New York to Venice, Italy from $399

🌍 About Venice, Italy

Venice has no roads — you move entirely on foot and by vaporetto, which is what makes it feel unlike anywhere else. Skip the tourist menus around San Marco and eat the way locals do: cicchetti, small snacks (sardines, baccalà, soft-boiled egg, crostini) eaten standing at a bàcaro with a glass of wine. The dish to order is sarde in saor — sardines in a sweet-sour tangle of onions, vinegar and raisins. For the real city, walk Cannaregio or Castello, residential quarters where laundry hangs over the canals and the crush disappears. Come late April–May or late September: warm and walkable, either side of the summer peak. July–August is hot, expensive and packed; autumn into winter brings acqua alta flooding.