Take the Damn Trip!

For about as long as I can remember, Bryan and I have talked about wanting to go to Europe - Italy in particular. Like many of us, we've always come up with an excuse: We don't have the time, don't have the money, etc. In spring of 2018, just about everyone we knew was headed to Europe, because flights were so cheap.....and about half of those people were going to Italy. With all of the conversation we were having with everyone about when and where they were going, it got us SO excited and jealous, so finally we said we just need to take the damn trip!

The planner in me got to work. In order to make it happen, I wanted to make sure we could save enough money to do what we wanted to do. My first order of business was to order travel books - because why not?! In the process of thinking about this trip, I decided we should also go to Greece. That has also been high on my bucket list and in the grand scheme of things, it's not that far from Italy. So, I asked my friends for their Italy budgets, and I started reading about the various areas in each country to figure out what we wanted to see most and could actually make work.

Based on our interests, we were able to narrow down our trip to the spring of 2019, so we could try to catch a soccer game of Bryan's favorite team, and the following cities: In Greece, Santorini and Athens, in Italy; Rome, Florence and Turin (home of Juventus, Bryan's fave soccer team, and the first capitol of Italy). Now some of you are going to get all judgy here - why aren't you going to Venice, Amalfi, Mykonos, etc. But let's just clear something up - it's okay to not want to do the same thing as everyone else. We have always been the kind of people that want to combine the super touristy thing, with the off the beaten path option, so that's what you can expect with future posts about our trip!

Now, since this is our first international trip, clearly we're not experts. But I'm going to run through the things that we found helpful to make our trip easier to manage......and more affordable!

1. Travel books. I prefer Frommer's. I wanted to do some research on the countries we were visiting to make sure we really saw what was important to us. From that research, we decided Venice was not important to us, and Rome has too much to see, that it really needs to be it's own trip....so the cities we chose above were the route we were going. I like the Frommer's books because they tell you about every part of the country, not just the popular places. Many people like Rick Steves, and while I hear he's great for food recommendations, I didn't like his book because he didn't even mention some cities if they weren't his favorite. To me, I want to educate myself, not have someone else tell me what to see.

2. Sign up for Scott's Cheap Flights! When we signed up, it cost $40/year (it's now gone up) and with that, we could select which departure airports we wanted to fly out of. From there, ANY deal related to those airports, gets sent to our inbox. After a few weeks, I added the NYC airports to increase our deals....within days we had a deal RT to Athens from Newark for $400/person on Emirates airline. Get ourselves to Newark on points and we just scored a heck of a price....makes up for the subscription service for years to come.

3. Lodging. While reading about the various cities, we could also read about the neighborhoods and what sounded neat. Want to be near the tourist sites, or far enough away? The up and coming neighborhood? We looked at all of these things. Then we started searching hotels and AirBnb for the best prices. Compare everything....booking our hotel for Santorini directly on their website gave us 10% off and a complimentary airport pickup. The Turin hotel we found through our United credit card partners - great reviews, up and coming neighborhood and incredible price. Rome? We looked for great reviews and close to the action. It's more than we planned to spend, but it's one night. And if we show them the Rick Steves book, we can get 10% off. Florence and Athens? We're in AirBnbs for these two. We wanted a SuperHost with great reviews and loved the look of the homes. We booked them EARLY because we knew they would be gone, and both are under budget. Add to it, the neighborhoods they are in are off the beaten path enough to give us a better vibe of the cities.

4. Tours. Some things require tours, some things are just easier to book them. With one day in Rome, we needed to do a skip the line option for the Colosseum. We knew we wanted to wine tour in Tuscany but knew the cost and logistics of doing it on our own might be a nightmare. Enter Viator. You'll pay a premium versus if you waited in line or did things on your own, but to have peace of mind that you know you'll enter the Colosseum on time is worth it to us. In total, we have five tours we booked. We planned the days and bought them all at once. By being a first time customer, we also saved 10% on the total purchase price. You can either print the voucher, or use your app when you arrive for the tour. This is where Rick Steves also WILL come in handy. He has several walking tours where you can download the map and audio for free!

5. TripIt. I love this app. I have used it for work for years, and started using it for our personal use also. This has been extra helpful since we're booking everything on our own, not through a tour or travel agent. As soon as you get any travel confirmation, forward the email to TripIt and they load it all into one itinerary for you. I can share that with our families so they know where we are, dig into it to find our confirmation codes for an activity, or see what travel arrangements we still need to book. Plus, it has a countdown to do the math for us. :)

6. All of the accessories! We want to pack light and easy. We have free checked bags with our flights, but we want the option to carry on and not lug a suitcase, so we ordered some great backpacks that can also double as camping packs! Of course, you should also plan for a universal charger, ours has tons of USB plug ins which is helpful these days. And as much as we wanted to deny it, we ordered the hidden money belts that will hide our personal belongings so we don't get pick-pocketed. You can't beat hands free anyway! Since we're going to the greatest wine country in the world (in my opinion) we needed to plan for the great wine. I found wine skins online for under $3/piece. Just wrap up the bottle and it should survive the trip! However, wine is still heavy.....so at the last minute we also purchased a portable luggage scale. This thing is so light and easy to use, it will be great to make sure we haven't exceeded our luggage limit!

What are your favorite travel hacks? I know as we get moving along on this trip, we'll come up with so many more ideas to make our lives easier. But I must say, for our first overseas trip, I'm pretty proud of our creativity to make it an unforgettable one! Thanks for following our journey....my next post will be all about our first day in Italy!!!!