Where to Stay in Italy With Kids (What I’d Book Now That I’m a Mom)

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The thing I got wrong about Italy for fifteen years is that I treated where I slept as the least important decision of the trip. A bed, a shower, somewhere central, book the cheap one. It genuinely did not matter, because I was out of the room from eight in the morning until midnight.

Working out where to stay in Italy with kids is a completely different exercise, and I have come round to thinking it is the single decision that determines whether the trip works. Everything else can be improvised. You cannot improvise your way out of a bad room at nine at night with a toddler who will not sleep.

So here is what I would book now, and the three things I check before anything else.

The short version

Apartments, not hotels. A separate bedroom with a door. A washing machine. Somewhere in the second-best neighbourhood rather than the first, because the first one is loud and costs double.

In Florence that means the Oltrarno. In Venice it means Cannaregio or Dorsoduro. In Sorrento it means ten minutes back from Piazza Tasso. In Tuscany it means an agriturismo and a rental car.

The three things I check before anything else

1. Is there a door between the bed and the sofa?

This is the whole thing. In one hotel room, your evening ends when the child goes down at seven. You sit in the dark. You whisper. You go to bed at eight because there is nothing else to do. One night of that is fine. Nine nights of it is not a holiday, it is a hostage situation with a nice view.

A one-bedroom apartment gives you back three hours every evening. In most Italian cities it also costs less than a hotel room that officially sleeps three, because hotels charge by the person and apartments charge by the property.

2. Is there a washing machine?

With a washing machine you pack for four days instead of nine. That is one bag instead of two, which matters enormously when you are also moving a stroller, a car seat and a child through Santa Maria Novella station.

Italian apartment washing machines are small and slow, and most of them have no dryer. You wash in the evening and hang things on the rack that will be on the balcony. This is normal and it works, as long as you are not expecting to do it the morning you leave.

3. How many steps are there?

Nobody puts this in the listing and it has ruined more trips than any other detail. Italian buildings are old. Fourth floor with no lift is common, and in the historic centers it is close to standard. Add a sleeping toddler and a suitcase and it is a genuine problem twice a day.

Ask. Message the host and ask directly how many flights and whether there is a lift. If they do not answer clearly, assume the worst. In Sorrento there is a second version of this question, which is how many steps down to the water, because some of those cliff properties have a couple of hundred.

Florence: stay in the Oltrarno

The Oltrarno is the south side of the Arno, and in my Florence guide I described it as the quieter, more residential half of the city. That was true when I wrote it for adults and it is more useful now.

You cross one of the bridges and you are at the Duomo in fifteen minutes. You cross back and you are somewhere with actual neighbourhood life, a greengrocer, people who live there. The streets are narrower and quieter and there is far less of the rolling-suitcase noise that defines the area around the station at six in the morning.

If the Oltrarno prices out, look at Santa Croce, which still has real workshops and leather makers rather than only souvenir shops. What I would avoid is the few blocks immediately around Santa Maria Novella station, which is convenient on arrival day and unpleasant for the other five.

Venice: Cannaregio or Dorsoduro, and think about the bridges

Venice is the one where the neighbourhood choice has a physical consequence rather than just an atmospheric one, because between where the boat drops you and where you sleep there may be four bridges, and every bridge is steps.

My Venice guide points at the Rialto area for shops and restaurants and the northwestern end near the station and the Jewish Ghetto. With a stroller I would lean to Cannaregio, up at that northwestern end, because it is close to the station, it is where a lot of Venetians actually live, and the walk in from the train involves fewer crossings than almost anywhere else.

Dorsoduro is the other one I would look at. It is quieter than San Marco, it has the Zattere waterfront which is a long flat promenade, and it is a good place to be in the evening once the day crowds have gone.

The practical test for any Venice listing: open the map, find the nearest vaporetto stop, and count the bridges between it and the front door. Three or fewer is fine. Seven is a daily event.

Sorrento: back from Piazza Tasso, and check the steps

Sorrento splits into three options and they are genuinely different trips.

The cliff hotels along the coast have the view, the terraces and usually a pool, and they are the expensive choice. With a small child the pool is worth more than the view, so if you are paying for one of these, pay for the one with water rather than the one with the better outlook.

The town center around Piazza Tasso and Corso Italia has the budget hotels and the B and Bs. This is where I would stay. You are walking distance from everything, the Circumvesuviana station is right there for Pompeii, and the ferry port is downhill.

Marina Grande, the fishing harbour below the town, is the third. It is lovely and it has the most atmospheric places to eat in Sorrento. It is also down a long set of steps from the town, which is a decision you make several times a day.

