Hey- I am in the process of planning a honeymoon and we would love to go to Italy but we've only got a budget of $2500 (I hope you're not laughing). I know we'll be lucky to get flights for $400 each and I'm just wondering if any of you experienced travelers (especially those that have been to Italy) think it's possible to get good deals on nice hotel rooms and still have money left for entertainment. We're looking to go from March 20th to March 31st and we'd love to go to Florence/Tuscany/Cinque Terra. I've just never been so I don't know if this is an expensive part of Italy or one of the places you can get better deals. And, we'd like to stay in the nicest hotels our budgets allow. I would love any tips and advice, unless it's to tell me to enjoy my honeymoon to Six Flags! Just kidding! Thank you for your help!

Almost forgot- has anyone ever used luxurylink.com and found it to have good deals and good service?

where are you leaving from?

Atlanta

Lizzie, That will be tough--including air. For 10 days in Italy, at a 2 star level, I would budget $1800 for food and lodging. The air and local transport is going to be more like $1200, and you still will have tourism costs. I think you are short. See my budget page at slowtrav.com

I just checked on expedia. roundtrip ROme was about $600, FLorence $730, Milan $600. I think all of these had 1 stop and didnot include taxes. $400 is going to be hard to come by. This leaves you with a pretty tight budget, if the $2,500 is to include meals, site-seeing, airport transfers, etc.

try gotoday.com to see about lodging/flights

If you meant $2500 per person, you could have a grand old time!

I agree with the others, you are way short at an all-inclusive prive of $2500 for two people.

-Sharon

I think you can do it with a lot of careful planning. There's a web-site, www.initaly.com which I have used many times in planning my trips to Italy. Have never been disappointed. There's lots of valuable info. You're going in "low season" so that should help a lot. Good luck.

i may be in the minority here, but i think you can do it - although you may need to shorten your trip by a two or three days. luxury link, i believe is pretty high end...but you might want to look at gate1 packages (altho i doubt the cinque terre is included)

You will still be traveling off-season and there are good air-hotel packages that might fit your budget. However those usually go to major cities. This is going to be tough. . .

Congratulations on your up-coming wedding. About the honeymoon in tuscany, lets see:
Airfare - 1000
Apartment/villa rental in Tuscany - 500
Hotel in Florence for other 3 days at $100 per day - 300
Car for 1 week - 350 (lowest rate from autoeurope shows 300 right now)

That leaves you with 350 for food, gas, airport transfer and other expenses. If you are willing to settle for cheaper (and consequently not as nice places) for the 3 hotel days and add a about 300-500 more to your budget, then yes, its definitely doable. You could also reduce the italy part of you honeymoon to 7 instead of 10 days and have some more wiggle room in your budget. Others will have better ideas on economizing, this is just a start.

Example apartment rental:
http://www.italyfarmhousesrental.com...aella/home.htm

Good luck!

My May 2004 Tuscany trip (2 weeks) with my cousin came to about $2,200 per person for EVERYTHING. I can give you my breakdown (yes, I keep track of all my expenses) if interested: [email protected]

Monica

Another thought ...
Are you set on Italy? Paris might be cheaper and just as romantic, if not more, though it is entirely different.

But I think lizzie means $2500 for BOTH people, i.e., $1250 per person.

I think you can have some kind of honeymoon in Europe (flying from Atlanta), and even a very romantic one, BUT I don't think you can afford the one you describe.

I would consider one location only (Florence being the easiest of those you mentioned). These are not particularly expensive parts of the country... it's just your budget is not realistic (IMO) to cover 2 persons' RT airfare, a "nice" hotel room for 11 nights, meals, transportation by train or car rental, and siteseeing.

I'm not sending you to Six Flags (!) but you might look into a package deal for air/hotel to Paris (is my best suggestion). If you look in the ads of any travel magazine )try Frommers Budget Travel) you can get an idea of PP (per person) cost for this type of package. I'd say you need one for >$1000 PP, then you'd have $500 left for daily expenses of food and siteseeing (~50 per day between you which would not be luxurious but I believe you could make work & have a fabulous time).

Hi Lizzie,
We spent our honeymoon in Italy last June and we are going back this May - we love it! If you search my name you can see the report I posted back in early July about our trip
If you contact me directly through email I can see what type of airfare I can get you through my corporate travel (I work at an accounting firm). I will need the exact dates and airports you wish to fly in and out of. Using my corporate discount has saved us quite a bit of money over evern Orbitz and Expedia. For instance, our roundtrip flight from Denver to Rome in late May is only $671 including taxes and fees. I don't know what Atlanta would look like, but I would imagine it would be less than Denver. My email is [email protected].
Happy Wedding PLanning - have you discovered theknot.com yet?? A great site! Some of my wedding photos are posted there under the chatname TexasAgggie

I hate to be discouraging but reco that you reconsider this trip. For that budget you will be struggling and cutting corners the whole way with quite basic lodging - perhaps hostels or simple B&Bs. (I doubt you will find any of the luxury link hotels for less than $300 per night.) And I don;t think you have allowed for even one really nice romantic dinner.

I would either increase your budget significantly - or take a brief, inexpensive honeymoon and save the balance for a later trip to Italy - when you could really enjoy it.

I'd say allow $600 or more for tickets for your precise dates. Florence tends to be a more expensive place to land, so consider Venice, Milan, or Rome also. You can then take the train.

A budget ensuite double room in Florence is possible for 65 Euros per night (about $80 USD). I think that's about what the B&B Peterson costs and I've seen other options in the same range. But that's definitely a budget option. So say you had to spend $1000 USD on lodging for 10 nights, because the other locations might cost more.

Therefore plane tickets and economical lodging takes you up to $2200, leaving not much for eating or anything else.

P.S. I'm not sure the Cinque Terre region would be nice in March (can someone answer for that?), but I stayed in Albergo Barbara in Vernazza (right on the town square overlooking the Med Sea) in 2002 and the rates were about 60E a night for a room with a small window and a bathroom down the hall. The room was clean yet simple and I thought it was a great deal for the price.
On our honeymoon we stayed at Hotel Vilal Steno in Monterosso which we fell in love with, but it was 125E a night - about $155 per night in US dollars.

Anyway, if you can get airfare for $1000, and you choose hotels in the 60-90E range ($75-$110), then I think you guys could do about a 8-9 night trip fairly comfortably. If you're careful where you eat (get away from the touristy areas) - you can both eat simple yet good meals for 40-50E total a day. If you abstain from shopping, all that is left are museum entrance fees and train fees. Ride second class to save money. So over a 9 day period - you should come in right about exactly $2500 (1000 for air, 900 for hotels, 500 for food, 100-150 train travel and museum tickets).

I'd go if I was you - our Italian honeymoon was so incredible. I couldn't even imagine having traded it for laying on a beach for a week somewhere!

Here's what I posted on my journal:

My Expenses:

Transportation (airfare, car rental, gas, parking, tolls, bus, taxi) $846.30
Hotels for 14 nights $612.25
Food $623.70
Musuems $80.00
Total $2,162.00

I also spent close to $400 in shopping.