Summer Trip with teenagers

What are their interests?

You will have to decide how long you want to be there, what types of things you are interested in, and what types of places you want to visit......it would be good to start with a guidebook, maybe even sit with them and go over it together to see what all of you might be interested in....you could even start lurking here on the boards to see what people are saying about places and get a picture of it for yourself.....if you come up with the big picture things (even if it is high level, like I want to visit _, _, and ____ cities because __, _, and ___) we can help you plan it all out...

Agree--pick up some books or assign a website to everyone to pick out some options. Starting from scratch is just not workable. There are thousands of options for a trip to Italy and it will be much more gratifying to tailor it to all of your interests. Volunteers here (fellow humans) will try hard to apply our experiences to your wish list!

For media-centric 17-year-olds, I'd suggest they start watching videos on YouTube. Do a basic search such as "Italy tourism" and you will get a number of suggestions to get started.

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Rick Steves has lots of resources and information on this website. Please review the section on Italy for more information.

https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/italy

Watch some videos, read some guidebooks, ask your sons what they are interested in, then come up with a list of places you would like to visit.

Please come back and ask for advice on whether your wish list of places to visit is feasible and you will receive lots of helpful advice.

We’ve taken each of our three kids to Europe - each individual trips ( me alone with first son , then hubby the next year with middle son , then me the next year with our daughter ) finding hotel rooms for five suck so we did it this way .

Anyways , since we taught our kids that travel is a privilege, that they had to participate in planning .

Each child ( 13 yrs 13 yrs and 11 years old ) was responsible for finding 3 sites they wanted to see in each city - for example they all wanted to visit the Catacombs in Paris , but only daughter was interested in The Vatican in Rome , one son wanted to visit Louvre, one wanted to see a Leonardo da Vinci exhibit outside Paris , one son wanted to visit Tower of London , but other son didn’t etc etc

With the internet there really is no excuse , all they had to do was google “ top ten sites in London “ for example, and suggest three sites they were interested in seeing .

Yes I could have planned everything- but allowing them to participate really does cut down on whining “ not another church or museum “ for example.

At 17 your kids can definitely invest a bit of research - it really helps them own part of trip

Warning this can backfire / when first son wanted to go to Catacombs I had to agree , but personally I have a bit of claustrophobia- so definitely wouldn’t have been in my list lol . But I did it lol

Let them google random
Stuff that may be a personal interest- ie - one son wanted to go to the big Lego store and daughter wanted to visit costume museum in Venice .

In exchange for you having to put up with one of their choices - you can say fine and today we are going to such and such church etc

First time poster? Welcome! All the advice above is great! But if you wanted to have a springboard…how about this: fly in to Rome, spend at least 5 days, train to Florence but on your way, stop in Pisa, leave your luggage at the train station luggage depot (you’ll pay for this services) follow Rick’s direct to the tower, enjoy that sight, return and continue on a to Florence. After at least 4 days in Florence, take the train to Venice for at least 3-4 days and fly home from there. Add or subtract time as you see fit based on planning. If you have more time, try to fit in a train ride to Pompeii somewhere. Reverse the order of the trip depending on flight times.

Because of the unique challenges of getting to the Venice airport ( especially for early departures), the general advice is to fly INTO Venice and home from Rome. Basically do Helen's trip in reverse.

Knowing how long the trip will be ( i.e., how many nights in Italy) is essential to provide ideas to you that would be relevant.

In the meantime you could look at the "Itinerary" for these tours to give you some ideas.
https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/italy

As others have mentioned, get the sons involved in the planning. Not saying the inmates should run the asylum, but the more they are involved, the better the trip will be for all. Not that 17 year old boys are ever a problem.

