When can I use the Italian presente indicativo instead of the Italian futuro semplice indicativo?

There are some contexts where the Italian presente indicativo is used to describe an action that will take place in the future. The Italian simple present is one of the most used tense in Italian, it is commonly exploited in everyday language, but in formal written texts also. It generally implies that an event (or action) is happening at the time of speaking: 'Oggi tira molto vento'. Moreover, and similarly to the English present simple, it is employed to talk about habits, hobbies or regular events in our life: ‘Andiamo a ballare molto spesso’; or to talk about general scientific truths. However, Italian people, especially in less formal contexts, tend to use the present simple even in situations describing future events or decisions: ‘Domani aiuto Paolo a pulire il ristorante’; ‘L’estate prossima vado in vacanza in Grecia’. They do so especially in two occasions: when they are talking about something that is going to happen in the near future (oggi, domani, presto) or when they have already arranged a holiday, a trip, a meeting taking place in the future. In addition, the verb is very often followed or preceded by a marker or an adverb of time, like domani, più tardi, la settimana prossima… which allows the listener to understand that the speaker refers to a future event. This linguistic trend is getting more and more common, thus it is really important to be aware of it.