Travel Italy on a Budget: What Does it Cost?

Can I travel Italy on a budget?

The answer is yes, you absolutely can travel Italy on a budget. And the best part is you can travel Italy on a budget and enjoy all Italy has to offer.

All you have to do is get a bit savvy and keep your eyes open for deals and ways to save money as you go.

My husband and I spent 3 weeks in Italy traveling all over the place, with a budget of $200 per day for two people. 

If you went to Italy for one week on that budget, your trip would cost you $1,400, not including airfare. That’s pretty dang good!

This $200 per day budget is absolutely doable and enjoyable. If you have more money to spare for your trip, up that budget a little and make it your own. On a tighter budget? You can make it happen!

We easily could have spent even less if we had stayed in hostels and eaten mostly from the grocery store.

On our $200 budget, we ate delicious pizza and drank local wine every day, stayed in hotels, and did awesome activities like exploring Cinque Terre by scooter and seeing Florence from the top of the Duomo.

When my husband and I left for our 6 month trip to 18 countries, we knew that airfare would be one of the single largest individual costs of our trip. So, after a little bit of research, we found a way to get affordable flights all over the world: travel credit cards.

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The first note here that I need to make is that almost no flight is truly free, you do have to pay the taxes and fees. But, what if I told you I just bought a $6 flight from North Carolina, USA to Athens, Greece this week. Or that I’ve spent only $11 for me and Colton to fly from NC to Turkey?

Would you believe those numbers?

I never in a million years thought I could fly abroad for less than a few hundred dollars, and that’s if I somehow found an amazing deal!

It wasn’t until I came across travel credit cards and the world of points and miles that I understood how these serial travelers I was seeing everywhere were affording their flights.

The trick was, they were barely paying for them.

So, after tons of research, applying for credit cards, hitting bonuses, and of course getting everything in order to leave home for 6 months to travel, I bought our one way flights out of the country for $11.

How did we do it?

The world of points and miles, of course!

Let me tell you how we did it and give you the information you need to start earning free flights with your credit card! 

Let me preface this with one statement: the world of points and miles is BIG and there is a lot that you honestly don’t need to know to just get started.

So, I’m going to give you the most necessary information to get you started and cut out all the fluff. Let’s go!

I promise you this is not a scam, because maybe that’s the first place your mind is headed when I say “free” flights. 

In fact, paying with points and miles to purchase flights at insanely low prices is entirely legal, I promise!

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What Are Points and Miles

Points and miles are the reward currency of airlines and hotels: aka loyalty points. 

I’m not talking about the points you earn by flying with an airline repeatedly, that you only rack up over several years. 

I’m talking about points and miles you earn just from having the credit card you already use!

Each bank or airline that offers credit cards with points and miles use them as an alternative currency for purchasing flights. 

Many of the banks that offer travel credit cards have both airline and non-airline branded credit cards: a.k.a the airline the bank has partnered with offers airline miles as the sign up bonus, not credit card points. Those miles can only be used with that airline. 

If you apply for a bank branded card with no airline association, you’ll earn points with that bank that can then be transferred to their airline or hotel partners. 

How To Get Points And Miles With Travel Credit Cards?

The fastest way, and most likely reason why you’re wanting a travel credit card, is to earn points with a sign up bonus.

Most banks offer a sign up bonus of varying amounts after a certain amount of qualifying purchases on the card in the first few months. 

It might sound something like this: “earn 60k bonus points when you spend $3,000 dollars on purchases in the first 4 months.” Yadah yadah. 

But, you will also earn points while using your card on your everyday purchases! Some cards offer bonus categories, like 3x on grocery purchases, or 2x at restaurants, etc. So, when you spend money on your card, you’ll earn points in return that can be redeemed for various things, like flights or hotel stays. 

Generally, if you’re wanting to redeem miles for flights or hotels, you’re going to need a good chunk of miles to do so. 

You can purchase some domestic flights with as little as 8,500k points one way, but if you’re flying international, it will likely cost you 15k one way, at the very least. 

