Would you recommend self guided or a guided trip?

This current thread in the Rick Steves Tours section of the forum offers various perspectives on some of the questions you’ve posed: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/tours/rs-tour-vs-independent-travel-no-clear-winner-for-me

For me I usually use a tour for areas that may be hard to get around on your own (poor public transportation). In your case the 3 cities you are looking at are easy to do by train. If you don’t mind doing your own research and planning then you could do those cities on your own using the Rick Steves Audio App and hiring private or group guides. Just depends on if you want to do the work yourself or let someone do it for you.

Since these are bigger cities that handle many tourists, I would say it's really about personal preference and whether you want to be on someone else's schedule. I traveled solo to all of these cities three years ago without a tour, and I'm in my late 60's. I use Rick's tour books for all of my European trips and find them to be very thorough, but I very much like being on my own schedule. I think a tour guide for a specific site would work well, and will occasionally do this, but I've also found Rick's museum and city-walk "tours" in his books to be the right amount of detail for me. Best of luck with your decision... and enjoy Italy!

Also think it is relevant as to your travel experience as "tour guide" If this is your first trip there will be some inevitable fumbling about and confusion with associated possibly wasted (not really, it is all an adventure) time. I was just trip leader with another couple (European Virgins age 70ish) to Paris, Normandy, and Loire that would have been much harder had I not been these places in the past 20 years.

Having said that, we have traveled to Europe nearly every year since 1999 with only a Rick Steve's guide book in hand. The past few years we have taken small group local tours and walks to specific sites that we wished to learn more about. No right or wrong answer to the guided vs. non question, but I personally do not do well with "following the flag!" Your thought of self guided with small group tours to important sites sounds right to me, but everyone is different.

To reply to this and your other thread, you don't need a tour to take you & your parents to these major cities. Public transportation between them is readily booked, as are hotels. What you may want are guided tours within these cities. And this is easily done. Major cities have guides with public tours that can give you much of the experience of that city in a multi-day guided tour; reserve, show up, pay 20E or so. Paris Walks is one example; if you look on the forum people have raved about them. And with the money you save compared to the price of doing a multi-day guided tour you'll easily have enough left over to splurge on a private guide for a day or two in places of special interest.

Where Rick Steve and other tour companies deliver value, IMO, is when you're traveling to smaller cities/towns. Look at the itinerary for the RS Village Italy tour. It would be hard to duplicate that by public transit. You could do it with a car (although it might feel a bit rushed) but then you still wouldn't have the local guides the tour offers, the agritourismo lunch and cooking demo, and so on.

My wife and I have been to Europe a couple dozen times and we've taken a few Rick Steves tours. (We have another one in less than a month!)

Without exception, the quality of the Rick Steves tours has been fantastic. We saw more, learned more, laughed more and at times cried more. Our other travels have been great too though.

Not everyone is a great match for a Rick Steve tour. With that said, given his repeat customers and outstanding reviews, I would have a hard time believing picking a Rick Steves tour of Italy would be a wrong choice. Read the itinerary and reviews and decide if it's a match for you. It might not be.

No matter what you choose, I'm sure you'll have a great time! Ah, Paris, Italy-- wow!

Happy travels!

We’ve done both. If it’s some place we’ve never been to, I enjoy the convenience of the RS tour. There is something to be said for not having to worry about figuring out hotels, buying museum tickets and doing the transportation logistics. And a good tour guide adds so much by just by being able to tell you what you’re looking at….

Rome-Florence-Venice is a relatively easy trip to put together. Transportation is straight forward. Add in guided tours for various attractions and walks and you will have a trip and good as many of the better guided packaged tours.

But, as John pointed out. You are essentially your own tour guide. Will your parents be active or passive participants? Will they help you figure out what bus to catch, where to eat dinner, what church to visit? Or will it all be up to you?

I've traveled many times with friends and family and solo over the years. I enjoy the research and the planning of a trip. But, I will say, a trip to the UK, somewhere I've been to many times, a couple years ago with my husband and 2 dear friends was exhausting. Everything, and I mean everything, was left up to me to decide, both before and during the trip. While we all had a great time, I felt so much pressure making sure that everything went smoothly and everyone was enjoying themselves and their needs were met.

If we were to travel with this couple again, I'd book a guided tour in a heartbeat.

