I Recently Traveled To Italy For The First Time (As An Adult), And Here Are The Things That Surprised, Confused, And Thrilled Me
Last month, my boyfriend and I traveled to Italy for a wedding. Luckily, I had already visited Italy with my family during high school, so this was my second visit to the country.
My boyfriend studied abroad in Italy so this was also his second trip.
I was around 14 when my family and I traveled on our nine-day trip to Rome, Florence, and a few other cities. There is something to say about traveling at a younger age with your family and them handling all the planning and logistics of the trip.
In the past, I would simply go with the flow and never really thought about how we ended up at our destination. During that family trip to Italy, we relied on a tour group to handle a lot of the planning. However, when it came time to plan my own trip to Italy, I felt overwhelmed. Despite this, we managed to plan the entire trip on our own.
We were invited to a friend's wedding in Florence in early September and knew we wanted to extend the trip to be able to travel elsewhere in Italy. Although I had ample time to plan, I procrastinated and planned just about everything pretty last minute for an out-of-the-country trip.
We decided that we wanted to explore a beach town in Italy (something that had a different feel from a populated city like Florence). The island of Ischia — which is off the coast of Naples, not far from Amalfi Coast — was recommended to me by a travel agent friend, so we decided on that.
After noticing the absurdly high prices of flights from New York to Italy in September, I spent several stressful and frustrating nights searching for a more affordable option. Eventually, I decided on a slightly hectic itinerary that allowed us to save some money: we flew from JFK to Rome, then took a train from Rome to Florence where we stayed for two and a half days. After that, we took another train from Florence to Naples and then a ferry from Naples to Ischia.
Overall, our trip was amazing and I cannot wait to go back to Italy — or another part of Europe. The experience taught me a lot, and I would love to share some of my takeaways whether you're looking for inspiration for your next trip or just have a passion for travel.
1.English is spoken in some parts of Italy more than others.
Florence — a city in the region of Tuscany — attracts many tourists and study abroad students, so it's easier to navigate as an American if you don't speak Italian. We didn't have any trouble understanding anyone there or vice versa. If you're looking to travel to Italy, Rome, Bologna, and Milan are some of the other cities where English is spoken and heard throughout. However, that wasn't the case when we reached Ischia.
Although English is the second-most spoken language in Italy, that doesn't mean you'll find all Italian citizens speaking it fluently.
After attending a wedding in Florence, we headed to the underrated, beautiful island of Ischia. Although it's not as popular as nearby islands like Capri and Amalfi Coast, it's equally stunning.
During our stay in Sant' Angelo, a quiet, small fisherman's village in Ischia, my boyfriend and I had to rely heavily on Google Translate to communicate. Living like a local was a wonderful experience, as we were not surrounded by American tourists all the time. However, there were instances where it was difficult to communicate certain things, especially my boyfriend's nut allergy when we were out at a restaurant.
Most people assumed that we spoke Italian, so we had to quickly type out what we were trying to convey on the Google Translate app. It didn't really bother us, but it was one of the disadvantages of traveling to a non-touristy area of a country.
2.Do your research and familiarize yourself with the vibe of the city or village you want to visit before getting there.
During the planning of our trip, we chose Ischia as our next travel destination. After conducting a quick search, I made a reservation for an Airbnb in Sant' Angelo (more on how I came to this decision later).
It turns out that although Ischia isn't a very big island (it's only 18 square miles), each village offers something a little bit different. Upon booking where on the island we would stay, I honestly didn't do a ton of research so it wasn't until we got to Sant' Angelo and settled in did we find out that it's a very quiet fisherman's village with stunning beaches — but not much nightlife.
Honestly, this was fine for us because it made for the perfect, most relaxing vacation. Depending on the vibe you're looking for while on your vacation, I recommend doing extensive research first especially if it's in another county.
3.If you're in a city like Florence, it's worth carrying around a reusable water bottle to refill at drinking fountains.
I usually always carry a reusable water bottle when I'm traveling. I didn't expect Italy to have water stations like you may find in America so I brought it with me even if I just mainly used it at the airports. However, I did learn right before our trip — thanks to TikTok — that a lot of cities such as Florence, Rome, and Venice have free, clean drinking fountains — or a "nasoni" as the Romans called them.
(Side note: I didn't take a picture of a Florence drinking fountain so the picture above is a fountain in Venice. Depending on the city you're visiting, they can look a bit different from one another.)
It was particularly useful when walking around in the heat. Additionally, in Italy, you have to pay for water at restaurants, so waiters do not refill your glass as frequently as they do in America. As a result, I was always left thirsty after our meals.
4.If you purchase a ferry ticket online in Italy, you must validate it before boarding.
In order to reach the island of Ischia, we had to take a ferry from Naples. We purchased our tickets ahead of time through a website called Ferry Hopper, which was easy to navigate. Although we had our tickets on our phones, the ferry crew wouldn't accept a digital copy.
Therefore, we had to go to the ferry ticket booth and validate our ticket. After validation, we received a physical ticket. The good news is that this information was mentioned in our ticket confirmation email, and we are glad that we read the fine print.
On that note, make sure to give yourself enough time to validate your ticket because the lines get long and those ferries seem to leave right on their scheduled time.
The port in Naples from where our ferry was departing had several other ferries going to popular destinations such as the Amalfi Coast and Capri. As a result, the lines of people waiting to validate their tickets before boarding their respective ferries were quite long.
5.Traveling by train is an easy and quite enjoyable experience.
