In March 2025 I made the leap to travel solo to Genoa with two kids — my 7.5 month old baby and my 4-year-old. I went light. No stroller. Baby carrier only. A rucksack for me, a tiny one for my son, and a tote bag on my shoulder.
It turns out traveling solo to Genoa with kids – and packing light – can be one of the best ways to explore this Italian city, known for its pesto, focaccia and maritime history. It was exhilarating and exhausting at the same time. And I definitely came out of it feeling accomplished!
For fun, I spent this trip doing a money diary, which illustrates our days pretty thoroughly. It’s a weird mix of USD and EUR because I originally wrote it for American travellers, but I think it’s still helpful to read if you’re planning a trip. You can see it here:
Travel Expenses
Money Diary for 3 nights in Genoa with Kids
Transportation flight tickets were $406 total (me and my kids), plus the train to and from the airports (to get to and from the airport, about $6)
Accommodation $533 for 3 nights at a five star hotel in the city centre! Includes breakfast. I could have gone cheaper here but I chose a hotel that is known for its historic / luxury feel.
Pre-Vacation Spending I prebooked a babysitter during the trip to help out with my eldest. She is €15/hour for a total of 14.5 hrs but I end up actually using about 13. In retrospective, I could have skipped this altogether as she wasn’t really that helpful, but it was my first time traveling alone with both kids and I wanted to play it safe.
Food tour for $86 — there were no good sights open on the Monday and this fit our timings perfectly. Other than the babysitter, this was the single biggest activity / expense I had.
Day 1: Emigration museum and a historic hotel
At our home airport, we arrive by train (€2.22) and head to the lounge using my Priority Pass card (free on American Express Platinum) and stock up on snacks for the journey. I nab a 0.0% Heineken which will give me much joy later on. No issues getting on the plane. My son (he’s only 4!) is being really good about carrying his rucksack on his own and is excited to fly again. The flight is a bit boring as baby wakes up and I have to constantly entertain him but the crew is really kind! They give us toys and extra food / juice as well as makeshift toys for the baby. And hold him when I go to the bathroom. So helpful. On the way back, though, the crew is really disinterested and don’t help at all — but I figured out the trick of listening to a podcast in one ear to while away the boredom. My son just watched TV the whole time on his iPad (only time we allow him unlimited screens is on holiday).
I am stressed about making the bus but it turns out we have loads of time. Get there early, pay onboard (€10 for a day pass but I don’t use it again), and get to our hotel which is only 3min walk from the train station. I planned everything with as minimal transfers as possible!
Our hotel has a pirate playground! This is fate, I’m telling you. My son is obsessed with pirates. It was so nice to plan a trip themed around his interests as well as mine. We go there for a bit before heading back to our room at which point we meet the babysitter. Whoops. Turns out she does not speak English. This will be interesting. I’m pretty annoyed that the hotel didn’t let us know about this little detail. It also makes it uncomfortable for my son and he doesn’t ever really get used to her.
For the first day, I leave my son to rest in the room while I go with the baby to a nearby museum that I’ve been excited to see, the Museum of National Emigration (€4, after a €3 discount from pre-booking a €17 ticket to the Maritime Museum). This was a fun place to visit! But… they really need to work on their signage. I spent forever trying to figure out where the next part of the museum was before realising that we needed to go out and in again… so weird. It was also so nice to travel with my baby alone — he was super calm and slept and then I fed him when he woke. That’s it. He just chills in the baby carrier otherwise. Love it!
I had reserved a Too Good to Go bag (€4.99, discounted from €15) at a cafe in the train station. The guy was a bit annoyed that I asked for a vegetarian option (they aren’t supposed to take requests) but he still gave me a veggie panini, pastries and the trademark Genoese focaccia! Focaccia was everywhere in Genoa. Our hotel had nibbles of it, it was a key theme of the food tour, and the pizza we ate was focaccia-style.
I get back to the hotel to discover my eldest watching TV with the babysitter. As he explained to me later, ‘I can understand myself. She can understand herself. But we can’t understand each other!!!’ It was a pretty boring babysitter experience for him this time around unfortunately, she just let him watch his iPad the entire time (which he was ok with).
In an attempt to get my son more food, since he just nibbled on what I offered him, we went down to the lobby bar and I ordered a glass of Ligurian white wine. I really just wanted a sip of this and ended up with a bit of a headache and pressure to finish it. But it did, as I suspected, come with a huge selection of snacks (this part of Italy is famous for this). Crisps, olives, pickles, crackers, tomatoes, all included in the €11 (incl. tip) I paid for the glass of wine. Nice! And the vibe of the bar was on point. It had that historic feel and was big enough that I didn’t feel like we were making a fuss with two slightly unwieldy kids. At night they do piano too but I was never there late enough.
