Absolute essential info for Italy

You can, but you don't have to display the e-ticket on Trenitalia's high speed trains. You could write your PNR code and seat numbers on the back of your hand and the conductors wouldn't bat an eyelid. Incidentally, if you needed internet on an high speed train to show your ticket, you'd just connect to the complimentary wifi on board.

You need to show the QR codes of local trains' tickets, but you can take a screen-shot and save them in a folder on your phone.

Take a screenshot of the confirmation from Trenitalia. You don’t need wifi to look at photos on your phone. The confirmation has a PNR that you can use to retrieve your tickets from a machine at the station.

The PNR code is the ticket on high speed trains, and you can directly take a screenshot of the QR code when travelling on the slow local trains.

The take-away is the same whether you tattoo your Facebook password inside your eyelid or write your ticket number on the back of your hand: simply having a digital record somewhere is not enough. Thanks for posting, Paul-of-the-Frozen-North.

Yes, the screenshot is the solution, but I have yet to get my A51 Galaxy to actually take one. I know the key sequence, but it will not cooperate.

you have to push the two buttons at the same time

Yes, I know about the 2 buttons.

In fairness to trenitalia, they also produce .pdf files which can be downloaded and solve the very problem that I mention - you don't need to be online to view a .pdf file stored in the download location (which you need to find before you need it).

But the larger point is that getting online in public places requires info that is usually kept in your password locker so that you do not need to remember it.

I have been using wifi all over the World and never go into facebook when traveling. Also, I don't have a google account.

We we check into a hotel, we are provided with a password to access its wifi.

I just don't understand why I wold have to use facebook or google?

geovagriffith, I think that Paul is mentioning FB and Google because that's how he logged in. But you are correct - you do not need to log in using FB or Google if you create your own log-in using your email or user ID.

I never log in with FB or Google - I don't like giving them access to my various accounts.

For years I've carried a 3x5 card cheatsheet with my passwords on it. The actual sites they belong to are cleverly concealed...sometimes so clever that I can't remember what I meant, lol. That has led me to go thru the password list (stashed in my money belt) the week before a trip to make sure I remember what is what, lol.

I try to just create accounts too instead of signing in with FB or Google.

Thanks for the heads up Paul....I've screenshot all my museum admission tickets. Only will have 2 train segments which I'll buy at the time (Malpensa to Milan and Milan to Varenna).

I never log in with FB or Google - I don't like giving them access to my various accounts.

Same for me

Also - if you somehow have access to the cell network in the country you are in (either with a package from your US provider, via a local SIM, or an eSIM), you don't have to worry about accessing Wifi either.

Paul, thanks for the post, it's a good reminder for those who use Facebook to log in to accounts. But seems like the title is unnecessarily broad and alarmist. For most travelers to Italy, the info is not only not 'absolutely essential', it's not even relevant. Can you change the title to something like 'A reminder for those who use Facebook to log in to accounts'.?

I don’t have a Facebook account. But for many many years I have looked at Facebook twice a day. After crossing the Dumbarton Bridge coming from home in the morning, and on the way home in the evening. Now you can only look at Meta. Facebook is not there anymore.

This is not a quirk of Italy - but of the internet as a whole. Oftentimes if you create an account on X website using Facebook or Google login, then you forever must log in using those methods and they will not accept a username or password