May be a hard question to answer, but dont bite me!
 

I hate saving for a Europe trip without a dollar amount goal in mind.
I want to go to Italy!!
Rome and Sorrento are top on my list.
We are a family of 4. Dont need 4* hotels or fancy meals just a nice clean place to sleep.I can live with Pizza and coffee. I just want to walk and walk and take in the scene and repeat over and over "I'm in Italy"(paperbag,Do you love me?)
How much is a trip to Italy? Ballpark?
All I can figure out is a flight to Italy from NY is about $650 per person in October.

If you dont mind sharing what you spend on your vacations. Thanks

Go to www.slowtrav.com and under the Italy planning section--which is great--find my budget article. You will need to interpolte for 4 people, but should help. Using apts. may be a big help in the cities.

For 12 nights in Italy this coming May (Sorrento,Positano, Monterosso, and Rome) my husband and I will spend approximately $4800. We planned the trip before the dollar really dove but decided to stick with our plans and just save more to pay for it!
Our breakdown is as follows (in US dollars):
Italy (1€ = $1.34)

Airfare $1,343.20
Train overnight private room $158.06
Other Trains $153.08
Circumvesuviana trains $17.96
Buses/Trains to get to Paestum $22.70
Taxis $33.50
SITA Bus Fares $21.44


Hotels $1,299.80
Meals $810.70
Cinque Terre Card $34.84
Monterosso Beach Fees $46.90
Campania ArteCard - 3 Day $67.00
Herculaneum and Pompeii $38.86
Archaeology Museum $29.48
Naples Churches $20.10
Paestum sight and museum $36.85
Pompeii Private Guide (?) $140.70
Boat Tour of Amalfi Coast $201.00
Rome - Palatine Hill $21.44
Rome - Capitol Hill Museum $21.44
Shopping, Misc. costs $268.00


TOTAL $4,787.05

Less prepaid plane $(1,343.20)
Less prepaid overnight train $(158.06)
Less cash in hand $(131.72)
TOTAL to pay $3,285.79


Our hotels range from 125€ to 165€ for double rooms and include breakfast. We eat a snack on the go for lunch and then spend 50€ on a nice dinner. I found out what our trains will cost using www.trenitalia.com and guidebooks and websites let me know the cost of admission to the major sights. We aren't huge shoppers - just a couple bottles of good wine and olive oil.

Hope this helps. It can certainly be done on less money, or you can certainly spend a great deal more than we do!

P.S. We bought our plane tickets ($670 each, approximately) last summer BEFORE fuel prices skyrocketed. Fares like this are definitely hard to find, so perhaps count on spending more on airfare.

Last P.S.!! ;-)

The "Less:..." means that we have already paid for these items. Or in the case of the cash, we have this many euros left over from our last trip.

Michele, To answer we need to know at the very least:

1) How many days are you planning to stay total? How modest are you willing to go with accomodations? Would a family room in a hostel be OK, for instance?

2) Are we budgeting for only 2 cities (Rome and Sorrento) or more?

#1 matters for lodging costs & #2 for transportation costs

we just got back from paris, the cost is about the same, but we go CHEAP!
Two adults and 16 & 18 year old girls, thier rooms 35 E ours 50 E (we wanted a toilet IN the room) Airfare $250 plus tax each.
Train from airport to hotel = 7.40 E each All day Metro passes 5E each per day Meals from sit downs at 8E to 40 E each and grocery store picnics CHEAP 2E each cheese and wine are cheap! like 1E /lb for great cheeses 1E for loaf of bread and 1 - 5 E for bottle of wine. we found Museum Rodin for 1E Louvre is free for 18 year olds and only a few bucks for us after 3PM. Good luck!

TexasAggie: You are SO organized. Impressive but scary: I could never measure up. Basically depart with credit cards and spend whatever it costs -- though we are quite moderate.

BTW: we probably spend less on accommodation, more on dinners.

For a family of 4: I would always recommend renting an apartment, if feasible. Way cheaper, IMO.

Reported recently on our large and comfortable 1 bedroom apartment in Rome: 110 E per night. Fabulous.

