4 Must-See Places for a Short Trip to Rome

When you think of Rome, you think of stunning architecture, colorful streets, and scrumptious pizza and gelato. Fortunately, that’s not the end of it all. Even if you don’t have an entire week to spend, you can still make your stay worthwhile. Here are a few things you can do for a short trip to Rome!

Colosseum Tour

Known as the largest amphitheater ever to be built and one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Colosseum is an oval-shaped architectural beauty that has survived fires, earthquakes, and major wars.

You absolutely cannot miss visiting the Colosseum during your short trip in Rome. Luckily, it is centrally located so you can easily access it via the subway. Make sure you plan a visit early in the morning, especially if you want to avoid the line. And don’t forget to buy your ticket in advance to skip the queue!

Roman Forum & Palatine Hill

A short 10 minute walk from the Colosseum is the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. Because Palatine Hill was home to the first settlement in Rome, it offers a beautiful view of the Roman Forum. When you walk down the hill, you will see the remains of temples, monuments, and buildings in the Roman Forum that were part of the city center.

When you get a ticket to the Colosseum, you will also be given access to the Roman Forum.

Altare Della Patria

At the face of the Piazza Venezia, the Altare Della Patria is a pure-white marble monument offering a panoramic view of the city. It was built in honor of Italy’s first king, which is why it is often called the Vittorio Emanuele II Monument.

You can visit the first part for free. However, you’ll need an entrance ticket to access the top part of the monument.

Vatican City

Though located at the heart of Rome, the Vatican closes you off from the world. It gives guests a sense of being in a different country with its surrounding wall as the border. Once inside, take your time to appreciate the architecture – it is breathtaking. And don’t forget to check out the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter’s Square & Basilica. However, it is possible that this the place could be closed on Sundays. Keep that in mind when you plan your visit!

Where to Stay for a Short Trip to Rome?

Rome has accommodations for travelers of all budgets. You can find places to stay almost everywhere, but the best places would be near Termini Stations or around Vatican City.

Wrapping Up

If you want to travel to a city with a charismatic personality that’s home to inspiring art and bustling street life, Rome is a must-go. You could never tire of this beautiful place because there is always something new to explore. It is truly an incredible destination that warrants a visit, even for a short trip.

You are bound to fall in love with the food, architecture, and people. And if you do, you can even apply for Italy’s Golden Visa to get a two-year residence permit through investment. If you are excited about moving to Italy, check out personal relocation services to get all the help you need!

Read more awesome blogs for travel recommendations on Donna Gail Blog.


Everything you need to know about how to play myVEGAS Bingo

myVEGAS Bingo Tips and Best Practices

I will never be done talking about the amazing benefits of playing the myVEGAS apps. Now they have added a fifth app to their gaming experience, here are my best myVEGAS Bingo tips.

If you want to learn more about these apps and some of the awesome experiences that I have redeemed with them, click this link: Making the Most of myVEGAS Reward Points.

myVEGAS Bingo Tips and Beginner Tricks

myVEGAS Bingo adds a completely different gaming experience to myVEGAS games. This is the first time that they are adding Bingo as a game to play with their apps. Most of their games center around slot games. You can easily put those on Auto Spin, walk away from your phone, and rack up the Loyalty Points. But myVEGAS Bingo requires you to be an active participant in the game. You’ll need to daub your way to victory using powerups and some essential Bingo strategy.

How do I gain loyalty points on myVEGAS Bingo?

There’s a huge difference between how you gain points in the other apps and how you gain in myVEGAS Bingo. For the other apps, every time you would spin the slot, you would fill up your Loyalty Points tank based on how much your bet was. Once filled, it would reward you Loyalty Points based on your gaming level. For example, I am level 435 in the myVEGAS Slots app. Every time I fill up my Loyalty tank in that app, it awards me 500 Loyalty Points. Essentially a higher level means a higher Loyalty Point payout in those other apps.

myVEGAS Bingo Loyalty Reward Points meter

For myVEGAS Bingo, it’s still the same that once you fill your Loyalty tank it will award you Loyalty Points. BUT….

  • The Loyalty Points amount is a FIXED amount of 50 Loyalty points. This will not increase at all with your level within the app, and..
  • Your Loyalty Points Tank is filled by your TIME SPENT in the app. Specifically one minute will award you 50 Loyalty Points. The meter fills up like a clock going one full rotation around.

