Farmhouse Reservation Tuscany

Tips on how to reduce your Tuscany farmhouse holiday costs

Farmhouse reservation Tuscany: tips on how to spend less

If you are doing a "farmhouse reservation Tuscany" search, this page is Part Two of how to find the Tuscany farmhouse holiday special offers: six more tips on how to save money on your Tuscany vacation.

Take a dip in before you make your booking: you could save a couple of hundred of Euros per week to spend on dining out at a favourite restaurant rather than cooking in, on a boat trip to one of the beautiful islands along the coast of Maremma, or aperitivos at a bar on the beach watching the gorgeous sunsets over the turquoise blue Ligurian and Tyrrhenian seas...

Buon vacanza!

The photograph above is by kind permission of Enzo Tiberi.

 

Six more tips on how to reduce your Tuscany farmhouse holiday costs

The two most straightforward ways are flexibility over where and when you stay.

1. Location, location, location

This one comes first because it is the easist way to make a substantial saving is to be flexible on your choice of location for your farmhouse stay.

If you have a car and don't mind an extra ten minutes drive each day to the local beach or town, it is very much worth checking out those agriturismi that are located a few kilometres deeper in the countryside for their regular prices are nearly always considerably lower than those close to the coast or town for whom the accommodation demand is generally greater.

The exception being those farmhouses with spas and beauty farms, but then we are talking a whole different category of accommodation here for which location is a less important factor in determining their prices.

 

2. Spring, Summer, Winter
Low Season, Mid Season, High Season...

The Spring and Autumn are, in my opinion, the very best times to experience Maremma and wider Tuscany - best time to visit Italy. And an added bonus is that accommodation prices are also much lower than during the summer.

But, although the delineation of the peak summer period is common across nearly every holiday accommodation type in Tuscany - that is the months of July and August, dates for the low and mid season periods differ between farmhouses and are very much worth checking-out. If you aren't tied by school holiday periods, for example, or can be flexible by a week, you may save yourself around Euros 100,00 or more.

Some "agriturismi" set their seasons as generally as:

Low/Medium Season: Feb to May
High Season: June to Sept
Low/Medium Season: Oct - to Nov

But, more commonly, you will find the prices are:

• lowest from Jan to the first week in June
• high from the first week in June to the end of June
• higher still (at their peak) for the whole of July and August,
• and reduce from the second week in Sept to mid Dec

By checking-out the dates for each of the farms in the area where you want to stay, you could find yourself paying less in one for the same period in the one next door.

NOTE: For the high summer season, most will not accept spilt week bookings until they know that they are unlikely to fill their vacancies.

 

3. Charges for young children

As with the dates for low, medium and high season, the charges made or not for young children vary considerably between one farm and another.

For some there is no charge for children under 12 years of age (but that is becoming rarer to find now), for others they set the age at under two, three or six years, with a charge for those older than that up to eleven or twelve years.

Childrens cots and beds
Again, some agriturismi are happy to provide additional beds for free. Others will charge per night or week: as much as Euros 10,00 per night or around Euros 25 per week.

So, if you know the area where you want to stay, check out the smaller print in the farmhouse website and you could find yourself an agriturismo that doesn't charge for young children or additional beds at all.

 

4. Final Cleaning

Although it is becoming increasingly uncommon to find this option within an farmhouses reservation and charges information, it still does exist in some.

Some farmhouses offer you the choice if you don't mind doing it, and if it won't make mum feel like her holiday is over sooner than the rest of the family!, for you to undertake the final cleaning of the apartment etc before you leave. This will entail changing and making the beds, cleaning the bathrooms, kitchen, washing the floors, sweeping the terraces, tidying the cupboards etc and anything else you can think of to make the accommodation fit for the next guests. So not light work unless you all dig in!

It could save you around Euros 30,00 to Euros 50,00. Ask mum whether it is worth it!

 

5. Large parties and group bookings

If you are planning a once in a lifetime huge family gathering, for example, and will be booking nearly all or all of the accommodation in one farmhouse and are willing to do so all together in one booking, do ask whether they will consider a discount. The large number of agriturismo farm choices around each town or village means that there are often vacancies, even during the summer season, and so a substantive block booking is a valuable commodity.

You loose nothing by asking.

 

6. Linen

Some farmhouses include the cost of providing linen (your sheets, towels, and tea towels etc) and a weekly change, within the quoted accommodation costs. The majority don't however.

For those that don't, you normally have the option to bring your own. (Remember, most agriturismi in Maremma are catering to a mainly Italian clientele from Siena, Firenze, Milan etc, who drive down for their vacation.) Well, if you are flying to Tuscany, clearly that is out of the question, but if you are travelling by car or campervan, caravan etc, then it might be worth considering for around a Euros 50 per week saving.

Not the most convenient ways of making a saving, I know, but one nonetheless.

 

Part One

How to find the Tuscany farmhouse special offers to make your vacation funds go further - Part One: Tuscany farmhouse holiday special offers.