One Week Until Italy: Travel Budget Woes :(

Your concerns are certainly well founded. It can be done but you better plan on eating lots of pizza and pasta. Resturants are not cheap. Breakfast can be done really cheap and lunch can be pretty inexpensive too. But dinner is the high cost meal. In a good resturant you can easily spend $100 Euros for 2. So just watch the price of the menus before you go into a place. There are less expenseive places that are good but you just have to watch yourself. The good news is that 'house' wine is cheap and better than most $20 bottles of wine in the states. Also, it does cost you to get into places so you better take look at the places you plan on visiting and see how much it costs to get into museums and the like. Your travel plans do look great. Very jealous here!

Unless you plan to get all your food at supermarkets, and not to see any paid attractions, and not to take any local transit, your 30 euro per day budget will be almost impossible; 50 euros will be more doable. A quick look on-line shows that the Colosseum is €15.50 and the Vatican Museum is €15; a 72 hour transit card for Venice is €35 and a three day pass for Rome's local transit is €16.50. While you can reduce your food costs (to some extent), you don't want to skip the things that make your trip worthwhile in the first place (like the Vatican). And walking everywhere just to save money will get old, fast (you will walk a lot in Venice and Rome even with transit passes, but you won't enjoy having to walk everywhere).

Does this include your lodging and train fare?

oops

Obviously if you can readily budget 100 E/day for the two of you, that makes things easier. But I disagree with the discouraging comments about 60E/day for two. It depends on your interests and priorities. You could pick one costly admission/day (museum or day excursion, etc), and spend the rest of the day exploring at low- or no-cost. If you want formal restaurant dinners, you will have to be very careful. But I find there are so many more intersting things to do... I hate spending hours in a restaurant when I could be exploring. How about being prepared for 100/day but trying to stick to 60/day; that will allow splurge days, without the whole trip being a spending spree. And you'll probably end up spending somewhere in the middle.

I concur with Tom & Harald. Up your budget to 50 Eu/person day, and then you can relax and enjoy your trip. You might be underbudget anyway and that will be bonus when you get home. The supermarkets in Italy are full of fresh yummy produce, prosciutto, cheese, bread, fruit, wine; and sometimes you get tired of eating out all the time. So a few picnics not only save some Euros, they can end up being the most memorable meals (as in "Why can't we get this good stuff at home?")

As previous posters indicated, local public transportation and museum entrance fees can add up. In ref to eating, we try to do a picnic type lunch by purchasing bread, meats and cheese at the local market. Restaurants in Italy charge a "coperto" fee for each person at the table. This charge can range from 1.25 to 2.50 euros each. That, along with any drinks really increase the bill. Check, before you sit down, what the coperto charge is. My other suggestion is to not have drinks unless, of course, you're splurging that night. You can always buy wine and beer at the market for your room. I like to pack a foldable, insulated cooler along with a wine bottle opener, plastic cutting board, plastic utensils, and a serrated knife (for check in luggage only, of course). Sometimes we'll even have a picnic dinner. Hope this helps. Have a great trip.

I think the spread of responses shows your answer. If having most of your meals as picnics and stuff bought from groceries will work for you, your lower budget will work. If you planned on going to restaurants (where, as Denise pointed out, it costs just to sit down), it won't. I go to restaurants, so that informed my answer. My sister didn't (much), so she spent much less money in Italy than I did. Plan accordingly.

I think 50 Euros/person/day is closer to reality, but it all depends on what you look for in travel. You will need to avoid service restaurants, but that is pretty easy. Grabbing a sandwich or other quick food is easy and reasonably priced. Getting stuff from the corner grocery or fruit stands is even cheaper (and healthier probably). As for visiting sites; On the one hand, that's why you are there so treat yourself to some big ticket sites if they interest you. On the other hand, you can spend a lot of time in Europe seeing great stuff that's free. We have spent many days in Europe spending virtually nothing on entrance fees. It costrs nothing to take an infinite number of great digital photos. Assuming you have credit, however, there should be no need to fear literally running out of money. Spend what you have to to make the experience worthwhile, then pay off any debt ASAP when you get home. Have a great trip!

Some friends just got back from Italy and they said it's gotten very expensive. With the PIGS...Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain close to financial ruin, inflation is running high. You will have to really watch your pennies and make sure you have some backup funds. Not to scare you off, but it's like doing a remodel on a house, it always costs more than you expect! Eating from the supermarkets/ i.e., picnics will be the best way to stretch your euros. you have to decide which museums or sights that you have to see, and skip some of the others to save money. Gelato is not cheap! Even a really basic panini can run you $5-7 in a cafe. 50E sounds more like it...better to have more than you need. Some days will just cost you more, and you'll save some euro on others to make up for it.

Elle, sounds tight, but I've worked with similar budgets. I'd say 50 euro would be rock bottom if you plan to go to any museums or archeological sites. Look into passes for the sites you want to see (the Roma Pass is good and includes local transportation for 3 days, 30 euro; first two sites are free and the rest are discounted). As for inflation, I returned from 3 months in Italy last month and I spent less per day in some places than I thought I would - restaurants were cheaper (at least some of them), and everyone was happy to see the euro being escorted home by visitors.

I agree with the others who have suggested upping your budget to 50 euros each per day. I just got back from Verona, Italy, and also got 3 days in Florence earlier this year. Inflation is keeping prices high, but you can still find cheap places to eat. You will have to look down side streets (I'm sure you know that!), but that's part of the fun, isn't it?
And I know gelato isn't a really necessary item- but it's nice to have some. We found that while many places didn't advertise it, you can get a single scoop for about 1.25 euros.

I found eating cheap in Venice harder then Rome or Florence, so of course eat as cheap as you can in those two cities so that you have a bit more for Venice.
Don't cheap out by missing sites, you would regret that, eating a sandwich instead of a sitdown meal will be forgotten whereas missing the Vatican or Coleseum may always bug you .

I found a great pizza-by-the-slice place near my hotel in Venice (Frari Church area). I'm not a big eater. My hotel rate includes a generous breakfast. Mid-day I may stop somewhere for a quick meal, hamburger, or sandwich. There are small cafes that serve plates of pastafilling and not bad. Brek, near the train station, is a deli-style place. An entire meal there cost me about 10Eu. If you want a "dining experience" it will no doubt cost more. Most days I have at least one gelato. In Sorrento I like to eat outside at the Tourist Club (no kidding, that's the name) and have a light meal. Great view. Not expensive.