Family trip to Italy

Welcome!

It is much easier to fly IN to Venice than out of so usually better to start your trip in Venice and end in Rome.

Have you looked at flights yet?

10 days- does that include travel days?
Count your trip in NIGHTS on the ground in Italy- so do you have 10 nights or 9 nights?
With that short of a trip - do no more than 3 locations.
Rome should have 4 nights, Venice should have 3.

Where exactly in southern Italy are you thinking of?

Train will be your simplest mode of travel in Italy.

Do you have a good guide book?
If not here is a starting point til you get a guide book

https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/italy

Get your teens involved in the planning.

What month?
What do you mean by southern Italy?
Guide books should be first stop!

Unless you’re timing your days to go to a festival or concert, it is easier to begin in Venice.

www.trenitalia.com
Venice-to-Rome takes four hours on the fastest direct train. “Venezia S. Lucia” & “Roma Termini”
Venice to Salerno takes six hours on the fastest direct route.
If you’re thinking the Amalfi Coast as southern Italy, the distance between Rome & Salerno” takes two hours on the fastest direct train. You can day trip from Salerno or better yet, take a ferry over to stay in Amalfi or similar.

Fly into Venice, fly out of Rome. That’s a multi-city airline ticket - not two 1-way tickets.

How many days in each? Two days will be 1 1/2 or less of actual time because of transportation time between locations. For these three locations, I would do
3 -Venice
4-Amalfi (one day pretty much wasted getting there)
3-Rome

If you’re thinking maybe just two days in Venice which would be a jet lag arrival day and a second day, I wouldn’t bother. People who loved Venice usually are the ones who stayed there three days or more.

Guidebooks, TripAdivsor, etc. will give you a good reference of things you might want to do from the long list of possibilities. (Paestum is a quick train ride from Salerno and is a very impressive Greek temple site.)

I am going in July, date isn’t set, likely the third week. I am starting the trip in southern Italy because I need to end it in Venice. I have to be in Switzerland by August 1st, for a wedding .

I want to go to Capri for a day. And Positano or Salerno? Definitely to Rome from there then end in Venice before heading to Switzerland.

I am going in July, date isn’t set, likely the third week. I am starting the trip in southern Italy because I need to end it in Venice. I have to be in Switzerland by August 1st, for a wedding .
I want to go to Capri for a day. And Positano or Salerno? Definitely to Rome from there then end in Venice before heading to Switzerland.

It is pretty tight but it is "doable," though I would consider scaling back a bit--it will be very hot. And moving teens around is not something I envy.
First, decide how much time you wish to spend in Rome and Venice, then you can work backward. I personally would want at least three nights for both Rome and Venice (that is just the bare minimum to give you two full days). That gives you four for the Amalfi region, which is okay but travel time may eat into it a fair amount.
If you can fly into Naples, that would be ideal, but Rome is not terrible far.
Read through some of the many Amalfi Coast posts here to get a sense of typical itineraries, then you can tailor your trip to exactly what you want.

Where in Switzerland is the wedding? You pretty much need to get to Milan for trains to Switzerland, unless you route the long way through Austria. But even going through Milan, it makes for a pretty long day if you start from Venice in the morning—-unless your destination is around Luzern, or close to Brig.

Can you possibly add more days for Italy?

Thanks for all the tips. Yes, I can add days to my trip. My girls are used to traveling, so being teenagers isn’t a problem. We will fly from Venice to Zurich on August 1st. I was planning on beginning the trip by flying into Naples. Thanks again for all the input. I have started planning the trip backwards as someone mentioned. :)