planning rome,florance & venice

Never have come across a website that did air and multiple hotels in multiple cities as a single transaction.

Would suggest you do Venice Florence Rome is that order. Fly into Venice, fly home from Rome. The majority of US bound flights leave Venice at o'dark ugly, making for logistical challenges to get to the Venice airport.

You're looking for a recommendation for a site like travelocity or expedia where they will make hotel/flight combo offers?

I don't have experience with that except knowing that those deals generally put you in hotels that are far away from city center and not ideal for sight-seeing.

The only combo deal I've used for travel was Gate1Travel to Iceland. It was a good enough experience that I might consider an Italy package that included airfare, provided the itinerary was flexible enough.

1. Get Rick's Italy book in order to plan your time. He also provides excellent advice on hotels and intercity travel .

2. TripAdvisor and booking.com for hotels in each city. Read their reviews. Then book either directly with the hotel ( usually preferable) or through one of these sites (if they can give you a better rate).

3. Use a site like kayak.com to check out flights to and from home. Look for open jaw (multicity) flights into one city and out of another so you don't have to backtrack ( which you would have to do for a return trip). It's usually preferable to fly into Venice and out of Rome. Flights from Venice to the States are usually early in the morning, and this can be problematic when you're staying on the island. Flights out of Rome are easier.

4. Book your train trips (Venice to Florence and Florence to Rome) on the Trenitalia or Italo Treno Web sites. These are the 2 Italian train companies that have the high speed trains. If you aren't familiar with European trains this site: https://www.seat61.com gives you everything you need to know.

Im not sure why you'd want to try to do flights plus 3 different hotels on one site. You're not likely to get the best deals or choices that way.

Saying all that my main question is which website would you use if you
were planning this trip I would like to do hotel and airfare together.

Welcome to the RS forums, Kelly -
It might help to know why you want to do this? Do you just want to do everything on one site so that all your arrangements are in one place or do you feel insecure about using booking websites in general and are looking for a single "best"?

Personally, we like exploring flights on skyscanner.com and maybe a couple others BUT we always book overseas tickets directly with the airlines. That way if a problem arises, we do not have to try and sort it through a 3rd party...who may or may not be responsive. It eliminates any back-and-forth finger pointing between airline and booking site about who is at fault and needs to resolve the issue.

For hotels, I use booking.com pretty much exclusively if using a 3rd-party booker. I'll use a combo of that site and others to scan through reviews of hotels which would suit us, location and price-wise, and make our reservations either through booking.com or directly through the hotels themselves, if direct offers an even better rate.

For trains between these cities, use http://www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en and/orhttp://www.italotreno.it/en.

If you're just not wanting to do all the research and booking yourself, there is a 3rd option: a respected and experienced local travel agent. Yes, that involves a fee, and you need to be very specific about your budget and preferences for accommodation amenities. The catch is finding a good one in your area so research must be done before committing but a proficient agency will be able to book flights, hotels, trains and even handle your travel insurance, pre-purchase tickets to some attractions, arrange airport shuttles, etc: it all depends on how complete a package you desire.

To stress again though, you don't want to hire just anyone, and I would discard reco's from any first-time forum posters who state "I used ___ and they did an awesome job" or similar. Make sure your recommendations come from multiple, legitimate sources. I'll say the same for first-time posters who reco booking websites.

But many of us plan our trips independently, and this forum can be invaluable for finding help planning your own! The three cities you list are well used to hosting travelers from all over the world, and train travel between them is efficient and not difficult to manage. This is a great site for the lowdown on Italian train travel:

https://www.seat61.com/Italy-trains.htm

Reiterating what some others have mentioned for emphasis.

1. Fly into Venice and fly home from Rome. Logistics are much, much easier.

2. Book directly with the airlines. In case there is a problem it's much easier to solve than going through a middle man.

3. Book hotels directly for the same reason. Really easy to do. Once you've decided on a hotel simply send an email to make the reservation and ask about calling them with the credit card information to "secure" the reservation. No hotel has ever been unwilling to do it that way and calling is really not all that expensive.

4. Do as much research as you can on your own. It will really enhance the enjoyment of the trip.

"I am sorry that I have to ask this question on Rick's Forum."

Nothing to apologize for - that's exactly what this Forum is for!

To paraphrase what another poster once said, booking travel in Europe is no different than booking travel in the US - only the names have been changed. So, if you could book a trip to Chicago, New York, and Boston on your own, you can book a trip to Venice, Florence, and Rome on your own.

If you haven't booked your own travel before, it is definitely daunting at first. But we are all here to help.

If you were only going to one city, sometimes you can get a good deal on a hotel and airfare package that is not part of a guided tour. But for three cities, you'll need to book these components separately. Again, it's not hard, but it does take some time.

Start by getting Rick's Italy guidebook. He updates it every year, so if you're not traveling until 2018, you may want to just get one out of the library. For your initial planning and learning, it doesn't need to be the newest edition, but you should definitely buy the newest one for your actual trip.

Next, when are you traveling, and what are your closest airports to leave from? You definitely want to start in Venice and end in Rome, as that's much easier than the reverse. Roberto, who is originally from Florence and now lives in the San Francisco Bay area, is our expert on flights to Italy from California.

For hotels, you can book on their websites, or direct by e-mail. No need to use Italian - a simple e-mail in English works fine. If you want hotel advice (beyond what's listed in Rick's book), we will need to know a budget in euros. Terms like "moderate price" or "not too expensive" mean different things to different people.

Once you have your airfare and hotels, you may want to book your trains in advance. Doing so saves money, but locks you in with non-refundable and non-exchangeable tickets. With these discounted tickets, you must take the EXACT train on your ticket or it becomes scrap paper. If you don't like this restriction, you can buy tickets when you get to Italy; the fares aren't exorbitant.

Finally, for a few sights, you'll want advance reservations, to avoid hours-long ticket lines, or being shut out altogether. Some of these are the Ufizzi and the Accademia in Florence, and the Vatican Museums (with the Sistine Chapel), the Borghese Gallery, and the Colosseum in Rome. Again, Rick's book has details of which sights need reservations and how to get them.

Once you have your airfare, hotel reservations, train tickets, and sights reservations, you're all set with the "mandatory" things. Now, you just fill in your remaining, non-reserved time in each city, as you see fit.

Thank you all for your replies
kelly

I did this same trip last October. Flew into Venice and out of Rome. Flew on Delta out of LAX with a change (will be either NYC or Detroit). Stayed in AirBnB's and a convent for part of my time in Rome (was traveling with others and then on my own for 2 night in Rome - hence the convent). Booked my own trains. All in all it was pretty easy once we decided what parts of town to stay in at all places. Have a great trip.