Of course, the cost of award flights in points can greatly vary and is not always directly tied to the cash ticket price.

Other ways to earn points with travel credit cards include anniversary bonuses, giveaways, and transfer bonuses. These come and go and aren’t something I would rely on.

For the purposes of this post, which is all about a beginner’s guide to free flights with points and miles, sign up bonuses are your very best friend. 

READ ALSO:
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How Much Are Points and Miles Worth?

Not all points are created equal.

Some points are more valuable than others simply because you can transfer and redeem them in more ways. 

Points and miles also get their value depending on the deal you get when redeeming them. 

Let me give you an example scenario to explain…

For example, let’s say you have 75k Capital One miles and you want to fly from Atlanta, Georgia to Athens, Greece for an amazing holiday eating delicious Mediterranean food and swimming in crystal clear waters for 8 days. 

These are the flights you’re looking at. They’ll take you to Greece during the best time to visit, late summer when it isn’t too crowded and not too hot.

You have a few options for how you can book these flights with points

Option 1: Redeem Points with a Travel Portal

Option 1 is to redeem your points through Capital One Travel and their online portal. When you do this, you’re going to get a fixed redemption rate of 1¢ per mile.

So your 75k miles would be worth $750 for travel. You could use those 75k miles to buy a flight worth up to $750 through the Capital One Travel portal. That’s over half of what this ticket is worth. So you would still have to pay about $390+ on top of your 75k miles for this ticket. 

We can definitely do better than that!

Option 2: Transfer to a Partner

Option 2 would be to transfer your Capital One miles to one of their airline transfer partners, then book the flight on their website using your points. 

If you did this, those 75k miles could become 75k FlyingBlue points (Air France & KLM’s loyalty program and one of Capital One’s transfer partners). 

The same exact flight booked on Air France with cash would cost you $1,142.

But, you can transfer your points from Capital One and over to FlyingBlue, so now you have up to 75k FlyingBlue miles! Let’s use them!

If you use FlyingBlue to book the exact same flight, you would only need 30,000 miles and $208 in taxes & fees. Way better than using all 75k and only covering half of the cost!

And, instead of paying $1,142 out of pocket for a round trip ticket to Europe, you’re only paying $208 plus 30,000 points.

*you want to transfer only the amount of points you need. In this scenario, thats only 30k of the 75k.

In this scenario, you would be redeeming your Capital One points, through FlyingBlue, for 3.1cents per mile. Now that’s more like it!

This is why points can be so valuable and why transfer partners can be the best way to go when redeeming points.

I know that was a lot, so let me summarize if for you:

• Out of pocket price for ticket Atlanta to Athens: $1142 on Air France/KLM
• Price of same ticket booked through Capital One Travel: 75k miles + $392
• Price of same ticket booked through FlyingBlue after transferring Capital One miles: 30,000 miles + $208 in taxes and fees.

You would come out of this deal with around 45k Capital One miles left in the bank. That’s enough to buy you another roundtrip flight to Europe.

Now THAT’S how we use points and miles to our advantage 🙂 

RESOURCE: Free List of Transfer Partners & Airline Alliances + How to Use Them

*be sure to only transfer the points you need and no more so you can keep the extra points with your bank and transfer them elsewhere in the future*

How Do You Redeem Points And Miles For Flights?

The way that we typically redeem our points and miles is by using them to purchase flights. We do this by transferring our credit card points to transfer partners. 

The scenario above is a great example of how we would use our points and miles to get amazing deals on flights.

Here is that chart again that I made to show you where you can transfer points based on what program you’ve accumulated points with. 

The process of transferring points can be a bit complicated, but I’m going to help you out here. 

Here is the basic rundown of how to redeem your points for flights:

• Accumulate points on your credit card
• Research credit card airlines transfer partners
• Search Google Flights or Skyscanner to find flight routes
• Search for award flights on airline transfer partners
• Find desired flights and see how many points/money required to book them
• Create a frequent flier account with airline if you don’t already have one
• Transfer points on your bank’s website to transfer partner of choice
• Book those flights!!

