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UPDATE (6-28-18):

Part 2: Wandering through the Vatican is now done! Check it out!

UPDATE (6-29-18):

Part 3: Weekend in Florence!

UPDATE (7-2-18):

Part 4: Hiking in the Cinque Terre

Enjoy

Flights

It took us 3 plane rides to get into Italy, which was far from ideal. It made for a long day and a half of travel that ended with an 8 hour flight into Fiumicino from Newark. We would have preferred to fly direct, but it was the cheapest option.

How we got around

We used public transportation the entire trip. Rome has a pass called the Roma pass that allows you to use the metro and buses for 48 to 72 hours (we did the 72 hour pass) and also allows you to get into two attractions for free. We used our two free attractions on going inside the Colosseum and the Castel Sant Angelo.

Rome

We started our trip in Rome and spent 3.5 days there. We got into Rome about 1 pm and into our apartment around 4 pm local time. Luckily, we weren’t jet lagged and were able to spend the evening around the Colosseum.

The Colosseum at dusk is beautiful! We walked around in awe of how massive and pretty this structure was. The best part about going to the Colosseum at dusk is that it isn’t as crowded as it normally is.

Our next day in Rome we went to the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon. We planned on spending this day in the middle of the city and because of that, we saw and did a lot. The common theme we had between seeing all of these buildings was that everything seemed so much bigger in person. We just couldn’t believe how big everything was. Pictures don’t do justice to the size of these massive buildings.

Day 3 in Rome was spent almost entirely in the Vatican city. We had bought skip-the-line passes to see the Vatican Museum that included the Sistine Chapel. The amount of art and sculpture in these museums is incredible. There were countless times where all we could say was: ‘wow’.

The Sistine Chapel, unfortunately, wasn’t as enjoyable as the other parts of the museum. We felt rushed to get in and out by the staff and it was so jam packed full of people, we were constantly having to try to stay close to each other. Don’t get me wrong, the art was incredible and is a must-see. Hopefully our experience was just bad and others don’t feel the same way we do.

The next day in Rome was our last full day. We spent the morning going inside the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. The afternoon we went inside the Castel Sant Angelo and tried to make it in time to see the Basilica San Giovanni, but weren’t able to make inside. We also made another night trip to the Trevi Fountain in hope that there would be less crowd (we were wrong).

Rome Recap

Rome is an incredible city with so much to see. We felt we did a pretty good job of trying to squeeze everything we could into the 3.5 days we had there, but there was still plenty we didn’t see. We felt that we could have spent the entire trip in Rome and still had plenty to do and see at the end of it.

Florence

Shortly after checking out of our airbnb in Rome, we caught a bullet train to Florence. We checked into our airbnb after a stressful bus ride with all of our luggage on a very small bus, and headed to the Galleria dell’Accademia. We had bought skip the line passes beforehand, but the line didn’t look very long without it. This was a smaller museum that featured the Statue of David.

Once again, we were amazed at how big this statue was. Pictures certainly don’t do it justice. That same evening we went to the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Flower (also the Duomo) and walked around the outside of this massive church.

Getting around in Florence was usually easy because everything was pretty close to each other. Our airbnb was somewhat out of the way, but we could still walk to most everything with 15 minutes. Because of that we were able to see most everything that we had wanted to see that first night, including the Condotta and the outside of the Uffizi gallery.

The next day was our last full day in Florence. We started it off by hiking up close by where our airbnb was to a lookout point. This was probably one of my favorite parts of Florence just because it was such a great view of the city. We found a cute church nearby this lookout point and spent some time exploring in there before heading back down. Back in the city, we went inside the Duomo, which wasn’t quite as impressive as the outside, but still very pretty. We also walked over the Ponte Vecchio, which had a bunch of high end jewelry shops.

Every first Sunday of the month, Florence allows people to enter into museums for free. We took advantage of this by going into the Pitti Palace, which also included the Galleria Palantina.

Florence Recap

Florence is a very pretty city with some amazing things to see. We all felt that we didn’t know what else we would have done in Florence and felt that the almost 2 days we spent there were more than enough.

