Golf Carts in Rome

Do none of Rick Steve’s travel consultants know about golf cart tours in Rome? Are they not recommended or what? I’ve just never posted questions & not have advice or suggestions on the Rick Steve’s Forum!!! Very strange!

Like Segways, I can only imagine how difficult these kinds of tours make it for pedestrians or cars. I expect there are limited areas and roads they can use....not like renting a car and going anywhere you want. Contact a company with all these questions, or maybe look to see what YouTube offers. Alternatively, ask on TripAdvisor.

Thank you for your response. I see plenty of golf cart tours offered but not having been to Rome in 5 years, I don’t know if they cause problems in the streets or not. There’s no mention of golf carts as an option in Steve’s latest guide book. I read that some streets have now turned into pedestrian & I’m not sure carts can drive down those. The Hop On Hop Off buses can’t get close to the sites because of the narrow streets so the golf carts sound like a nice alternative. I’m wondering how dangerous they are to be riding in with Rome’s notorious traffic.

I spent 20 days in Rome this year, between mid-February and mid-March. I don't remember seeing a golf cart. Perhaps they were there and I overlooked them, but I don't think I'd have failed to notice them if there were a lot of them around. I didn't get out to the Appian Way, however.

The weather was generally pleasant in the early afternoon, so I don't think cold or wet weather would have prevented the use of golf carts. Tourists were much in evidence.

A number of your questions are answered on Viator descriptions of these types of tours. Hotel pick up seems to be limited to Rome old town. They tailor make, but in the discription, there is a lot of 'drive by' comments. There is a tour guide. Other companies offer Appian way tours. These are electric carts. They won't go fast, so the Appian way may be limited visiting and require a different start point. You can research that.
Maybe booking through Getyourguide instead of Viator would give you the language speaker you wish.

Thank you! I’ll check w Viator. It seems that most companies are advertising a price for two people based on 7 people taking the tours. Two people cost €155 unless there’s not 6-7 booking the tour, then it’s over €400 pp for two. I’ve checked w My Best Tours, Walks Within Rome & Rolling Rome so far. I was also wondering how safe these tours are knowing the crazy drivers in Rome. From what I’ve read, these golf carts annoy both drivers & pedestrians alike. I’ve been to Rome many times but not in the past 5 yrs. I’ve never seen any golf carts around the monuments, so I wondered if this was a fairly new way to tour. I’ve always walked the historic area because it’s not that far from one site to another.

I've seen the carts around the side streets of the Centro Storico and they often stop at Piazza Navona where passengers get out and walk around. It seems like a smart way to see the sights without a lot of walking, especially during the heat of summer. They can go places the Hop On buses can't.

We’ve used this tour twice. Once with 8 people and the other with 3.

https://mybesttour.com/tour/golf-cart-tours-rome/#halfdaytour

They’re very easy to work with and will customize a tour specifically for you.
The drivers we had, not only spoke perfect English, but had spent time in the states.
One was a third generation tour guide.

You’ll be on busy streets, intermittently, connecting sites by smaller alleyways giving you the opportunity to see the real Rome.

The tour does not include stops to enter attractions, but you can add them in for a price. You will have stops for photos of the attractions.

I recommend doing this tour at the beginning of your stay as it gives you a good overview of the city.

We had a wonderful experience in 2017 in Rome with a golf cart tour. We used mybesttour.com and our guide picked us up at our hotel. He spoke English very well and gave us a fun and informative tour. We used it to get to know the city as soon as we arrived to get a feel for the city. It was highly recommended by a friend who lived there and was certainly worth it for us!

As a golf cart owner(on a barrier island in SC) who has been to Rome 4 times, most recently in Oct 2019, there is no way I would want to be in a golf cart in the Rome traffic.

Do none of Rick Steve’s travel consultants know about golf cart tours in Rome?

Rick Steves' travel consultants don't generally, as far as I know, spend time on the Travel Forum.

The people who answer questions here are just fellow travelers volunteering their time.

I am almost 100% certain that the Rick Steves company does offer travel consulting for a fee; for that, you would need to contact their office and set up a session.

Like Gerri, we have used https://mybesttour.com/tour/golf-cart-tours-rome/#halfdaytour. I think our tour was 2 or 3 hours, we were just two people. We had some things we wanted to see and he showed us so much more and told us so much about all the things we saw. . We did NOT go into any of the places, although this was like day 4 or 5 in Rome and we had seen a lot and been into what were our 'must-enters' It was really a lot of fun. I recommend it highly. And enjoy your trip.

And, just as an FYI. If you want to do a little Appian Way, you might enjoy going out to the Museo delle Mora, which is just nifty. The Museum is situated inside the S. Sebastiano Gate of the Aurelian Walls and the Appian Way starts at that gate. So, the walls are the Aurelian Walls, built between 271 AD and 275 AD in Rome, Italy, during the reign of the Roman Emperor Aurelian. And you can walk along the top of them for some little distance. If you want, you can walk along the Appian Way from this spot. https://www.rome2rio.com/s/Rome/Museo-delle-Mura

“Do none of Rick Steve’s travel consultants know about golf cart tours in Rome?”

Ummm, no one on this forum is a travel consultant. We are just sitting on the couch at home like you.

In his guidebooks, RS doesn't hide the fact that he's offering his opinions to give the reader the best experience possible, and he freely admits that he doesn't cover everything. A golf cart tour doesn't strike me as being a good fit with his recommendations for Rome. I can see it might be advantageous for someone with mobility issues, but the consensus here is that walking is the best way to experience the city. Even the hop on/off bus doesn't find many advocates here.

I unexpectedly suffered an ankle injury before our 2019 Rome trip. We too used Best Tours for two different days. I want to say we did a 6-hour tour and a 4-hour tour.

One day we got the "Introduction to Rome" tour with stops in various piazzas. Our driver did stop and show us small churches and unexpected delights. If we were interested, we were welcome to get off the golf cart and tour the interior of the location he recommended. That day he also took us to a lovely restaurant where we were literally the only tourists, from what I could tell.

The second day we drove past the Circus Maximus, the "keyhole", the Mouth of Truth, and finally drove along the Appian Way to visit the Catacombs of San Sebastian.

It was a lovely experience. My adult daughter was very skeptical of the idea of doing two golf cart tours, but they enabled us to cover quite a bit of ground yet still traverse the smaller streets and alleys of Rome. We had lots of flexibility in designing the tour ahead of time, and in modifying the tour once it was underway. Overall a very nice way to see Rome!

And since you specifically asked, both the organizer we worked with ahead of time and our actual tour guide spoke excellent English.

Do none of Rick Steve’s travel consultants know about golf cart tours in Rome?

You appear to believe this forum has answers from RS staff (or, as you call them, consultants). While they may rarely reply, replies are almost entirely from people like me who have never worked nor plan on working for the RS company.

Yep, that we're all just ordinary folks and not RS staff was explained in one of your previous threads back in 2021. :O)

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/netherlands/i-amsterdam-card-a7a14ab5-5fdd-404a-b811-83437f1e37db