To use the example from above, I would find the flights I want and make sure I have enough points to pay for them. Then, I would log into Capital One and go to the Capital One Travel portal to transfer my points to FlyingBlue. Once my points were transferred, I would buy my flights!

The real trick is finding award flight availability and the deals that are out there waiting to be had! It takes a little bit of time and practice but you’ll get the gist!

READ ALSO:
How to Save Money for Travel – Budget & Save for Your Next Trip
Our Once In A Lifetime 6 Month Trip Itinerary
What 6 Months of Travel to 18 Countries Cost Us

What Travel Credit Cards Are Best?

For me to answer this question, you’ll need to ask yourself a question first: what are your goals?

Are you looking to cover some international long haul flights? Maybe you’re an avid domestic traveler and would like to cover a few legs of travel for your upcoming trips. Would you like to stay in nice hotels for just the cost of fees?

It’s good to look at the options and decide what you think will work best for your goals!

If you want to cover some flights, I would find a card that has great travel benefits and flexible rewards. If you’re more interested in hotel stays, get a hotel branded card!

You can find my favorite travel credit cards and all the information about them on my
Travel Credit Cards Recommendations page.

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“Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.”

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How to Travel Italy on a Budget

With a bit of planning and armed with knowledge about how to keep costs low while traveling, you can have an amazing, budget friendly trip to Italy to see so much that the country has to offer!

Define Your Budget

Everyone has a different idea of what ‘traveling on a budget’ means. For some people, that might be a $50 per day budget staying in hostels and eating meals from the local grocery store. For others, it might mean something entirely different. 

So, you need to define your budget and what you feel comfortable with.

For the purposes of this post, we’re going to operate on a $200 per day budget for 2 people, so $100 each, per day. It’s a nice round number, and it gives us a little room to work with. The daily budget number includes food, accommodation, transportation, activities, souvenirs, and rentals.

Bonus points if you spend below your budget one day and have a little extra to spend the next. Other days you may be over because of unforeseen costs. 

But, the principles we’re going to cover can apply to any daily budget.

While the daily budget is important, your most important number will probably be your total at the end of your trip when you’re looking at your bank account as you fly home. So, keep your daily budget in mind, but don’t miss the big picture!

Where to Find Affordable Accommodations

Likely, accommodations will be your biggest expense every day. So, if you can get this number pretty low without sacrificing your preferred level of comfort, it will really help you keep within your budget.

The first place I always go to when I start to look for hotels is Booking.com. 

Booking.com has the best roundup of hotels, B&B’s, and apartments, and you can find a hotel practically anywhere in the world on their website. 

Pro tip: use the Booking.com app to get their mobile discounts! Also, their Genius program (not an additional sign up) will help you get additional discounts, as well. 

AirBnb is always a great place to look for accommodation, although I find that with the additional fees and taxes it sometimes ends up being more expensive than a hotel. 

In Italy, I’ve found that Airbnb’s and hotels are both good options and can be competitive in price, so I recommend you check both platforms when looking for places to stay.

For unique accommodations, I find that AirBnb is the best place to search. We’ve stayed in some very cool places through Airbnb, like our favorite rental in Scotland. 

If you’re working on a tight budget, hostels are always a smart way to save money. In some hostels, you can book a private room that feels very similar to a hotel and that offers much more privacy than a dorm style room.

To give you an idea of how much it costs to stay in a hotel in Italy, here are some of our actual hotel prices when we visited in September. 

Our Hotel Costs in Italy

Florence: €83/night – Hotel Caravaggio

Fié allo Sciliar, Dolomites:  €59/night – Huberhof Agriturismo

Riomaggiore, Cinque Terre: €81/night – Viadeibanchi 

Ortisei, The Dolomites: €97/night – Garni Dolomitenblick

Naples:  €74/night – Vecchia Napoli Apartment

Rome:  €54/night – B&B Drago D’oro

Venice:  €59/night – (I don’t recommend where we stayed so I won’t be mentioning it, but just know there are budget options in Venice if you’re trying to save money.)