Tuscany: this is where you book the agriturismo

If there is one night of your Italy trip to spend outside a city, make it this one.

An agriturismo is a working farm that takes guests. They are all over Tuscany, they are frequently cheaper than a city hotel, and they are the single most child-friendly accommodation in the country. There is space. There are animals. There is usually a pool. Dinner is at a long table and runs for three hours and nobody minds if a two-year-old gets down and wanders.

The catch is that you need a car, and that the good ones are twenty minutes down a white gravel road. Factor that in rather than discovering it in the dark.

Getting the bags there, which nobody mentions

In Florence and Sorrento this is a non-issue. You get a taxi, it stops outside, you go in.

In Venice it is a real piece of planning. There are no cars, so from the moment you step off the train or the boat, everything you own is being carried or dragged by you, over bridges, up and down steps, probably while also holding a child’s hand. A taxi cannot take you to your door and the water taxi that can is expensive.

Two things make it manageable. Pick a place within a few bridges of a vaporetto stop, which is the same test as above. And pack so that one adult can handle all the luggage alone, because the other adult is handling the toddler and there is no third person.

This is the real argument for the washing machine. One big case and one small bag beats two big cases every single time in a city where you are the transport.

What this actually costs

Rough numbers from what I have been pricing for May, for a one-bedroom apartment sleeping three, which are the ones I am looking at rather than a published average.

Florence in the Oltrarno runs noticeably less than the equivalent place in the center north of the river, for a fifteen-minute walk. Venice is the most expensive of the three bases and Cannaregio is cheaper than anywhere near San Marco. Sorrento in the town center is the best value of the lot, and the cliff hotels with pools are a different category of spending altogether.

An agriturismo night in Tuscany often comes in under a city night, and usually includes breakfast and sometimes dinner, which makes it better value than it first looks.

The pattern across all of them is the same. The second-best neighbourhood saves you real money for a walk of ten to fifteen minutes, and with a toddler that walk is pleasant rather than a cost, because you were going to be walking slowly anyway. I will put proper numbers against all of this in a cost breakdown of its own once we have booked.

What I’d skip

The hotel directly on the main square, in any city. It costs the most, it is the loudest, and the view you are paying for is one you can walk to for free in four minutes. Squares in Italy are busy until late and then cleaned early. You will hear all of it.

I would also skip booking a place without a kitchen on the grounds that you are going to eat out anyway. You will want somewhere to make breakfast, warm milk, and store the fruit, and the morning you need plain pasta at an hour when nothing is open, you will want a stove.

And I would skip any listing where the host will not confirm the step count.

Questions I get about where to stay in Italy with kids

Apartment or hotel?

Apartment, in almost every case, for the separate bedroom, the washing machine and the kitchen. The exception is a one-night stop where you arrive late and leave early, when a hotel next to the station is simply easier.

Do Italian hotels have family rooms?

Some do, and they are usually called a triple or a quadruple rather than a family room. They are typically one room with an extra bed rather than two spaces, so ask specifically whether there is a separating door before booking.

Will there be a cot?

Usually yes if you ask in advance, and often for a small fee. Do not assume it from the listing. Message and confirm, and ask about a high chair in the same message, because apartments frequently have one and rarely mention it.

Is air conditioning standard?

In hotels, mostly. In older apartments, not always, and in August that matters more than almost anything else on this page. If you are travelling in summer, treat air conditioning as a requirement and filter for it rather than hoping.

How far in advance should I book?

For May or September, three to four months, because the good family-sized apartments in the neighbourhoods above are a small pool and they go first. For Sicily and the coast in August, earlier.

Is one base better than moving around?

For a week or less, one base and day trips, every time. Every move costs you most of a day once you account for packing, checking out, the train and finding the new place. Nine days is the point where three bases starts to make sense, and even then I would not go above three.

What about noise?

Italian historic centers are loud later than American ones, and the noise is mostly people rather than traffic. Ask for a room or an apartment facing an internal courtyard rather than the street. Most older buildings in Florence and Venice have one, and it is the difference between a seven o’clock bedtime holding and not.

Is it cheaper to stay outside the center?

Yes, and with a toddler it is usually a false economy. Thirty minutes each way on a bus, twice a day, during nap windows, costs you more than the money saved. The second-best neighbourhood is the right compromise, not the suburbs.

I worked through the same set of questions for Portugal, and the answers came out a little different, mostly because Portugal has more modern apartments and fewer fourth-floor walk-ups. That one is here if you are comparing.

Once I have actually booked ours I will come back and say what we picked and whether the step count was honest. The rest of what I have written about the country is in the Italy archive, and the trip it all fits into is in my 9-day Italy itinerary with kids.