Tipping tour guides

20 euro total would be appreciated.

My guideline is to tip the guide if he/she is an employee of another company. For two-three hours, I'd tip Euro 5.00-10.00; for a whole day maybe Euro 20.00. Europe is not a big tipping environment.

If the guide is an independent you booked directly with, we do not tip.

I hope you don't mind me expanding - we still generally tipped in Italy except when there is 10 to 15% service charges included. There were three of us (two adults and a kid).

Airport transfer driver at Rome (prepaid) - gave us a stunning historical and landmark tour on he way in. Tip: 10 Euro. Very appreciative he was.

Hotel porter in Rome and Venice who expertly stripped our bags off us and got them to our room. Tip: 10 Euro (too much but new city and I like an extra set of eyes looking out for my girls). Genuinely appreciative men.

Food / Dining generally we left about 6-7% on proper sit down meals if there was no service charge and the service was good. We tried to stay away from the high coperto/service charge places (which is easy). A euro or euro and a half coperto was fine. Everyone we left a tip for was appreciative. Local cappuccinos, gellato and such, no tip. It's an over the counter transaction.

Water taxi - nothing during the day and 5 Euros for the 4am pick up.

Maids/Housekeeping: 2 Euro a night in Rome and Florence. Venice was 5/night however they were doing the night time turn-down, mid day towel changes (without request), tucking in daughters teddy bear and other simply terrific surprises every time we came back to the room.

Structured Group Tours - 10 Euro per event.

In terms of staff - many were Romanian origin. Very hard working and again, very appreciative. Many do not tip. Places like Gusta Pizza in Florence the kitchen has a tip jar on the counter - we made good use of it with a 5 Euro note the fist visit and were instantly remembered and VIP'd the second visit.

You never need to tip in Italy. You certainly never tip a % like you do here in North America. The cost of the tour is what you pay, don't feel that you need to pay more just because you do it at home. Pay the cost and that's it.

Donna

BudLight, you are training the Italian workers to expect U.S.-style tips. I can assure you it is not necessary! We give very little compared to what you did, and our Italian friends give even less.

Thank you for all your input
I really appreciate the details
Thank you everyone

for what its worth, if you decide to tip, consider how many are in the group. I have often done the mental maths of large tour groups tipping the guide. when you multiply the small amount by a large number of people, the guide could be getting quite a large some of 'possibly' tax free income. on top of their wage. their hourly rate could be very impressive.

Great question and I would love to know the answer also. We are leaving soon and will be going on several private/semiprivate tours. We are hiring monetti taxi to take us paestum and back, this costs more than I expected but will be a splurge for us (350 E). Do I need to tip also? We are also taking a boat trip, along amalfi coast with capitano ago. There are 12 people on the boat, do I tip for this? We will be billed 360 E total for this trip. We are on a wait and see shared tour with mondo guide to the island of capri. Tip? These are the most expensive tours/things we will do on our trip but I want to make sure all is good with the tipping scenario.