First Trip Advice

The question you have to ask yourself is whether you are an intrepid first trip traveler. If your answer is no, then take a structured tour. However, why be restricted on where, with whom, and time who are to go and see things. Traveling around Italy is a very easy thing to do. Do some preplanning and homework. Purchase a few guide books. I use Steves; Frommers; DK, and Lonely Planet. Each will give you a different perspective on the same destinations. Most first time travelers to Italy go to the main cities. Rome, Florence, and Venice. Fly into Rome and fly out of Venice. Take the rail to each place.

Italy is a very easy destination to do on your own with some research. Depending on the time that you have available, many first time visitors will do the big three, Rome Venice Florence. Don't shot=rt change Venice it is a magical place.

I'd suggest flying into Venice and out of on of the others. From the US flights arrving in Venice usually are over night with a morning arrival. Venice is a great place to get over your jet lag and relax a bit. I find the other two more hectic. Also departures from Venice to the US can depart rather early and can create some logistical problems with getting to the airport very early.

Car rental can be very expensive in italy and with these cities you realy don't need one. Since you are thinking about the Steves tour. Take a look at his city guidebooks for these three cities and you'll have lots of info.

I did the 17 day RS tour as a first time Italy visitor. Perfect experience for me - a great overview of northern Italy, someone driving you everywhere, hotels arranged, half (or so) of each day organized, the rest on your own to explore. At the end of the tour, I felt I could go it alone and return to the places I wished we stayed longer. RS tells you exactly what you pay for, and often provide more than advertised. Be sure any cruise you're considering does the same (often, they don't). Read the tour member feedback (under the tours tab, above) and decide if it's your thing. However you decide to travel, just GO!

ger,

I've never been on Rick's Italy tours, but if his other tours are any indication, you should definitely consider one! On my last trip, I encountered one of the RS "Best of Italy" tours and had a chance to speak with some of the group, and they were having a great time.

Using your criteria of "dollar for dollar and quality of experience", I believe it would be extremely difficult to get the same amount of information and visit the same number of places on your own in the same time frame. So much information and history is imparted to the group during a tour, that at times it's hard to absorb it all.

Based on the few that I've met (including one of his Italy Guides), Rick's Guides are extremely knowledgable and their passion for travel is evident.

My preferred method is to use a combination of tours and self-guided travel. You might find that the Italy tour combined with some travels on your own would be a good solution.

Happy travels!

For our first trip to Italy, I planned it all myself, using RS books for our four week stay. Although I kind of enjoyed doing it, I found that all the logistics would be pretty daunting to most people. It gave me a real appreciation for travel agents.

Since it's your first time, I suggest doing an RS tour group. One of my coworkers did the one week tour in Rome last year and LOOOVED it. Then they took off on their own to Florence, CT and Venice.

I suggest that if you like planning do it yourselt.Steves tours have great guides but much of the ino is in his books. I find that I can travel much cheaper on my own and besides I like the freedom it gives me.

I think the RS tour wins hands-down over doing it on your own IF you're willing to give up some autonomy. The tour schedule is your schedule and decides how many days you spend and where. On the other hand (and I've done both an RS tour and independent travel) I think you easily do 50% more per week on a tour than you do on your own, and get some benefits you can't do on your own without very deep pockets.

With the tour you are whisked directly from stop to stop, in town the guide takes you right to the museum or other sites, you get explanations of how to use the local transport for your free time, 1/2 the dinners are just "meet in the lobby and go". Contrast this to figuring it out on your own, thumbing thru guidebooks to pick places to eat (and then making reservations), etc. And the tours use the best local guides who often don't offer public tours; you either pay a lot to hire them directly or use someone else.

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My 1st trips to Italy I went with someone who'd been there before and knew the ropes. Don't underestimate the value of this and the time you'll burn if you're doing it for the 1st time and have to figure it all out for yourself.

My advice is to go on the RS tour for your 1st trip. But don't treat it like "all I have to do is show up and they'll handle the rest" or you won't learn all you can. Read thru Ricks book in advance for the places you're going so that you have plans for your free time plus an understanding of the local history and culture. Watch what your guide does, ask questions; they are happy to talk to you and explain how/why they're doing things.

You'll then have a pleasant introduction to overseas travel and a good time, and will pick up lessons you can learn for travel on your own back to Italy or anywhere else.

I'll be honest, we've always planned our own trips but it just depends on what you want. Rick's tours tend to not spend a lot of time by my standards in any one place, although they are better than most commercial tours in that regard. Ask yourself if you're going to want to spend a lot of time in a few places or less time in more places. Personally especially on a first trip I would take the former. Rome, Venice and Florence could easily fill your itinerary and you'd control your own agenda.