Super Simple Rome Travel Guide 2025: We Wish We'd Have Known These 15 Things

You're coming to Rome but all the information is stressing you out a little bit. Well we've got you covered with some really simple first-time tips to make your vacation a smashing success. Hi I'm Jordan and I'm Erica and we're Your Guides Abroad. Let's talk tourist paths. See if they're worth it for you because you got like the Roma path, the Vatican City pass, the Rome tourist pass. See if it's worth it for you. What we find for museums that the math doesn't add up. They usually include two museums plus discounts and for us this is not worth the hassle plus it's hard to book them. You can run the math yourself. See if you can do it on your trip but for us we just we don't decide to use them. We're in the Roman Forum right now. So how did we get here? Let's talk transportation around Rome. I'll be honest we walk a lot. It's a very walking accessible city but if you don't want to walk, if you can't walk, if you want to just give your legs a little break there is public transportation. You can take the bus or the metro. The metro only has three lines so it may not go everywhere you want to go but buses will and they're pretty convenient. So to buy tickets you can buy tickets. It's $1.50 per ride at least as of this recording and you can buy them from any metro station physical paper tickets. You can also buy them from mini markets. You'll see a T on them and that you can walk in and buy public transportation tickets but you can also use tap and go. So if your credit card has a contactless symbol you can tap in and go but I will say you need to make sure each person has their own credit card. If you are buying paper tickets make sure you validate them before you get on your form of transportation because if they haven't been validated they're not in use and you could potentially be fined. Not into public transportation? Want to take a taxi? There are plenty. The city is full of them. Most of them take cards. You should just make sure before you get in confirm that they will take a credit card. They also take cash. There are flat rates going to and from the airports but around town it's all going to be metered. If you can't find one and you need one you can just use the free now app. So download it. You can request a taxi and you pay through the app. So easy. For the bus this is tricky. You must buy a ticket in advance. So if you think you are going to be using a bus just grab some tickets at a metro station. If you don't want to use your contact list tap in and tap out. Let's explore the Roman Forum. I'm done working for today Jordan. Let's go. The Rome Metro is the smallest metro in all of Europe. There you go. That's my fact. When you're walking around Rome we recommend getting the City Mapper app. That and Google Maps. The City Mapper is nice because it'll also show you how to get from point A to point B. But like it's a taxi better walking metro. Gives you all the different options so you can compare for it. Google Maps though is the most accurate though for walking around the city. And for us right now we're heading to the Trevi Fountain. Welcome to Rome. When you arrive in Rome you'll be arriving most likely at their biggest airport in all of Italy. Airport Corridor is FCO. To get into Rome you can take a car rental, limo service, bus, taxi of course. If you do taxi it is a set fare. So be watching for scams and stuff like that. Also too is train. That's the most common way to get into Rome. The most popular one is Leonardo Express. Leaves at the top and bottom of the hour. It's a 30-minute train ride. During peak times leaves every 15 minutes. It is a good price. Right now it's about 14 euros. You can get tickets in baggage claim area. Also though too see where you're staying. You might want to do the regional train. It's the FL1 train. It also leaves very quickly. Leaves about every 30 minutes or less and takes also 30 minutes. But that's only good if you're staying in the Vatican or that cute little bohemian neighborhood just south of that. All right on to Rome. And when you get here to the train station here at the airport there's lots of ticket machines. So if you see lines just maybe keep moving. You know what I mean? Here I'll show you. So some magic words when you're in Rome. Especially in like cute little coffee shops like this when you're in the local neighborhoods. Just say nice words right. Just greet their humanity. So buongiorno is good morning. So you say buongiorno up until lunchtime. Buona sera in the evening and afternoon. And grazie for thank you. And then they sure reply back prego. Ciao means goodbye. So it does arrivederci and ci ci for cheers. Ciao can also be hello too. Speak English. If you're heading to Rome or if you are considering heading to Rome make sure you download our free cheat sheets at yourguidesabroad.com. This gives you helpful information like the airports, how to get around, where to stay and some fun places to eat. This will help you get your trip planning started. So head to yourguidesabroad.com to check those out. Timing for eating might be slightly different than what you're used to. Lunch generally 12 to 2 30. Dinner is going to be on the later side. You can find some earlier restaurants that open around 6 30 but for the most part you're looking at like 8 to 10 30. But if you get hungry in the meantime don't worry there is aperitivo and you can go grab drinks and some light snacks. It's like a warm-up for dinner. So you can grab those around like 5 maybe 6 30 up until dinner time. Hey tip 55 if you're looking to get your photos developed just look for the Kodak sign when you're in Rome. All right the next step let's talk about these new things called internet cafes. If there is something you really want to see try and book it online. For example the Colosseum. If you really want to come and you don't want to wait in the queue or the line at the ticket office get those tickets online. If you can if not just be prepared to wait. Same with the Pantheon. Book it online if you know you want to go and you know when you want to go grab those