What comes first: flight or hotel?

Whitney, stay calm and do what generally everyone else does, book FIRST, study the Band B's or Hotels policy regarding cancellation. Once youve done your due dilegence and read all your Rick Steves guidebooks and others, you may find you've found a better lodging situation. Use Tripadvisor wisely and this will also help. Sorry for the typing, lost my I-pad for a few days.

I always book my flight first b/c until then I really don't know for sure what date I'll be somewhere. But there's no harm in booking B&B's as long as you can cancel or change dates with no penalty. Thing is, say you book into a B&B and then turns out you won't be there the days you booked, so you ask to change dates but those days are booked by others by then... it's a gamble either way.

Agree with others, book flight first, then hotel or B&B. Be sure to check their cancellation policy as stated.

I often reserve the hotels first. I just make sure to know the cancellation policy like others have said. I have never had to cancel yet luckily.

Unfortunately, the airfare is not likely to be going down much, if you're leaving from Edmonton. If you can live with the possibility of losing a deposit on the B&B that you really like, then book it and keep an eye on your fares. One thing that you may consider: price the ticket from Toronto or Montreal, using Transat's direct flights to Italy. Transat does offer round-trip and open-jaws to both Rome and Venice. Then you can consider flying domestic to YYZ or YUL using points. Just be aware that if you split your ticket, you do run into some risks. We've saved a lot on airfare to Italy (2008) and France (2010) with Transat; and we already have our tickets to Ireland booked with them for next year. All that we needed to pay now was the $200pp deposit. Do check out the Air Transat website for next year's fares.

Well I always cage this a bit but...I figure out my itinerary first. Two nights here, one night there etc. Then I e-mail my favorite B&B. Availability? Maybe I spend one night less in Rome due to availability for an extra night in Venice with Florence in between. You can usually reserve a B&B this far ahead of time (although my place in Florence books up 9 months out). Then I book my flight (and I frankly am doing this planning a good 6 months out). Personally I've found that getting a good central B&B or a charming place in the countryside adds more to my overall experience than worrying about a modest (or even not so modest) price difference in my airfare. Nothing ruins a trip more than rotten accommodations when you're jet lagged, tired etc. Three nights in a cozy B&B vs a chain hotel.... Finally, you'll always find a place to stay be it in the burbs. My eldest son is a fly by the seat of the pants guy - his wife not so much. Guess who wins that one - lol.

We go to Europe every summer for a month and while there take a RS tour. We book our tour and then decide how we want to allocate the rest of our time. Once we get that all together, then we book wherever we are going to be staying and finally we buy our airline tickets. The tour and accommodations are usually flexible for dates and refunds, not so the airline tickets - at least not that we can afford. Been doing this the last 10 years with no major problems.

whitney, I usually prefer to book flights first, and then everything else after that. One exception is RS tours, which I sometimes book first. I'd suggest watching the prices for a month or so, as there should still be lots of time to book accommodations in January (or later). Using Air Transat is certainly one option to save money, however they have a somewhat "limited" number of destinations from Edmonton. One possibility would be to use Air Transat return flights to LGW, and then EasyJet flights to connect LGW with VCE and FCO. You'll have to check the schedules to see if the timing works for you. Regarding accommodations, there are lots of good suggestions in the Italy 2013 Guidebook (available now). That will help you to choose places that fit your criteria and price range. I normally try to pre-book lodgings for travel in September, as that's the "fall shoulder season" and Italy can be very busy! As you're planning to rent a car in Florence, it would be a VERY good idea to do some research on the dreaded Zona Traffico Limitato areas, as expensive tickets will result if you pass through those. Florence is one of the most heavily covered with ZTL Cameras. NOTE that each driver will also require the compulsory International Driver's Permit, which is used in conjunction with your home D.L. Failure to produce an I.D.P. if requested may result in fines on the spot! You may also want to consider packing along a GPS unit, along with a good Map. Good luck with your planning!

I normally buy the airline ticket first, but in your case, I think it's wise to book those special places you know you want to stay first, since they may fill up fast. If you have internet access while you're in Italy, you can check availability for those nights that you haven't booked in advance on booking.com or some other booking service (even if you don't use them for the reservation, they're good research tools). That way you can book a room for the next day and not waste time looking for a place.

whitney, Unless you are on very long vacations, the dates and the general flow of your itinerary will be constrained by your flights. That being said, if you are keen on one or more lodging option, and they allow online reservation with no-fee full-refund cancellation, nothing precludes you reserving lodging before transportation

Many people can only travel within the restricted framework of a specific week or two off from work. If that is your situation and you know that you will be departing and returning on specific weekends (and at specific airports), I see no harm in booking your lodgings first since you essentially already know your itinerary and dates. All you're really doing with airfare is sitting still, hoping they will come down, but not changing your dates or destination. HOWEVER, if in the process of desiring better airfare, you would consider multiple cities, airports, dates and days of the week to get the best deal (as I do), then you really have no idea what your dates or itinerary are until you get the flights locked in. In this situation it would be irresponsible to book a lodging no matter what their cancellation policy. As an innkeeper, I would consider it rude to have a room reserved simply to lock anyone else from getting it on the off chance that you might be able to use it yourselves. You should be at least 98% certain that you are going to show up if you book. Our family has somewhat restricted lodging needs, so I generally book them 4-6 months ahead of time, but that's only possible because I always book our flights 6-8 months ahead of time. Only once in six trips have I not wound up with the cheapest available airfare for that destination and date (I monitor prices even after I buy to learn what to expect in the future). The days of late-season fire sales to fill empty seats are pretty much over.

