I get it, it can seem overwhelming. It is really a lot easier than you would think. Here some of the steps we took.

1. Research Italian Vacations

Buy a Travel Book

Order the book Rick Steves Italy. This was helpful before and after we arrived in Italy. It was helpful to have a printed guide. Bonus, he has a free app that we used during our trip.

Watch YouTube

YouTube was great for researching the highlights of towns.

Research Group Tours

Just because you don’t take their tour does not mean you can’t use their itinerary. They can give you some practical information on how much time you need to spend in a location and what are the must-see highlights.

2. Find Your Flights to Italy

Finding the flights.

Play around with Google Flights. It is an excellent tool for finding the best flights and comparing what is available. There are a wide range of filters, date grids, and price graphs to help narrow the search. Not ready to purchase? You can track the prices for your time frame and be notified of changes.

Paying for the flights.

Points! We used Capital One Venture Rewards Card. Between our new cardmember bonus miles and 2x miles per dollar on purchase for over a year we were able to cover almost all of our tickets. Redeeming points were simple and we were not limited to a certain airline.

Check out their offer! (When using this link when applying will earn us some miles. So thanks!) Earn unlimited 2X miles on every purchase, plus 60,000 bonus miles if you spend $3,000 within 3 months.

There is an annual fee of $95. We felt it was worth it for the miles and additional perks. For example, Signing up for Global Entry got us a $100 statement credit covering the cost.