Travel in Italy

With that amount of travel you'll spend a ton on train tickets. I would cut out half of your trip if you wish to save money.

Donna

You have listed 11 places you plan to visit. How long will your trip be?

If you were concerned about budget travel options in the height of the European summer you would have done some planning before now.

Yes, the budget way to travel is to book cheap advance-purchase rail tickets 3 months in advance. All the cheap rail tickets for end July/August will have gone by now. Full fare rail tickets for Italy (see www.trenitalia.com ) are not that bad, but Venice --> Innsbruck --> Salzburg --> Vienna will cost.
The same applies to hotels. Booking this late all the cheap ones will be full.
You need to start booking NOW.

You haven't said wher you are flying into, where you are flying out of or how long you are going for, but I hope you are keeping to the golden rule "at least 2 nights in every location".

I think it's fine to ask the question, but more info would be helpful: how many nights do you have, do you want budget options for lodging, food, travel (a bit late to get good savings on tickets, but trains and buses are inexpensive in Italy). How much of a budget are you talking about?

Hello! I'm flying into Naples and then follow the foresaid itinerary. I have a night each at Naples, Amalfi and Capri, then two nights at Rome, Florence, Venice, Innsbruck, Salzburg and Vienna. I have already made the bookings for accomodation and inland travel is my only concern.

Unfortunately that is a crazy schedule that you will have difficultly maintaining it. One night stands are killers. But if you are locked in to it, then have a go at it. Probably too late to save anything with a discount advance purchase train ticket. The Regional and Intercity trains will be cheaper than the high speed trains but will extend the time between locations. And bus options are even cheaper and slower. But if you have everything locked into place, then your travel options are very limited.

Trenitalia has 2-for-1 deals some weekends, you might get lucky with one of those fares. You can save some money on food costs by picnicking on the train, and eating at tavole calde instead of restaurants some of the time.

Although you have booked your accommodations, you can probably cancel some of them. I think you should see which ones you can cancel and then re-think your itinerary. As it stands your itinerary is madness. You are spending a lot of money to go ... would you not like to be able to see, enjoy and remember it all?

Yes, after hearing from all of you, I think it makes sense to tweak my itinerary to some extent. Thanks for all the suggestions! Cheers!

Merc,

Your proposed Itinerary is unrealistic and may not be possible to accomplish. Visiting 11 places in 15 days means that you'll have an average of about 1.4 days in each place, with no allowances for travel times which in some cases may be the better part of a day (especially in the south of Italy where transportation can be more challenging). For future reference, it would have been a good idea to establish a realistic Itinerary before booking accommodations. I suspect you're not going to be able to get to all the places on your list.

Once you've "tweaked" your Itinerary, post it here and I'm sure the group will be able to help you work out something more reasonable and achievable.

Ken, he is leaving in a week. I suspect he wasn't really interested in much tweaking of his schedule. He will learn. Our first couple of trips didn't go smoothly either.

Ken and Frank,
How about keeping all the places in my itinerary intact, but travelling during nights? Do you guys think it would solve the problem? Also it will help me save money on accomodation(at some places). Most of the bookings have already been paid for, but I have an option to cancel them with a refund by 21st!

PS:But this is subject to being able to find suitable means of transportation during night time.

This is getting crazier. With the advent of high speed day trains, the night trains are becoming a thing of the past. The fare for a night train, if available, could be almost as much a a good hostel. And most of those locations are not served by night trains. Unless you are just sitting in coach. Have you put any pins in the map and looked at where you are going? For someone leaving in a week, you haven't done much planning for local transportation unless you think it just happens. Amafi coast is an area and not a city. Why Capri? Riva?? Certainly would drop Riva and Venice. Those are in opposite directions. What, exactly, is your travel schedule - flights in and out and dates ???

Virtually no night trains in Italy.

Good luck.

Good Grief!! I am afraid you will be spending all your time on trains. How do you plan to actually see the cities?

I just got back from a 3 week trip in northern Italy and lamented the travel days because they are pretty much lost time. We travelled from Castelrotto to Varenna in one day (bus, train, train, train, taxi) and it was 8 hours. I enjoyed looking at the countryside, but not as much as I would feel it was time wasted to do it every day.

Mary

Merc,

"How about keeping all the places in my itinerary intact, but travelling during nights?"

You likely won't be travelling back and forth to Capri at night. As I recall, the boats shut down about supper time (although I haven't checked current schedules).

BOTTOM LINE - I'm not sure your plans are even feasible. Some locations will have to be cut (IMO). You could start with the "outliers" such as Capri, Riva del Garda (no rail service so only bus and boat transportation available), Pisa (not worth the effort with such a busy schedule) and possibly Innsbruck. I'd have to spend some time working on it, but since it's your trip the decisions on which places to visit will be yours.

Two final questions.....

• where are you flying from and is jet lag going to be a concern?
• Have you used public transit in Italy before? There are some potentially expensive "caveats" to be aware of, and if you're not paying attention the costs of your trip will climb steeply.

I'm flying into Naples on 23rd from Dusseldorf. I have my flight back to Dusseldorf on 6th from Vienna. This is the first time I'm visiting Italy.

I think this would be far more manageable (without Innsbruck sorry). After Rome, every second day is a travel day.
23 July Fly to Naples, immediately on to Sorrento for 3 nights - trips to Amalfi and Capri
26 July Rome for 3 nights (check out Naples on the way maybe)
29 July Florence for 2 nights
31 July Venice for 2 nights
02 Aug Salzburg for 2 nights
04 Aug Vienna for 2 nights
06 Aug Fly to Dusseldorf