looking for inexpesive day trips

A couple of good guide books might be your best answer. They will give you information but also walking directions from place to place. Greetings from a former Lake Worth/Lantana guy.

You might contact the Tourist Information in each location. Many TI’s offer free walking tours or reasonably priced group tours in their cities.

The higher prices are not particularly surprising for a "day" tour. In my experience, day tours are exactly that. All day, sometimes in town, sometimes going to places out of town, sometimes using public transportation, sometimes by coach.

I would not consider a 2-hour walking tour a "day" tour. And a price of $50 (€44,80?) might be reasonable, depending on what the tour includes.

You may have found this Get Your Guide Bolzano website. I would assume that the tours would be different in June. The prices shown appear to be individual prices for a group tour. For the itineraries listed, the prices are what I would expect. All those assumptions could be verified by emailing the company.

I expect there are other companies that have tour offerings. If you are planning to sleep in Bolzano, make sure that anything you consider starts and ends there. There are day tours to the Dolomites from as far away as Venice and Milan.

I haven't done any day or walking tours in any of the places you list. I did splurge on a Vespa tour in Rome in 2017. It was only the guide with me on the back of his bike. That was a private tour, not with a group, and it's probably the most expensive one I've ever done anywhere. I don't remember the exact price, but it was worth every €.

As for walking tours, you can always search for food or eating tours in the places you are going. The price will likely include a guide, history and lots of tasting with other tour members. The price could be around €90 ($100) per person. Definitely worth it.

Good luck with the research. And be sure to search using Riva del Garda, not Gatda.

I have looked at get your Guide and they are expensive. I found a walking tour in Mantua for 2.5 hours with me having to pay extra for entry fees. They wanted over $100 per person. I have traveled in Spain, Ireland and France and the US and never had to pay that much. That is why I asked for the names of tour companies that do per quotes under $100.

Here are the tours I found for Bolzano: 2hr. Private tour of city for $306.36, Historical City Center Walking Tour 2 hr. $100.99, One Day Dolomite Tour $1,077.94, Bolzano Old City and Roncolo Castle walking tour $124.81. I will have to do it on my own as these prices are too high.

Yeah, except for most of the 2-3 hour city tours, the prices are high. I'm not sure if you clicked on the Highlights, Full Description or What's Included for the tours of interest to you.

But if your budget won't allow even for €89 - €110 tour, you will have to do your own planning. You can use the full description to learn what you want to see.

For example, you could look at what you'd see on that private Dolomites car tour that's so expensive. Then you could research how you might use public transport to see some of those same sites. Rome2rio can give you a hint, not perfection, as to ways to get to Pordoi Pass from Bolzano along with potential costs. I did this little search for that and was surprised at the high prices.

Of course you can always research the town to learn what there is to see there. I found this Walks of Italy City Guide for Mantua just by noodling around a bit. It offers information on what to see and what to eat.

This GPSMYCITY audio guide also popped up. I didn't go deeper into the link, so I don't know anything about costs.

It is much easier to go with a guide who tells you about what you're seeing, but you can also do it on your own. You either pay for it with your time, or you pay them with your money.

Personally, I enjoy doing the research.

And my guess about the high prices is that the towns and locations on your list are resort areas, places for the well-heeled or very small. There's a lack of tour competition or maybe no tours at all.

How many are in your group? It might be worth looking into hiring a private guide. I know in Rome you can hire a guide for 60 Euro an hour with a 3 hour minimum. You can have any reasonable number of people in your group for that price. If you split that for several people, it can come out much cheaper. For instance, for 4 people it works out to 45 Euro each for 3 hours.