A Trip to Italy

Part 1 of 2
Charmy and I love to travel. We try to take at least two, 10 day international trips every year. The question we are always asked is, "how can you afford it?" There are a couple of things that play into how we are able to get around as much as we do. Simply put they are that: 1. travel is our big discretionary budget item, and 2. we travel inexpensively!

The most important piece of that equation is that travel is what we spend our money on. We do not have the trendy new clothes, or this or that new gadget. We buy airplane tickets, hotel rooms and adventure with our money. We also try to be smart with our money and time when we are abroad. I know, cheap travel has already been talked about...stay in a hostel, pack your lunch (which happens to be your only meal for the day), don't drink alcohol, fly in the cargo hold, etc, etc, etc... Cheap travel, in my mind, leads to a cheap experience. Inexpensive travel doesn't have to be cheap.

A case in point.

Our fall trip of 2008, Italy. Notice I used the word "fall", as in the time of year. Guess what, flights cost 30% to 50% less than during the summer, there are fewer tourists, hotels and B&B's are running specials and the wonder of the Christmas season is in full swing. Most people I know who go to Italy tell me how hot the summer is, how bad the crowds are in Rome, but that the Italian Riviera was beautiful. We never stand in line, the weather is usually cool, and the Cinque Terra is amazing all year!

On this adventure we were heading to Florence, the center of the Renaissance. With a little bit of planning, and by signing up for automatic ticket price updates from Kayak.com, we booked our flights into Florence for roughly $700 per person (including taxes and fees). This is always the most expensive single item to any trip. We all know the tips to get better pricing, leave and return in the middle of the week, look at flights with connections and try to book 15 to 30 days prior to your travels. Routinely checking on prices also helps and letting the internet and email do the work for you makes this easy.

As is our custom, we always do research prior to our departure. We are not the “plan every minute” type of people. Rather we know the big things we want to see and find out the most cost effective way to do it, and then leave the rest of the trip to chance. Most of the time this works. Our arrival in Florence was right on time. On this trip we traveled with some friends and their son, 5 people in all. We had read in Rick Steves that we should take the bus from the airport to the city as it was the most cost effective. We promptly asked someone where we could locate the bus to take us to Piazza della Repubblica. The man looked at the five of us and told us it would cost €28 for us to take the bus and that a cab was €25. We asked where his taxi was….he didn’t drive a taxi…memory no. 1 in Florence!

€25 and 15 adrenaline filled minutes later we were dropped off in front of our housing for the week. This is the most important place to spend time planning a trip. While housing is where you spend the least amount of your time, you wind up coloring the stories of your travels based upon the cleanliness of the place you slept. The food could have been bad, the weather horrible, the people unfriendly, but that all is forgotten if you stay at the Ritz. If a cockroach is your bedmate, the rest of the experience doesn’t matter. I surf the web looking for value. Most of the time I don’t find value on sites that are in English. The translate button in the Google toolbar has been a lifesaver. However, we were able to find wonderful accommodations on Florenceby.com and stayed at the Picaro Inn Bed and Breakfast which is in walking distance of all the major sights in Florence. Our off season rates was €273 per room for 8 nights. A major win.

Part of our philosophy on travel is that you should always plan on going back, to a town, a city, or a country. It is impossible to adequately experience or fully appreciate somewhere without dedicating some time. It also has become evident that taking time to sit and sip an espresso, or three, for an hour is an important part of immersing yourself in where you are at. Leaving your trip mostly unplanned gives you the flexibility to live a little and be spontaneous. Generally we have found that it also is less expensive. An amazing night at Il Latini justified our commitment to living in the moment, stepping out of our comfort zone and seeing what happens.

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Continued in part 2.