ITALY PERFUME TRIP PACKING GUIDE

Written By JT Siems

What to Pack for Italy: A Cultural Historian's Obsessively Curated Guide

Plus: the perfume journal system that will change how you scent-travel forever.

I have been to Italy twice now. The first time I came back with blisters on my blisters, bug bites I couldn't stop scratching, and an almost-confiscated bottle of perfume at airport security. The second time, I came back with all of that handled — plus a travel journal so packed with memories, ticket stubs, printed photos, and scent strips that it basically qualifies as an artifact.

This is not a generic packing list written by someone who once Googled "Italy trip." This is the actual list I give my travelers when they come with me — honed over two trips, real mistakes, and more pharmacies than I care to count. (The Italian word for pharmacy is farmacia. You will learn this word.)

I'm a perfume historian and founder of Immortal Perfumes, based in Seattle. My Italy trips are, in part, research trips. I smell things for a living, I document obsessively, and I have learned — the hard way — exactly what you do and do not need. So. Let's get into it.

1. The Bag Situation

Watch: Rome vlog — perfume shopping, cultural sites, outfits & dinners

Every Italy TikTok will tell you: pack light. Backpack only if you can. They are not wrong, and I say this as a committed overpacker who had to have a come-to-Jesus moment on a Venice bridge.

Here's why it matters: you will be on uneven cobblestones constantly. Venice has no cars, which means no taxis, which means you and your luggage are walking everywhere — including up and down bridge stairs with your suitcase. Start light. You can always buy a cute shirt in Florence.

My bag system:

  • My #1 Travel Backpack — My main carry-on. Lives on my back, fits overhead, fits under the seat in a pinch.
  • My 2nd Favorite Travel Backpack — A solid alternative if the first is sold out.
  • Packable Duffle — Pack this flat inside your luggage on the way there. On the way home, it becomes your overflow bag for souvenirs, shopping, and — if you're me — an alarming number of perfume bottles.
  • Hanging Toiletry Bag — I put all my medicine and bandage items in here. Hang it up in the hotel bathroom and you never have to unpack it.
  • Suitcase Organizer Insert — I don't have this exact one; I use the insert from the Solgard Carry-on Closet. Hard-sided luggage is miserable on cobblestones — you can't compress it, can't jam it places. This insert compresses everything in one go and hangs in your wardrobe so you never actually unpack. Life-changing.

For your daily bag: it needs to close securely, fit a water bottle on the side, and be big enough for your documents, journal, and a snack. Get nylon — lightweight, handles rain, easy to clean.

I used the Saint and Sofia Noho Bag in black — discontinued but findable on Poshmark. If you can't find one secondhand, Lo & Sons makes excellent travel bags. The Nouvelle is a particular favorite. I took its padded strap and put it on the Noho bag. The day that bag finally dies will be a genuinely sad day.

2. Your Feet Will Hate You (Prepare Accordingly)

On a slow day in Italy, you will walk 10,000 steps. On a busy day, 25,000. I am not exaggerating. I walked so much in Florence that my morning ritual became: wake up, bandage toes, put on sneakers, go find a cornetto.

No shoe will fully prevent blisters on a packed Italy trip. What you can do is minimize the damage:

  • Dr. Scholl's Time Off Sneaker — Popular among my travelers and cute enough to pass. Fair warning: they start squeaking after heavy use. I've gone through two pairs across two trips.
  • Skechers Arch Fit See Ya There — My current top pick. Serious arch support, less blistering, and they've outlasted the Dr. Scholl's across multiple trips plus my daily walks. This is the shoe I'd recommend first now.
  • Paul Green Hadley — If you want something polished enough for a nice dinner. A Nordstrom SA told me these are one of their most popular travel shoes. An investment that earns its keep.
  • Gel Blister Bandages — Buy before you go. Do not assume you can find them there. Bring at least 40. I mean it.
  • Gel Toe Protectors — Your pinky toes will thank you. Your entire foot will thank you.

Wear your sneakers on the plane. One less thing to pack and your feet will be pre-broken-in.