And guess what: Last night I rented The Bicycle Thief (Ladri di biciclette) and, in one of the final scenes, spotted the square where we stayed. How cool is that??!!

Hi tedgale,
LOL! I am a tax accountant... hence the obsession.
Enjoyed your last trip report very much!

marnew, what hotel in Paris did you choose?

Michelem4, decide what accommodation you'll be happy with for your family and how much that will cost. You could find something for as low as 100E if determined, but you might prefer something more like 250E.

I would then budget about 15 Euros per day per person to cover either attractions or entertainment. Because you are traveling with kids, you won't get as many attractions done, but you may need some other diversions, so that seems reasonable to me.

If you stay at a hostel with a kitchen, or stay in an apartment, you can really cut your food costs down. Figure out how much you would spend at home for food for that period, and double it. (It won't necessarily cost double, but this will give you a bit of a cushion and allow treats like gelato and what not.)

Then figure out what your transporation costs on the ground will be.

Figure out costs like laundry. (Minimal, but you might have a bunch of minimal expenses.)

The fewer places you go, the less stress you'll have, and you may find it more enjoyable, particularly when traveling with children.

I put a fairly thorough listing of costs in my trip report if you want to look there. I went to many relatively expensive attractions and took guided walks and tours, which upped my budget somewhat - but that's why I went to Italy in the first place in large part.

My opinion is your trip is possible on 200E per day for 4 people for all expenses on the ground, and probably even less, but you'll enjoy it more if you go to 300E or more per day.

TexasAggie, the mathematics for your hotel rooms doesn't add up! You said you're going for 12 nights and that your hotels will cost anywhere from 125 to 165 euro per night. Yet, you only budgeted $1,299.00 for hotels, and that would come to only $108.25 per night (or about 85-90 euro).

..when I was a student (my first trip to europe), I had a philosophy which I still hold. Spend as little as you can in a city for a room as you will not be in your room except to sleep. If you have very limited time, pay a little more to be central as an hour a day in getting to and from "downtown" makes no sence. re meals..I would have a quick cafe breakfast, picnic lunch, and try to find a great neighborhood restaurant for dinner at least every second night. Eating is part of the sightseeing..Often the cheap tourist 3 course all you can eat every night is more than this. Also occasionally splurge at lunch as your big meal and picnic summer as often luch is cheaper than dinner. Never splurge on money for museums or film/disc space for a camera.

TexasAggie

HowardR is right. Something is wrong with your calculation!

If you presume that the average cost of your hotel is 145€ per night (125€ + 165/2) then your total cost will be:

145€ x 1.34 x 12 days = $2,331.60 (not $1,299.80)

Perhaps you should re-calculate your budget for your trip.

..an error in my post. never skimp on film or museum fees!

TexasAggie has some great ideas...and though he might be off a little, he is very THOROUGH. Am sure it is a help to someone traveling, just to pick and choose out of all the ideas and to get an overview.
Of course I am an A&M fan,,,gig em Aggies!!!
Michelem4: sounds like you will be a good TRAVELER (not tourist)..enjoying the walking and soaking up the culture. Your trip will be wonderful. WE spent 2 weeks in Sorrento a couple of years ago...good place for day trips! Your family will love Italy,,, are the children teenagers?, however I noticed October, so perhaps it is parents!) Four people does "ADD UP", but what a wonderful time together.You have received some good advice above...to you original question.

If you read my post, you'll see an overnight train.
One of our nights is overnight on the train in a private 2 bed compartment - that is listed separate.

There are 11 nights in hotels:
4 nights in La Tonnarella at 160€ per night - double with private sea view terrace and bathroom en suite
2 nights at Albergo California at 165€ per night - double with sea view balcony and private jacuzzi and bathroom en suite
1 night on the train
3 nights at Hotel Villa Steno for 125€ per night - repeat customer, double room with sea view terrace and bathroom ensuite
1 night - Hotel Oceania - double room with bathroom ensuite

Happy? ;-)

-Jill %%-

Yikes - sorry, forgot to point out that we had prepaid part of the room in Sorrento and that is why the dollar amount is lower (because we paid that back in October).
Also, the room at Hotel Oceania is 138€.

