Budget for trip to Italy

I too have budgeting issues. So I just see the popular travel sights and charge everything I can on my charge card and deal with it when I get home.
I would think $50 to $75 per day would be sufficient unless you're a foodie. The guides on the free tours are excellent and they work and live off tips so you should allow enough to pay them.

Budgets depend on how you like to travel. You have about $300/day, which seems generous, but if your wine purchasing/shipping costs come out of that, and you are paying for a private tour every few days, it adds up.

All you can do is project expenses - 6 bottles of wine @€30 each or €90 each? 12 bottles?

Tours at €100-300 each, or tours offered by the sights themselves at €10-50 each?

Food expenses are always the most flexible item, but in ten days I think you'll want several "splurge" meals.

Good luck. Couple comments--I've taken 3 trips to Italy, all in the last 7 years, and through experience have learned to spend less per diem on each successive trip. If you are in any way proficient on Excel, use that. I got our costs right down to the nuts in advance on that.

First thing--don't think you need to eat three square meals a day out at restaurants--you may explode. If your hotel has a breakfast available, take advantage of that. For our apartment in Rome, we bought fruit, cheese, prosciutto, bread, pastries & coffee for our breakfast and loved it. Lunch is usually a 'take away' panini or kebab, or sometimes a sit-down place, splitting a pizza & insalata if the legs are tired. Then after a nap, a nice dinner makes the day quite worthwhile. So, one full meal per day. And...staying away from the tourist traps allowed us to never, ever spend more than 40 Euro/per person on that meal, including wine & dessert.

RE: shipping wine (or in our case limoncello cream) home--a good rule of thumb is 15-20 Euro/bottle just for shipping charges--that's what it cost in Sorrento, maybe a little more than that in 2010 to ship wine home from Chianti, although the dollar didn't buy nearly as much in those days. Although these bottles are great Xmas presents for family & friends, it can get very pricey!

Enjoy your (financial) planning!

Have you researched whether you can get comparably good Italian wines here in the US? The world is so globalized now, I'd be hard pressed to feel like having wine shipped from overseas is worthwhile. Wholesalers already do that at a fraction of a price you'll pay, so just find a retailer that carries nice Italian wines. I made a mistake once of having some really obscure French wine shipped and it took forever and cost a fortune.

$3,000 over 10 days just for food, entertainment, etc. seems like a very generous amount. Tours would be the most expensive component because you're paying for labor costs. Budgeting just requires a simple Excel spreadsheet...put in the known costs (like tour prices you intend to take that you can look up beforehand) and estimates for unknown costs like shopping items and meals.

By the way, are you asking about how to budget because you plan on taking $3,000 in cash there (or EUR equivalent)? There is no need to do that at all. Just use a credit card and cash only for small incidentals (when credit cards are not accepted). You don't need to guess your exact expenses beforehand.

Some really smart advice above, Crista!

First thing--don't think you need to eat three square meals a day out
at restaurants--you may explode. If your hotel has a breakfast
available, take advantage of that.

That's exactly the strategy we use. All of our Italian hotels thus far (and we don't stay in posh, 5-star places) have included breakfast in the tariff, and the offerings are usually plenty to hold us over for most of the day. At most we'll have a snack in the mid-to-early afternoon and then an early dinner: 1 full meal a day. All the restaurants post prices outside their front doors so you can check to see how much meal might cost before committing.

Have you researched whether you can get comparably good Italian wines
here in the US? The world is so globalized now, I'd be hard pressed to
feel like having wine shipped from overseas is worthwhile.

I'd agree with this as well. There are so many good Italian wines available right here at home that we couldn't justify the small fortune it would cost to have a bunch shipped.

Tours: how many do you really need? Good guidebooks often include self-guided walking tours, and Mr. Steves has some audioguides which can be downloaded to your devices for free (no you don't need wifi to listen to use them on your trip):

https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/audio/audio-tours/italy

Some more expensive tours can have their advantages - such as accessing the Vatican Museums/Sistine a little before general ticket holders are allowed in - and there are some attractions/parts of attractions you can't access at all without a tour. That said, we haven't felt the need so far to book much for tours at all. I probably will someday if wanting a "deep dive" on a particular subject.

Prepayments: this is also a good way to get some of the costs out of the way before you go. The busiest, most popular attractions can have very long ticket queues, and purchasing tickets IN ADVANCE not only helps to get around those but will free up the available funds you'll have on your trip. Some examples would be the Uffizi and Accademia in Florence, the Vatican Museums, Galleria Borghese (pre-reservations are MANDATORY for that one) and the Colosseum/Forum/Palatine in Rome. If you know you want a specific tour of any of these, you can book/pay for those in advance too.

Terrific bargains: many, many of the churches are fantastic art museums in-and-of themselves, and almost all of them are either free or cost very little to see. Architecture? Equally fantastic and free for the price of a walk-by.

Shopping: there's really no way to tell you whether your $300 (which I think is very generous) will stretch as it depends on what you intend to buy. A few baubles to take home? No problem. A pair of Ferragamo shoes? Different story. Our own shopping is limited to a few inexpensive items and books from our favorite attractions so we can read in-depth about them later, and use for future reference if fuzzy on some details. I also loan them out to friends to use for research prior to their own trips.