What fun to take 17 year olds! It will be a great experience for all of you.
By 'summer' do you mean June-July-August? Can you adjust your plan to avoid those months, when it is hot and crowded? I'm guessing that your sons are still in school so you may be bound by vacation schedules. But if not, and you can flex by even a few weeks, spring is an excellent season. If you can do a spring trip, avoid the week following Easter if possible, which is a big vacation week for Italians, although it is manageable from a tourist perspective - our first trip was during that exact time, but for our subsequent trips we have avoided it. Fewer crowds, more choice of accommodations.
Re accommodations, a fun option would be staying in a hostel - your boys might be old enough to be in a male dorm while you are in a priviate room (some hostels have flexible options). When I went to Great Britain with my older son we stayed together except in one hostel where he had to stay in the male dorm and he had a great time hanging out with his own kind (not his mom, for once!). Some hostels - I'm thinking of Florence - have family rooms with private baths, akin to hotels.

Especially since you have teens, I recommend looking at the Earth Trekkers' travel blog for ideas. It is written by a very active family of four (the parents were D1 athletes in college and the two kids are now college students), and is thoughtful and helpful. You can follow one of their itineraries or piece together a trip. Maybe have your boys look at the blog too, even just look at the photos, to see what they find interesting. (I am not affiliated with the blog in any way. I happened upon it by chance and have used it to help plan some of my family's trips.)

Italy Travel Guide
https://www.earthtrekkers.com/italy-travel-guide/

Just piling on with the advice to get some books and assign a website to everyone to pick out some options. I'm sure your 17 year-olds are literate/internet savvy, and this a great opportunity for them to learn how to put a trip together; a valuable learning opportunity that will serve them well in the future when they strike out on their own. Long story short, don't do ALL the work for them or it will become your trip, or someone else's if you build it strictly on what others tell you to do.

Along with the teens picking some locations and attractions - we CAN help you be realistic about how many places you can reasonable see in X amount of time once your family has a list - they should also research HOW to see some of those places (getting around, ordering tickets to attractions, etc) and some background on why those places/attractions are interesting/important.

As well, these forums welcome earnest travelers of many ages; you might consider having them start their own accounts so they can ask their own questions and so have another valuable trip-planning tool at their fingertips. What I would have them avoid? Any of the platforms which rely heavily on young Influencers, and I'd be very cautious with any of the giant Social Media platforms.

I’m with Emily and Pat and Valadelphia. But it’s not just on your sons, it’s a family adventure in planning.

What are their/your interests?

• Hiking/Mountains
• Beaches
• Boats/lakes
• Cycling or ebiking (as part of your trip, you could arrange a multi-day cycle tour with luggage transfers from hotel to hotel, town to town, though summer heat may be an issue.)
• Art
• Architecture
• History
• Ancient Romans
• Renaissance
• Religion
• Food
• Do they even know yet? Do you?

Guide Books. In addition to RS

• DK Eyewitnes
• Lonely Planet
• Moon
• Michelin
• Regional ones, not just “Italy”. Maybe spend some time in a good bookstore’s travel section or in a large public library?

Rick Steves stuff. RS has hours and hours of videos and podcasts you can download. Explore:
https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/italy

Pompeii: The New Dig on PBS and available on You Tube as well as PBS Passport for streaming if you are public TV donors.

Historical Novels and other books to read:

• The Agony and the Ecstacy - not just a story of Michelangelo, his life and times, but also the story of the Renaissance, other great Florentine artists, Lorenzo Medici (il Magnifico), the Medici (and Borgia) popes of the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Michelangelo was not merely one of the greatest painters and sculptors ever, he was an architect who helped design and build St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, as well as Florence’s defenses when that city was literally at war with the Church (the Papal States).
• Historical novels by Robert Harris such as Pompeii and Imperium.
• Carlo Levi’s biographical story about his year or two as a political prisoner of Mussolini, Christ Stopped at Eboli.
• The Aeneid

So much to explore. Buon Viagge.

LATE ADDITION - If you return to this post (or create a new one) let us know how long you plan to travel. If you’re planning two weeks, try to make it three. If you’re planning 3, can you make it 4 or even 30 days?