I get it. You’ve bought perhaps one massive trip a 12 months, and it’s essential to make it depend. When you’re coming to Italy, particularly if it’s your first go to to the nation, the temptation is to attempt to see as a lot as doable within the restricted time you may have. The Colosseum, the Vatican, Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, the inside of Basilica San Marco in Venice, the Amalfi Coast … these locations are all thought-about must-visits for a purpose.

However right here’s the No. 1 mistake I’ve seen numerous vacationers make in my 16 years of residing in Italy, and the very best piece of recommendation I may give to any traveler: don’t let your jam-packed itinerary get in the way in which of a superb time.

When you make your trip—and bear in mind, it’s a trip—all about ticking off sights seen and landmarks photographed, shuffling by crowded museums, after which catching a prepare to your subsequent metropolis, you’re prone to return house extra exhausted than once you left. And whilst you might depart with the satisfaction of getting seen a protracted listing of locations, you might by no means decelerate lengthy sufficient to essentially expertise and respect the slower, sweeter tempo of life for which Italy is so well-known and beloved.

So my recommendation to first-timers and repeat guests alike? Do much less. See much less. Decelerate. Savor extra.

In case your listing of must-see locations is 10 objects lengthy, minimize it in half and spend extra time in every vacation spot. For instance, in the event you’ve budgeted two full days in Rome, make it three (on the very least!). Hold your schedule open on no less than a type of days, to permit time to get misplaced strolling round, wander into random church buildings and cute boutiques, take pleasure in a protracted lunch, and sit in a piazza sipping a chilly drink and watching the world go by. That very same recommendation holds true for Venice, Florence, and some other main metropolis you go to.

Italy isn’t going anyplace. Its centuries-old sights, scrumptious meals and wine, idyllic landscapes, and cobbled lanes will nonetheless be there the subsequent time you go to. And in the event you’re like most vacationers, when you get that first true style of la dolce vita, you’ll positively be planning a return journey.