Italy – March 2017
On August 24, 2020 by Sheila
Our first international trip as a family!!!
We have been traveling with Deanna ever since she was one. She was always good in airplanes and car rides. Before this trip, her longest flight was Florida to Boston, MA, which we had done many times. She had no problem sitting in her seat for extended amounts of time. All of our little trips prepared her for the long-haul flights.
The year before we went took this trip, my cousin had gone to Italy on a spontaneous, inexpensive whim. Traveling always seemed super expensive to me. I remember when I first went to France in middle school. That was a big deal and expensive. I guess that huge budget stuck in my head all these years and kind of dissuaded me from traveling internationally for a while. Anyways, when she got back from Italy and told me all about her trip, I knew I had to get in on these travel deals that were popping up all over the place now.
So, probably around September, I started keeping an eye on travel deals to Italy. I knew Emirates would be posting some 2-for-1 deals, which I planned on grabbing. Not long after I started watching prices, the deal popped up. I did some price comparisons and ended up finding a better deal on AirFrance, which was also less restrictive than the Emirates deal. I got the 2-for-1 deal plus a discounted child price! That feeling you get when you book a trip and get an awesome deal on it!! Woooo!!!
From that moment on, it was a whirlwind to get ready for our first international trip! Ben and Deanna had to get their passports. We all got Global Entry. There was no way we were going to wait in hours long customs lines with a young child. We spent weeks online looking for hotels and reading about all the different regions of Italy.
We agreed on the base cities that we really wanted to visit. From there, I meticulously and painstakingly planned the cities and routes we would be taking. We planned on taking the high-speed trains between the major cities and then take trains and taxis within the cities. I did not book the train tickets ahead of time. Each city was padded with at least a half a day for travel. We could take any train before evening and arrive in time to check-in at the next city’s hotel. It definitely would have been cheaper to book all the train travel early, but I did not want to be rushing to get to a train station. As much traveling between cities as we did, there was a lot of relaxing time, no rushing. Looking back, we should not have gone to so many cities in 10 days with a young child in tow. It was a brutal itinerary, but it ended up giving us an immense taste of the country.
Since we had Deanna with us, who sometimes needed to be carried at the end of a long day of walking (something we learned from all our Disney World trips), we decided to go with backpacks instead of the usual suitcases for our trip. It would be easier to carry her while wearing a backpack than it would be to carry her and drag suitcases. The backpacks made us more maneuverable, and we did not want to lug suitcases up and down stairs or over cobblestones.
Passports ✔
Global Entry ✔
Backpacks ✔
Hotels ✔
Itinerary ✔
Now, time for the travel!!
Trip Dates: 03/11/2020 – 03/21/2020
Itinerary (click the itinerary links below to view posts):
Leave a Reply