Food: €15.99, Museum & sightseeing: €21, Transport: €12.22
TOTAL: €49.21
Day 2: Food tour in Genoa
I’ve never done a food tour before so this was really exciting for me! I was also a bit wary. I knew it would be tricky with a baby in a carrier the entire time (3.5 hours). I intended to have my son come for the first stop and then go back with the babysitter. This wasn’t how it worked out however as he ended up not wanting to go with her.
We went down for breakfast after a pretty difficult night. I was exhausted. As I expected, my baby was up every 1-2 hours. And my eldest, whom I shared a bed with, kept rolling right up against me and would wake up at every baby cry thinking it was time for breakfast. Ugh! On the other nights I stopped turning the lights on to get baby out of the crib and insisted my son stay on his pillow… it worked a little better. I also had baby nap in the crib after breakfast each morning while I dozed and my son had TV / audiobook time next to me in bed.
After breakfast, we walk to the port! The Porto Antica of Genoa is a cool area with a maritime museum, aquarium, kids museum and it’s just fun / interesting to walk around. We were heading to the pirate ship (taken straight out of the 1980s film Pirates). On the way we stopped for gelato! My son was so happy! I didn’t make the mistake as I’ve done in the past of letting him have his own — we shared and still didn’t finish it. I rushed him out a little bit because I wanted to get to the pirate ship in time before gathering for our food tour. But unfortunately Google Maps had been wrong and it wasn’t actually open on a Monday. Oops. In the end we had a relaxing time sat on a bench outside the aquarium, my son played with his toy car and ran around, I rested from the baby in the carrier (remember, this is how I walked around the WHOLE time – no stroller).
Gathering for the tour, there was one other family there. The babysitter tagged along and my son refused to go back to the hotel with her. I also didn’t want to force him because he was actually doing ok with all the walking. At this point though I was getting exhausted and annoyed. I’d slept so badly the night before. Carrying the baby and also taking care of my son when there was a fricken babysitter there who was supposed to do it was pissing me off!! She didn’t do much, and my son refused to walk next to her. Ugh. But I never could have foreseen she wouldn’t have been useful during those hours so I guess we had to book her regardless. The tour got better towards the end as my son made friends with the teenager and had a lot of fun chatting with her and her family.
This food tour was a great way to see Genoa when traveling solo (it was €79). I liked socialising with people this way too — we traded Instagrams at the end. I’m not usually that social on trips, but when I’m alone it’s a lot easier to be. The baby makes a constant conversation starter too. Baby napped well and was pretty easy. Amazingly when he needed a nappy change, we were in a tiny restaurant that had a changing table. Genoa was great for baby care stuff.
On the food tour we had: Genoese-style fish’n’chips, red wine, pesto lasagne (Genoa is the home of pesto), lots of focaccia, and some gelato at the end. Lucky boy got so much sugar that day!
On the walk back I was so tired. I had promised my son he could choose one souvenir on the trip. At first he wanted chocolate. I kind of steered him away from it as it seemed expensive and not worth it. The third thing he wanted though was a little toy cannon from a street stand, which was just €1. No bartering needed. He was so happy too to get it. Four-year-olds are the best when they aren’t whining constantly. Haha.
That walk back nearly killed me though because we were sooooooooo tired. We got to the hotel, and I insisted my son go up to the room with the babysitter so I could at least have 20min alone (well, still with the baby). He cried but I knew I needed this time at this point. I had a Coke Zero (€7) in the bar. It was such a relief to sit down and relax.
Food: €9.50, Sightseeing: €79, Souvenirs €1
Total: €89.50
Day 3: Maritime Museum, pesto and palaces
We woke up and I felt so much better than yesterday! Not good, but slightly more rested. I had cancelled the babysitter for the morning as I didn’t see the pointy since my son didn’t even like her. But I was adamant he was going with her after lunch — there was no way I was going to drag him through three palaces!
We ate breakfast, had our nap and headed to the Maritime Museum. This place was AWESOME! Seriously a highlight. My favourite part of the whole trip was when we went up to the roof. The view was so nice and the warmth of the sun was perfect. I could have lounged up there for hours if I were alone. There’s a lot of old models of life size ships you can climb around in (and a real submarine we unfortunately couldn’t enter because I had the baby with me). My son was super happy to see all the pirate / ship stuff. We spent almost two hours here, pretty good for a four year old.
We finally got to go to the pirate ship (€10)! For me this would not have been worth it, but I know my son wanted to see it. It was a quick visit but fun enough. Then we headed back to the gelato place. It was soooo good. I had to stop myself from eating too much before lunch and I made my son stop too before he got way over-sugared again.
Lunch was only a few minutes walk away, and we met our babysitter there. I had chosen a hole-in-the-wall place that gets lots of local custom and quick turnover. They weren’t too happy that I was the only one eating. My son refused to eat so I didn’t bother to order him anything (there were still sandwiches and fruit for him in the room). The babysitter never accepted any food I offered her — maybe she was celebrating Ramadan? I’m not sure though. Anyway, I had some pesto gnocchi and a Coke Zero (€13). It was pretty good! It came with a basket of bread. The baby ate a little bit too. Crazy to think this was the most expensive meal of our trip. Also super rushed and a bit stressful during lunch hour! When we left there was a queue.
