I hope the first thing you unpack when you reach Venice will be a map of the city, because believe me, you’re going to need it!

Venice is an ancient city without much discernable structure in its layout and design, since it developed more or less organically and hasn’t changed all that much. It’s made up of seemingly countless alleyways, courtyards, and canals that intersect sometimes at odd angles with lots of cul-de-sacs thrown into the mix. If you intend exploring Venice on foot – and that’s certainly the best way to do it – you’ll need a good map to guide you around the city if you want to avoid getting hopeless lost (getting lost once or twice is fine and adds to the adventure, but after that it gets a bit frustrating…). The other reason for packing a well-designed and informative Venice map before leaving home is that it’ll make your travelling around Venice by Vaporetto (water bus) much easier if yoiu have a map of the different routes at hand, especially as these can be a bit confusing at first.

What to look for in a good Venice map

Does it have a street index? There aren’t many of them, but if you can locate a street map of Venice that also has a street index, that’s an added bonus. The dense streets of Venice making finding a particular street difficult – ask me, I’ve spent ages looking for the street in which my hotel is just after arriving. And it’s not fun doing that at 10pm!

Is it the latest issue? Though the streets in venice won’t change much – if at all – the water bus routes sometimes change, so you need to have a map with up-to-date information on.

Does it identify sightseeing highlights? Having particular museums or monuments that you want to visit on the map makes planning your day trip or sightseeing route much easier. Having them on the map makes locating them so much easier, and could well save you much time and effort.

Don’t skimp, go for a LARGE one. The streets and alleys of venice are incredibly narrow and wind their way around. This means that on many maps the street names are printed extreme small and at weird angles. Walk around Venice early evening and at night and you’ll see countless tourists standing under street lights trying to decipher their maps. This is especially true if you wear glasses or have impaired vision. Rather spend more on a decent size map than skimping and having a hard time trying to read maps.