For the three Italian cities, just as with Paris, I’d go self-guided, but with using lots of information from a reliable guidebook like Rick Steves. Per your Question #3, yes, hiring a private guide to augment your self-guided trip could be fabulous … we’ve done that many times, especially in Rome. And only with an official guide (either private or group) are you allowed to exit the “secret back door” of the Sistine Chapel, which leads directly to St. Peter’s Basilica, without having to do the long, long backtrack through the Vatican Museums. Others love group trips, and that works for them, with the associated costs.

We’ve taken two group tours in the last three years, to more “exotic” locations, an African safari, and to Vietnam/Cambodia. Those have pretty much shown me that I don’t fit in well with groups on vacation, even groups of less than 15. Also, a guide could make or break a trip. Our lead guide to Vietnam, with Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT), did a poor job. Several in the group agreed.

We hired a private tour, just the two of us, for a Morocco desert excursion, and also for an extension on the Africa safari that went to Botswana. Those went much better, and would’ve been much harder to do on our own.

There may be organizing convenience with a guided tour, but there are also confining schedules … everybody has to leave in the morning at this time, then be somewhere for only so long, then go elsewhere at precisely this time. That helps make sure you get where you need to go, and see what’s on the agenda, but can be too rigid, too. Having flexibility and/or adaptability is nice.

If you and your folks would enjoy researching and planning for what you want to see in Italy, that’s part of the fun with a trip. If you want someone to do all of that for you, lots of groups will be happy to include you on the bus. It sounds like Rick Steves’ tours are more interactive, but I’ve not taken any.

Self guided. I like to be with my wife, by ourselves. I don't want to be told where to go, when to go, what to see. I enjoy planning and research. I enjoy figuring out how to use the Metro, or the train. Or even how to rent a car and drive around in a foreign country. I enjoy learning how to ask for things in the local language. On most guided tours I've taken, I'm being told something I already know anyway. I really like to relax on a trip. I enjoy sitting on a park bench watching the locals walk their dogs.

But for a first-timer, or someone who doesn't want to have to do a lot of preparation, a guided tour would probably be great. And another advantage is if you are with other people, friends or relatives, being on a guided tour means there can be no argument about where to go and when. It's all mapped out. Everyone goes with the flow. You can't argue among yourselves about the agenda.

On the other hand, since you say your parents are in their 60s, I would ask, what kind of shape are they in? Would they like to take time out occasionally to just sit and sip a cup of coffee for a half hour or so? You can't do that on a guided tour.

I've used this analogy (simile? metaphor?) before, so sorry to repeat it again. Choosing between a tour or an independent trip is like choosing between cooking a meal yourself, or going to a restaurant. Sometimes it's fun to do the planning/shopping/cooking/cleaning yourself, and sometimes you'd rather someone else did the mess and stress part of it.

Cost, obviously, is a factor and you can undoubtedly visit the same sights on your own for far less money than with a group guided tour.

Being a "flag-follower" on a group tour is reassuring for some folks and annoying and frustrating for others. You and your parents could discuss your feelings about this. If you feel safer and more comfortable having a guide to handle any unexpected problems and a tour company that makes all the reservations for you, then maybe a group tour is a better choice. If you feel reasonably confident that you can plan an itinerary, arrange accommodations and transportation, and organize yourselves each day, then treat it all as part of travel and enjoy the adventure. Understand that with a group tour you will primarily interact with the people on your tour and with independent travel you are much more likely to meet local people at your destinations. Group travel also limits the opportunities for flexibility. As an independent traveler you can decide what time your day should start and end, when and where you eat, and how much time you want to spend at any destination. If something particularly interests you or if you're feeling tired, you can spontaneously prolong or shorten a visit.

Finally, because travel is expensive, time wasted is also money wasted. Group tours are generally well-planned and there shouldn't be any major snags with transportation, etc. Conversely, groups don't more quickly. Getting a group through a meal, on and off transportation, out of the hotel each morning, etc., takes much longer than it would take you and your parents. Inevitably, someone just has to take one (or a dozen) more photos, forgot a jacket, asks questions that the group leader just answered, etc.

As for the claim that group tours ensure that you see and learn more, I believe that depends on the traveler. If you want to know more about a specific destination, it doesn't take much effort to read about it on your own. Your smart phone is your source of endless information, even as you stand in front an unexpected ancient building, statue, memorial, etc. Plus, many sites have copious signs or audio guides which provide plenty of information. A paid guide or a volunteer docent at a site will also be a possible source of information. Beware of tour companies that claim to get access to special sites unavailable to other tourists or who suggest you can get terrific bargains on local crafts at a workshop only their guides can access.

Overall, I prefer a self-guided tour and would only use a guided trip to a location so remote or difficult that I couldn't manage it on my own.

Thanks to all for your input.