3. What to Actually Wear

Watch: Florence vlog — what I wore, where I ate, perfume finds in the Oltrarno

The rule that saved me: all black, white when I want a pop of color. I am goth by nature so this required zero adjustment. But even if you are not goth, neutrals are your friend — everything mixes, you look pulled together, and you can repeat outfits without anyone knowing or caring.

For 10 days, you need roughly:

  • 2–3 tops
  • 2 pairs of pants (wear one on the plane)
  • 1 pair of shorts
  • 1–2 cardigans or lightweight sweaters (wear one on the plane)
  • 1 packable rain jacket — I live in Seattle; if you have a good rain jacket you don't need an umbrella, trust
  • 1 jumpsuit or dress for nicer evenings
  • 1 additional dress if you have more than one upscale event
  • 1 pair of pajamas
  • Base layer top and pants for colder temperatures
  • Socks and underwear for every day — or plan one laundry day at the midpoint
  • 1 belt or accessory that works with everything

My strategy is to do laundry about halfway through the trip. Most hotels offer a drop-off service: leave it in the morning, have it back by evening.

Specific items I love and actually travel with:

A few additional resources I actually use: Nuuly for renting vacation outfits (helps with the impulse to buy all-new things for a trip), and the Indyx app (code jatsiems for $10 off) for planning outfits before you pack — you photograph your wardrobe and build looks virtually. Is this type A? Yes. I have no regrets. Some of us grew up wishing we had Cher's wardrobe computer.

One more tip: if you fall in love with something in a shop window in Florence, buy it. Leave room in your bag intentionally. Some of my favorite things I own came from Italian markets and boutiques.

4. The Medicine Cabinet You Actually Need

Italian farmacias are everywhere and the pharmacists are genuinely knowledgeable — they function more like doctors there. That said, a few things I was desperate for and absolutely could not find:

Benadryl. I did not bring Benadryl. This was a mistake. The bugs in Florence and Venice are aggressive and apparently very interested in Americans. I got the worst bug bites of my life in Florence, couldn't find Benadryl anywhere, and the cream they gave me at the farmacia did not cut it. Bring Benadryl. Bring hydrocortisone. I am begging you.

I am also a person with a history of anxiety and issues stemming from a cancer battle years ago — so this list may be more than a healthy adult needs. That said, if you have any chronic condition, err on the side of being a walking pharmacy. Ask your doctor to print an official medication list before you go and travel with important meds in their original containers.

5. Passport, Paperwork, and a Few Things Americans Forget

Italy requires you to carry your passport on you at all times — not a copy, the actual passport. Get a good holder for it, whether that's in your purse or a secure pocket.

I always bring a photocopy of my passport as well, but here's the key: put the photocopy in a bag you leave at the hotel, not the bag you carry. That way if you lose your passport, you have documentation at the hotel to help with the embassy. I also save photos of my passport, medication list, and all itineraries to my phone.

Before you leave, ask your doctor to print an official medication list. Even if you've never had an issue, having it eliminates the possibility of problems at customs. Travel with important medications — especially anxiety meds or anything controlled — in their original containers.

I also always print all my itineraries and reservation confirmations. Yes, physically. Hotels, trains, tours, everything. Your phone dies. Wi-Fi fails. Paper does not.

6. Stay Connected, Stay Safe

Your phone will work internationally — you don't need to do anything special. If you use a lot of data (social media, navigation, paying with your phone), consider buying an extra international data package or getting an eSIM. I have T-Mobile and it worked seamlessly; I just bought extra data because I run social accounts for work.

Set up tap-to-pay on your phone before you leave. It is so much easier than fishing out your wallet, and it helps with the pickpocket situation. One note: if you tap very frequently — like when you are perfume shopping and tapping your phone every few minutes at different boutiques — your bank may temporarily decline it as a fraud precaution. Your physical card will work fine in those cases.

