purchasing Freccia train tickets in advance

The sooner you purchase tickets, the less expensive they are. Prices rise as seats sell out so buy your tickets as soon as you can. If I'm not mistaken, the Carta Freccia is only available to Italian citizens so you'll have to pay a full adult fare for your daughter. I'd also buy second class tickets as well. The trains in Italy are great.

I suggest purchasing your tickets as soon as you know your dates and destinations. The English Trenitalia site is at http://www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en
I used this site a couple of years ago for round trip tickets from Rome to Naples and Rome to Florence and it was very easy to use Sorry, not sure about a card for young person/student discounts, I didn't see that on the Trenitalia site. Rail Europe offers special pricing on their Eurail passes for youth, but the cheapest one for 3 days of travel within a month in Italy is $144. That doesn't include if you have to pay to make a reservation. You may be better off paying just for the tickets that you need.

Thanks so much for your information!

You can use the Trenitalia site in Italian, just click on the zbritish flag icon (pull down flags menu at top right of homepage).

Not sure if the Italian youth pass is restricted to EU residents. You can ask questions (in English) on the website.

Just to be clear, prices don't "go up", they are set when schedules are published. The cheapest tickets (super economy, no changes, cancellations or refunds) sell out fast, so you will pay more the longer you wait.

Along with the trenitalia site you can check out their competitor, Italotreno. They offer great prices and have new trains. Their site is easier to use though they don't have as many routes as trenitalia.

http://www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en

http://www.italotreno.it/en

For trenitalia you can purchase tickets up to 120 days in advance. The earlier you buy the more likely you are to get the super economy priced tickets. After the super economy tickets are gone you'll pay the economy price and finally the base price. Be sure to understand the terms for the super economy and economy tickets. Super economy tickets are non-refundable and non-changeable. Economy tickets can be changed but I believe you must do that at the station and no later than an hour prior to the trip (though I could be wrong on these timings). If you do change an economy ticket you'll pay the difference between it's cost and the cost of a base priced ticket.

Donna

Unless you are a large group that needs to stay together in the same train carriage, the only real reason to purchase in advance is to save money. However, you really need to sit down and weigh the cost savings against the loss of flexibility. On the Venice to Florence route, super economy versus full-fare will save you about €20 but you lose the ability to change your ticket or get any refund. Who knows, you may not even be able to purchase super economy tickets for your desired train at this late date because the seats are pretty limited.

BTW - the only train I ever saw even close to being full was a Sunday night "last train to Milano from Venice" and it even had seats available. That's not saying you might not encounter a full train but if you are traveling between the major tourist areas, there are trains almost every hour early morning through late evening.

If flexibility and the "what if" factor are more important to you, just purchase walk-up tickets. Just make sure you have a Chip & PIN credit card and that you know the PIN so you can make your purchases from the kiosks. (FYI - I ran across more than one small train station that had no attended ticket window and ONLY had kiosks...)