This means that you could literally have no in-game money to spend on playing the Bingo games and you can still fill up your Loyalty tank max for the day. All you would have to do is open the app to gain Loyalty Points – no game play needed.

How many Loyalty Points can I gain in a single day playing myVEGAS Bingo?

Want to know how many Loyalty Points you can stack up in a single day on any myVEGAS app? I’ve got the answer!

Basic myVEGAS Bingo Strategy Tips

Like any gaming app, you can develop a strategy to put the best odds in your favor. MyVEGAS Bingo is no different. But here are a few tips for myVEGAS Bingo that will help regardless.

myVEGAS Bingo Powerups tips

Powerups are essential to gaining the upper hand. You can “buy” a stack of 3 Powerups or a stack of 6 Powerups for one game. You “purchase” these Powerups using Diamonds. These Diamonds are just a form of free currency in the game but are used specifically for Powerups. They cannot be used to buy anything else. I always buy all 6 Powerups. If you don’t like the hand you are dealt, you can always buy another stack of Powerups. But just remember that you can only play with one single stack. Once you choose the stack you want to play with, the rest are trashed. You won’t be able to use them on another game.

Powerups and Tips to Use Them

Sometimes these games move very quickly and when that happens, you may not get to use all of your Powerups in that game. The easiest way to avoid that is to make every daub count. You can play one-card, two-card, or four-card Bingo. Based on how many cards you are playing, you will have to daub a certain amount of spaces before a Powerup is activated. For four-card Bingo, you have to daub any three squares to activate one Powerup. Don’t wait to use your Powerups. Once you use a Powerup, it will have a cool-down time. It will be about 5 seconds before you can start activating another Powerup. You can still daub while this 5-second delay occurs, but those daubs will not go towards activating the Powerup.

If you are lucky enough to have the Extra Daub Powerup as the last Powerup in your bank, which can come in the form of 1-extra, 2-extra, or 3-extra daubs, I will ALWAYS hold off on using that one until most of the Bingos have been called. Each game only has 32 Bingos that can be called, and remember that you are playing against other people. Having an Extra Daub as the last powerup gives you the advantage for one final way to get one of the last Bingos. I will usually wait until there is 10 Bingos left to be called before I use that Powerup. The reason being is that if I use it too soon, then I am essentially taking numbers off the board that could have been called in that timeframe before the end of the game.

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Final thoughts on myVEGAS Bingo tips

Again, everyone comes up with their own way of doing things. However, these are my absolute must-dos if you plan on making the most of your gameplay within the app right off the bat.

If you want to download this app, click here for iPhone download, and click here for Android download.


The Perfect Las Vegas Itinerary for a 4-Day Trip

There is so much to do in Las Vegas. With every trip you can find something new to do every time you go. If you’re looking for the perfect lLas Vegas itinerary for a four day trip there

Woman posing at the Seven Magic Mountains outside of Las Vegas
Seven Magic Mountains

Most of what we did during our stay was driven by the rewards we received by playing the various myVEGAS apps. If you want a full detailed blog about all of those apps and how it works, click here to read that blog! By playing the games on these apps, we were able to save a total of $200 on our trip!

Day 1

Our first unofficial stop was the Seven Magic Mountains which is right outside of Las Vegas! This is such a tourist hotspot so be sure to get there early. We arrived around 7am to take pictures and there was only one other group present.

Woman posing with the flowers at the Bellagio Conservatory and Botanical Garden
Conservatory and Botanical Garden at Bellagio

Once we checked in to our room at the Bellagio, we went to redeem our first reward! To redeem your rewards from the app, you have to first stop by a M-Life Reward Desk (located in MOST MGM Grand Resorts) to pick up your membership card. Membership is free! Then depending on the resort, you then have to redeem your rewards for that specific location at each desk in the resort. I think the only resort that didn’t have a desk was Vdara. So we stopped by the Aria to redeem our free cocktail from Aria and our free breakfast at Vdara!

After that, we came back to the Bellagio to explore a little bit more! It was our first time at a fancy-schmancy hotel anyway. They have a beautiful indoor garden with some of the most incredible flower arrangements. It’s free to walk through, but it can get crowded from other visitors wanting to take a look. Most of our Day 1 was just walking around to the casinos closest to us like Caesar’s Palace, Paris, and the Cosmopolitan. Hotel wandering truly is an activity in Vegas. Every hotel has a unique theme and they’ll have fun activities to match!

