My Way Italy

Very doable and a great plan

It's a good plan as long as the price, dates and itinerary suits your needs.

I feel that all the RS tours, including the My Way tours are way too fast paced. They mostly only give you 2 nights in each location- which is really just 1.5 days to sightsee. Not really enough time especially for the big 3- Venice, Florence, Rome which all deserve a bare minimum of 3 nights each IMO.
We are active seniors and have been planning our own trips for years without any issues-4 trips to Italy, UK/Ireland, France road trip, Germany/Austria/CR, Amsterdam and more. Heading off for our 2nd trip to Spain in a few weeks.
I love to plan- that's part of the fun.

The RS guide books are full of useful, practical info/logistics- how to get to/from, where to stay, what to see, how to get tix, etc. I use them along with other sources and the help I've received from this forum is invaluable.

You might want to pick up a copy of RS Italy- order from Amazon- read thru, see if you feel it is helpful enough. Read thru this forum and see what others are planning.

If you decide to DIY you will get all the help you might need right here on the forum- happily given by folks who have been there/done that.

Hello pjflagmom,

I haven't done any of the RS tours, I'm not a tour guy, but the My Way sounds like a good fit for you.

Just looking at the tour I have to admit if someone came to these boards and presented this plan I think just about everyone would tell them they were trying to do too much and they should tone it down. The classic first trip to Italy is "the big three" Venice, Florence, Rome and while this tour has that it also has a sampler platter of many different Italian settings - lake, coastal, hilltown along with the big three.

I think this tour would be a great start as a tour to decide what you might want to come back to revisit when you're more comfortable with the idea of doing it yourself. I would definitely recommend adding days to the front and back of the tour dates. That gives you more time to recover from jetlag and additional time in Venice and Rome which both deserve more time.

There is no reason you can't plan your own trip and handle everything yourself - RS gives great practical DIY advice and community on the boards here can supply a lot of general and very specific advice as needed. But if you are uncomfortable just throwing yourselves into international travel there is no shame in letting someone else worry about the details of day to day logistics either.

I don't think anyone else can really tell you what's right for you, but that's my take.

Whatever you decide have a great trip,
=Tod

Just wanted to add that if you don’t already have passports you’ll want to take care of that asap

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/check-your-passport-expiration

We took the My Way Italy last spring and loved it. We actually wish he did more My Way tours. You absolutely can do this itinerary on your own, or something that fits your interests. We combined this with the RS Sicily, so we were in Italy for a month.

Probably the primary reason for us in taking this tour was to reduce the stress of logistics (have we got the right ticket, where is the machine to validate, are we on the right platform going the right direction, etc..) We have decided that the logistical stress takes away from actually being present in the moment and enjoying what we’ve come all this way to see. Additionally, we enjoy traveling with a group. We were pleasantly surprised at how cohesive the group became even though we might only see each other on the bus or at breakfast. We looked out for one another, sharing directions to keep others from getting lost, helping each other get the right ferry, and sometimes sharing meals or happy hour. The guide has “office hours” usually at breakfast and on the bus and will share suggestions, but it’s not uncommon to run into them during the day.

Being able to set our own pace worked really well for us. We had been to 3 of the places before, so really liked being able to choose what we wanted to see. The guide described some activities that we hadn’t planned on and they turned out to be some of our favorites. I would encourage you to add time on your own at the beginning and end. It was our first trip to Venice and there wasn’t nearly enough time there.