Does it feel like the whole world is in Italy these days? Italy has been on top as the most popular destination for American tourists in 2024 and 2025, as a recent survey by Price Waterhouse Coopers and the United States Tour Operators Association has found, but the distinction should not come as a shock. The country receives 80 million foreign visitors every year, attracted by its pastel-hued villages, Renaissance splendour and Roman ruins.
From the Etruscans to the Romans to the Byzantines, every civilisation that has come through this boot-shaped country has stamped its special architectural mark on the country, turning its cities into open-air museums. Italy also has a reputation for a sumptuously relaxed lifestyle, particularly in the summer, when everyone’s out in the piazza and beach umbrellas dot the coastlines.
“Italy doesn’t request that you become a tourist; it welcomes you to experience something,” states Ruben Santopietro, CEO and founder of Visit Italy. “It’s a land of a cacophony meeting style, silence in a mountain village being as potent as an opera at Milan’s La Scala theatre.
You can go 10 times, and the 11th time still astonishes you, not with novelty, but with something old you hadn’t caught on to previously. Italy doesn’t amuse you. It transmutes you.”
A 2024 report by TourismA discovered foreign tourists remain focused on the same few trendy cities, covering just 1% of Italy’s ground. Below are our favourite ways to experience the other 99% this summer. There are a million reasons to travel. Here are some of our favourites.
Siena’s Palio draws history enthusiasts with its revival of a medieval horse race (2 July and 16 August), but Milan Fashion Week and opera season in the Bard’s fair Verona are culture vultures’ essentials. Sports enthusiasts can attend the Giro d’Italia (9 May to 1 Jun 2025) or the Formula One Grand Prix hosted in Imola (spring) and Milan (late summer).
Hack: As many as 30 million pilgrims will travel to St Peter’s Basilica in Rome’s already-tourism-saturated capital city to mark the Roman Catholics’ Jubilee year.
Travellers fantasising about Rome in 2025 will do best to avoid summer and visit between shoulder months, October to March, missing out on the religious celebrations of Easter, the Immaculate Conception (8 December), Christmas and the Epiphany (6 January).
For a break from bucket list art cities, go to the Dolomites. This Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and Friuli-Venezia Giulia-spanning range of limestone mountains is the Italians’ favourite for its grand skiing and trekking, and is free of the crowds in Rome, Florence and Venice.
“Limited time is a problem,” concedes Fiorenza Lipparini, Milan & Partners’ DMO in charge of the site, YesMilano. “No nearby international airports and limited accommodation – we’re dealing with tiny villages.”