In any case, maybe the template (if not the exact calculations) will help Michelem4 in planning his/her trip in that he/she can see all the little costs that need to be approximated to come up with a realistic budget.

Happy trip planning! :-)

TexasAggie, my point was not to pick on you, but rather to give the original poster a more accurate guideline.
(PS: For the sake of your own planning, as well, your recent comments still show your hotel costs far in excess of $1,299. Before deducting any downpayment for the Sorrento facility, your hotel costs come to 1,483 euro for 10 nights listed, based on the figures your supplied.)

Hi HowardR,
No problem, no offense taken :-) I surely didn't list everything when I was putting down out the "yet to pay" list, such as the deposit in Sorrento and my parents picking up the Positano stay for our 1 yr. wedding anniversary gift. So no worries, I do have the "yet to pay" correct and won't have any unhappy surprises on the trip. Thanks for the concern though, it is nice to have people check these things to make sure you don't overlook them!
The real point was to provide a "template" of sorts, that anyone could copy and then put in their own amounts and get a real idea of what their trip would cost.
In any case, all of this did prompt me to update my own spreadsheet a couple weeks early (I had more or less dropped trip planning and trip budget updates since 3/15 due to the April 15th tax deadline) to see how much we really needed to leave in checking for the trip and put the extra into my IRA. So again, no worries, a good thing came of it :-)

Though I admire Texas Aggie for thoroughness, I would never want to try to budget a trip to that level of detail. Reasons:
1. Things change.
2. Such a detailed budget would make me uneasy about deviating from it. That might make my trip less pleasant because I'd be worrying about blowing it.
3. Generalities will get you close to the number you need. ALWAYS add something for unexpected expenditures.

I must admit that I arrived at this approach after many trips to Europe, so I had the experience as a reference in my planning. With that in mind, my budget planning would be more general and would be broken down like this:

-Air fare and other fares to go from my home to the destination hotel. I just walk through all the steps.
-Hotel room costs.
-Food, whether eating out or just picnicking.
-Purchases, including souvenirs, impulse buys, gifts, and planned items.
-Local transportation once at the destination; taxis, rental car, train, bus, airfare, etc.
-Admission fees at major venues. Not all such fees can be anticipated, and they are not a large part of trip expense anyway.
-A 10 percent add-on as a contingency, or 5 percent if you have a lot of confidence in the plan. The percentage should not include hotel and airfare because these are well established once you make your reservations.

Since you and you alone know exactly what you will want to do, how you will eat and travel, and how or where you will sleep, you are the best one (IMO) to take these general categories I've listed and place numbers in them. Good luck.

TexasAggie, I like your attitude. I know that I'd be pissed off at myself if I budgeted a trip and then found that I was a few hundred dollars or more short when it came to payup time! That was the point of my posting.

I do all my taveling on a budget. I paid $1474 for 2 rd trips from Mia to Rome. We are paying 60E a night for hotel sink only will share a shower and toilet. I have looked at all the sites for site prices ie Colosseum, Galleria Borghese, Vatican, etc. and have entered all cost in both Euros and US $'s.
Transfer, train tickets as we are going to Florence for a week. Of course food, wine, olive oil, stationary, scarves and a piece of nice jewelry for me and my daughter. I anticipate a cost of $4500 US total.

TexasAggie

The way I see it your total hotel cost is:

4 nights x 160€ = 640€
2 nights x 165€ = 330€
3 nights x 125€ = 375€
1 night x 138€ = 138€

Grand total:1,483€ x 1.34 = US$1,987.22

actually, after my last dicussion with the group, i have decided to give hotel splurging a try. i will let you all know later how it turns out.

what advice i can give you michelem4 is that holidays usually get expensive when you start eating out and going in all the attractions or especially *doing day trips*.

-if what you want is an italian experience why not stick to rome?
-try to maximize whats free
-rome is an outdoor museum, you can site see for free
-vatican st peters can be seen for free, dome for few pence
-read up on what outdoor events are happening in rome, special free museum days etc
-limit your travel outside rome to save
-teach your kids italian with a cassette, and make a game of of trying to understand locals etc so they wont get bored (and make you spend money to entertain them)

-read, read,read about rome so you can appreaciate each bridge,church, monument,even the development of the subway,politics etc. you will have so much italian culture to see around you you wont have time for museums.

that is how to experience italy on the cheap and enjoy it.

jet 29
Your calc is the same as mine in my detailed spreadsheet. I just cut and paste bits of that spreadsheet when I originally posted and missed a few parts - as listed above in my post to HowardR.

