Are hotel reservations needed in Italy in early June?

I suspect you will have 'some' options, but 'plenty', is not what I would expect.

Where you are will certainly be a factor in what selection will be available.

FWIW, our daughter and her family are spending 3 weeks in Lucca in Tuscany. They visited Pisa the other day and she told us Pisa was insanely crowded. And this is only early May. That's not to say that where you are going will be insanely crowded, but it could be an indication . . .

I agree with the previous poster who suggests you might have "some" options but not "plenty". Personally, I just can't travel that way, but that is me. I need to know where I am spending the night.

We were in Sorrento a couple of weeks ago and it was abnormally busy. Two of the guides we used says tourist season usually doesn't open until May but they'd been going nonstop since March.

Because I like to have plenty of choices, I booked our accommodations last September right after I bought our airline tickets. I got lots of options and saved money as well. We leave in 44 days!🤩

You will likely not have very many options and may end up spending far more than you wanted just to have a roof over your head.

Many folks haven't been across the pond since 2019, so demand for Europe this summer is predicated to be quite robust. Folks here have been reporting lodging is in short supply and expensive. Are you feeling lucky???

Thank you, everyone! So appreciate all of your input. It's definitely clear that I need to reserve our hotels in advance!

It will depend a lot on where you are going in Italy, but just because a place “looks” busy with lots of people walking around doesn’t mean you won’t be able to find accommodations. This week is a very busy week in Italy because it’s May and last Monday May 1 was a holiday. It’s early Friday morning in Italy now, and a random search on Booking in Florence for a stay this weekend (checking in today and checking out on Sunday) yielded almost 200 hotels with vacancies. I did the exact same for Venice and 160 choices popped up. On Easter week last month, another very busy time, I had to find a hotel in Florence on that day, and there were plenty of choices.

So even the busiest tourist destinations in possibly one of the busiest weekends of the year will have accommodations available on the same day. Obviously the longer you wait the less plentiful the choices.

With so many people making online bookings 1 or 2 days before--on top of all the folks who want the absolute best-value places and book way ahead--folks looking for same-day rooms may have to settle for places more expensive than desired or less centrally located. Sometimes you'll catch a cancellation; that will work better if you aren't staying long. I haven't looked for day-of-arrival rooms since 2015 (it didn't go well), and now often book 3 or 4 days ahead for cities I expect to be "easy". I would never risk that in Venice, Florence, Rome, the lakes or the Dolomites. Ditto on a weeknight in a big business destination like Milan, Turin or Bologna.

2nd June is a public holiday "Festa della Repubblica" and since it's a Friday it'll be a long weekend until 4th June. I would expect it to be very difficult to find accommodation for those dates last minute.

We are in Italy this week. Rome was very busy, it might be busy all the time but early May was busy, Florence is very busy as I write, I would get on it and plan accommodations.