I went to the bathroom (luckily babysitter could hold baby for me whilst I ate), and when I came out I noticed that my son seemed a lot more chilled out — less scared of her. No idea what made him flip, but by the time we left he was able to say goodbye and go with her without issue.
And I headed to the museums! I wanted to see the palaces on the famous UNESCO World Heritage Site, a street of palaces, Via Garibaldi. Tickets were €9.
Again there were definitely some issues with signage. One of the palaces wasn’t really signposted ANYWHERE. I knew which one it was, but it was also a town hall, and I ended up wandering around for ages trying to figure out how to get into the museum portion. Google wasn’t helping either. It turns out you do that via the second museum (but not the first). I see…
The highlight here was probably that my baby had a massive poop blowout but I just happened to find a baby pit stop next to the information centre, where they had free wipes, a really nice changing / breastfeeding station and toys. So that was lucky! Other than that, it was nice to wander around quietly and take in some art. I’m trying to make the most of these days where my baby lets me do this!
After the museum I still had a bit of time before some scheduled spa time at the hotel, so I wandered around, got more gelato (€3 – rose and chocolate flavour), some pizza focaccia and a cannoli for dinner (it turned out they didn’t actually charge me for this when I checked my card later) and some more pizza focaccia for comparison’s sake (€4.10).
When I got back, I left baby with the babysitter and went for my GOLDEN HOUR!!! I finally got a little bit of me-time at the hotel spa. It was amazing. To be able to just lie in the steam room without worrying about anyone else for a little bit made me so happy.
Back at the room, I say goodbye to the babysitter (€195 for about 13 hours of her services). My son and I eat the pizza and fruit leftover in the room and, once again, go down for bed at 7pm.
Food & drink: €18.50, Sightseeing: €9, Babysitter: €195
TOTAL: €222.50
Day 4 (last day): An elevator train, a castle and flying home
We wake up at 6 am, an hour before breakfast, so I get my son up and we head to the pirate playground beforehand. We have our morning routine down now! After breakfast, I have a doze, then we get all our stuff together and I check out. We pay the city taxes (€15) and two bar bills. I leave our bags at the hotel and we go see the Castello D’Albertis which has a cool ethnography museum (€6) – it was built by a nineteenth century world explorer and has beautiful views over the city and the Mediterranean, with a lovely park leading up to it. You take a funicular / lift to get to it. This was so fun! My son LOVED it. I had no idea how to pay for it, realised I didn’t have the exact change I needed, so we ended up chancing it (it would have been €2 for a two-hour ticket).
This was all we had time to do. We went back to the hotel, got our bags and took the bus (€10) back to the airport. Turns out we got there probably an hour too early (2 hours pre-departure). Since it was such a small airport we could have taken the later bus. I ended up stupidly going through security and then realising the lounge was pre-security, so we went out again, had focaccia, Coke Zero, Crodino, some cookie things, and changed baby’s diaper in the middle of an empty lounge. I was feeling pretty harried by this point as my son had been complaining a lot all morning. Oh well. We ended up boarding with no issue, baby was awake the whole time and a bit fussy, but it all went ok. When we landed, my son had a tantrum because he didn’t want to carry his bag anymore. I just let him ride that one out. We got home by train (€3.70 — we are only 5min from the airport), and had a good long rest for the days after!
Sightseeing: €6, Transport: €13.70, Hotel misc: €15
Total: €34.70
TOTAL FOR TRIP:
Incidentals: $428.36
Airplaine tickets & hotel: $939
TOTAL FOR TRIP: $1,367.36
Genoa, Italy — to go or not to go with kids?
This trip was HARD but I expected that. It also felt so exhilarating for me to travel on my own with my two kids! It was worth it.
Looking back I’m surprised just how little I spent each day. The two splurges were babysitter and the food tour. I probably would have spent a lot more on food for room service but the hotel actually didn’t offer it before 7pm, and we go to bed so early that it wasn’t worth it. So if I travel again alone with the kids (which I will!), I’m going to try to do what I did again which is to get lots of snacks and food to bring back to the hotel in the evenings.
I didn’t really feed my son that well on this trip… he’s been a picky eater lately. So I need to keep in mind how to get him better food going forward. I was trying to reduce his sugar intake more and more each day because of his meltdowns!
But overall, it was really nice to go somewhere new, to have the goal of seeing interesting new things each day, and to enjoy some sunshine. And I’m proud I was able to travel light even with kids – I only brought the baby carrier, a backpack, a tote bag, and my son brought a tiny backpack of his own. Yay for traveling light!
I’m thinking about where else to go, but don’t think I’d do much differently: key is to find a place that’s easy to get to from the airport, not too long of a flight, with cheap day-to-day costs so I can easily pay for a babysitter and nice hotel. Loved it. Will travel again soon!
