Yes. Backpacking Italy on your own is easy, because frequent trains link every major city and hostels are plentiful wherever travelers go.
Expect dorm beds of €25 to 50 in
Rome,
Florence and
Venice in summer, and €20 to 35 in
Naples and
Bologna. Cities add a tourist tax of roughly €2 to 6 per person per night. Rome to Florence takes about 1.5 hours by fast train, at €20 to 50 if you book ahead. A realistic backpacker budget is €60 to 90 a day. The south, around
Matera and Puglia, is where you rely more on buses and plan around thinner timetables.
Plan on two weeks for a first trip to Italy. That covers the classic cities plus one stretch of coast without rushing.
In
7 days, stick to one region, such as Tuscany with Florence and Siena. In
14 days, you can run Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples and the
Amalfi Coast, with 2 to 4 nights each.
21 days adds the
Dolomites,
Cinque Terre and Matera. Give Rome at least 3 nights and the big cities 2 or more, because the major museums need timed tickets and half a day each. Above all, avoid one-night stops.
Yes, you can easily travel around Italy without a car, since trains and buses connect every major city and most well-known towns.
By high-speed train, Milan to Rome takes about 3 hours, Florence to Venice about 2 hours and Rome to Naples 70 minutes. The
Cinque Terre villages are 5 to 10 minutes apart by train. The
Amalfi Coast runs on buses and summer ferries. A car only helps for the Val d’Orcia countryside, the
Dolomites outside the June to September bus season, and inland Sicily and Sardinia. In cities, parking and restricted traffic zones make a car a liability.
For a first visit to Italy, the must-sees are
Rome,
Florence,
Venice, and
Naples with
Pompeii, plus one coastline or mountain range.
Rome needs 3 to 4 nights for the Colosseum and the Vatican Museums. Florence needs 3 nights for the Uffizi and Michelangelo’s David. Venice needs 2 to 3 nights, ideally staying overnight. Pompeii is a 35-minute train ride from Naples and takes 5 hours to see. For nature, choose the
Amalfi Coast and its Path of the Gods, the
Cinque Terre cliff trail, or the
Dolomites loop around the Tre Cime di Lavaredo.
Matera’s cave districts are the best reason to head further south.
If time is short in Italy, skip overnight stays in Pisa, Milan and the big beach resorts. Spend those nights in Rome, Florence or on the coast.
Pisa works as a 2-hour stop at the Leaning Tower, 1 hour by train from Florence.
Milan is worth a day if you fly in, but its sights fill one afternoon.
Rimini and the Gardaland theme park suit families more than backpackers.
Sardinia needs a ferry or flight and at least 5 days to pay off, so save it for a separate trip. In under a week, choose one region instead of crossing the country.
Yes, our itinerary-planner does exactly that. Set your trip length in days, give your interests and travel style, optionally give start- and end location and/or some mandatory stops you would like to include and the itinerary planner creates your personalized routes for Italy in seconds. Try it out!
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