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Fancy but Frugal at It's Best: Italy, Affordably


Ciao, bella! Just a quick blog to summarize a cheap, easy, and fun trip Italy! There are a few things you need to get started: quick fingers, $400, and a spontaneous spirit! ✈💼

Where did we go? We visited Milan and Lake Como, Italy over 4 days.

How did we get there? Call it luck, website error, or whatever you want. While searching for a Memorial Day trip on a third-party website (initially looking at the Caribbean or Puerto Rico), I stumbled upon a $400 direct, round-trip flight to Milan, Italy with perfect flight times. Pretty sure that it was a mistake, I yell across the room to Jon “I don’t know if this is legit, but let’s try it!”. Boom. Booked.

Fast forward to a couple hours later the airline when the airline tries to cancel our ticket, because it was indeed a mistake. In comes my husband’s charm. “But sir, we received a confirmation and have already booked accommodation, tours, everything. I assume you will be refunding us the full cost of this trip?” Boom. Back to being booked.

**These flights were through Air Italy by the way. Despite the mistake on the third-party website, we hear that they do plan on lowering the cost of NYC -> Milan flights to around this price, so keep a look out!

Where did we stay? We used hotel points to help fund our stay at the Milan Marriott in the Washington neighborhood. We loved it here. A little residential and a bit away from downtown, but close to (really awesome) subways. The upgraded suite was nice, but the area was calm, peaceful, and home to some amazing little local gems.

Speaking of food, what did we eat? Surprisingly, Italy is one of the most gluten-free friendly places we have ever been – it was delicious. We ate our weight in pizza, pasta, and wine. 🍕🍝🍷 Some of our favorites were Petit Paradis (so nice we went there twice), Vapore, and McDonalds. Yes, McDonalds, and yes, I got a kids meal. Don’t judge me. After 3 days of eating basically tomatoes and bread, I craved a burger on our last night. Much to our surprise, they had gluten free cheeseburgers! Jon was a huge fan!
**American McDonalds, please get your life together.

What did we see? We did a lot of relaxing, exploring, and café hopping on foot. Our main tourist activities were seeing the Duomo in Milan (big church... think Notre Dame but in Italy) and Lake Como. The Duomo was a standard church + museum + architecture tour - very educational and cultural. 

Lake Como was amazing. Less than 1.5 hours from Milan, it's a perfect stopover to get a totally different taste of Italy. We started on the east leg of the lake and worked our way up the lake and into the valley by Switzerland. We stopped for lunch at a huge and awesome farm/restaurant/venue/hotel called La Fiorida. This place would be amazing for families and children! We also visited the Nera winery in Valtellina, in the valley, and had some of the best wine we've ever tasted. We totally see ourselves going back to Lake Como for 3 or so days in the future (anyone want to tag along?). 🙂
**In Italy, they call farm-to-table food “zero-kilometer food” because the food travels zero kilometers from where it is grown to the table. How clever.

How much did we spend? We lucked out with this trip with our killer flight deal and hotel reward points. In total, we spent <$900 for flights, <$200 for hotel, ~$250 on sightseeing/tours and ~$100/day for food/drinks for a grand total of ~$1700 for 4 days in Italy. Can’t beat that. 🤑

Final thoughts? This was a great trip and came at the perfect time. We used to do spontaneous, jam-packed trips once a month when we lived in Singapore and have been craving that kind of adventure again. Italy was exactly what we needed, and I really enjoyed embracing the local lifestyle for a few days. They have such an ease about them, and I felt safer walking around late at night than I do in NYC. It was a welcomed change to let down our guards and enjoy the simple things in life for a few days. 💑

Italy: 10/10 would recommend
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