My hubby & I plan to travel to Italy Either June 2010 (during 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa) or September 2010. It will be a first for both. Duration 30 days give or take.
We are on a limited of approx E60 ea. Will that be enough? Even though we are 56 & 60 respectively, we are fir & prepared to rough it when necessary.
My main idea is to get to know the people & their way of life, do the normal tourist thing, but mainly have a cultural experience.Am I over romanticising ?
Oh yes, Johan(Hubby) wants to do a few days in Greece.
All suggestions regards "have to see" specific places to stay(camp grounds, appartments,)agritourism, cheapest way to travel once there what ever info will be appreciated.

60€ each for what? Hotels? Food? Transportation? Per day? Spending money?

Hmmm...you're requesting specific places to stay but you have not said where you'll be going in Italy so it's rather difficult to recommend places.

If the 60 Euro per day per person is supposed to cover food, transportation, lodging, and sightseeing you are tremendously under budget. Even hostels charge about 25 Euro per person per day and convents about the same or a bit more.

I suggest you pick up a couple of guidebooks to see what part of Italy interests you and to get an idea of prices for food, lodging, etc., review your budget and then come back with specific questions about the places you want to visit.

The suggestion of Lets Go Italy & feedback from travellers on dif. web sites gave my this ball park figure of E60/p/d
We would like to spend time deffinately in Rome. The rest of our stay is totally up to dif suggestions. Nothing is planned as yet exept... we are going to Italy!!What can we expect to budget for per day for accommodation. meals, entrance fees travelling per day.

Let's Go is assuming that you are staying in a hostel dorm, and probably not the nicest hostel dorm. The Let's Go per diem rate also doesn't allow much space for entertainment, museums (very expensive in Italy), or restaurant meals.

Are you budgeting for a trip where you stay in hostel dorms and do not go to restaurants and have limited museums?

OK.. new senario. lets ignore the accommodation.Give me a figure for budget for meals ea / day,travelling by public transport(seems to be the cheapest) odds & ends

Let's Go is definitely a great budget guide book. An inexpensive hotel in Rome would be about 100 Euro per night. I've already given you an approximated price for hostels. Meals - you can pay just about anything in cities from 5 Euros or so for a take out panini.

Probably the best thing to do is to take an apartment for a week in Rome and shop in supermarkets rather than eating in restaurants. Make your own paninis and bring them with you for lunch; drink tap water rather than buying bottled. Search on this board for Rome apartment recommendations.

Traveling around will add Euros to your budget. The least expensive method is probably buses.

Entrance fees are shown in guidebooks so you can check your guidebook for the rates. I usually budget about 10 Euros per venue so I don't have to look up exact prices.

I'd say to up your budget to at least 100 Euros per day per person. You may find you can do it for less but it would be a shame to go to Italy and not have the occasional restaurant meal or spend money getting to someplace you really want to see.

We have in savings for our trip E5000 excluding air fare
Does this sound more realistic E80/p

Yes 80 Euro p/d is more realistic if you don't move around a lot. You can see Rome, Florence, Venice and places in between via public transport. Venice will be quite expensive so you would want to limit your stay there to a few days rather than a week. Try to stay in the center of cities, if possible, to get a feel for the cities in the evening and to have something to do in the evening.

Decide on the types of things you want to see in Italy and base your itinerary around those things. More rural locations will be less expensive, especially for lodging. Italy is a diverse country and you can see mountains, seaside, rolling countryside, cities; art, churches, museums, ruins, opera.

I agree with adrienne that about 100€ would be a good figure. You will usually be able to find a 2 star hotel or B&B for under 75€ for a double. It can certainly be done for less but then will be in less desirable locations and so transportation costs to get where you want to be will be more. Rome will probably be more. It takes a LOT of research to find quality, inexpensive lodging. Search guidebooks, this forum and others and then google the possibilities. From there you will pull up booking sites with even more possibilities. Then check them all out on tripadvisor.com

For food I am usually satisfied with 25€ per person per day. That allows picnic style lunches and and inexpensive sit down dinner. In Italy we eat a lot of pasta and usually the skip the meat course which saves a lot. If you stay in a location for long enough to make an apartment worthwhile then cooking in will save even more. But I like gelato, you do occasionally need to buy bottled water, etc. so the extras can add up. You can do it for less but it's vacation so I don't want to deprive myself. Most people spend far, far more than I do on food.

Entrance fees do really add up but they are worth it. On the other hand, you can decide that you don't need to do every single museum and church. Make up walking tours (from guidebooks, websites, etc) for each city. Get a lot of guidebooks, but you can get them second hand on Amazon for very little. Then to check the most current fees, opening times, etc check websites. Or go to a bookstore to check out recent edition guidebooks.