Tracking costs: I keep a running record on just a word or saved email document of what has been spent before the trip. While we're there, we keep all receipts and take stock of them at the end of the day. I haven't found it difficult not to overspend as I'm frugal (not cheap; there's a difference) by nature! :O)

I want to emphasize that shipping wine home, which may be emotionally desirable, is almost certainly not going to be fiscally prudent. A few bottles so you can enjoy your Italian memories on New Year's Eve or whenever--great. More than that is really not a good idea. You'll probably end up paying at least 2 or 3 times what the wine would have cost you in the US, possibly much more. And your trip is short. How much time do you want to spend arranging to have wine shipped?

Otherwise, your budget should be beyond generous unless you plan to hire private guides to take you around solo, which isn't necessary unless you have extremely unusual interests.

If you think you may be tempted to buy high-end goods, check out what the same or equivalent items would cost in the US so you'll know whether it's sensible to buy them overseas and go to the trouble of either carrying them around with you or having them shipped home.

And maybe I'm in the minority here, but my system doesn't work well with just a cornetto and caffe in the morning when in Italy. I need something a little more substantial, and I don't want to overeat at lunch. I remember on our first trip to Florence, the Hotel Tornabuoni had quite a nice Americanized spread--eggs, sausage and whatnot, and while I felt a little guilty not taking part in a true Italian breakfast...hey, man, I needed fuel.

As I said upthread, shopping for fruit, pastries, meats, cheeses, and strong black Italian coffee but American-style in a cup using a Melitta plastic cone, pouring hot water through a filter, was the way I did it this year and will do in the future.

$300 per day for food, admissions/tours and trinkets should be more than ample.( as you used the 1st person singular, I assume the budget is just for you)

Shipping wine back is probably not a good idea and poor investment/use of $$.

Before I went to Italy for the 1st time, a transplanted Italian in the travel business advised against shipping wine home and suggested going to the local wine store.

Thank you all for the great advice and tips! My hotels do include breakfast so all good there. Plus, I'm not a 3 meal a day person, breakfast and a decent dinner works for me. I will want a few "splurge" meals, but that surely isn't a daily necessity. I'm a bit of a shopaholic, but, I can say no to the cute shoes if they are ridiculously out of budget. I have 2 tours booked, a half day wine tour, and a bus tour from Rome to Pompeii. I don't think I'll need to book other tours as it sounds like there are enough free guide downloads here, and I understand that the churches and architecture alone are well worth viewing, and that doesn't cost money. It sounds like there will plenty for me to see and do just walking around the cities. As for wine, I'm convinced now that it's not worth the money to ship a few bottles that can likely be found here in the US, although I still may buy 1 or 2 and bubblewrap them up in my luggage really good.

Thanks all!! I really appreciate the help! This is a great forum. I wish I had found it sooner.

You've already received a ton of good advice. Let me just add one thing about shipping wine. I have both brought back bottles in my checked luggage as well as had a case shipped home. The ONLY time I bother with either option is if this is a wine that is really good and not exported to the United States.

For example, I shipped home a case of wine from a small winery in Chianti. Did it cost a lot? Yes. Was it a great gift? Oh, yeah. Is this wine available in the US? No. So I considered that a win.

As far as what I bring home in my suitcase, I only bring home what's not available in the US. On our last European trip, I also lucked out and found a small, local winery that shared my grandmother's name. I didn't even bother to taste the wine since there wasn't time. I just said, I'll take a bottle. Thanks!

There are wine sleeves with bubble type wrap inside that you can order if you plan to bring back wine. I always take three empty ones, just in case I find something great on my travels. Despite the fact that these are supposed to be leakproof, I always double wrap them. I'd hate to wash red wine out of all my clothes when I return.

This also means I always check a bag on the way home.

Thanks for the tip! I agree, if the wine was that good and not available for purchase here, then yes, I could justify shipping costs. Hopefully I'll discover great wine that is also available in the US. I will also look into the sealable wine bubble wrap padded carriers, just in case. Thanks!!!

If you want something you can't get in the US to bring home, at Rome's Campo de' Fiori market they shrink-wrap bulk spice blends for travel. Fantastic stuff--we got a normal Italian blend, then some carbonara, puttanesca & Amatriciana blends. Don't get the already-packaged ones. Have the guy make up the bags from the bins right in front of you. The customs man in Chicago & I had a laugh when he saw what I brought back--he knew how good it was!

With two people and wise packing, you can bring back a dozen bottles (6 per carry on size bag, checked of course) I would limit it to just the best wines. As for other advice, do not skimp on your food budget, plan for a good meal every day, breakfast can be a caffe and a pastry, Lunches can be pizza or a picnic of meats and cheeses and bread, but do a multi-course meal in a good restaurant as often as possible.

An average multicourse meal at a sit down restaurant in the cities you mention is about 30euro ($35) including wine. Prices (and portions) don't change from lunch to dinner, and nearly all restaurants serve food a la carte (nothing extra is included with a dish, side dishes are separate).
If you are willing to eat on the go at lunch (like a sandwich, pizza, etc.) you can get away with half that amount or less.
Breakfast in Italy consists of a cappuccino and a pastry, but most hotels include it with the price of the room. But if not included a cappuccino and a pastry is just 3 or 4 euro at most. So 50 euro a day for food is probably sufficient for a woman.
Museums are not expensive in Italy. The Uffizi is 8 euro, Vatican museum 16 euro, Doge's palace 13 euro. So assuming you hit two places in a day, you should stay under 25 euro a day on average (especially because some days you'll be traveling, therefore not going to any museums). Budget also 25 euro for drinks/snacks during the day/evening.
100euro is $120. So for food+drinks+entertainment I'd budget $150 a day ($1500 for 10 days) just to be comfortable in case you want to splurge.
Shopping is hard to budget as it could be potentially limitedless.