Thanks all for the great feedback and advice!

Hotel first.

Whitney, I usually get our flights first but I also usually buy them early because we live in a small town and the connections aren't very good. (Our 2 airlines know they have us "trapped" so our airfare only goes up. I start researching a year in advance.) This year though, I knew I wanted to stay at one particular hotel, so reserved that for 3 nights. As it turned out, I found airfare for 2 days earlier at $300 less, so just found a different hotel in the same city for those 2 nights. It all depends on how flexible you can be.

I do the flight first. Your flight is the most expensive single piece of your trip. Staying flexible on your dates, airports, etc. is the best way to net a good price. I normally shop for a couple of months before buying my plane ticket, then buy about two months before the trip. Once I've booked the flight, I'll book hotels for the start and end of my trip (first stay on arrival, last stay before departure) right away. The rest I book on the road from a list of possible places I compile at home. As you can tell, I don't stress about staying at a particular place. If the lodging is clean and quiet, I'm happy. If the trip depends on staying at the places you like, book them early and know their cancelation policy.

I do flights first because airfare is much more liable to vary in price dramatically. At $750, I might consider a week in Japan, but at $1,500 I will hold off. On the other hand, I always know that I will be able to get a place to stay in Japan, or wherever, for a reasonable rate and personally I am OK with basically any place that is near transit, has a door that locks, and is bug free if it really comes down to that. I don't need to stay in fancy hotels to have a good time, so that takes a back seat to getting the right price.

I usually book the flights first. However if you can cancel accommodations w/o penalty it doesn't really matter what you do first or second. When you book rental cars in Florence, don't rent from the airport. Renting downtown is always cheaper.
Regarding the ZTL in Florence, don't worry. All or nearly all rental car companies downtown are located in the via Borgognissanti/via Finiguerra intersection area, which is just (barely) outside the ZTL. As you can imagine the rental car companies, which have always been there, lobbied the City very heavily in the 1980's to keep the area outside the ZTL and the politicians duly complied (I'm sure in exchange for some "contributions"). Just make sure to drive west on via Borgognissanti when you get the car (borgognissanti is a one way street so you won't have any other choice unless you love head on collisions with other cars). The company will also give you a map to return the car to the location. There is only one itinerary possible, so don't worry.

Roberto, Your political twist about ZTLs in Firenze is just false. The first neighborhood-wide ZTLs in Italy were instated in November 1989 in Bologna and somewhere in 1990 in Roma. So your random politic bashing is, in this case, factually wrong.

@ Andre L from the Netherlands. The ZTL was instituted in Florence in 1988 (I said the 1980's, therefore I'm very correct). In fact I was still living there when it happened and I remember very well because I was actually working for the City of Florence. Since I moved to the US in October 1988, obviously I would not have remembered if it had happened later. There was plenty of political upheaval by the merchants in the areas which were first included in it because they feared that they would lose business once cars weren't allowed. The then City Assessor to the Traffic (Mr. Cioni was his name) who instituted it was the object of numerous complaints If you knew Italian you could have googled it and found out for yourself before writing your senseless uncorroborated rant. Here, this is the first piece that came up on Google (read bottom two paragraphs) http://www.anvup.it/firenze.html and this is an article about it dated February 27, 1988, that's when the initial experiment became definitive: http://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1988/02/27/firenze-allarga-la-zona-blu.html The article itself mentions the disagreement of some merchants' associations and trade groups. Who did you say was factually wrong?

September is a popular month, but flights and rooms are available year round. You're a little early to be purchasing flights right now. When flight prices are so high, waiting until Summer could payoff in lower fares. Chances are prices are at an all time high. Easter, 2012: We started our trip in Florence (via Pisa Airport) for a long weekend. Then, we picked up a rental car and moved 20 miles to a agriturismo outside San Gim. for a week. Day trips to Siena, Volterra, Pisa, San Gim and many other places (including Venice) can be made from Chianti. We loved Orvieto, and dropped our rental car there; taking a 1 hr. train into Rome. We stayed in a B&B 20 miles south of Rome and took a train daily into the city. We also found many sights in the suburbs that are essentially overlooked by most tourists. Venere.com, Hotels.com and AirBnB.com are popular websites to book Italian rooms. Virtually every 20 acre farm in Tuscany has rooms (agriturismos), and many are listed on Craigslist and other websites. Just Google "agriturismo" And the farms get absolutely incredible customer evaluations. For a trip that's so rich in history, agriculture, culture and art, we prefer to take it slowly. That's why we try to stay 4-5 days in each place and limit ourselves to 3-4 places in 2 weeks. At $9.50 per gallon, you just cannot see everything. And in agritursimo's, we even cook our own food which saves money.