As this is generating so much interest and at the risk of being accused of being totally obsessive when I create trip plans ;-), here is the complete spreadsheet (or as much of it as will format from Excel into this post). I broke out hotels CLEARLY at the bottom ;-)

And just to state it one more time, my intention was to give the OP a template to use in creating her own budget.

Italy (1€ = $1.34)
Airfare $1,343.20
Train overnight $158.06 120€ Overnight train in 1st class 2 bed compartment

Trains $153.08 114.24 € Rome FCO - Rome Termini (9.50E each), Rome-Naples (EuroStar, 2nd class, 44.22E), Monterosso-Rome (6:31am-10:57am, 2nd class ES, 62.18€ total)

Circumvesuviana train to Sorrento $17.96 13.4€
Naples-Sorrento, Sorrento-Pompeii-Herculaneum, Sorrento-Naples, Sorrento-Naples, (app 3.10€ one way Nap-Sor, app 1.80€ on way to pompei/herculaneum)

Buses/Trains to get to Paestum $22.70 16.94€

Sorrento to Naples - Circumvesuviana, Naples - Salerno by train (5,37€ each), Salerno-Paestum by bus = 3.10€ rountrip each

Taxis $33.50 25€
Sorrento (bus - 1€ each - no taxi), Positano (may have to walk downhill from bus stop), Monterosso (7-10€), Rome (10-15€)

SITA Bus Fares $21.44 16€
La Tonnarella (2), Positano (2), Amalfi (2), Atrani (2) Ravello (2), Positano (2), Amalfi (2) Salerno (2)


Hotels $1,987.22 1483€
160€ Sorrento for 4 nights, 165€ Positano for 2 nights, 138€ Rome for 1 night, 125€ Monterosso for 3 nights

Meals $810.70 605.00€

55€ per day for 11 days (breakfast is included at each hotel)

Cinque Terre Card $34.84 26€
13€ each for 3 day card

Monterosso Beach Fees $46.90 35€
Campania ArteCard - 3 Day $67.00 50€ 25€ each - valid for 3 days, 2 free sights, 50% off all other sights, free circumvesuviana

Herculaneum and Pompeii $38.86 29€Free Admission (2 sights free with Campania ArteCard), transparency book 11€, 2 audioguides total 9€ at both cities

Archaeology Museum $29.48 22€
6.5€ each *50% off from Campania ArteCard, 4€ audioguide each, 7,50€ guidebook

Naples Churches $20.10 15€
Royal Palace (4€ each *50% off from Campania Arte Card, 6€ total 2 audoguides), Capella Sanservo church (5€ each *50% off from Campania ArteCard), Gesu Nuovo church and Santa Chirara church (free)

Paestum $36.85 27.5€
6,50€ combo for museum and site *50% off, 13€ guidebook, 4€ audioguides each

Pompeii Guide (?) $140.70 105€
2 hour tour is approximately 105€

Boat Tour of Amalfi Coast $201.00
150€
Gennaro e Salvatore

Rome - Palatine Hill & Coloseum
$21.44 16€
Palatine Hill and Colosseum combo ticket- 8€ each

Rome - Capitol Hill Museum $21.44 16€
8€ each, 4€ each audioguide

Shopping, Misc. costs
$268.00 200€
wine, olive oil, pottery, chocolate, postcards



TOTAL $5,474.47

Less prepaid plane $(1,343.20)
Less prepaid train $(158.06)
Less cash in hand $(131.72) 98.30 €
Less prepaid sorrento $(245.22)
Less positano hotel (parents pay) $(442.20)
330.00 €
TOTAL to pay $3,154.07

Total on HOTELS
La Tonnarella $857.60 640€
Less: Deposit -$245.22 183€
Albergo California $442.20 330€
Less: Entire amount, parents pay $-442.20 330€
Hotel Villa Steno $502.50 375€
Hotel Oceania $184.92 138€
REMAINING TO PAY $1299.80 513€ HOTELS

To clarify,
I calc'd how many times we would be riding the SITA buses (1€ each trip) from each location. That is the numbers in parentheses.