La Spezia and the Cinque Terre

We took another train through Italy to a town called La Spezia. La Spezia is a port town on the west Coast of Italy. We didn’t spend much time in La Spezia, but the time we did spend there we really enjoyed it. We basically used La Spezia as a springboard to go to the five towns in the national park called the Cinque Terre. The first night there, we went to a town called Riomaggiore and spent most of the time just staring at the sunset and the ocean.

The next few days we spent hoping in between the 5 towns and even hiking from one town to the other along the coastline which is more cliff than actual coast. The scenery is beautiful there and the ocean makes it even better. We found that some of the towns were more crowded than others. For example, when we were in Riomaggiore and Vernazza, the crowds were almost too much, but in Monterosso al mare and Manarola we felt much less claustrophobic.

We were able to spend a little time on the beach and in the ocean. The beach in Monterosso al mare is probably the closest thing to sand, but still is very rocky and can hurt your feet. The water was pretty cold, but was enjoyable after getting used to it.

Cinque Terre Recap

It was really nice that we were able to spend our last days in the Cinque Terre. It was definitely a change of pace from Rome and Florence, but in a good way. We loved being able to see the ocean and the beautiful scenery that the Cinque Terre had to offer!

On the way home

We had another 3 flights to get home, but this time we had a large gap in between our flight from Rome to New York, so we decided to spend the night there and the morning exploring the 9/11 memorial before we headed out. I got sick on the way back and so it was really miserable for me. Being sick on a flight is probably one of the worst places to be.

Final Thoughts

We had an incredible trip! We definitely felt that we could have used more time, but felt happy with what we had and what we were able to do with it. Italy is such a beautiful country and the people are so friendly. Everything about our trip made me really want to go back to Italy soon.

If you would like to hear more about certain things about our trip, let us know!

Italy has always been towards the top of my bucket list. There is something about ancient cities and sites that really appeal to me, so being able to see structures that are upwards of 2000 years old is going to be pretty amazing.

When it comes to traveling, we are mostly exposed to the highlights of peoples’ vacations: the photos, the videos, the stories, etc. But we don’t always know what kind of work goes into planning it. We in the Fund Family, however, like to keep it real. Which is why we are not only going to share the highlights, but also the behind-the-scenes planning that is going into this trip. Hopefully this will be enlightening to aspiring travelers as to how you can save money and make those dream vacations a realistic option. That being said, we are still learning! So if you have any tips and tricks that we don’t share, let us know in the comments below!

Trip Overview:

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let’s talk about the background:

Date: Early May

Length: 10 days (including 2 travel days)

Cities to Visit: Rome, Florence, Cinque Terre

Flight Details:

Outbound: SLC > SFO > EWR (NYC) > FCO (Rome).

Inbound: FCO > EWR (NYC), JFK > LAX > SLC

Transportation in Italy: Public transit, trains, walking

Budget: ~$2,600

Planning the Trip

This trip has actually been in the works for over a year. We were originally planning on going to Italy last April-ish (2017), but then Carlee and I found out we were having a baby and we thought that it would be best if we didn’t spend all that money on a vacation and instead save it for the new baby. But the stars aligned, the idea never died, and here we are about a year later finally getting to go on that trip! We didn’t think we could make the trip this soon, but we’ve worked hard and have been very blessed to be in a situation to be able to go. It also helps to be finally graduating from my Masters Program, so now I have an excuse to go! We are also planning on bringing our babies with us, which is an exciting, but also a little nerve racking thought. A lot of our plans and ideas are being made with this in mind. Because we are traveling with kids, we may not be able to vacation quite as hard as we would otherwise. But that’s ok! Hopefully we will learn a lot from it and make some awesome family memories.

Budgeting for the Trip

To be honest, it bothers me when I see those YouTube videos or articles telling people they can travel the world for $500. Maybe some people are crazy good at planning and making things work, but for us normal people, that is more of a dream than a reality. Our original goal for this trip was to do it for less than $2,000, but as we started planning what we actually wanted to do and see, we realized that it was going to be tough to make that goal. We are pretty happy about being able to do a 10-day international trip for about $2,600. Like I mentioned earlier though, we are still learning, so we know we could do better than this! So if you know tips and tricks, please enlighten us all and let us know!