It seems most enjoy the flexibility of a self guided tour over the convenience of a guided group tour.

I think the biggest factor for me is that I don't want to end up feeling responsible for every part of the trip to the point where I feel like a tour guide myself.

After reading some of the responses here, it seems most of you are experienced travelers which is why you don't get as much value from group guided tour. This will be the first time in Europe for my parents and I, and I'm thinking it may be nice to have someone else lead so I don't have to take the lead myself.

Still not 100% decided, but great input from all to help with my decision.

I’d urge to read the in-depth itinerary for the RS Venice-Florence-Rome tour and decide if it lines up with what you’d want to do. I did this tour and it was great. I also got to Venice several days ahead and stayed in Rome for another week. I really appreciate both sides of the travel experience, guided and solo. The RS tour guide is invariably great as are the city guides they use in each of the cities you visit. You learn a lot.

Good suggestion Lyndash. I'll read the detailed itinerary to see if if aligns with what we want to see and do.

Since this is your parents' first time in Europe, I'd 100% do Italy on a RS tour. I would not choose to be responsible for their enjoyment, logistics, etc. If it was just you (or you and travel partner) that would be different.

KC I tend to agree with you. This is why I'm considering a guided group tour.

My first trip to Europe as an adult was Venice, Florence, Rome with my teenage daughter on our own. I did the best I could planning the trip and had a few guided tours within the cities. Very much enjoyed those experiences with my daughter and just being us, we had some flexibility on deciding some items depending on our mood, which I really liked. The trip was special and I think being in a larger group might have taken away from the experience for the two of us.

Planning this trip, would not be hard, but I think it would come down to what you want out of this trip and the dynamics between you and your parents. Do you feel pressured to plan the perfect trip? Would your parents provide input on what they would like to see? Would they hold you responsible if the trip is not to their standards? Do you mind being on someone else's schedule? Or do you like to go at your own pace?

Personally the concept of guided tours over multiple days stresses me. Perhaps that's because most of my traveling happened during the COVID years where there were so many things going on that I felt much safer and more in control being an independent traveler then in a larger group where I had limited control over what happened. And now with Long Covid, I have control over what I do and not do and what I eat or not eat depending on flair-ups.

There are no "FLAGS' to follow on an RS tour. No name tags. Smaller groups. I'm all for people traveling the way they want to but don't paint every tour company with the same brush. (No flags on Road Scholar tours either)

I've done 12 Rick Steves tour, 13 Road Scholar tours and 3 SeymourTravels tours. I add independent travel on to my tours. I have learned SO MUCH from the guides on all my tours and yes, I have done things I would not have found on my own.

I encourage you to look carefully at your tour groups. I like groups that are 28 people or less and fewer are better to me. Early on I did one 35 person Road Scholar group and that is just way too many. It takes too long to do comfort stops, to eat and just to load up. Rick's tours are 24-28 people, Road Scholar's offers different tour sizes so you have to look carefully at each itinerary to see if it's a small group. Seymour Travels is 10 or fewer. My upcoming tours are 8 and 9 people.

I don't want all my meals included as I get prefer some meals away from the group setting so I can have different choices. Food is generally pretty good on the Rick Steves included meals, OK on Road Scholar tours (except for the Road Scholar tours in France where the food is very, very good) and Seymour Travels chooses excellent restaurants for you to choose from the menu.

Guides - The Rick Steves guides make it a point to teach group members to travel independently by including lessons on public transit in each place it's needed. They also use public transit to move the groups around. Road Scholar uses buses in big cities and is not so much in to public transit. Guides on Rick's tours, Road Scholar tours and of course on Seymour Travels tours are excellent. They are very knowledgeable and teach history effortlessly.

On my first trip to Italy I went with my brother, SIL and their 2 young adult sons. I am the planner personality so I was pretty sure I'd be in charge of organizing hotel and activities. For this reason my SIL and I opted to go with the Rick Steves Heart of Italy tour. We chose that one because one of the kids could only take 2 weeks off from his job. I had SUCH a good time! I could enjoy what we were doing and not have to stress about figuring out transit between locations, what to see, timing on activities or getting 20-somethings moving in the AM. It was wonderful! So...I became a "tour person"!

BTW, I still love tours and am headed out a week from Sunday for my 2nd tour of the Orkneys and Shetland with Seymour Travels. I went in 2023 and was so completely blown away by the archeology, the landscape, the history that I have to go back! Mark Seymour is the company owner and loves neolithic "stuff" so we will see a lot of those sites, particularly on Orkney. These will be my 4th and 5th Seymour Travels tours. I have one of Southwest France in October, then East Anglia in April 2026 and English Gardens in 2027. Yes, I've got dibs on things in 2027!