Also, on the circumvesuviana, I threw in the max amount of trips we might take before buying the Campania ArteCard that covers circumvesuviana trips.


Just wondering... Michelem4, are you even around?

TexasAggie, I love spreadsheets, and I love getting detailed info about costs! I've started doing the same thing for my upcoming trip this summer.

Hi WillTravel,

I love all your posts about Italy, just FYI. You post so much useful info!

I also love spreadsheets... guess that is why I chose accounting as my profession, hehe :-)

I've found that even though we always leave more than enough in the ATM accessible checking account to cover any miscalculations, we've always come within $100 of my forecasts. It's kind of fun for me to check everything after we come back and see how I did with my estimating, though we don't worry about the budget while we are actually over there. Also, I have similar cash flow projections forecasted out for us for 11 months in advance so between my trip budget estimating and my cash flow estimating, we can usually tell if we can afford to make another mid-year trip to Europe far out enough in advance to get good airfare!

Everyone travels a different style as you're seeing on this post.

Personally my pre-travel budget looks like:
Airfare $xx
Hotels $xx
Money in my wallet $xx

That's it! I rarely spend on admissions and never take tours. Food, local transporation, extras just come out of my "wallet money".

Since you want a <dollar amount goal in mind> IMO you just make a list of what you/your family plans & wants to see and do.

The replies here are necessarily vague and generalizations because we still don't know how long this trip is, or what all places you plan to visit.

TexasAggie,

At last we agree on the hotel figure. Being an accountant myself I was kind of surprised at the original amount you quoted.

As you might have read on this site we are also in the final stages of planning our trip to France this coming June, and obviously using a spreadsheet to budget and control our travel costs. In the early stages of our plans we obviously went into a detailed cost rundown of our trip i.e. hotel, car lease, air fare, food, etc. As you did, and using travel guides and the Internet, we tried to obtain the precise cost information regarding visiting places of interest, parking fees, tolls, gas price (viamichelin or mappy are excellent in that regard) and a budget for gifts and misc.

All this information is contained in our spreadsheet. Upon our return I have no intention of going into a detailed analysis of budget vs. actual cost as I would in my practice, but, as long as the final figure is within range – we will be satisfied.

It was very thoughtful of you to provide the Fodors community with such a detailed cost of your trip, and very useful for people who are planning a trip.

TexasAggie -I dont feel too bad now seeing you also make detailed calculation for your trips. I had started a similar spreadsheet on Excel to plan for my trip to Berlin-Prague-Vienna-Budapest in July. I listed different currency converter and hotels' price to play around and budgeted money for transportation cost, museum fees, lunches, snacks, and dinners . This gives me an idea of how much room I can play around: ok... I can spend $500 on shopping or whatever as long as I stayed below $100 or so per day on food etc. I actually do this in everything else: christmas shopping, families' birthdays, etc. I love Excel!! :))

Gee, I never thought my little mathematical observation would serve as an incentive to produce such useful information!

TexasAggie, you sound like a person after my own heart; as I also budget my trip costs utilizing excel and post the actuals on our return.

delvino, CPA

I usually use suze's style. i budget for all the major fixed expenses (hotel, flight, etc). Usually i book my hotel ahead so there is no variation in expense on the trip.

For the rest, i figure an amount for the day just for "walkinaround" money. When i return home, i book the whole exp in MS Money at the detail level of vacation-lodging, vacation-travel, and vacation-spending money.

generally, most of my expenses are paid in advance of the trip...i do not require a lot of spending money. eating in most places in europe or asia is not very significant as compared to spending money required at home (london).

i travel a lot so i need to keep tabs on all of this or i'd go broke.

"I just want to walk and walk and take in the scene and repeat over and over "I'm in Italy"

LOL - you might want to tuck in a few extra € - because the other members of your family might not be satisfied with just that! Are you traveling with children?