A local’s guide to help you visit Rome on a budget. Find out our best tips to save money on Rome accommodation, food and tickets to Rome attractions, from ancient Rome to the Vatican and more.
Many people are surprised when I tell them that it is possible and easy to visit Rome on a budget.
If you’ve only just started researching a trip to Rome, you may have the impression that Rome is a very expensive city, where you’ll have to blow the budget even just to get a tour guide.
Indeed, with millions of visitors filling its world-famous cobbled streets every year, prices for hotels, tours and restaurants are often at a premium: if you have money to spend, you will find plenty of easy ways to part with your cash.
However, traveling to Rome does not have to be hard on the budget.
With some planning and the right tips, enjoying Rome on a shoestring is possible.
In this article, I share my favorite budget-friendly ways to explore Rome and my local tips and many ways you can save money in Rome and still have an excellent stay.
Easy ways to visit Rome on a budget: top tips
I have many tips for a budget stay in Rome, but my top three are:
- Book attractions from the official websites, so you avoid third party fees and add ons
- Don’t book tours for everything: there are plenty of excellent and budget friendly resources out there that allow you to visit Rome without breaking the bank without compromising the quality of your time (keep reading, I have them in this post for you!)
- Go in low season – and know when it is! Low season in Rome is very short and usually very different from what people expect!
Let’s look at all these and more!
Tip 1 – Book with the attractions directly
One of the best ways to save money in Rome is to cut agency and tour operators commissions and book tickets from the attractions directly.
The Colosseum, for instance, has tickets that cost as little as 16 Euro per person (at the time of writing) and has discounted options for many travelers, including children, which get free entrance up to age 17 included!
This is incredible saving if you think that a third party easily charges you twice as much as this or multiples of this, in case of add ons such as a live guide.
This is the case for both the Colosseum and the Vatican, which are among the most expensive attractions for third party tours.
Depending on the type of tickets you choose, by booking direct, you don’t have to renounce a tour guide either.
The Colosseum has video, audio and live guide tour options and so does the Vatican.
All tickets come with a timed entrance so you don’t need to queue and just show up at the agreed time!
This is a significant money saving opportunity and the tours are of good quality.
I am a local and a Roman history graduate and found the guides seriously competent, so these are definitely not cheap but awful tour; they are budget friendly excellent tours!
To buy directly from the attractions, the official website are:
- Parco Colosseo – the official site for Colosseum / Roman Forum / Palatine Hill
- Vatican Museums – official museums website
- Borghese Gallery – official museum website
See also>>> how to book Colosseum tickets from the official Colosseum website.
See also >>> how to book Borghese Gallery Tickets from the official site
Visit without a tour (Use these free and budget friendly resources instead)
Guides are a wonderful resource to get to know the city. However, they come at a high cost and especially private tours can add up to hundreds of euro.
I believe guides are worth it for those attractions you know you want to get to know in-depth.
However, you don’t need a guide for everything! I’ll go as far as saying that, unless you really want one, you can see Rome with no tours at all!
In that case, what you need is the right resources, for instance:
- You can visit the Colosseum using their audioguide (small cost) or their free apps: Parco Colosseo and Y&CO.
- You can use my Colosseum scavenger hunt for toddlers to help you navigate the Colosseum with a little one without having to invest is a child friendly tour >> find it here, along with tips for visiting the Colosseum with a toddler
- You can uses these essential facts about the Colosseum for kids to help them learn about the place without having to spend for a guide
- You can get my ebook with all info and scavenger hunts for kids in the city center to help understand what you are all seeing
- You can even use this very site you’re on now to plan your itinerary and learn about all major piazzas and attractions! Use the search bar: you’ll find a guide to piazzas, statues, top churches, free attractions, Michelangelo, Bernini, Caravaggio. All for free!
Go in low season (and know when it is)
Traveling in low season is a great way to save money anywhere and Rome is no exception, especially when it comes to hotel prices.
The difference in price between low season and high season can be in the hundreds of Euro per night: if you have flexible dates, it is well worth looking at price differences when picking when to go and where to stay!
However, low season in Rome is short and it doesn’t necessarily happen at the time of the year you may think.
The real low season in Rome comprises a handful of weeks: usually a few weeks in November (after All Saints 1st November and before the start of the Christmas festivities, 8th December) and then again in January, specifically after the end of the Christmas holidays (6th of January, the epiphany) and the end of the month.
February and early March used to be low season; however, this is not the case anymore!
February and March are now popular times to visit Rome and while they are not the busiest of times, they are a mid-season rather than low one.
If you are traveling to Rome with kids, do take into account that mid-term breaks in Europe and the US are popular times for family trips to Italy and push prices up.
The worst seasons for the budget-conscious traveler are the spring (especially Easter in Rome), Christmas, October and the summer (June and July in particular).