I have not traveled with any of the other companies you listed but do do some "due diligence" on them. (how many do/dues can I use in a sentence, hahaha!!)

Lynn - It isn't really that my parents expect the perfect trip or would hold me responsible if the trip isn't to their standards. It's really more than I'm more capable of organizing everything and that can become a burden. From hotels, tickets, public transport, where to eat. I end up taking the lead on figuring all that out and it can make the trip less enjoyable for me.

Thanks Pam for the thorough information. It sounds like like your first trip to Italy is more the experience I'm looking for. I really don't want to have the stress about figuring out transit, what to see, timing on activities, where to eat, etc.

You may also want to do a food tour in Paris, Florence, or Rome.

From hotels, tickets, public transport, where to eat. I end up taking the lead on figuring all that out and it can make the trip less enjoyable for me.

Then perhaps a tour would be the way to go. I don't mind and actually enjoy planning for when I take trips with my husband. The part I don't like is when he complains without contributing to the planning.

If you're asking which I would prefer, it would be a self-guided trip all the way. But if you're asking which I would recommend, it really is up to you and your personal travel style. But because you asked, and maybe want to know why someone prefers one or the other, here is my take on it.

1. Pacing. This is the big one, I want to move at my own pace. For example, I've been to the Vatican Museum twice. The first time my husband and I did our own thing and we enjoyed it. We looked at some pieces of art very closely, we barely glanced at others. I was particularly taken with the gallery with all the maps and I spent a long time just looking at those quietly by myself. The second time my sister was with me and insisted on the guided tour. I HATED it. We had to stop and spend interminable amounts of time looking at what seemed like every painting and sculpture in the museum while the guide yapped on and on. I just wanted it to be over - in fact I eventually ditched the tour because I couldn't stand it one more minute. That is just me!

2. Reading vs. listening. Everyone absorbs information in a different way and I am 100% a reader. For example I read the book Brunelleschi's Dome before going to Florence and I was fascinated by how the Duomo was constructed (I read similar kinds of books for most places I visit.) I didn't want or need a guide I just wanted to observe and marvel at it on my own. But some people don't like to read, and maybe retain information better when hearing it, so that is something to take into account.

Now what I'm talking about that I don't like is guided tours of public attractions. If I can go through a museum or monument by myself, I'll always choose that option. However a tour of a private place is a different story - I enjoyed a tour of a champagne cave in Reims. I enjoyed a tour of a family farm in a small town in Italy, ending with a farm to table meal. That's a different kind of tour than following someone through the Louvre while they tell me about the artworks which I can just read about for myself.

Want to Travel, you said,

After reading some of the responses here, it seems most of you are experienced travelers which is why you don't get as much value from group guided tour. This will be the first time in Europe for my parents and I, and I'm thinking it may be nice to have someone else lead so I don't have to take the lead myself<

I understand what you’re saying. I have been lucky enough to travel to several places, but I did have a first trip in the early 1970’s, with a friend who’d spent a college semester in Germany, which kind-of gave me a more experienced companion to get me through the logistics. My husband’s first trip was a school trip to Mexico, and later, six weeks in Europe, spending almost every day completely on a bus, along with three home stays with locals, so that was largely guided and arranged.

If you’re comfortable being on someone else’s well-documented schedule, a guided tour will take care of lots of details that you won’t have to arrange or worry about. And lots of tours, including those from Rick Steves, include free time to do and see what else you want, without the whole group in tow. Having said that, I’d opt for any tour with fewer people, and not a mob of 30 or 50.

The Rick Steves guidebooks really are great for helping to plan and take a self-guided trip, and if you don’t want to invest in a guidebook, see if your local library has a copy. Check it out. If you do take a Rick Steves tour, it includes receiving a guidebook to help prepare for the tour, but you can still see if Rick can maybe guide you through doing it on your own. Enjoy Italy either way, and plan on having LOTS of gelato!

OP, why not do a guided tour and tack on a few days before and after on your own, organized all by you and thus see both sides?

