the same as round-trip into one city, but saves you time and money backtracking.

Is your trip 10 days on the ground? Most flights to Europe from the West Coast, leave in the evening and arrive the next day. You've already lost a day. And you arrive sleepy and jet-lagged. I always plan an extra day or so at my first stop to get over jet-lag.

Do you plan to train between cities? Look at the schedule at the German train site,www.bahn.de/i/view/GBR/en/index.shtml, to get an idea about train times.

You really are planning too many destinations in your 10 days. But so do we all when we get started trip-planning. Every change of place costs you in time as well as money. Next step will be to cut down your stops.

As far as when to start booking, if you know exactly which accomodations you want in Italy, minimum half a year in advance; if you don't mind where you're staying, i.e. if you're happy with any hotel you can get, it's of course no problem to book much later.

The first thing I usually do is purchase or secure my flights. Once they are in place, I can work around them.

I also use a calender with days blocked off for travel and various stays.

I use spreadsheets for a couple of different things:

In a major city with lots of museums and exhibits I want to see, I will do a spreadsheet with opening and closing times on various days of the week. I take that with me.

Another thing I use a ss for is comparing various lodgings. I recently had a plethora of B&B choices and used a ss to rate them by location, price, reviews, etc.

I keep to my budget for air and rooms, and then really don't worry too much about what I'm spending once at my destination. But, I do include prices of transportation passes and tickets, as well as attraction passes. We use public transport and city attraction passes when they are a good deal.

Saving is easy. Just don't buy anything.

Travel planning is more than just the costs you'll incur, it's also figuring out the logistics of getting from place to place and understanding how much time is needed to see/do things. Not everything is open every day, some things are closed in the middle of the day, some things are open some evenings. Timed reservations can be required or highly recommended. It can be a puzzle figuring this all out, but it's part of the planning.

I also think you have too many destinations. I would drop Milan, and after landing in Rome I'd train immediately to Florence (2:45 hours). After Florence, train to Naples (3 hours), and lastly train to Rome (1:10 hours). How you divide the days depends on your interests and what you hope to see/do in each place.

Jean is so correct!

I like to use maps. We bought a good map of Italy before we planned our first trip. It helped us plot out a successful 3-week road trip. Pulled it out to plan our trip back to Italy in September. This time we've got more than a month. It's nice to know how far apart places really are, so we can estimate how long it will take us to get from place to place. Just the past week or two, I've made reservations for 5-7 nights in three "bases" but left about a week free when we will just be road tripping between the second and third base. Even if you are planning on taking trains, it's good to know geographically where you are, and you can't beat a map for that!

It's probably important not to kill yourself trying to see all the "Musts". Pick only the TRULY must sees, and figure that you'll be back again to fill in the rest.

When to start planning: I'm always planning to travel.

"how do you start planning for a trip? what is the first thing you start with?"

I start by thinking of the things I want to see. Maybe it's a particular building or an artist. Some people, apparently, start thinking of food. Whatever appeals to you.

"Tips on saving for a trip?"

Travel is my hobby. I think saving is all about choices. I save money by having few reoccuring charges on my credit card. I don't like them and sometimes I've had them and forgotten to take them off even when I haven't used them.

I don't drink things like Starbucks every day. It's expensive and it's not that good for me. I take my lunch or eat at home. There again, often food you buy out isn't that good and not that good for you.

To:Ackislander

yes i was thinking 5,000 for two people, would you think that might be alittle too buget tight ?

thank you guys alot for all this advice, i appreciate it. hopefully this trip will go smoothly

5000 what? US$5000 or 5000euro. If the former, you really need to start thinking in the local currency to get any sensible response to budget.