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If you are considering taking your holidays to Italy with your entire family you need to be ready for some big time price tags. The costs of eating, staying somewhere, your transportation as well as souvenirs has increased immensely over the past few years. But if you plan your trip well and do your homework you should be able to cut down on some of the cost for this family trip.

There are some tips that you can try to follow to help make your travel in Italy a bit cheaper and should help take some of the sting off of your total family vacation.

One thing you should consider is try traveling where tourists don't flock to as often. For instance go south and not north. Take tours of Etruscan villages instead of the Tuscan hill towns. Go to Sicily and check out the Greek ruins instead of going to Florence. Take a trip to the beaches of Puglia instead of Sardinia. Have fun mingling with all the locals on Ponza instead of trying to rub elbows with the rich in Capri.

Give up the idea of staying at a luxury hotel and try booking a bed and breakfast or even stay at a farmhouse instead. If you are going to rent a car than go a head and reserve rooms in smaller towns and stay away from the bigger cities. This could cut your accommodations in half.

If you are wanting to introduce your children to Italy there really is no need to go all over the country. Try and select an area and get familiar with that area. You will reduce your transportation costs and this will let you increase your options on where to stay. This way you can look into renting an apartment which can sometimes make your trip to Italy a lot more affordable.

For your food, you don't always have to go out to restaurants every day you are there, make it a note to buy fresh bread and pastries at a small local bakery and go to neighborhood stores to pick up some local food fare.

Another way of cutting down on costs is to try to make a habit of taking the local transportation systems offered instead of traveling by taxi. And if you want to see more of the country sometimes it's in your best interest in you travel by train instead of a car rental. Walk! Get out and walk around the different cities you are traveling to, Italian cities offer great places to roam around freely.

It's a good idea to find out from locals where they prefer to eat at. You are more than likely going to be directed to a far better place to eat at a lot lower cost than if you tried to find a place on your own. Stay away from places called ristorantis and try and go with the Osterias and trattorias. You will definitely see a drop in the cost of eating out.

If you can't wait to visit a real Italian cappuccino bar to enjoy some cappuccino or some great gelato it is always advisable to order it to go, it will cost you more if you sit at a table. And another bit of advice, never tip, the Italians never tip.