Day 2 of the perfect Las Vegas itinerary

Glass of champagne at PRIME Steakhouse at the Bellagio
PRIME Steakhouse at Bellagio

We stopped by New York New York because, surprise surprise, we had a reward to redeem for a free beer. But first – breakfast! Because New York New York is a MGM Grand Resort, we were able to use part of our food and beverage credit at the Starbucks inside of the casino and they just charged it to our room at the Bellagio!

Next, we stopped by Luxor to redeem our reward for a free shot. A lot of the rewards you can redeem deal with food and beverage. On our walk back to the Bellagio, we just decided to casino hop our way there. I really recommend casino hopping just because it’s something to do and it’s fun to see the different themes of all of these hotels and casinos! Plus the rewards really helped motivate us to see them all.

After getting back to the Bellagio, we lounged by the pool for a little bit. We soaked in a few rays, got way too hot with dealing with that, and then left. The rest of the day was spent trying to get lucky on some slots because I had a reward for $150 in free play on slots. Later that night my husband and I used another reward at the Bellagio restaurant, PRIME Steakhouse, for two free glasses of champagne with a purchase of an appetizer. So we dressed up all fancy to get our appetizer and left. We saw the other prices on the menu and that was way more than we wanted to spend. The two free glasses of champagne alone were regularly priced at $54!! We did however get McDonald’s afterwards. That’s how you ball on a budget.

Woman lounging poolside at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas
Poolside at the MGM Grand Lazy River

Day 3

We used a reward to get a free room at the MGM Grand because I wanted to experience their epic lazy river! At the time, we could not just buy a day pass to the pool. We had to be a hotel guest. So using that reward to get a free room allowed us to have a nice pool day and experience a new hotel!

After we did some laps around the lazy river, we made our way to the Minus 5 Ice Bar at the Venetian! It’s a really cool experience and a great relief from the heat of the desert. It is also highly recommended to dress accordingly! Wear closed toed shoes, long pants, and layer up. Many people who don’t dress accordingly can only last a few minutes inside and there is no re-entry. Don’t let your money go to waste!

Afterwards, we used our myVEGAS rewards to go to the Mandalay Bay Shark Reef. In full honesty, do not pay for this experience. Regularly, tickets would have been $29 a person, but we walked through the whole thing in 20 minutes. This place is TINY. Do not expect a lot. It was cool seeing the shark room, but other than that we got to the end and we both looked at each other like “that was it..?” Knowing that now, I probably won’t spend my reward points to go again either.

View of the Bellagio fountains from the Paris Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas
The Top of the Paris Eiffel Tower Las Vegas

At night, we walked around the strip and stopped to watch the fountain show at the Bellagio. The show occurs around every 15-30 minutes depending on the time of day. Be sure to check their online schedule so you don’t have to guess when the next show is! Then we got dinner at the Tilted Kilt because they had a great happy hour deal. After dinner we decided to explore the Paris hotel some more. We saw that you could take an elevator up to the top of it and we were sold. Tickets were around $30 a person and the view from the top was gorgeous! You can even watch the fountain show from the top too! You can’t really hear the music but you can see the fountains from a different angle and you can see just how high the water gets.

Avengers mural at the AVENGERS Station in Las Vegas
Avengers STATION

Day 4

As our final day, the only thing we had planned was going to the Avengers STATION! Me being a Marvel nerd, I was so happy. This amazing exhibit can be found at Treasure Island. It was pretty freaking badass seeing all the props from the movie and getting to interact with the exhibit itself. The website that we bought the tickets from was holding a sale and we got a great deal. We were both able to go for $60. Usually tickets are $41 per adult. Also we both got an exclusive pin from the exhibit for free when we checked in! I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend this experience! It was a blast and my little Avengers heart was so full.

Final words on the perfect Las Vegas itinerary

Overall, we got a lot done! Every group’s itinerary will be different, but we couldn’t have asked for a better schedule! If you plan on going to Vegas any time soon or even in the future, definitely check out my other blog to help you save some money and give you some motivation to try some new things! They are always adding new experiences and I can’t wait to rack up some more point and head back there ASAP!


Check out this interactive map for an easier way to view all that I discussed in this blog more easily!

Map created using Wanderlog, a trip planner app on iOS and Android