Go on the trentalia website for train info. In Italy there are several types of train doing the same routes. One will be a regional and be half the cost of the next one which might be a eurostar and cost a lot more. So you need to just check them all, a tedious process but it will give you an accurate idea of how much to expect it will cost.

I usually advise staying in the city centers, but for Venice if you can't find a reasonable priced hotel in Venice, consider staying in Padua, a really wonderful town less than a half hour train ride. Trains run till very late (actually I think all night) so you can stay in Venice till dark, avoid the day trip crowds, etc. I have stayed in Venice twice but the third time I stayed in Padua (not to save money, on that trip I was more interested in the rest of the Veneto) but it was fine, and it was a lot less than Venice hotels.

Thanx all for input. We have a lot of homework to do. Fortunately we have quite a bit of time before departure. will post on developement of plans.

Have you traveled this way before, staying in a foreign country for a month on a tight budget? If you're experienced traveling this way, then it's just a matter of figuring out the details -- adrienne has given you some good help so far, and there's a ton of information out there, in guidebooks and on line.

If you haven't traveled this way before, then you might consider shortening the length of your trip. Thirty days is a long time. If you were planning on spending most of it in one place -- renting an apartment, getting to know the local merchants, picking up some of the language -- you could pull it off and quite possibly have a great experience. But it sounds like you want to "see Italy," which usually means taking in as many of the country's fantastic sights as you can -- and traveling around quite a bit to do it. That kind of travel is harder on your wallet and more demanding physically. It's great for a couple of weeks, but after that you run the risk of feeling worn out and homesick. If you cut the length of your stay to 15 or 20 days, you'll be able see a lot and also loosen the reins a little on your budget.

Let's Go is a student guide. It assume beds in shared dorm rooms in hostels, walking everywhere within cities, buying food at local markets for picnics or perhaps a slice of pizza for lunch, that you will be refilling your own water bottles from taps and that you will get student discounts for sights.

I can;t imagine how adults - who presumably would want a room to themselves - could possibly survive on this type of budget. there would be no meals in restaurants, no glass of wine in local cafes and limited sightseeing - since you wouldn't qualify for student discounts.

My 19 year old stepdaughter and some friends went last summer and it cost them about $80 - or about 60 euros per day PLUS hotels. this included local transportation, meals (nothing fancy but they would sit down in a cafe for dinner), sightseeing, an occasional drink or ice cream and going out (to budget student cafes) several nights per week.

Lonely Planet, which is likely to be a better budget guidebook choice for non-students than Let's Go, suggests that a mid-range budget for Italy would be 100-150 euro/day per person. For budget travel in Italy you could also look at Pauline Frommer's "Italy".

I totally agree w/ Matt (was going to post similar advice until I saw his post).

You have limited funds. So instead of trying to force 30 days into your £80 pp per day (and adding Greece no less) - cut you trip to 3 weeks in just Italy and have enough money to enjoy yourselves w/o counting pennies every day. You'd have €120 pp per day which is a LOT more doable than €80.

I agree with Janisj. I would also suggest doing either Venice and Rome or Venice and Florence; you can easily overdose on art (even if you love it) seeing all three. Spend 3 nights on Lake Como or Lake Orta when you arrive. September (second half) is a better choice than June for moderate temperatures.

Buon viaggio--you'll love it!

OK back to the drawing board. I have dearly underestimated what dayly expenses in Italy can amount to.This is in no way dampening my enthusiasm to tour Italy on a shoestring, I will just have to add a few pennies to the savings account & prioritise which places are top of the list within budget.Fortunately there is still 14 months to go. Will keep updating as to how plans are progressing.Thanks once again to all the valuable info. Regards from a sunny South Africa(although now dark & winter chill in the air)

How about couchsurfing? If you do a search, you will find various sites. I know students do it, but so do people of all ages. Good luck with your plans. My other suggestion is an apartment, so you don't have to always eat out.

You need to either do apartments or convents. Apartments would let you save on meals. There are some cheap convents in Rome that are a bit further from the center, but on bus or metro lines that will be under 50€. They will be private rooms and many with private baths. The ones that are more central will be more expensive, but you may find some for around 75€.

Much of Rome is walkable, but it depends on where you stay (and how many days) whether you need a transportation pass or not. You can get a Roma Pass for 23€ which gets you free admission to your first two sites (doesn't include Vatican), discounts at others (most are 50% off) for three days and a three day transportation pass(bus/tram/metro/local trains). If you use the free admissions for the Colosseum/Forum and Borghese (reservation required) it about pays for itself and each are around 10€ (a bit more if there is some special exhibit).

60 euros a day isn't going to get you a month-long trip. Heed advice above and reduce the trip time or expand the budget.