Plan to be in Rome on the first Sunday of the month
On the first Sunday of every month, many Rome museums and attractions are free and this includes some important sites such as the Colosseum, the Roman forum, Castel Sant’Angelo and even Galleria Borghese!
This is a wonderful opportunity to visit some of the most famous Rome sites while saving money and you will find both Romans and tourists making the most of the opportunity.
This is a fantastic way to go sightseeing in Rome on a budget.
Be aware that some attractions do require advance booking even on these free days: go directly to the website of your attraction of choice to grab your ticket.
Do not fall for expensive ‘skip the line’ ticket options
One of the biggest concerns people have when visiting Rome is long lines of visitors forcing you to queue for hours to enter attractions.
In the past, before online ticketing became mainstream, the way to beat the crowds was to pay for a third party provider offering ‘skip the line’ tickets, aka pre-booked tickets that allowed you to avoid the ticket office altogether.
With online ticketing, this is no need to pay more for skip the line tickets!
All major ticketed attractions in Rome now offer timed entrance tickets that you book online in advance and show on your phone at the entrance gate.
These tickets allow you to go directly to the entrance door and ‘skip’ the line at the ticket office.
The only line you will have to stand in is the security one, when applicable. This line cannot be skipped but usually goes fast.
You do not need to pay for expensive skip the line tickets – these are a thing of the past and have been replaced by online ticketing, widely available, safe and budget friendly!
Get to know free attractions
Rome has very many free attractions, some expected and some unexpected. To give you a quick overview, some of Rome free attraction include:
- Vatican city (St Peter basilica and piazza, not the Vatican museums and the Sistine chapel)
- Villa Borghese (park)
- Piazza Navona
- Trevi Fountain
- Spanish Steps
- Vittoriano first terrace, Aventino hill and Campidoglio square, all offering incredible and free views of Rome
Swap museums with churches
Rome has stunning museums but the cost of tickets can add up fast.
However, Rome also has hundreds of churches and while not all have works of art, many do.
To give you a couples of examples: San Luigi dei Francesi houses Caravaggio’s Cycle of St Matthew; Santa Maria della Vittoria houses the Ecstasis of St Therese by Bernini and San Pietro in Vicoli has a Moses by Michelangelo.
All masterpieces you can see for free!
Find more ideas at the following links:
Our guide to the best places to see Caravaggio in Rome (free and ticketed)
Our guide to Michelangelo in Rome (free and ticketed attractions)
Our guide to Bernini’s art in Rome
Stay in a monastery
This may come as a surprising tips but don’t dismiss it quite yet.
In Rome, there are several religious institutes that offer good quality accommodation at seriously low prices, often located in lovely and central parts of Rome,
You do not need to have religious affiliation to be their guest and while you do get some rules to follow (a curfew, mostly) these are usually very reasonable and a great compromise for the budget friendly, clean and pleasant accommodation you get.
Or stay out of the centre on the metro line
Another way to quickly lower the cost of accommodation is to stay outside of the city centre and commute in by metro.
The metro in Rome is not great in appearance and amenities but does the job and brings you places fast!
Areas such as Garbatella, Trieste Salary (Annibaliano stop) or San Giovanni area are excellent, very ‘Roman’, and significantly cheaper than the center without forcing you to endure long trips in. Just try avoid rush hour as crowds of commuters make the metro very busy then.
Don’t sit at cafe terraces
This one is a tip you have probably heard before but it is worth mentioning again as it is a good one.
While many photos of Roman holidays include people leisurely sitting in a piazza sipping coffee or aperitivo, that experience comes at a price.
In Rome the tax for occupying piazzas and pavements are really high and the shop owners pass these onto their patrons: this means that the same cup of coffee that costs 80 cents at the bar will cost you easily 7 euro if sipped at a table, even if you carry it there yourself!
This is true in most establishments, especially in the center, and it is not a scam although it does feel like one if you are not expecting it.
If you pay attention, you will see that no Roman actually sits at a cafe so you are not scammed because you are a tourist: it is just a charge locals are aware of and therefore avoid.
Good to know: since the pandemic, the charges to sit outdoors have come down significantly. However, before sitting at a table, ask if there is an extra charge as, in the city center, this is often the case even now.
Drink water from the fountains and save on bottled water
Rome has gorgeous, clean, fresh, delicious water so a great way to save money is to bring a refillable water bottle and drink up from Rome’s small fountains.
They were built as part of a project to bring drinkable water to the city and they still operate.
Please note: not all fountains have drinkable water! The big monumental fountains are usually not for drinking! Go to the small nasoni instead: you can read all about drinking water in Rome here.
Order house wine (Vino della Casa)
Another way to save money is to stay away from expensive bottles of wine and opt for house wine instead (vino della casa).
House wine comes in a caraffe and is usually a fraction of the cost of a bottle, while still giving you a choice between red and white.