tickets. Oh and I do want to point out at the Villa Borghese gallery there are no walk-up tickets so you do need to book those online in advance. All right whoa there was nobody there. If you are hoping to go to the you're out of luck it's closed and it also gets very busy on Saturday and Monday as a result. Other state museums are closed on Mondays so you would want to visit them Sunday. But guess what we are here on a Monday and the Colosseum is open so we're gonna go visit that. Try a local guide. Why Eric I feel like we do a great job nothing beats going out the local guide to like do a food tour, make pasta, make pizza while you're in Italy and the Colosseum to us is best experience with a guy telling some wonderful local stories. So check down below some of them are affiliates some are not we just recommend our favorite local tours wherever we are. Check that out. In the spirit of winning Rome let's tell some dad jokes. Why don't they sell GPSs in Italy? I don't know. Because all roads lead to Rome. All right how do you get around Italy? On foot. You roam. Oh geez well I have one for you. What's that? I hear they're trying to ban Roman numerals. Are they really? Not on my watch. There are 900 churches in Rome and if you decide that you want to go inside one remember that you want to dress modestly. So for women that means cover your shoulders, if you're wearing a skirt it should hit at the knee or below and men should be wearing pants. So it's pretty easy in the winter right it's a little bit chilly I have my sweater on but in the summer you might have to get a creative linen pants are a great option and you can always bring a scarf with you to cover yourself up when you go inside. A big tip in Rome is they still very much use cash unlike London that's gone cashless. Cash is still very helpful to have around especially at farmers markets cafes. If you have coins that's even extra better because they love having coins for like your euros and I'm at a farmer's market right now. Erika gave me 10 euros to spend. I'm gonna go big. I'm feeling good about this. All right let's go shop. Number 12 let's talk tipping. When you're in Italy it's not commonly done. You might see service already added to your bill like 10% on there but if you like to get really good service you can leave five to ten percent extra like cash on the table for the waiter. We're having pizza right now and it's takeout kind of we're sitting here but we don't need a tip. Anyways enjoy. Two extra tips for you. When you sit down in a restaurant you will probably notice at the bottom of the menu that there's a coperto. That is a service charge per person for sitting at the table usually one to two euros. Sometimes it includes bread. It will tell you if it includes bread. There's a service charge that goes to the restaurant. It's not your tip for your waiter. It's busy and hectic but try to make time to schedule one long meandering Italian dinner where you have multiple courses. You start with the antipasti. You can get a primi, a pasta course, a secondi. You can get the dolce. Then you can end with an espresso or a digestivo and you can spend literal hours just sitting and enjoying the beautiful food that is available to you here. Final tip. You will probably find yourself looking for food near some of the biggest attractions and monuments and some of it can be a little disappointing. If you want to work just a little harder, put one percent of extra effort in, just walk around to a side street. You might find some better smaller restaurants. They'll probably still be expensive but you'll probably get a little bit better food. Bon appetit. If you are craving some vegetables to go along with all of your pasta make sure you check out the contorni. You'll find that near the secondi section. That's where you'll find the vegetables and enchiladas if the restaurant has any. Hey as we're walking through Rome let's talk safety because wow we got our kids with us and you want to just keep your head on a swivel. Pedestrians do have like a right of way but what we notice is you still have to be very cautious at the crosswalks. Look for cars. Make sure they stop for you. Have a little bravery. It's nice to go with groups across the streets to get the cars to stop and you know just keep watch out. It's narrow sidewalks and a lot of cars on the street and a lot of people on the street too. So we just want to make sure that you stay safe when you're walking the streets of Rome. All right on to the Spanish Steps. Here's another one for you. Things to pack. Make sure to pack comfy shoes because you're going to be doing lots of walking around Cabo Santos streets of Rome. Also bring a water bottle because there's all these great places to fill up your water with fresh Roman water probably from some ancient Roman aqueduct. Probably not but I like to think that anyways. They are good though. All right with my comfy shoes we're off. Rome is magical, beautiful, the history is captivating and you are going to have a wonderful time. Before you head off to do more planning make sure you grab that free cheat sheet at yourguidesabroad.com. That will give you so much information to help you get your trip planning started for Rome. Have a wonderful trip to Rome. We know you will. Thanks for watching. And bonus tip. Grab your coffee at the bar. Yes it's about 30% cheaper but it's also just a lovely way to, I don't know, take in local life, people watch, enjoy this lovely city that you're in. How much is it? It's very very interesting. Yeah. Is 10 euros enough? No. How much? Oh that was perfect. Perfect. Perfect. All right you need to double click here. Okay. Three filling. Three of them. Three filling. Perfect. That sounds good. I got that. And then and the toaster. Ah all right. And the potato. Yeah. Yeah put it all together. Oh just wash it. No. I don't know cooking. Oh you don't know cooking. Okay. You don't want to cook it raw. Raw. Yeah you just put this on. Yeah see I understand that. Oh a little bit of oil. Yeah. So put it all together. Yeah. It's like one big meal. Let's get some bread with it. Okay. Can you try it?