How To Travel In Italy On A Budget And Avoid The Crowds

by Ashley Price, contributing travel writer

Italy is a country with an abundance of iconic history, beauty, and

most importantly, comfort food.

With only a week, my roommate and I were able to experience Venice, Florence, Pisa,

and Rome on levels deeper than the typical tourist experience thanks to tips from friends

and about a million travel sites.

Here is what I learned from my time in each city that made our travels both less expensive

and more enjoyable.

Venice (Saint Lucia)

Venice lives up to all expectations on its beauty.
With the main canal running right down the middle of the city, the rustic buildings, and cobblestone
streets, the city looks like a painting.

That being said, Venice was certainly the most touristy of the cities we visited
as far as food and gelato quality is concerned.
We were there for essentially 24 hours (an evening into the afternoon of the following day)
and that was plenty of time.
We stayed at an Airbnb near the Jewish Ghetto which was a great location.
Everything is walking distance (especially since there are no cars on the island!)
We decided not to do a gondola ride just because they’re pretty pricey (80€)
and the timing didn’t work out for us since the city doesn’t wake up until 11am.

Sites to see:

• St. Mark’s Basilica - the basilica was closed when we visited, but normally it’s free to the public.
  It’s also situated in a very pretty plaza on the water. 
• The Bridge of Sighs - walking distance from the basilica. The most famous bridge in Venice.
  Get there early! It gets ridiculously crowded later on in the day.
  My roommate and I got there around 9am and it was empty, but when we returned at 11 on our way back to our Airbnb it was a zoo. 
• Jewish Ghetto - every city we visited had one
  .
  It was just neat to see the Jewish side of the country’s history. 

Food:

I think the best pizza I had on my entire trip was from Osteria Nono Risorto in Venice.
It was no more than 10€ for a whole pizza. I got the ricotta and spinach. I still think about it.

Florence:

Florence is a stunning mid-size city and stole our hearts almost immediately.
We spent about 2.5 days in the city: Sunday evening - Wednesday morning with a half day in Pisa.
This was enough time for us to see all of the main attractions the city had to offer.
We stayed at an Airbnb on the opposite side of the river from the Duomo,
and we appreciated it because it was quieter and it gave us a chance to see other less-touristy parts of the city.

Sites to see:

• Uffizi Museum - this museum is HUGE! My roommate and I aren’t huge art people, and we spent 2.5hrs and felt rushed. Buy tickets ahead of time online. It’s a small fee, but totally worth it because you get to skip the enormous ticket line. Check out the Firenze card to see if it's a better deal than buying each museum entrance ticket separately. 
• L’accademia Museum - where David is. It’s a small museum. We spent about half an hour. Buy a ticket ahead of time to this too. 
• Leaning Tower of Pisa - it’s a one hour, 8 euro train ride to Pisa. A half day is all you need (especially if you don’t climb the tower). 
• Duomo - buy tickets ahead of time!! The lines are crazy here too. We climbed the Duomo, and highly recommend it because the view from the top is beautiful. The climb up is 400+ stairs, and is pretty narrow, so if you’re easily claustrophobic I’d be cautious. 
• Piazza Michelangelo - a beautiful view of the entirety of Florence. My roommate and I took sandwiches up there and had a picnic.
• Mercado Centrale - a cute open market with leather goods and other souvenirs. There is an indoor part as well with pasta, liquor, and other Italian foods.
• Ponte Vecchio - bridge in the center of the city with jewelry shops lining the edges of its entirety. Gets crowded the later you go. Florence wakes up around 8:30am.
• Giuliano Ricchi - local artisan that presses 1 euro coins and turns them into braceletsfor a total of 6 euros. His shop is difficult to find. It’s in Santo Spirito. You walk into a hallway that looks like an apartment building and ring the doorbell labeled “Cecchi”. After a few seconds, Giuliano will let you in through the gate to his shop. He only speaks Italian, but we were able to communicate with him through Spanish! He walked us around his shop and let us watch the whole euro pressing process. It was very cool and I got a unique souvenir! 

