lake como tours from milan

I was traveling in Italy w 3 friends & we did 48 hours in varenna, taking the train up from Milan. I'm not sure there would be any advantage to an organized tour because I think the high points are to stare at the lake with gelato or wine in yr hand, and enjoying some nice little boutiques. We did take the ferry over to bellagio, but I found it crowded and commercialized.... you can get plenty of that in Milan. Cafe Varenna is my number one recommendation, right on the shore of the lake, and lots of moderately priced options. Buy round trip train tickets in Milan, the station in varenna does not have a staffed ticket office

What ever is best for you, and we all have different ideas of best for ourselves.
Some people want to just buy a ticket and then relax and let others do the driving, thinking, and explaining according to a set schedule.
Others prefer to save money and be more independent, at the risk of missing something along the way they did not know about.
Either is easy to do, The latter with a bit more planning, the former with no planning needed except to show up for the bus on time.

"What ever is best for you, and we all have different ideas of best for ourselves."

Exactly. I'll just add that Lake Como is not a region with a lot of "sights" or "history" where a guide could really enhance the experience. The point of the lake is relaxing and scenery, not "turnstile attractions" (Rick's great phrase). So, the main point of a guided excursion would be that all the logistics are arranged for you.

I don't know which stops a bus tour would make, but a direct train ride to/from a single town is pretty easy to do. To Varenna-Esino station at mid-lake, for instance, the train from Milano Centrale station takes about one hour and runs about hourly. Tickets around $10 each way; you can buy both ways in Milan. Or to the town of Como at the south end of the lake, different services depart from either Milano Centrale (takes 30 minutes to Como S. Giovanni station) or Milano Cadorna stations (takes one hour to Como Nord station).

I seriously considered this tour from Milan to Lake Como: https://citywonders.com/milan-tours/lake-como-day-trips-from-milan

In the end, we went on our own. The tour was $120 per person. On our own, the train tickets were ~€17 (I booked one leg first class) and the ferry that took us from Varenna to Villa Carlotta to Bellagio back to Varenna was €15. So, less than $40 per person.

The train ride and arrival to Varenna was easy. Buying the ferrry tickets and taking the ferry to Villa Carlotta and then Bellagio was easy. Getting the ferry from Bellagio back to Varenna was a bit hectic as there were tons of people waiting for multiple ferries and it wasn’t clear which ferry was arriving/loading, but it worked out. Our train back to Milan was delayed an hour. And then, they decided to terminate the train at one of the stops (Lecco), which was only announced in Italian. After sitting on the track in Lecco for a longer than normal time for a normal stop, I got out of the train and asked someone, who luckily spoke English, and they confirmed we had to get on another train. That train arrived 10 feet away 2 minutes later and we we on our way. All, in all, it worked out and I am glad we did the trip on our own schedule and used the money we saved for a very fancy dinner when we got back to Milan. With a bus tour, you wouldn’t have those situations to deal with. So, as others have said, it is a matter of preference.

In Milan, I DID book a private tour guide to show my husband and I around. My husband doesn’t love big cities and I was worried we wouldn’t like Milan and it would be hard to navigate. Our tour guide, who is listed in Rick’s book, was excellent and gave us a lot of great information. Honestly though, we would have been fine on our own. We stayed close to the Duomo and I felt Milan was a very easy city to navigate. I loved Milan.