I am finding one way flights from US to Venice and Rome to US terribly expensive (ie less $$ to fly round trip from either US to Venice or US to Rome vs. one way US to Venice and one way back from Rome to US) in the late Sept/early October timeframe. Any recommendations on how to travel to these two great cities without spending tons of time on a train? We are interested in also seeing Florence, Sienna/Tuscany and maybe Cinque Terre if transportation route works - willing to hear of other sites to include in our travel. Would prefer rail (not renting a car). Any logistical recommendations would be appreciated ..... ie start here, go here and there etc!
Posted by
Gettysburg PA
7277 posts
Are you searching for open jaw/multi-city?- usually under Advanced Search option- and not just 2 one way tickets?
A multi city ticket is rarely more than 2 one ways.
If you tell us where you are flying from we can probably help.
Usually best to fly IN to Venice, out of Rome for starters. That's because it's a bit of a pain to get to VCE for early flights although a lot of the flights to US now leave later in day.
And Venice is an easier entry to Italy- nice place to get over jet lag.
Posted by
Phoenix🌵
3105 posts
You don't need to buy one-way tickets. Fly "open jaw", also called Multi-City on airline websites. You can fly into Venice and home from Rome. Price is about the same as round trip in and out of the same city. Trains in Italy are fast and inexpensive. But I have not been to Tuscany and CT so can't comment on those. Look at Trenitalia website to get an idea of cost and times.
Posted by
Edmonds, WA 🌨 ☂
12002 posts
How long do you plan to be there?
Hard to make suggestions about what to include in your travels, not knowing how much time is available
Posted by
NorthCarolina
1095 posts
Fly into Venice and out of Rome. We always book MULTI-CITY tickets when traveling to Europe - we always fly in and out of different towns or countries. Instead of choosing Round Trip or One Way - use the MultICity option instead.
Read the Rick Steves book - EUROPE THROUGH THE BACK DOOR - sometimes cheaper on Amazon - it goes over tons of amazing info like MulitCity Flights, No Foreign Transaction Credit Cards, how to get money out of ATMs with a Debit Card, etc - we re-read it every time we go.
Posted by
OP
27 posts
Thank you to those who suggested the Multi-city option ... didn't understand what that feature was!! We are looking at spending at least 2 weeks in Italy ... flying in from Midwest.
Posted by
Southeastern US
2645 posts
psullsp, the multi-city option will be a game changer for you :-)
Posted by
California USA
4125 posts
If you do find a significantly lower price for a RT ticket like we have in the past, fly in to that city, usually Rome for us, and head to your furthest destination by train that day. We then work ourselves back to our departure city and spend a few days there before flying home. If you find a multi city ticket to be not much more than RT, choose that option for even better efficiency.
Posted by
11647 posts
We always use multi-city on our trips.
Posted by
119 posts
I bought the tickets like 9 months ago, but it was a lot cheaper for me to fly from O'hare to London to Milan, and then fly direct from Rome back to O'hare. We then took the train to Venice the day we flew in and have worked our way down to Rome now.
Posted by
Edmonds, WA 🌨 ☂
12002 posts
You can use the 'itinerary' here -- https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/italy/venice-florence-rome -- to get ideas of how/what a Venice-Florence-Siena/Tuscany- Rome trip could look like.
Trying to include Cinque Terre would necessitate having more than 2 weeks available