*We normally don’t stay anywhere with less than a 3 star rating unless it’s all that we can find in our budget.

Cutting Costs on Food

While food in Italy is not as expensive as I assumed it would be, three sit-down meals a day can really add up, especially for two people and in tourist areas. 

You can cut down on food costs in a few easy ways and still get to experience the mouth-watering food Italy is known for.

In some towns, we ate out at every meal because the food wasn’t very expensive. In others, we bought breakfast and lunch items at the grocery store and only ate dinner out. You can spend as much or as little as you want on food, really.

Here are the numbers of what we spent per day on food while traveling Italy on a budget. This includes our morning espresso, meals, snacks, and gelato 😋.

Naples: 36€/day

Rome: 49€/day

Florence: 42€/day

Cinque Terre: 38€/day

Dolomites: 34€/day (we bought groceries and had snacky lunches while on the road in our rental car.)

Make It A Picnic

Our go-to way to save money on food while we travel is picnic lunches! 

We hit the local grocery store or local market, pick up some bread, meat, cheese, and drinks then find a great spot to enjoy our destination.

Pick up some adult beverages, and you’ve got yourself quite a little picnic!

I find that not only is this a way to save some money, but I think it’s very fun to wander around grocery stores when I travel and see what I recognize or what is entirely new to me.

Check the Cover Charge

When you do sit down for a meal, be sure to check the ‘coperto’, or the cover charge for the table. 

It’s very common for restaurants to include a small charge for your table, usually 2-3 euros. Just note this when looking for a place to eat, it’s usually listed on the bottom of the menu.

Coperto is something that most sit-down restaurants do, so there is no need to go scouring the streets for the restaurant that won’t charge you an extra €2. It’s just something to be aware of!

Get Savvy and Eat on the Go

Share an entree and order an appetizer or two to keep the cost a bit lower, and if you’re looking to have a drink, order a local glass of wine. Wine in Italy is abundant, and the local stuff is very affordable!

We also grabbed to-go snacks or meals pretty often to save time and money. It’s easy to find focaccia, a panini, or a fritto cone (fried snacks or seafood, yum!) just about anywhere for a quick lunch or snack.

Be Picky About Tourist Attractions

You will need to decide what you believe is ‘worth it’ when you’re figuring out your stops for the day. 

Not a museum person? Here’s permission to not go to the museum. Just decide for yourself what you want to and don’t want to see and spend money on. It’s your vacation, you get to decide what you want it to be!

Some famous or popular tourist attractions are that way for a reason, because they are a truly spectacular experience. Others are famous simply because they have always been that way.

I recommend doing a bit of research ahead of time to make your own conclusions! 

Here is the cost breakdown of what we spent on tourist attractions and activities while traveling Italy on a budget:

The Vatican Museum:  €17/per person

Colosseum:  €16/per person

The David:  €16/per person

Scooter Rental Cinque Terre: €51/day

Seceda Cable Car:  €35/per person

Find Free Activities & Walking Tours

Wherever you go in Italy, there will always be free activities to take part in as a way to save money. 

If you’re near the beach, spend the day enjoying all that comes along with the coast and the water. If you’re in a city, find a free walking tour online (self-guided or led) and learn about the history, culture, and architecture. 

Some museums or tourist attractions offer discount days or holiday specials. For example, the Colosseum in Rome is free to visit on the first Sunday of every month.

We’ve found that almost anywhere, if you get out and start walking, you’re bound to find something interesting to do or see! You can always ask the locals and 

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How To Get Around Italy On a Budget

Traveling by Train in Italy

One of the easiest ways to get to and fro in Italy is by train. Their rail system can take you just about anywhere you want to go and the train times are abundant. 

Italy’s train system is extensive, and it will even take you to places that used to be much more remote, like the train that connects all five towns of the Cinque Terre!