  • Phone Lanyard / Chain — Needs to be attached to your body. I've found cord lanyards hold up better than chains — more flexibility, less breakage.
  • Portable Power Bank — Your phone will die between navigation, photos, and payments. Not optional. I like this one because the plugs are covered — no extra wires.
  • European Power Adaptor — Italy uses Type F/L plugs. Hotels often don't have adaptors.
  • Personal Fan — This saved my life in the Uffizi. It was so crowded and hot I genuinely thought I might faint. This one has a lanyard if you don't mind looking like a tourist. I do not, when the alternative is fainting.
  • Cooling Towel — Wet it before you go out, keep in its case, apply as needed.
  • Purse Essentials Case — Keeps your daily bag organized. Mine holds medicines, bandaids, toe protectors, hair ties.
  • Stallmates Wipes — Public bathrooms in Italy sometimes have no paper. Sometimes no soap. These handle both.
  • Tide Pens — You will spill something. I guarantee it.

Apps to download before you go: Google Translate (offline mode), Citymapper for navigation (better walking directions than Google Maps in most Italian cities), Google Maps with offline maps for Rome, Venice, and Florence. Make lists in Google Maps of everywhere you want to go — restaurants, shops, perfumeries — so you have addresses available offline.

On safety: Italy is very safe. The two things to actually watch for are pickpockets and street hustlers. Walk with purpose, keep your bag closed, attach your phone to your body, and say no firmly without stopping. People who pause and try to be polite are the ones who end up with problems. You don't have to be rude — but you don't have to engage.

7. Language and Payment: What You Actually Need to Know

Most people working in restaurants, cafes, and shops in tourist areas speak English. That said, a handful of phrases will carry you through most situations and earn you a measurable amount of goodwill:

VorreiI would like… (use this to order and ask for things)
Per favoreplease
Graziethank you
Permesso / Scusiexcuse me
Mi dispiaceI'm sorry
Non capiscoI don't understand
Parla inglese?do you speak English?
Non parlo italianoI don't speak Italian
Quanto costa?how much is it?
Posso pagare con carta?can I pay with card?
Il conto, per favorethe bill, please

For language learning: Pimsleur is the best program I've found if you want to actually hold conversations. Duolingo is good for vocabulary only. Download Google Translate in offline mode for anything more complex — I used it constantly.

On payment: most places take card. For small purchases — coffee, water, a bus ticket — cash is better. Bring €200–300 in mixed bills and around €10 in coins specifically for public bathrooms. My biggest recommendation: set up tap-to-pay on your phone before you leave. See section 6 for the one caveat about bank fraud alerts.

8. The Part That Will Change How You Travel: The Journal System

Watch: my complete travel journal system — how I document every trip with printed photos, ticket stubs, and an indexed rec list

I want to talk about something that isn't on most Italy packing lists, and it's the thing I am most evangelical about: keeping a travel journal.

I used to collect everything — museum tickets, wine labels, little papers from restaurants, receipts from the farmacia, maps, cards from perfume shops. They would come home and live in a box, completely unorganized, slowly becoming meaningless. I had no way to remember which museum the ticket was from or what I ate at the restaurant where I got the receipt.

Now I keep a dedicated travel journal and it has completely changed how I experience travel. Not just as documentation, but as an activity. Journaling on the train between cities, at a café in the afternoon, in bed at the hotel after dinner — it's one of my favorite parts of the trip. It forces you to be present, to notice things, to actually remember them.

I use a traveler's notebook — passport size. A traveler's notebook is a leather (or in my case, vinyl — I made my own on Etsy from a template) cover with cords inside that hold multiple inserts. Inside mine: my passport, two notebooks (one for memories, one dedicated to perfume — more on that shortly), an undated weekly agenda for loose itinerary structure, and a kraft folder for flat ephemera like tickets, receipts, and cards.

I bring a small Sprocket printer and print photos each evening, leaving the printer in the hotel during the day. Photos get taped or glued directly into the journal the same night. At the back of the memory notebook, I keep an index of restaurants and shops with a quick note on each — "would return," "great for lunch, skip for dinner," "only go if you like waiting in a very long line for a very small sandwich that is nonetheless worth it."

I have referred back to my Italy journals multiple times to remember where I ate, what I bought, which perfume shop had the best selection. The journal is the souvenir that actually works. You will actually look back on it.