Just my thoughts on "being responsible" for fellow travelers' enjoyment: I like researching and planning trips but I don't take responsibility for pleasing everyone on the trip . When planning a trip, everyone participates in the planning process. Everyone nominates sites to visit, discusses pacing, voices preferences for types of transportation and accommodations, etc. By the time the itinerary is almost completed, the group agrees that if anyone has any concerns, dislikes, worries, etc., speak now or forever hold your peace. The idea is that we planned together so there's no room for blame or "Monday morning quarterbacking" if someone is dissatisfied during the trip. Discussing what we might have done differently is fine because that's just part of the learning curve, but no blaming. We also split up responsibilities and with experience with travel partners you soon learn who has what skills. So, someone makes flight reservations, someone arranges accommodations, someone handles currency (that was more an issue decades ago with travelers checks and pre-Euro travel), someone figures out local public transportation, etc. I think it is especially important to include the younger and any very senior travelers in planning. Their special concerns and interests shouldn't be overlooked, and they'll be much more "invested" in a trip they helped to plan.

We have done just about any type of visit that you can do in Europe, self-guided and planned; rail tours, self guided rail; group bus tours and river and ocean cruises.

When we were younger and had less money to spend we did trips on our own, now we are in our 70s and prefer group tours by bus or perhaps a river cruise.

When selecting a group tour it is wise to compare a minimum of 3 or 4 companies. Review what is offered, the quality of lodging, tours, etc. Also, compare how many days in each city. We don't like tours that plan only 2-3 days in big cities like Rome or Paris.
Price is a huge factor.

We have found a great tour company that fits our style and price. Gate 1 Travel provides exceptional tours for great prices. Other companies are great, but compare. For example, we did a great Gate 1 tour of Egypt that included two river cruise as well as several days visiting key areas, staying in five star hotels. We compared against others, like Viking and Gate 1 was about 60% of the price of Viking and the Viking tour was only one day longer.

Taking group tours eliminates your having to book key sites like the Sistine Chapel on your own. The tour company does it all.

I have taken 21 trips abroad, of which 18 were independent tours and the remainder were guided.

I prefer the flexibility of independent tour. This requires the self-discipline of reading quality guide books -- Ricks Steves, Lonely Planet or others -- and the internet to plan the itinerary, buying tickets for planes and sites ahead of time and reserving hotel rooms in advance, but I think the freedom is worth the effort. I have even read multiple guidebooks in advance of my tours of Paris and Israel. Plus, doing the leg work myself adds to the fun.

I think guides add value if a tourist doesn't read quality guidebook in advance. Quality guidebooks often blunt or cancel out all together the need for a guided tour.

Yes, a self-guided tour with tickets for famous sites or cites is a good strategy while traveling independently. I took an independent tour of Portugal and Spain, but went on a guided tour of just Seville, which cost like $50 and a tip was worth it.

Yes, I took a Rick Steves tour of Turkey and felt rushed. However, I also took the Rick Steves tour of Eastern/Central Europe through six countries and Rome but didn't feel rushed.

Overall, I prefer a self-guided trip.

Taking group tours eliminates your having to book key sites like the
Sistine Chapel on your own. The tour company does it all.

Yes, but that is super simple to do. Just go on the website and buy the tix. If you can book an airline ticket, you can book tix to the Sistine Chapel even easier.

First of all, whatever you choose can be a wonderful trip. I know that your parents will cherish this opportunity to travel with you.

My advice, for what it is worth, is to do a guided trip in Italy. The supporting reasons are :
1. Take some of the pressure off of yourself. If you are "guiding" the entire time, you won't be able to have the same level of enjoyment of being with your parents. 2. You are doing Paris self-guided. This is a perfect opportunity to experience both types of travel and see which type really suits you best. I don't believe you can make decisions about what you like based on what other people like. Give it a try for yourselves and see how you feel.

There are pros and cons of every type of travel. Go out and try the various types and then make up your mind.

I think the biggest factor for me is that I don't want to end up
feeling responsible for every part of the trip to the point where I
feel like a tour guide myself.

You don't have to unless the others in your group leave it up to you and you let 'em do it! As said many times above, the cities you list are very easily done without an escorted tour, and many of us enjoy doing what we want to, where we want to, for as long or as short a time as desired vs. on someone else's schedule. That said, there's no wrong answer depending on personal style; it's your trip so whatever makes ya happy!

Offered up often on the forums for parents traveling with jr. high, high school and college-aged offspring is to assign them some attraction, hotel and/or transport research for the rest of the family. The same could work for your parents: request that they get some guide books and research some attractions they wish to see, and how to do that (making reservations; buying tickets, booking tours etc.) Your little group could have fun meeting up with your books and notes for dinner or coffee sessions before the trip.

As well, encourage them to join the forum gang for help with questions? The more the merrier here, and that would be another level of involvement on their part that might take some of the planning off your plate? :O)