We’ve heard opinions from Italians and western tourists about Venice. We’ve seen questions like “What time does Venice close?” and “Does anyone actually live in Venice?” Nathaniel had been to Venice before, but two weeks ago I visited for time. We stayed for just one night and in this episode we address these questions and share our first impressions.

Shout out to the Enoteca (wine bar) mentioned in this episode called "Stappo." You can check them out here stappovenezia.com .

As always thank you for listening!

Happy Halloween, witches! In this episode we talk about the history of witchcraft in Italy. From herbs and invocations to hallucinogenic oils and riding animals following Herodias. And who is Herodias? Who is the queen of witches? We'll tell you. We also talk about the far too unknown Italian witch trials as well as how witchcraft exists in modern life in Italy. Welcome to our special Halloween Episode!

As always thank you for listening!

Darcy is still under the weather so it's just Nathaniel in today's episode! If you'll forgive the random tangents and the "um"s scattered throughout, I will try to help you understand the difference between travel insurance, travel health insurance, and at the end, I'll quickly discuss how to bring prescriptions with you on the plane. (Spoiler: you will need the .pdf from this website, or your own note.

If you’re planning on going to Rome in 2025, we highly recommend booking your hotels (and potentially even your flights) as soon as possible. If you’d like to help out Only A Bag, you can use our affiliate links marked with an asterisk.

For hotels, we tend to use Booking* since we’re already a part of their member program, but Expedia* also has a robust member program with similar prices on hotel rooms. For an aggregate that seems to offer slightly better deals across the board, we recommend checking out Agoda*.

And if you’ve always loved the idea of staying in Italy for an extended period and becoming part of the culture, we can’t recommend housesitting enough. While it does often entail taking care of someone’s pet, it can also be a gateway to seeing Italy in a totally new way. We use Trusted Housesitters* which has a fairly steep upfront cost (a few hundred dollars) but that’s covered with a few nights of a house sit which should never cost you money.

If you're in the market for travel health insurance, you can check out Visitor's Coverage* through our affiliate link!

Lastly, if you're in the market for a basic, no-fee credit card you can use on the road, you can try out Capital One's Quicksilver or Savor One. Both offer $200 cash back when you spend $550 in the first 3 months, zero foreign transaction fees, and some decent travel benefits.

Thank you so much for listening! We would absolutely appreciate it if you could follow us and rate us wherever you listen; it helps the podcast grow and it makes us feel like we're making a difference!

You can find us at ⁠onlyabag.com⁠ and ⁠@onlyabagpodcast⁠.