  • Traveler's Company Notebook — The brand that started the travel journal trend. Passport size is perfect — slim enough for your purse, big enough to write in, and your passport fits inside the cover.
  • Midori Passport Size Weekly Agenda Insert — Undated, so you can use it across multiple trips. I put all reservation numbers and time estimates inside.
  • Kraft Folder and Zipper Bag Insert — For flat ephemera: tickets, cards, papers. I put my passport on the same cord so it's not obvious what's inside.
  • Clear Zipper Pocket for Traveler's Notebook — For small items, stickers, washi tape, and scent strips.
  • Sprocket Printer Start Up Kit — The game-changer. Print photos from your phone each evening and stick them in the same day. Collage feature lets you print up to four images in one photo. By the time you get home, you have a complete photo album with diary entries and ephemera.
  • Sprocket Photo Paper Refills — Buy extra before you go. I do about 10 photos per day and always run low.
  • Glue Tape — Cleaner than a glue stick, easier than tape. About two per trip.
  • Travel Scissors — TSA-compliant, useful for trimming photos and papers.
  • Sterling Ink Notebooks — If you've read this far about journaling, you care about paper quality. Sterling Ink is the best. I also highly recommend their Common Planner for everyday use.
  • My Favorite Travel Pen — Smooth writing matters when you're journaling on a train every day. Small enough to fit inside the passport notebook.

Because I need things to be cute: I also bring washi tape and stickers. My hack is to choose 3–5 tapes and roll them around an old gift card — options without the bulk of full rolls. I get city-specific stickers before each trip and store them in the zipper pouch.

9. The Perfume Journal (Yes, This Is Its Own Category)

If you are a fragrance person — and if you are reading a blog written by a perfume historian, I am guessing you might be — Italy requires its own system within your journal system.

I keep a separate small notebook tucked inside my travel journal dedicated entirely to perfume notes. Every perfume I smell gets its own entry: the name, the house, where I smelled it, what I thought. I add sticker pockets to the pages — small adhesive library pockets work beautifully — and keep the scent strips from each boutique organized inside, sorted roughly by brand.

By the end of a trip, I have a complete olfactory record of everywhere I've been: what I smelled in a small perfumery in Venice, what I tested at a historic house in Florence, what I found at a market that genuinely surprised me. When you come home and someone asks what you found, you have actual notes. When you want to order something you smelled but didn't buy because you were being restrained and responsible, you have the name.

Italy is one of the great perfume countries. Florence especially — Santa Maria Novella alone is worth building an afternoon around, and that's before you get to the independent perfumeries tucked into the Oltrarno. Come prepared to smell things. Come prepared to document them.

  • Liquid rules on flights are strict. If you're buying bottles to bring home, check them. Do not try to carry on full-size bottles. They will be confiscated and you will be sad. (Heathrow has started allowing larger quantities in carry-on — check your specific airports as rules shift.)
  • Pack a solid perfume or travel-size decant for your daily wear. Your bottles stay in checked luggage and you still smell wonderful.
  • Bring a small ziplock in your personal item for scent strips and samples so they don't scent everything else in your bag.

The perfume journal pairs naturally with the main travel journal — same notebook system, same pocket structure, just dedicated to scent. It's the best souvenir you can't smell on anyone else.

10. Recommended Bookings and How to Actually See the Cities

Watch: Venice vlog — navigating the city, perfume shopping, and the photo tour I'd recommend to everyone

My biggest recommendation: on your first day in any city you're particularly interested in, book a tour where you're driven or carried rather than walking. You get oriented, you identify what you want to go back to, and you see the layout without exhausting your feet before you've started. In Rome and Florence, golf cart tours are fantastic for this. I did a Vespa tour in Rome and it was one of the highlights of the whole trip. Highly, highly recommend.

Avoid walking tours. You will walk a staggering amount in Italy regardless. A tour that adds more walking is not a gift to yourself.

For photos: because I was traveling solo, I did photo tours in both Florence and Venice — a photographer takes you around the city and captures you actually in it, so you can be present instead of wrestling with a selfie stick. I'd recommend this for anyone traveling without a designated photographer.

