Milan to Venice...

Milan Central (Milano Centrale) train station has near-hourly service, early morning until late evening, to Venice Santa Lucia (Venezia S. Lucia) train station via high speed trains. If I remember right, the trip takes about 2.5 hours. You can look at schedules on the www.trenitalia.com web site. It's important to use the Italian, not anglicized, names names, however.

The Italo train line probably also provides service between Milan and Venice but I've only ever used it between Florence and Venice.

This is about an easy as any connection ever gets.

All the details are well documented in your Rick Steves guidebook, which you surely have...no?

One thing to consider is how early you buy the tickets. If you can commit to taking a train at a certain hour on a certain day, and you are fairly sure that won't change, then buying the tickets as early as you can (90 days?) will give you the best price on the fast trains. The cheap seats tend to sell out closer to the departure date. Sometimes people fly in and are connecting to a train, so there's that uncertainty to worry about. But if you are staying over in Milan the night before, you can probably commit to a train early.

You can buy tickets online on Trenitalia's or Italo's website or with www.trainline.eu (both, should be same price). You can also buy them on your smart phone. If you won't have a phone you can print your tickets out ahead of time and take them with you; otherwise, you can download the tickets (PDFs) to your phone and show them to a conductor.

It's also possible to take regional trains from Milan to Venice. They take longer and will probably require a change somewhere. The only reason to do this would be to not need to commit to a time of travel. (I took regional trains from Venice to the Italian Riviera last year and changed in Milan, because I didn't have a committed schedule.) Regional trains cost the same day of travel as if booked way ahead of time. They probably cost more than the big discounts you can get on the fast trains booked ahead of time. I wouldn't take a regional train if you can commit to the fast train ahead of time and save the money buying in advance.

The faster trains “Frecciarossa” are mostly rides where you will not need to switch to a different train along the route. If you have heavy luggage (that would be a really bad idea in Venice), it’s much easier to not switch trains. I see on Trenitalia, that the Regionale train routes switch to a different train at either Verona or Bologna train stations. The Verona train station is smaller, so it will probably be less walking between lines in the station.

The only reason to do this would be to not need to commit to a time of travel.

I'm not sure I understand this sentence.

If you don't want to commit to a time of travel enter Milano Centrale station , look up which high speed train is leaving first on the Departures black board , head to the relevant automatic machine, buy a ticket and get on the right train.

Why wasting vacation time on a Regionale train when high speed tickets can be purchased up to 15 minutes before the scheduled departure hour?

For those who find the price of 45 EUR for a Base fare excessive.

Why wasting vacation time on a Regionale train when high speed tickets can be purchased up to 15 minutes before the scheduled departure hour?

To save money? Believe it or not, some of us do care about that.

If you can afford the higher priced fast train, do it. This is no place to cut corners. Time = money. Spend the money to save the time.

Michael, this is purely a personal preference. We can all weigh our own decisions about saving money vs. saving time.

To save money? Believe it or not, some of us do care about that.

So the reason I quoted above wouldn't be the only one.

Again - saving money vs. saving time is a personal preference. Who cares what your preference is? Why are you guys continuing to argue about this? it's irrelevant. There is a forum for "Money Saving Tips" if you really want to debate this there.

I simply explained this option about regional trains to the OP. I'm sorry it seems to offend some of you.

I would just urge anyone traveling to or from a not-large city to really look at the travel times and fares, rather than automatically gravitating to an itinerary that includes a Freccia train. If one is buying tickets near the date of travel, it is not at all uncommon for a mixed Freccia-regional routing to take about as long as a regional-regional routing and cost far more. The Freccia trains are very fast but (obviously) don't stop at very many places. You can give back the entire speed advantage as you cool your heels at the transfer point, waiting for a regional train that will actually stop at your destination city, and you're still stuck paying the relatively high Freccia fare.

Hello,
I use a site called Loco2.com that was suggested by another user on this forum. You can create a acct for free - its very user friendly- gives you all trains from Italo and Trenitalia- Freccia and Regional- and does not mark up the prices/ I think its much easier to use than Trenitalia or Italos websites.

Happy Travels✨💫