Hairdryer

Most hotels have them. If you bring one, it must be dual voltage as Europe operates at 220 V. Otherwise you would have to bring a voltage converter with a very high power rating.

Does she have a hairdryer which has a clear label as accepting input voltages including 240v AC which is the European standard?

Do you have a hankering to carry that extra weight around with you for the whole trip?

I will be surprised if every hotel on the tour does not either already have them in every room or available on request at the desk. If you take another you may find it just adds dead weight to the suitcase.

There may be one or two hotels which use a wimpy hose type dryer in the bathroom (or not), but usually a polite request to the desk will find a solution.

In the worst, very unlikely situation, of having no hairdryer at one place you probably find that you can very easily get an Italian one for very little money. And you won't need to adapt the plug either, like you would on a North American one.

Don't bring one. Years of travel , I stopping bringing one about ten yrs ago. Most hotels will have them, and the few that don't have one in the room , ask at front desk !

We are going to stay in a modest convent in Rome. When I emailed them and asked, even they said hair dryers could be borrowed.

Most hotels will have hairdryers. I have stopped drying my hair. Now, all I take is a flatiron similar to this one. I try to wash my hair the night before and then use the flatiron to get rid of the bed head. It takes much less time to style my hair. In my opinion, the flatiron takes up less space than a hairdryer.

When you get your list of hotels, you can call the Tour Department and ask about whether all the hotels will have hair dryers. If they don't know for sure, you can then e-mail the hotels yourself (or have them do this for you).

Note that if a hair dryer is not visible in the bathroom, it may be in a drawer somewhere else (like a desk or nightstand), or you may have to borrow one from the front desk as said above.

If, for whatever reason, you are bringing a hair dryer, flat iron, etc. make SURE it is dual voltage. If it isn't, you will destroy the device, blow a fuse, start a fire, or some combination of all three (unfortunately, not a joke or an exaggeration). If it is dual voltage, make sure you have switched it to 220 volts; you will also need an adapter for the Italian plug.

For some American women this can be a big deal!
I know for my wife it is. Guess it depends if you are used to a premium hair dryer or a standard one.
Most hotels have hair dryers, they are almost always of poor quality compared to what you may be used to.
I was shocked when I found out how much a premium hair dryer costs!
Those really good US ones won't work without a serious adapter and may still be too high power to be used in any Italian hotel so would not bring that.

Similarly the ones sold in the US that work on dual voltage are under powered and similar in quality to what you get the hotel.

Just my experience better off not bringing one and dealing with what the hotel has or buy one locally when you get there.

Don't bring one, they have them. They are fairly decent too. However, if you see the hose one, run to the local pharmacy and just buy one to use.

We don't keep track of which tour hotels have hairdryers, since it is most of them. This includes all the Italian hotels I stayed at on the past couple of years' tours.

Debra.. problem is .. flatirons make hair flat.. lol They suck for those of us who like our curly or wavy hair. I agree a flat iron takes less space than most dryers.. but they also have same issues with voltage and not heating as hot as they do at home( I only know that from my kids experience as they flat iron hair)

All of the RS hotels we've stayed at had hair dryers. In fact, we've stayed at several hotels in Europe and never had one without a hair dryer.

Each of the 6 hotels/B&B's we stayed at in Aug/Sept of this year had hair dryers but to be honest, most of them were gutless and it would have taken double the time to dry my hair with them so I was glad I brought my drugstore bought travel dryer. Yes, it took up space in my luggage, but it made drying my hair a less cumbersome process.