The Best Time to Visit Italy With Kids (I’d Go in May)

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Every time I have been to Italy it has been whenever I could get the time off, which usually meant summer, which is how I ended up walking across Florence in late July with my shirt stuck to my back thinking this is not how anyone should see this city.

Picking the best time to visit Italy with kids is a different calculation, and for once it is a calculation with a clear answer rather than a set of trade-offs. I would go in May. If May does not work, late September.

Here is the month by month, and the two windows I would avoid outright.

The short version

May and late September are the two best months, for the same three reasons: the temperature sits where a small child is comfortable, the crowds have not arrived or have left, and everything is open.

Avoid August, which is hot and half-closed. Avoid the first three weeks of July for the heat. December through February is genuinely good if you are going for cities rather than coast, and it is the cheapest the country gets.

Why May is my answer

Daytime temperatures in Florence and Rome in May sit in the low seventies, and on the coast a little cooler. That is the band where you can walk around at midday with a toddler without it becoming a problem. In July the same walk is a heat management exercise.

The crowds have not properly landed yet. European school holidays start in late June and the American wave comes with them, so the first three weeks of May are noticeably quieter than anything after the first of June.

And everything is open. This sounds trivial until you have been somewhere in the off season and found that the ferry you were counting on runs three times a week instead of hourly. In May the Capri and Amalfi ferries from Sorrento are on summer frequency, which matters a great deal if you are building days around them.

There is one more thing about May that I only noticed after several trips. The days are already long, so you get light until well past eight in the evening, and that gives you back the hours after a late afternoon nap. In October the same trip ends in darkness at six, which shortens the day considerably when half of it was spent indoors anyway.

The catch with May is that the sea is cold. Not unswimmable, but cold enough that a two-year-old will get in once and then not again. If the trip is about beach time, May is the wrong month and you want June.

Month by month

March and April

Variable. Genuinely lovely some years and wet others, and Easter moves around and brings a crowd and a price spike with it wherever it lands. The gardens are good. The sea is cold. If you are going for cities only and you get lucky with the weather, April is excellent value.

May

The best month, for the reasons above. Book early, because enough people have worked this out that the good family apartments go three or four months ahead.

June

The compromise month, and the right one if swimming matters. Warm but not yet brutal, sea warm enough to use, everything open. The crowds build through the month, so the first half is meaningfully better than the second.

July

Hot. Florence and the inland cities are genuinely difficult in the middle of the day, and the stone holds heat into the evening. If you have to go in July, restructure the day rather than the trip: out early, back in by eleven, out again at five. That is how Italians do July and it works.

August

The month I would avoid. It is the hottest, it is the most crowded on the coast, and a large part of the country shuts.

Ferragosto falls on the fifteenth and the closures cluster around it, but plenty of family-run restaurants and shops close for two or three weeks either side. The places that stay open in the city centers are the ones that exist for tourists, which are not the ones worth travelling for. Meanwhile every Italian family is at the beach, so the coast is at its fullest and its most expensive.

September

The other good month, and the second half of it is better than the first. The sea is at its warmest of the year because it has been heating all summer, the crowds thin out after the first week, and the heat has broken. If you want one month that does everything, late September is it.

October

Underrated and cheap. The cities are at their best, Tuscany is in harvest, and the light is extraordinary. Coastal places start winding down towards the end of the month and ferry schedules thin out, so check before building a day around a boat.

November

Wet, quiet, and cheap. This is olive harvest, and if you are going to Tuscany to be on a farm rather than to be outdoors all day, November has something going for it. Venice floods more often in November than any other month, which is worth knowing if that is on your list.

December to February

Better than people expect for a city trip. Florence and Venice in winter are cold and often grey, and they are also close to empty, and with a small child an empty city is worth a great deal. Museum queues disappear. Prices drop. You can actually get a table.

The coast is shut, so this is a cities-only proposition. Pack properly, because an old apartment with stone floors in January is colder inside than you expect.

What I’d skip

The week around Easter, wherever it falls. Prices go up, Italian families travel domestically, and the big sights are at their most crowded. If your dates are flexible by a week in either direction, move them.

And I would skip going in August to save money on flights, which is the trap. The flight is cheaper and everything on the ground is more expensive and more crowded, so you lose on the exchange.

How the month changes the itinerary

This is the part most month-by-month guides leave out. The right month is not just a weather question, it changes which trip you should take.

In May or late September, the three-base plan works as written: Venice, Florence, Sorrento, with ferries and day trips in between. That is the version I have laid out in my 9-day Italy itinerary with kids.