Traveling by train in Italy turned out to be a surprisingly easy and enjoyable experience. We purchased our train tickets on the Trenitalia app about a week before our trip. Similar to some train stations in America, we waited for our train and its track number to show up on the board a few minutes before departure.
Once we saw that our train had arrived, we made our way to the track and located our assigned seats on the train (we paid a few extra euros to reserve our seats in advance). We then placed our luggage in the designated area closest to our seats.
After boarding the train, a conductor came by to validate our digital ticket (you can also print a hard copy if preferred). Despite the crowds, the Italian train stations were not as chaotic or confusing as I had anticipated.
6.Utilize public transportation to save some money.
Sometimes while on vacation if you have to rely on taking taxis (or Uber) to get to different places, it can get very expensive. While it was very easy to walk all over Florence, in Ischia, we had to either take the bus or rely on expensive taxis to get us around. Once we learned where the different bus stops were on the island, we relied on the maps app on our iPhones to learn which stops to get off at depending on where we wanted to go that day.
Exploring the island was easy and affordable with a single bus ticket costing around 2 euros. You can purchase the ticket from the bus driver while on board or from local markets that sell bus tickets.
7.Compare the prices of an Airbnb versus a hotel.
When we first began planning our trip, my boyfriend and I were searching for hotels near the church where our friends would be getting married. Although September is considered a "shoulder season" in Italy when the crowds start to thin out, the prices for hotels were still quite expensive.
During our trip, we decided to look into staying at air bnbs instead of hotels, and we found that the air bnbs in the same area we were looking at were almost half the price of a hotel per night. We were pleasantly surprised to find that both the air bnbs in Florence and Ischia had amazing hosts, and we were able to save a significant amount of money on lodging, which we then used for tours, dinners, and other experiences during our trip.
8.Wear (or bring) something that covers your shoulders and knees in churches.
When visiting most churches and religious museums in Italy, it is respectful to cover your shoulders and knees. You can often purchase shawls for a few euros.
Even though I brought a shawl with me on my trip, I forgot it in our Airbnb on the day we climbed to the top of the Duomo in Florence. As a consequence, I had to purchase a new shawl, but the material of these single-use shawls was not breathable and made me feel hot. Although it wasn't a big deal, it was certainly not as comfortable as my own shawl would have been because the fabric of these single-use shawls is stiff and overall made me even hotter than I already was.
9.If you're traveling in Italy using multiple modes of transportation, add unique identifiers to your luggage to easily differentiate it.
During our trip to Italy, we had to use various modes of transportation, which posed the risk of our luggage being mixed up with others who had to do the same. While traveling from Florence to Naples by train, our train was delayed. As a result, we had to hurry to get off the train and take a taxi to reach the ferry port for our scheduled ferry departure.
When my boyfriend got off the train in a hurry, he mistakenly grabbed a black hard-shell suitcase that looked similar to his black Away bag. Since he hadn't put anything to distinguish his bag, he ended up taking someone else's bag, and they took his.
To cut a long story short, to swap the luggage, it turned out to be quite the adventure, that we now call "luggage gate." The lesson we learned here is to always put something on your luggage that makes it stand out from similar-looking bags.
10.It's helpful to carry extra euros for situations where cash is needed.
As I was preparing for my trip, I received conflicting advice on whether to carry euros or not for paying for things in Italy. Some suggested that using a credit card would result in better exchange rates while others recommended carrying cash to avoid credit card transaction fees. In our experience, it came in handy that we both had some euros on us.
We often found ourselves in situations where it was easier to pay with euros, like buying a bus ticket from the driver or paying for a taxi.
To avoid paying hefty conversion fees at an international ATM, I recommend you order euros from your local bank a few weeks before your trip. Most banks don't have euros on hand, so you'll need to call or visit the bank and ask a teller to order them for you. The euros will be delivered to your home once they arrive. Unfortunately, I didn't know this and had to pay conversion fees at the airport in Rome.
11.A typical breakfast in Italy is very different from an American breakfast.
I am someone who loves having breakfast and I rarely skip it. However, during my trip to Italy, I discovered that their breakfast usually consists of a small pastry and a cup of coffee. Therefore, we didn't have anything more than that for breakfast during our trip. Gradually, my body got accustomed to it and we usually had a big lunch or dinner later on in the day.
12.Small shops close during the day at lunch and will reopen later in the afternoon — or in our experience, not reopen at all.
During my trip to Italy, I realized that the opening hours of the local boutiques and small shops were quite unpredictable. One day, while I was walking towards the bus stop in Ischia, I came across a charming boutique that I wanted to visit again when I had more time.
Unfortunately, every time I went back to it to shop, it was either closed for a long lunch break or it was just completely closed, We asked our Airbnb host (who also owned her own boutique in the village we were staying in) and she said for the most part, shop owners make up their own hours of operation. I was kicking myself for not knowing this sooner because I just assumed the boutique I wanted to shop in would of course be open the next day at the same time.
13.There's so much more to Italian cuisine than just pizza and pasta.
It can be tempting to focus solely on devouring all the tempting pizza and pasta that Italy is famous for. However, in addition to these classic dishes, I recommend exploring the local cuisine of the region or city you are visiting. This will allow you to truly experience the unique flavors and culinary traditions of Italy.
In our case, since Sant' Angelo is a fisherman's village, seafood was offered at every restaurant and it was delicious and fresh tasting. In addition to that, Ischia's signature dish is a rabbit stew known as, "Ischia-style rabbit." so on the last night of our trip, we shared this famous dish, which did not disappoint.
Have you been to Italy? What regions did you love the most? What tips would you give to others planning a trip? Share it all with me in the comments below!