I’ve finally gotten around to putting together my Rome travel guide!

If you didn’t know already, Jay and I traveled to Italy back in October. Right after our trip, I took a little sabbatical from blogging to regain focus, purpose, and vision. Now that I’m back, it’s about time that I share the details of our trip! And I must say, going back through all of our notes, photos, and videos has been so fun. I’ve basically been reliving our entire trip the past few days.

And just so you know, this is post #2 in a series of blog posts that I’m putting out! My first post covered my 15 Must-Know International Travel Tips. From there, here’s a list of my upcoming posts: Florence Travel Guide, Cinque Terre Travel Guide, Milan Travel Guide, International Packing List (with a free printable), and an Italy Vlog. So stay tuned!

|| Rome Travel Guide ||

|| STAY ||

We opted to stay in airbnbs the entire trip, and I’m super happy with our decision! Not only was it budget-friendly, but it allowed us to spend a little more money on tours and meals without feeling like we were breaking the bank! Our airbnb was in Trevi, just a block from the Trevi fountain, and we absolutely loved this location as it was pretty central (if you drew a circle around Vatican City, Villa Borghese, and the Colosseum, Trevi’s right in the middle!).

|| EAT || 

I’m a researcher. I will research and research until I can research no more! SO – I spent a lot of time online reading reviews, articles, and blogs to make sure we enjoyed every second of our trip… especially the food! While Yelp is popular here in the US, TripAdvisor is actually the popular review website for Italy, so I based a lot of my decisions off of those reviews. Below are some of the places we went as well as a few others I had written down for next time. This is by no means the perfect list, so don’t take it as law, but they were the best places for us to go based on our food preferences (we don’t eat seafood!), our location, and the reviews. I hope it’s helpful!

• Panino Divino (top 10 restaurant in Rome) – The best paninis we had in all of Italy!
• Piccolo Arancio – A darling little restaurant. Sitting outside on the quiet Roman street sipping Prosecco was perfect!
• I Pizzicaroli (top 10 restaurant in Rome) – We didn’t make it to this place, but it was very high on my list because of the delicious-looking charcuterie boards!

• Pane a Salame (top 10 restaurant in Rome) – This was the first place we ate in all of Italy, and it definitely started off our trip on a fabulous note! It was by far the best charcuterie board we had on our trip, and because our flight got in a little later, we didn’t make it to the restaurant until about 9:00, which was actually perfect. The crowd had died down (remember, it’s super popular!) and we were able to snag a seat right in the middle of the restaurant. Amazing charcuterie board, great wine, and a trendy yet authentic atmosphere – Sold!
• La Fontana di Venere – There wasn’t anything spectacular about this place, but it was close to where we were staying, and we still enjoyed our night there!
• Numbs Piazza Di Spagna – Okay, so the reviews are mixed on this one, but GUYS. This. Place. I will never forget it! It was exactly what I pictured when I thought of Italy! An adorable restaurant in the middle of the street in Rome, busy enough that you felt important but not too busy that you had to wait, super close to the Spanish Steps, and street performers that walked through the streets playing music. My heart was so full sitting there enjoying the music, the food, the people, and the overall experience of Rome. I’ll admit, the food wasn’t anything to write home about, but give me pizza, pasta, and wine, and I’m all set! If you aren’t sold on this place, then I’d definitely look up other restaurants on this same street because the atmosphere was exactly how I pictured Rome!
• Ristorante Aroma at Palazzo Manfredi – We didn’t eat here, but it made my recommendation list because the views of the Colosseum are amazing!

|| DO ||

I can’t stress enough how much we loved our City Wonders tours! Very easy to book, fabulous tour guides, and an overall excellent experience every single time. I would 100% suggest purchasing the “Skip the Line” tickets because we really did just that! The lines at all of these places were ridiculous because of the amount of tourists, but if you were with a City Wonders group, you really did jump to the very front. Absolutely worth it!

It looks like the tours change based on the time of year, so all of our exact tours aren’t available to link to right now. But I’d recommend just searching City Wonders’ Rome site because there are 40 different tours to choose from!

• Colosseum, Roman Forum, & Palatine Hill tour – Such an epic tour. To get to stand in the middle of such a historical place was surreal and truly breathtaking.
• Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter’s Basilica tour – Another amazing experience. I was blown away by how much I enjoyed St. Peter’s Basilica specifically! All three of these are a must-see in Rome!
• Villa Borghese Gallery & Gardens tour – Our friends recommended this tour to us, and I’m so glad they did! This was our favorite tour of the entire trip! Our tour guide, Rebecca Bright (book with her if you can!), was phenomenal. She’s studied these artists so much, that she actually brings them to life and even shared a little gossip about their lives back in 1500s.. and we loved every minute of it. The gardens were so gorgeous, and she ended our tour by taking us to the Spanish Steps at sunset – gorgeous!

Visit (no tour needed):

• Pantheon
• Trevi Fountain
• Spanish Steps

|| PHOTO RECAP ||

|| HELPFUL TIPS ||

• For my full list of helpful travel tips, check out my 15 Must-Know International Travel Tips post where I list all of my super important tips for traveling! (Some of which we learned the hard way… Whoops!)
• Since you’re probably going to be out most of the day, don’t forget your external phone charger. We took so many photos and videos of Rome because we wanted to remember every second of it, and I don’t know what we would’ve done if our phones had died!
• For transportation, we walked just about everywhere. It’s such a beautiful city and there’s so much to take in, so why not? There were one or two times that we took a taxi (we used the mytaxi app), but in general, it was pretty reasonable to just walk around. That being said, wear comfy shoes!

Before leaving for our trip, I asked Instagram and Snapchat for any recommendations in Rome. Below are a few that we didn’t make it to, but that were pretty popular amongst my social media friends!

If you found this Rome travel guide helpful or are wanting to save these tips for your future trip, would you pin it to your travel board?

I hope these Rome travel guide tips and recommendations are helpful to you! If you’ve gone anywhere else in Rome that you want other people to know about, leave your recommendation in the comments! Jay and I also said we 100% want to make it back to Rome someday, so I could use your recommendations for the future too!

Stay tuned for my Florence, Cinque Terre, and Milan travel guides as well as my packing list and vlog coming soon!