Planning on taking a cruise to/around Italy? Not sure what that entails? Struggling to see how it's possible given the fact many of the towns are land-locked?

After Darcy talked to her mom about an upcoming trip to Italy, we were inspired to do a little digging into cruises to, from, and around Italy. Some are massive cruise ships with multi-port journeys, water slides, and endless buffets others are, in fact, ferries with an unassuming bar and restaurant that get you from point A to B. In this episode we get into the pros and cons of it all plus touch on what the environmental impacts of various transportation might be.

If you’re planning on going to Rome in 2025, we highly recommend booking your hotels (and potentially even your flights) as soon as possible. If you’d like to help out Only A Bag, you can use our affiliate links marked with an asterisk.

For hotels, we tend to use Booking* since we’re already a part of their member program, but Expedia* also has a robust member program with similar prices on hotel rooms. For an aggregate that seems to offer slightly better deals across the board, we recommend checking out Agoda*.

And if you’ve always loved the idea of staying in Italy for an extended period and becoming part of the culture, we can’t recommend housesitting enough. While it does often entail taking care of someone’s pet, it can also be a gateway to seeing Italy in a totally new way. We use Trusted Housesitters* which has a fairly steep upfront cost (a few hundred dollars) but that’s covered with a few nights of a house sit which should never cost you money.

Lastly, if you’re already looking to book flights, we like to use the airline’s website, however, some aggregates do offer better deals, so we always recommend checking Expedia* or Booking* before purchasing.

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You can find us at ⁠onlyabag.com⁠ and ⁠@onlyabagpodcast⁠.