Always ask for a menu with prices
The fastest way to run out of money in Rome is to order without checking the price first.
While it is not the norm to make the most of the unsuspecting tourist, some places in Rome have made headlines for charging outrageous fees for cheap eats just because they are in a sought after location (the Spanish steps and the Vatican come to mind but not all establishments are like that, many in those areas are perfectly normal places )
The only way not to fall into their traps is to demand to see a menu with prices: check the cost of each dish, make sure it is per dish (and not per person, per 100gr and so on).
Also, check if the place applies a service charge: if they do (which they can), they must say it on the menu and specify how much.
In a cafe order at the till first: get to the till, place your order and check the cost – after that, go to the bar and place your order showing the receipt itself.
While this may seem an odd way to do things, this is the standard order of events if you are in a cafe and will guarantee you will never pay more than you expect.
Don’t tip 10% or more / don’t tip at all
If you come form a high tipping culture, you may consider kind and necessary to tip very generously. This it not the case in Rome (and Italy in general).
in Italy, a tip is a small gratuity of a few euro that you leave on the table at the end of the meal if you liked it. It is not a must, it is not rude not to do it, it is not a percentage of the bill.
Also, we do not tip tour guide and or drivers.
I know this sounds rude if used to a different system but it isn’t: as well as helping keeping working wages at liveable amounts, avoiding large tips actually helps tackling one of Italy’s biggest problems: tax evasion.
A few euro as a thank you are a nice gesture: percentages of a bill that add up to hundreds of euro once multiplied by the number of tourists we receive, are a problem.
Beware of the cost of fish
Rome has some nice fish restaurants however, ordering fish can be tricky on a budget due to it pricing.
Often the menu give you a price per 100 grams but it is not always easy to know how much your portion will actually cost.
If going for a fish option, make sure you ask for the cost of the actual plate before committing.
Ask for the price of daily specials
Rome restaurants usually have a printed menu and additional daily specials, with fresh ingredients that may have on a certain day.
These specials are often the best choice for quality; however, make sure you ask how much they cost as they are often listed verbally, so they come with no visible price.
Always ask the price of dishes before ordering, it not listed on the menu.
Swap dinner with aperitivo
Aperitivo in Italian means ‘pre dinner drinks with nibbles’ but nibbles come in several shapes and sizes: some places (often cafes) only give you a drink with crisps and peanuts but other offer a full buffet often delicious (and often for less than 10 – 15 euro per person).
In 2020, buffets have now be replaced by table service but the aperitivo idea and selection has stayed the same in most restaurants.
Embrace pizza al taglio and suppli
Italians do not eat on the go and I have a personal dislike for articles talking about Rome ‘street food’ as Rome does not really do ‘street food’!
You do not see Romans walking around town tucking into a bowl of pasta or even a sandwich (maybe pizza if you are a student): we usually sit for lunch or stay inside the food establishment until we have finished our meal.
However, what you do get in Rome and what many call ‘street food’ are places with cheap eats that are the equivalent of a take out joint.
These usually are called ‘rosticcerie’ or ‘pizzeria al taglio’ and they sell pizza, suppli and other Roman specialties that cost a few euro only and fill you up until dinner.
Swap ‘gourmet sandwich shops’ for the deli counter
Social media has made gourmet sandwich shops a thing, but seriously, you do not to queue for hours or spend outrageous prices for bread and fillings!
If you want an amazing, fresh, truly Italian, social-media-nonsense-free sandwich, the place to do is the deli counter at the supermarket!
The humble supermarket is where we local buy our food and it is perfect: the deli counter has fresh bread, focaccia, pizza, cheese, cured meats, often delicious things such vegetables in oil (delicious!): it costs a fraction of a ‘grommet’ shop sandwich and you can make it just as you like it!
Walk everywhere
Taxis are very expensive in Rome but the good news is you don’t often need them. Most of Rome main sights are pretty close to each other as you can see in our guide to planning your Rome sightseeing.
Unless you need to cover long distances late at night, when buses have stopped running, you can usually walk in Rome or get anywhere by bus.
A ticket for the bus only costs 1.50 euro and allows you to travel and all buses and trams for 75 minute.
It is always a good idea to have comfortable shoes in Rome: find my recommended shoes for the Eternal City here
Consider carefully the Roma pass and other discount cards
Discount passes and cards can be a good way to save money in many tourist attractions in the city of Rome.
However, take some time to make a plan and check how much you would actually use them before buying.
To help you decide if they are a good investment for your trip and which one to choose, you can check our guide here.
Get the bus from the airport
If planning a visit to Rome on a budget, start on the right foot and get from the airport to your hotel using the bus.
A single ride costs as little as 6.50 euro and it will bring you to Termini train station, from where you can walk or get the bus to your hotels
I hope you found this guide to Rome on a budget handy. Safe Rome travels!
This article was originally written in 2019 and has now been fully updated (November 2023).