Here is our budget breakdown:

When it comes to budgeting, I usually try to overestimate slightly, because I’d rather be under the budget than over, and overestimating helps me to accomplish that. It’s hard to know, however, what all the costs will be exactly. Food and public transportation are hard to estimate, so we just tried to make our best guess. Most of the budget items for any vacation are very dependent upon what you actually want to do. If you are the type that loves to visit as many museums and sites as possible, your tourism costs may go up. If you are visiting as many cities as possible while in a foreign country (which we have done before), then your transportation costs will go up. So just make sure before you plan a trip that you know what you want to get out of it, and try to budget accordingly.

Ideas to Cut Costs of Your Trip

If you take a look at the summary, you will see that the two largest costs are transportation and AirBnBs. I would assume that for most travelers, this will be the case. Flights are by far the biggest part of our budget. This will bring us to our first travel tip: Find the right flights! You’ll either make or break your vacation budget on the flight. Our flights ended up costing slightly more than our budget, but only by about $20. But for us, being able to fly our wives, babies, and ourselves to Italy for under $830 was an accomplishment. Here are some ways we were able to do that:

Research, Research, Research

This part of traveling is probably a turn-off for most. Who likes to spend hours doing research? Well, in all honesty, I don’t mind research when it’s for vacationing! But I can understand why some may not enjoy this as much. It takes work to find the right flights and places to stay. As far as I know, there is no magic way of doing this quickly when you are seeking to cut costs. We used things like Google Flights or Momondo.com to help us find out what dates and airlines tend to be the cheapest. You can also try and google low-cost airlines to figure out which ones are not only the cheapest, but also offer the best routes to your desired destination. Spend some time researching. It may be long and difficult, but it can pay off big.

Pick The Right Airport

Flying out bigger hubs like LAX or JFK can save you a lot of money. It’s not always easy to get there though, and we understand that. But if you are able to drive to one of those airports or even find a cheap flight there, it can be easier to fly with low-cost airlines and save a lot of money. For our trip, we are flying out of Newark cause that is where we could find the cheapest flights to Rome with the airline we chose.

Time Your Vacation Right

We’ve learned that in general, it’s best to avoid June – August, as this tends to be high-travel season and flights and accommodations are generally more expensive. We are traveling in early May because that is when I’ll be out of school, and that is also when things were generally cheaper. Christmas time can also get more expensive, since a lot of people are traveling for the holidays. When you are doing research, it should become obvious pretty quickly which months are the cheapest, and which months you should avoid.

Take Advantage of Credit Card Rewards

A huge thanks here to our friends at wallstreetminimalist.com for helping us learn a little bit more about travel hacking. For those who aren’t familiar with travel hacking, it’s basically taking advantage of credit card reward systems to be able to travel really cheaply. Thanks to their tips, we were able to sign up for a credit card that was super easy to earn 60,000 miles with. We used those miles to get free round-trip tickets to NYC, where we were able to get pretty cheap flights to Rome. Had we just flown out of SLC, we probably would’ve spent much, much more on flights. If you don’t have much of a credit history, like my wife, then start working on that so you can qualify for things like this! If you and your spouse (for those who are married) are able to qualify for things like this, that can save you even more money than it saved us.

Pack Light

This can be tough, and we are interested to see how this goes with traveling with our baby, but if you can avoid checking bags, you can save hundreds of dollars. In fact, by choosing to do carryons only, I think we saved around $300. To make this work, it’s important to pick the right AirBnB or accommodations so that you can have some way of washing your clothes. This way, you can pack less. Packing less is nice for more than just the money though. The less you pack, the less you have to haul around going from city to city.

Looking Forward

Hopefully the nitty-gritty of the planning and budgeting didn’t bore you too much. If you are nerds like us, then you love this kind of stuff. I’m always trying to find ways to travel inexpensively and save money. I always wished that there were more comprehensive resources for finding the information on these kinds of things. It seems like I have to visit a 101 websites to find the right stuff. Hopefully we can help solve this problem as we continue to share our knowledge and experience with everybody!

So now we are about 7 weeks away from our trip. We have planned almost everything out, and most things are paid for. We are still finalizing a few trip details, but we will keep you posted on those for sure! Keep an eye out for our travel posts! We are excited to share more about the experiences when it actually happens, including tips for traveling with kids. Until then it’s the home stretch for me in school. I’ll be trying to focus on studying when all I can really think about is our trip to Italy!