Food:

• Quattro Leoni - restaurant near Santo Spirito. Very tasty and not too expensive. I had their famous pear tortellini. 
• Berberé - good, inexpensive pizza. I had the pumpkin/mushroom and it was good. My roommate had the Margherita and said it was the best pizza sauce she had in all of Italy. 
• I Porci Comodi - cheap sandwiches in Pisa! Huge portions! Near the University of Pisa.
• All’Antico Vinao - hole in the wall sandwich place. SO GOOD. I ordered “no meat” and am still not entirely sure of everything that was on my sandwich, but it was delicious and vegetarian. 
• Restaurant in Santo Spirito - I forgot the name of it, but it’s in the piazza. It’s the one restaurant on the side with the bars. Very good spaghetti. 

Rome:

Rome is a large city that I compared slightly to New York City in size and energy.
It was really neat to see ancient ruins casually mixed in with the rest of the modern city.
Despite being so large, it was easily walkable! Nothing was more than 30 min from our Airbnb
in the Trastevere neighborhood.
Trastevere is a suburb on the Vatican side of the river which I highly recommend either staying
in or visiting because of its typical Italian charm and plethora of delicious restaurants.

**We did the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Trevi Fountain, and Spanish Steps all in one day,
and definitely recommend. We got to our last stop, the Spanish Steps, around 2:30.

Sites to see:

• Colosseum - buy tickets online in advance! We walked right in while hundreds of ticketless people stood in line under the Roman sun.Also, get there early because it gets crowded. We got there around 9:30, and it was already a zoo. Rome offers a few different museum pass options, you can check out here. 
• Roman Forum - right across the plaza from the Colosseum and the same ticket. It’s huge, and you’re able to walk around the forum itself as well as hike up onto Palatine Hill in order to look at the forum from above. 
• Trevi Fountain - walking distance from the Colosseum and Roman forum. It’s crowded but very pretty. We only spent about a half hour there to take pictures and throw a coin in the fountain. 
• Spanish Steps - walking distance from Trevi Fountain. Also very crowded but we were able to find a spot to sit and enjoy the sun. 
• Pantheon - free! We went for about half an hour. The painter Raphael is buried inside.
• Vatican City - we spent 3 hours in the Vatican Museum/Sistine Chapel because they are HUGE.We decided not to go into Saint Peter’s Basilica because it was an extra cost (20+ euros per person) and we were museum-ed out. 
• Piazza Navona - piazza with statues and street performers. Nice place to sit, but there are many people who will try to sell you stuff (selfie-sticks were a popular item)
• Campo de Fiori - cute piazza with an outdoor food market everyday until 3pm.

Food:

• Frigidarium - the BEST gelato in Italy. We went 3 times. For 2 euros they give you a small cone with 2 large scoops and the choice of having it dipped in white/milk chocolate or with whipped cream. 
• Grazie e Graziella - a cute restaurant in Trastevere. We each had an eggplant/zucchini/pepper pizza and they were delicious. 
• Pane e Salame - cheap sandwiches near the Trevi Fountain. One of the few places in Italy where we found poultry on the menu.

• Bread-in - sandwiches near Piazza Navona. Very tasty. I had the “Taxi Driver” which had salmon on it.

Bonus: Earn Up To 1,700 Miles On United

I love shopping portals! and you should too! Shopping portals give you FREE money or FREE miles for things you would purchase anyways. 

For example, I bought dog food yesterday. My dog has to eat, right? Well, that $80 purchase (my dog is on a special prescription diet, don't judge) puts me halfway to earning a bonus 500 miles. 

Right now, several portals are offering bonuses: 

Southwest and American - various spring special bonus offers for specific stores

United Shopping Portal Mix And Match Promotion - spend $150, earn 500 bonus miles, spend $300, earn 1,000 bonus miles. Offer ends 5/19. 

