Milan has the cheapest flights into Italy, by far
As you probably know, we are always looking for the best cheap flights deals here, and right now there is a fantastic one that everyone should know about. Italy is one of the most popular countries to visit on the planet, and almost everyone starts in Rome or perhaps Venice, but right now if you fly into Milan you can save a bundle.
At the moment flights into Milan from New York are only $480 round-trip, but from Rome they are starting at $680, and from Venice they are starting at $690. From Florence it’s even worse with flights starting at $810, so choosing to start in one city over another can be a huge savings.
Destination: A tour of Italy
Here’s the thing that most people already know, Italy is a relatively small country with quite a few different popular cities, so almost everyone tours the country rather than just staying in one place. Rome is obviously the most popular and by far the largest, but you might not know that Milan is a very close second when it comes to air traffic.
Milan is the business city for Italy and it’s centrally located in a heavily populated area, so you have many locals and business people flying in and out in addition to the tourists. Milan is an interesting city and it’s where you can see the Last Supper mural (if you book reservations way in advance), but honestly it’s not the place you want to spend more than a couple days.
Flying into Milan on a cheap flight is just as good as flying into Rome, or perhaps better because Rome is huge and very congested so it can be an intimidating place to land. Milan has a center that can be handled on foot if you have a fair amount of energy, so it’s a good place to walk off the jetlag and get used to your surroundings.
After maybe 2 nights in Milan you can take a 2-hour train ride to Venice or to Florence, or a 3-hour train ride to Rome. The trains are fairly cheap in Italy and they literally run every hour or so during the day, so you can actually just walk over to the train station and board a train in less than an hour with no reservation.
Saving $200 per person on your flight means you could actually stay another 2 days or so, or stay in nicer hotels once you get there. Even if you weren’t thinking about staying in Milan at all, flying into that city and then staying one night will be cheaper than flying into any other city right now.
If you are the type who can sleep on overnight flights (most flights to Europe are over night) then you can actually take the train right from the Milan airport to Venice or Florence if you like, though it would be a shame to skip it entirely seeing as how you are already there.