I cannot recommend Osvaldo in Venice highly enough. He is warm, knowledgeable, knows the city beautifully, and takes extraordinary photos. He's a gem. Worth booking early.

  • Book restaurants in advance for anywhere you genuinely care about, especially Florence and Rome. The good ones fill up.
  • Book museum tickets in advance — especially the Uffizi and the Vatican. The lines for walk-ins are punishing.
  • Leave unscheduled time. The best things that happened to me in Italy were unplanned: a market I stumbled into, a perfumery I found by walking down the wrong street, a café where I sat for two hours because I felt like it.

Italy is loud, beautiful, occasionally chaotic, and worth every bit of the planning. A cannon goes off in Rome on Sundays to sync the church clocks. I thought it was an explosion. Half the Americans around me had the same thought. The Italians found this very funny.

Go. Wear your good sneakers. Bring your Benadryl. Keep a journal. Smell everything.

If you have questions about perfume shopping specifically — where to go in Florence, what to look for, how to navigate a perfumery if you're new to niche fragrance — that's exactly what I write about. Find me at Immortal Perfumes or follow The Scent Archive podcast for perfume history, travel, and the occasional deep dive into a fragrance that changed how I understand a place.

Buon viaggio.

Frequently Asked Questions

These questions come up constantly — answered here for quick reference.

What are the best walking shoes for Italy?

The Skechers Arch Fit See Ya There is my current top recommendation — serious arch support, good longevity, noticeably less blistering. The Dr. Scholl's Time Off is a close second and very popular. If you want something polished enough for dinner, Paul Green Hadley is worth the investment. No matter what you choose, bring at least 40 gel blister bandages. You will use them.

Do I need to bring cash to Italy?

Bring €200–300 in mixed bills and about €10 in coins. Most places accept card, but small purchases — coffee, water, public bathrooms — are better handled with cash. Set up tap-to-pay on your phone before you leave; it's the easiest payment method for daily use.

Can I carry perfume on the plane to Italy?

Carry-on liquid rules apply strictly. Travel-size bottles under 100ml in your TSA quart bag are fine. Full-size bottles must be checked. If you're buying fragrance in Italy to bring home, plan to check a bag on the return. Heathrow has expanded its liquid allowances recently — check your specific airports as rules have been shifting. Do not risk a beautiful bottle at security.

Is Italy safe for solo women travelers?

Yes. The main things to watch for are pickpockets in crowded areas and street hustlers near tourist sites. Walk with purpose, keep your bag closed, attach your phone to your body, and say no firmly without stopping. Both issues are real and consistently overhyped.

What is the best app for getting around Italy?

Citymapper for navigation — it handles walking directions better than Google Maps in most Italian cities. Download offline Google Maps for Rome, Venice, and Florence as backup. For private transport, Uber works in Florence and Rome — note that Uber in Italy is more regulated than in the US, so all cars are essentially Uber Black equivalent, which means vans, which means they're great for groups.

Do I need to bring my passport everywhere in Italy?

Yes. Italy requires you to carry your passport on your person at all times — not a photocopy, the actual passport. Get a secure holder for it. Keep a photocopy in a bag at your hotel (not on your person) so you have documentation if the original is lost.

What Italian phrases do I actually need to know?

Vorrei (I would like), per favore (please), grazie (thank you), il conto per favore (the bill please), and posso pagare con carta? (can I pay by card?) will carry you through most daily interactions. Download Google Translate in offline mode for anything more complex.

Why keep a travel journal? Won't photos on my phone be enough?

Photos capture what things looked like. A journal captures what they felt like, what you thought, where you ate, what you smelled, what surprised you. I've referred back to my Italy journals multiple times to find a restaurant name, remember a perfumery, or recall exactly what I was thinking when I stood in front of something genuinely old and beautiful. The physical journal — with printed photos, ticket stubs, and an indexed list of recs at the back — is the souvenir that actually works.

This post contains affiliate links because if I'm sending traffic to big corporations, I should get paid. I only recommend products I have personally used and traveled with, except in cases noted above.

JT Siems
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