You can always check cashbackmonitor.com for an overview of all the programs. 


Plus the United Shopping Portal is offering an in-store option when you link your credit card.

Here's how it works:

• Link the specific offer to your card
• Enter your mobile number
• Shop in the store with your linked card

Right now, I am working on earning the minimum spend on my upgraded Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express so I linked that card to JC Penney's (dress shopping trip with the girls) and bam, one purchase earns Marriott miles and United miles. It's a double dip and certainly makes spending money a lot more enjoyable. 

Then you are prompted to link your card and you see this

And then you see the fine print where it states the linked offer expires in 30 days. 

So whether you are spending money on gifts, clothes or just groceries, be sure your credit cards are working as hard as you are. 

Last Days To Earn 100,000 Marriott Points

It's the final countdown on the 100,000 bonus offer for the new Marriott Bonvoy Boundless credit card. This spectacular offer ends May 16, 2019 so if you have been thinking about it, now is the time. 

If you have or have had a Marriott Premier Plus credit card in the past 24 months, you are not eligible for this offer. However, check your account and see if you are offered an upgrade with a bonus. 

I had the Starwood American Express credit card and Marriott offered me 100,000 bonus points if I upgraded and spent a minimum of $5,000 on the card. With a big event coming up, that was easy. 

Here's the fine print for the Boundless credit card:

• $95 annual fee not waived 
• $5,000 minimum spend in the first 3 months 
• 6x points at Marriott Bonvoy hotels (this includes Marriott, Sheraton and more than 6,700 hotels)
• 2x per $1 everywhere else
• Silver Elite status
• FREE night each year (value 35,000) points 

Here's an interesting twist, if you use my referral link for the Boundless card, you will get 3 FREE nights at any Marriott valued at 35,000 points per night for just $3,000 minimum spend and the $95 annual fee. This is actually a better deal for you and I get 20,000 points too. Wow! 

What can you do with 100,000 Marriott points, well, lots. Obviously, you can use them at the more than 6,700 Marriott Bonvoy brand hotels, but you can also transfer them to a dozen different airlines including American, Alaska and United. Plus for every 60,000 points you transfer, Marriott will give you an extra 15,000 airline miles as a bonus. So, your 60,000 Marriott points actually equals 25,000 airline miles. 

Pretty sweet. 

Want To Fly FREE On Southwest? Here's What You Need To Do

Think you need a lot of money to travel, think again. It just takes some planning and knowledge. Look at this, so far, this year, I have saved thousands of dollars on flights on Southwest Airlines and will save thousands more on flights throughout this year and next. 

These are all the FREE flights, I am taking this year.

Let's me show you the savings: 

San Diego - Chicago                                    - 2 people - savings $400

Boston - San Diego                                     - 2 people - savings $500

Buffalo-San Diego                                       - 3 people - savings $750

San Diego - Spokane (upcoming)              - 5 people - savings $500

Salt Lake City - San Diego (upcoming)      - 5 people - savings $500 

San Diego - Buffalo (upcoming)                 - 2 people - savings $450

San Diego - New Orleans (upcoming)        - 1 person - savings $250

That's a savings of $3,350, wow, right?
So how do I do it? Great question. It's not hard, you just need to know what to do and I'll give you a hint, it involves earning the Southwest companion pass, one of the most valuable travel perks out there. 
I have teamed up with gototravelgal.com for the first Southwest School. Registration closes Tuesday and school starts Wednesday. If you want to save money like I do on flights, family vacations and more, you do not want to miss this.
Use this link to enroll so Lynn knows I sent you!

Hilton Tru Brand

It looks like a cross between a hip tech startup and a preschool. Picture bright colors, foozball, giant connect 4, swinging chairs and saying like "We are glad you are here" and "Get in here" greeting you in big bold letters. That's Hilton's new Tru brand. Think Aloft, but more colorful.
There are 30 of these Tru hotels in the United States. We stayed at the one in Syracuse, New York mainly because it had an airport shuttle, free breakfast, and cost under $100 per night - $88 per night exactly. If we had paid with Hilton points, the number listed is 21,000 per night. 
For the budget category, it was quite nice. Definitely extra on the personality and catering to the millennial crowd.

