[minkajane]

DH and I are going to Florence, Italy for a week at the end of next month. We're pretty tight on money right now and we're having a hard time saving up as much as we'd like for spending money. But it doesn't help that we have no idea how much we need. I don't want to be eating Italian Ramen noodles for a week to be able to afford museum tickets or miss out on things we really want to see.<br><br>
How much would you say is a reasonable amount for two people for a week in Florence, assuming mid-level restaurants and minimal souvinirs? (Did I spell that right?)

 

[DaughterOfKali]

I'd probably take at least 500 euro's. Even that seems low, though.

 

[velochic]

We spend almost 100% cash (as opposed to using credit cards) when we're there. Many places just don't want to take the plastic because they have to pay a fee (especially restaurants). We (the 3 of us) easily spend 150 - 200 euros per day for all meals, transportation, and misc. shopping... and we aren't big spenders, either.

 

[cristeen]

Can you pre-buy your museum tickets and the like?<br><br>
Honestly, we tend to have a pretty big budget when we go somewhere... we assume that just 1 day of food (assuming 3 meals eaten out for the 2 of us) will cost at least $150. Anything other than eat we want to do is on top of that, as is transportation.

 

[Happiestever]

Goodness I would say 100 euros for everyday. A lot of the meals you could share, and since most restaurants serve multiple courses it should work out well. Have fun and pinch those pennies. I mean squeeze em til a booger pops out. The only thing worse than having no money is being on VACATION with no money.

 

[sunnysandiegan]

I am a research type person, so I would hop online and start finding what we wanted to do and how much it would cost. There are probably forums for folks traveling to Florence, Italy on tripadvisor.com, also. People who live in destination cities often are part of those online communities on tripadvisor and can give realistic info.

 

[StephandOwen]

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<div>Originally Posted by <strong>Happiestever</strong> <a href="/community/forum/post/15378071"><img alt="View Post" class="inlineimg" src="/community/img/forum/go_quote.gif" style="border:0px solid;"></a></div>
<div style="font-style:italic;">Have fun and pinch those pennies. I mean squeeze em til a booger pops out.</div>
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OMG! Funniest thing I have heard in a long time! <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/biglaugh.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="laugh"><br><br>
I have no idea about overseas travel. DP went to Europe last year but it was for work so he just used his company credit card.<br><br>
When we go on vacation here in the US we don't take too much cash, we just use our credit cards (and pay them off immediately! We never keep a balance).

 

[goodygumdrops]

I would bring between 1000-1200 us dollars. Of course your going to exchange them at the airport. Easily you can spend 100 a day. I spent 50 per person just to get in the Vatican.

 

[IsaFrench]

when I thought we were going to move to the other side of the world, I looked up online for a meetup group in my language and found one and just randomly sent e-mails to some of the people whose profile I liked asking precise questions about every day stuff & ... got answers !<br><br>
I'm sure there's an expat meetup in Italy's largest cities, or english speaker's meetup or something similar , ask them by e-mail, doesn't cost anything, just takes a little while and the worse that can happen is that they don't answer !<br>
+ ask them also about what they would recommend for you to visit locally .... even if you don't end up following any of these recommendations, it's good to have the information ....