In July, cut the inland portion and weight the trip towards the coast and the islands, where there is sea breeze and water. Sicily and the Amalfi coast handle heat better than Florence does.

In winter, do the opposite. Drop the coast entirely and give the whole trip to two cities, which is when Florence comes into its own because the museums are empty and the walking is pleasant.

Events worth checking before you book

Italy has a handful of dates that will either make your trip or wreck your accommodation budget, and they move around, so check them against your dates rather than assuming.

Venice carries most of them. Carnival runs in the two weeks before Lent and is wonderful and completely packed. The Biennale art festival runs from spring into autumn in odd years and fills the city midweek as well as at weekends. The Film Festival takes over the Lido at the start of September. My Venice list has more on what is on when.

Inland, the Palio in Siena runs twice, in early July and mid August, and it closes the center of the town and fills every bed within an hour’s drive. If you are doing a Tuscany day out from Florence, check those two dates.

And the national ones: Ferragosto on the fifteenth of August, Liberation Day on the twenty-fifth of April, and Republic Day on the second of June. Each of those is a long weekend when Italians travel domestically, so trains fill and coastal prices jump.

The two things that actually decide your month

Most month-by-month guides give you the weather and stop. With a small child there are two questions that matter more.

Is this a water trip or a cities trip? If the point is swimming, the usable window is mid June to early October and nothing outside it will do, whatever the air temperature says. If the point is cities, food and walking around, the window is enormous and you should go in the shoulder or the winter when it is cheap and quiet.

Are you tied to school holidays yet? We are not, and for the next couple of years that is the single biggest advantage we have. A trip in the second week of May or the last week of September costs less and is quieter than the same trip three weeks either side, and that gap closes permanently the year your eldest starts school. If you have the flexibility, this is the year to use it.

What the month does to the budget

The spread across the year is larger than people expect, and it is not only flights.

Accommodation is the big one. The same apartment in Florence can run two or three times as much in peak summer as it does in November, and the gap is widest for the family-sized places because there are fewer of them. Flights follow roughly the same curve but less sharply.

What does not change much is food and trains, which are priced for the people who live there. So a winter trip is not uniformly cheaper, it is dramatically cheaper on the bed and about the same on everything else. That means the saving is biggest for longer trips and for families, who are paying for the larger room either way.

The practical version: moving your dates from the first week of August to the last week of September will usually save you more than any other single decision in the planning, and the trip is better.

Questions I get about when to visit Italy with kids

What is the cheapest time to visit Italy?

November, and January into early March, excluding the Christmas and New Year window. Flights and accommodation both drop substantially. The trade is weather and shorter days.

Is Italy too hot in summer for a toddler?

In the inland cities in late July and August, yes, in the middle of the day. It is manageable if you restructure around it, out early and out again in the evening, but you are managing it rather than enjoying it. On the coast it is much better because of the breeze and the water.

When is the sea warm enough to swim?

Mid June through early October, with August and early September the warmest. In May the sea is still cold from the winter even when the air is warm, which catches people out.

Does everything really close in August?

Not everything, but enough to notice, and it is concentrated around Ferragosto on the fifteenth. Family-run restaurants and small shops are the ones that close. Museums, major sights and anything tourist-facing stay open.

Is it worth going in winter with a small child?

For cities, yes, and it is my favourite underrated option. Empty museums, no queues, cheap flights, and a toddler who does not have to be managed through a two-hour line in the sun. Just do not plan on the coast or the ferries.

Is one week enough, or should we wait until we can take longer?

Go for the week. A week in two places in May beats two weeks in five places in August, and it beats waiting another year. The thing that makes an Italy trip work with a toddler is pace, not duration.

What is the weather actually like in May?

Low seventies in the day in Florence and Rome, cooler on the coast and in the evenings, with a real chance of a few days of rain. Pack layers and one proper waterproof rather than assuming summer clothes. The mornings can be genuinely chilly, which is pleasant for walking and a surprise if you packed for July.

How far ahead should I book for May?

Three to four months for accommodation, and flights as soon as the schedule opens if you want a specific pairing of airports. May is popular with exactly the people who have worked out that it is the best month, so the good apartments in the neighbourhoods worth staying in go early.

I ran the same question for Portugal and landed on a different answer there, because the Portuguese coast has a longer usable season and the summer is less punishing inland. That one is here.

We are going to try for May. I will say so here when it is booked. The rest of what I have written about the country is in the Italy archive, and if you are still deciding whether to go at all, I wrote out the honest version of that too.