Don’t expect Italy’s trains to always be punctual, but they tend to be pretty good. Only a few times did we run into a late or canceled train while traveling for 3 weeks in Italy by train.

Seeing Italy by train is a great way to get around, and with the faster high-speed trains that offer service from most major cities, it’s quick and comfortable. 

Trenitalia is Italy’s largest provider, with Italo being another popular system you’ll see.

One of the best things about traveling in Italy by train is that it’s convenient! You can purchase tickets online, arrive at the station, and hop right on to your train. Then, once aboard, you can sit back and relax, maybe even take a nap or watch a movie. 

Think about how long it takes just to get to the airport, drop of your luggage, get through security, etc. Train travel tends to be much less of a hassle, in my opinion, especially if you’re traveling within the country.

Is Traveling Italy by Train Affordable? 

Yes! Of course, ticket prices vary based on the itinerary, but they tend to be a very affordable way to travel around what is a relatively large country. 

The high speed train from Rome to Florence costs €20 and only takes about 1.5hrs traveling at 189mph!

Tip: purchase your tickets in advance online if you know where you’ll be headed and when you’ll be leaving. You’re likely to save some money this way.

Bus Travel in Italy

An even more budget alternative to taking a train in Italy is hopping on a bus to get where you’re going. 

That being said, the bus system in Italy, mostly serviced by Flixbus as there is no national bus service, is not nearly as extensive as the train system. 

Buses are advantageous for getting around in areas like Tuscany or the Dolomites that aren’t served as well by the train system.

We spent a few days in the small town of Montaione in Tuscany, and we had to take a combination of trains and buses to get there. We ended up taking a bus from Florence to Castelfiorentino, then a bus on to Montaione because there was no direct train service. 

When we made our way from Cinque Terre to Ortisei in the Dolomites, we took multiple trains to end up in Bolzano, then a bus to get further up into the mountains.

Is Traveling by Bus in Italy Budget Friendly?

Certainly! While taking a bus to get from point A to point B while in Italy isn’t always the most efficient method, it is certainly affordable. Because there is no national bus service, you may have to search around to find the best routes and prices. 

If you’re looking to travel Italy on a tight budget, buses will be your friend!

Flying to Get Around Italy

While you can certainly find cheap flights from the major cities like Milan or Rome, and it can be a time saver to fly long distances in Italy, it isn’t the fastest or easiest way to travel. 

Flying within Italy to get around can be used as a piece of your travel itinerary when it’s advantageous, like if you’re going from one end of the country to the other. Otherwise, I recommend using the trains. 

Is it Affordable to Travel Around Italy by Plane?

Unlike back home in the U.S. where I’m from, traveling by plane in Europe can actually be budget friendly. This makes traveling in Italy on a budget a bit easier.

If you’re looking for flight deals, always check Skyscanner and Google Flights. 

Plus, check out the budget airlines that fly in Italy like ITA Airways, Ryanair, and Vueling to name a few! (You can find these flights listed on Google Flights but it can pay to check their websites as well.)

The Best Places In Italy to Travel on a Budget

Surprisingly, large cities in Italy like Rome and Milan can actually be pretty budget friendly and offer enough options to allow you to stay in whatever budget you decide on.

From our personal experience, we found Naples and Rome to be affordable and have lots of options for people trying to travel Italy on a budget. 

We also kept to our budget in Florence, though we spent a bit more on food here because we could tell that the city had a great culinary scene. 

There are destinations in Italy that are primarily focused on catering to tourists, so you can expect prices to be higher there, whereas in the big city, prices are also influenced by the locals. You will also have a larger variety of options in a larger city.

We decided to visit Cinque Terre, which is a very popular tourist destination, but we were still able to keep it within our budget by being a bit savvy with a lot of the tips mentioned above.

There are some areas that tend to be more expensive to visit for whatever reasons, like the Dolomites or the Amalfi Coast.

I hope this guide helps you plan your next trip so you can travel Italy on a budget that works for you!