Bon Voyage in Italian: Buon Viaggio and 11 More (With Audio)

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Updated September 2026 · Everyday Italian · 8-minute read · 🔊 every phrase has native audio

The one phrase that is never wrong

Buon viaggio — bwon vee-AHJ-joh — good journey. That is the answer, and it is worth saying plainly because the internet makes this harder than it is.

It carries no formality problem. Most Italian greetings force you to choose between tu and Lei before you open your mouth; buon viaggio is a wish rather than an address, so it sidesteps the whole question. Say it to your closest friend or to the stranger sharing your platform, and it is correct both times.

And no, Italians do not say bon voyage to each other. That is French, and it arrived in English by a different road.

Every Italian send-off, and when each belongs

Twelve of them, each spoken aloud. The first four are the ones you will actually need.

Journey or holiday? They are not the same word

This is the distinction that separates someone repeating a phrase from someone who knows what they are saying.

Buon viaggio is about the travelling. The flight, the drive, the six hours on a train. It wishes the getting there well.

Buone vacanze is about the holiday. What happens once they arrive. Say it to a colleague leaving on a work trip and you have made a small joke at their expense — they are not going on holiday, and you have just implied they are.

When you are not sure, buon viaggio. It is the one that fits every case.

The one almost no learner knows

Buon rientro — bwon ree-EN-troh — have a good trip back.

English has no habit here. We say goodbye and mean it generally. Italian has a specific phrase for the moment a visit ends and someone turns for home, and using it correctly is one of those small things that makes an Italian look at you again.

It also stretches: buon rientro works for someone going back to work after a holiday, or back to the city after a weekend away.

Do not use in bocca al lupo here

In bocca al lupo — into the wolf’s mouth — is Italy’s break a leg, and learners reach for it far too often.

It belongs to things you might fail: an exam, a job interview, a performance, a driving test. Attach it to someone’s summer holiday and you have implied the trip is a hazard.

If someone says it to you, the reply is not grazie. It is crepi (KREH-pee) — short for crepi il lupo, may the wolf die. Answering with thanks marks you out instantly.

One sound to get right

Viaggio is vee-AHJ-joh. The ggi is a soft j, as in jam, and the doubled g means you hold it a beat longer than feels natural in English — vee-AHj-joh.

Get that one consonant right and the whole phrase sounds Italian. Say it with a hard g, as in bigger, and it stops being a word.

The reply nobody teaches you

Someone wishes you buon viaggio. What do you say?

If they are travelling too — you are both leaving the same dinner, both heading for different trains — the answer is grazie, altrettanto! (GRAH-tsyeh, ahl-tret-TAHN-toh). Thanks, likewise. Altrettanto is a genuinely useful word and it returns any good wish: buon appetito, buona serata, buon weekend.

If they are staying put, grazie on its own is right, and adding altrettanto would be slightly odd — you would be wishing them a good journey they are not taking.

Wishing well by what they are getting on

Italian does not change the phrase by transport, which surprises people who expect it to. Buon viaggio covers a plane, a train, a car, a ferry and a bicycle equally.

What does change is the scale. For a short hop — someone driving twenty minutes home — buon viaggio sounds faintly grand, and Italians reach for something lighter: stai attento, take care, or simply a presto, see you soon. Save buon viaggio for a journey that deserves the name.

For the moment someone actually walks away there is buon proseguimento — enjoy the rest of it. It is one of the most Italian phrases there is, because it applies to a journey, a meal, an evening or an afternoon equally, and English has nothing that does the same work.

At the station and the airport

A handful of words turn the signs from noise into information, and they are worth ten minutes before a trip.

Partenze (par-TEN-tseh) is departures; arrivi (ahr-REE-vee) is arrivals. Binario (bee-NAH-ree-oh) is the platform — the number you actually need. Coincidenza (koh-een-chee-DEN-tsah) is a connection, and it is a false friend worth knowing: it also means coincidence, which is exactly how it sounds.

In ritardo (een ree-TAR-doh) means delayed. You will hear it.

Travel words that are not what they look like

Italian and English share a great deal of vocabulary, and travel is where the sharing turns treacherous.

Coincidenza is a train connection. It also means coincidence, which is what your ear will hear, and standing on a platform working out which one the announcement meant is a rite of passage.

Camera is a room, not a camera. Una camera doppia is a double room. The device is a macchina fotografica.

Parenti means relatives, not parents. Your parents are i genitori. Telling an Italian family you are travelling to see your parenti is fine; meaning only your mother and father is not.

Fattoria is a farm. A factory is a fabbrica. The two produce quite different holidays.

If you only remember two

Buon viaggio for anyone leaving on a journey, and grazie, altrettanto when someone says it to you first. Those two cover almost every departure you will ever stand in.

Add buon rientro when the visit is over and they are heading home, and you are already using Italian more precisely than most people who have studied it for a year.

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