Tru provides FREE coffee, tea, hot chocolate and hot water 24/7. There was a small gym with very nice exercise equipment, laundry facilities, and a complimentary hot breakfast. Breakfast included scrambled and hard-boiled eggs, oatmeal, bagels, donuts, juice, cereal, greek yogurt, and waffle boats.
Waffle boats, according to Tru, are meant to be filled with your favorite toppings including whipped cream, hot fudge, caramel and well, you get the idea.

This hotel smelled new and had cute sayings in the elevator and on the walls.
My 12-year-old thought it was super cool. It was a little over the top for me.

The rooms also catered to the millennial crowd - no closet, lots of USB outlets, shampoo and conditioner dispensers in the bathroom instead of small bottles and hardwood floors.

Beds were quite comfortable as well.
Exercise caution with the overnight door lock when you leave your room. This Tru opened in June 2018 and the door lock in our room was loose so when we tried to reenter our room, it had locked us out. Fortunately, the handyman was able to fix it and had us back in our room in about an hour.
The front desk person was less than gracious during this experience, however.
All that being said, Tru is a fine addition to the brand if you are looking for more hip Hilton.

Rack Up The Points When You Send Mom Flowers

Sending Mom flowers for Mother's Day this weekend? If so, you better hurry and don't miss out on thousands of miles for doing it. Shopping portals offer free money or airline miles for purchases you would make anyway. 

Here's a sample of a few popular ones:

• Southwest shopping portal is offering a bonus of 1,750 points with 1-800 flowers
• American Airlines shopping portal is offering a bonus of 15 miles per dollar with Pro Flowers 
• United Airlines shopping portal is offering 30 miles per dollar with Pro Flowers plus a mix and match 1,700 bonus
• Rakuten (formerly known as Ebates.com) is offering 15% cash back with 1-800 flowers plus an extra $10 when you use my referral link.
• Melaleuca Marketplace  is offering 15% back in product credit with 1-800 flowers and 1-800 florals (this is a benefit if you belong to the club)

You can use cashbackmonitor.com to check out multiple offers at once. These offers are great to top off an account or just build up miles 
And Happy Mother's Day! 

Don't Change Your Southwest Companion Until You Do This One Thing

One of the best freebies out there is the Southwest companion pass. To earn the pass, you must collect 110,000 miles in a calendar year OR you needed to sign up for the bonus credit card offer at the beginning of this year.
Either way, if you have the companion pass, congratulations!
You can fly Southwest BOGO for the next year or two depending on how you earned your pass.
Your companion can be anyone, a friend, a sibling, a child, a spouse, a neighbor, anyone. But they have to fly with you on the same flight. You can change your companion three times in a calendar year. 

You have to call Southwest to register your companion. Once they are registered, you can add them online to any flight with you.

Makes sense, but what if you want to change your companion at the last minute? You can do it, but you need to do something first. 

Last week, my son was supposed to fly with me to the East Coast, but last minute, he had to change his plans. I had already bought my daughter a seat on the same flight with points. So my thought was to cancel her flight, add her as my companion and then she could fly FREE. 
It took about 30 minutes to get through to a Southwest operator who was happy to make the change, cancel my daughter's ticket and rebook the companion ticket for her.
She checked first to make sure there were enough empty seats on the plane so we didn't get shut out while making the change. No worries.

What we didn't expect, however, is that the computer went bonkers over my flight booked in August now that my son was no longer my companion. In fact, the computer has cancelled his flight three times in August because it thinks he is double booked. 

I had to call Southwest back to get help fixing the error, canceling my daughter's flight and rebook my son's flight for that trip.

Lesson learned. Before changing companions, cancel any future tickets issued for that companion. It just makes things easier.