Travel Guides

Are you looking for all day drivers and guides or tour guides for a specific site or location? Or drivers between cities? It is a little unclear. Normal we find good guides for specific purposes at the local TI after we arrive in the town/city. But we utilize the trains between cities.

Sometimes private guides have their own drivers. In Egypt, I hired a local guide and she arranged the driver. I then arrange with her to hire him for the day to drive me to the Pyramids and be a bit of a buffer from the touts.
Try Tours by Locals website. You can choose your guide and ask them for a driver recommendation that will park and help you get your luggage onto the train.
It won't solve the problem if you need to change trains, but it would reduce the hefting.
If what you want is a driver instead of train then you need to check out 'limousine services' for the city/area.

While we enjoy train travel, we don't really want to lug our luggage
on and off...

Echoing Frank here: it's unclear exactly where/why you're looking for guides & drivers? For instance, it sounds like you'll be basing in Florence for a month so luggage wouldn't be an issue if just day tripping from there. Are you looking for escorted day trips and/or exploration within Florence itself by car+ guide and don't have an issue getting to your accommodation from the airport?

Given the distances from Florence>Dolomites and Dolomites>Basel, I wouldn't think you'd want a car + guide just for transfers? Are you just wanting assistance getting bags on and off the trains?

I can see I was not very clear in my post so here is more! In the past, we have made almost all of our travel and tour arrangements before leaving home. We have used Kensington and been happy with their services, including transfers from one town/city/country to another with stops along the way for a tour by a local guide and lunch at a restaurant of our choice.

While In Florence, we are looking for day trips--or even an overnight trip or two--either by train or with a driver if not too long a drive. I have been searching for a forum or website that might have guides, with reviews, listed for different places but have not found one as of yet. We know we want to do wine tasting (again!) and like smaller vineyards that include a charcuterie board with the tastings. Have done wineries in Montepulciano, Montalcino, and visited Capanna, Montemorli, and others.

We were looking at a driver from Florence to Bolzano so we could stop in Verona to explore, with a local guide, and have lunch. In Bolzano, we plan to explore on our own for the most part, although open to a local guide.

Not sure of how will travel from Bolzano to Basel, but will be spending a few days in Basel before a river cruise on the Rhine to Amsterdam. We have been to Amsterdam before but want to stay there for a few nights to see what we missed, again a local guide would be good. Thanks for helping me clarify what we are looking for!

You might try Mydaytrips. A friend has used them for transfers from one town to another with some stops on the way. Their site looks like they have some "canned" routes and you can ask for customized days. Probably could mix and match any way you wanted.

This site is geared a bit more to the independent traveler than what you have previously experienced. And your definition of "not a lot of luggage" probably is very different for mine and most on this site. On this site anything more than a carry-on is often considered a lot of luggage by many. Reading between the lines I think you are looking for more hand holding similar to what you received on your organized tours. That may be difficult to achieve without a fair amount of work on your part. Also I am making the assumption that you are not familiar with using TIs (Tourist Information). For what you are trying to do the TIs is critical. These offices, often location in airports, train stations, and town centers provide a wide range information from lodging, restaurants, to local tours. On first arrival in a new town we will spend a couple of hours gathering information, maps, and talking to the attendants in the TIs. Their English will be perfect and eager to help. We have never had a bad tour guide arrange through the TI. Maybe a couple were just so so but in general the services of the TI are excellent.

I think you need to spend a fairly amount of time with some good guide books covering the areas you will be staying in, the local web sites, travel DVDs from your local library, so you have a good feel for what you want to do. With the internet you should be able to make contact in advance and have some pre-planned things in place on arrival. Personally think the most difficult aspect will be finding drivers between locations and then local guides if you stop in a town along the way.

But good luck. Would love to spend a month in Florence. And we love the river cruises. We will be 80 on the next trip still lugging our luggage --- on on wheels instead of the back. Trying for ten more years and we just lost two.

Thank you for your reply, Frank. We have travelled independently for years but enjoy hiring our own guide to learn even more about places we visit. We have very little luggage with us but even that has become difficult to heft with shoulder issues.

It is not so much hand-holding we are looking for but unique side trips with knowledgeable locals. We do a lot of research before our trips but always learn even more from our guides. We always stop at the TIs and have great experiences through them as well. My query was part of our exploration and planning for our next trip.

Florence is our favorite city in Italy and we have lots of connections there so we are looking forward to an extended stay. Keep on travelin’!

We've only used them once, but we enjoyed our Tours by Locals tour in Italy: https://www.toursbylocals.com/Italy-Tours

Thank you--this is very helpful!

For day trips in Tuscany, this guide has gotten very high marks from RS posters whom have used his services. He's also endorsed by your host (that would be Mr. Steves) himself.

https://www.toursbyroberto.com

If you want to see comments from forum users with first-hand experience and/or have recommended him, type "Tours by Roberto" into the search box with the magnifying glass symbol at the top of this page and click "go". Then click "Travel forum" under "Filter by type" on the menu on the lefthand side of the page. If you want the most recent comments, click "2 years and newer" under "filter by date" on that same menu. I wouldn't filter comments newer than 2 years as, well, we all know what happened to 2020?!!

We will be staying in Siena in April 2022, and I just booked a "Transfer Tour" - a private guide will pick us up at our hotel in Siena, give us a wine tour, and drop us off at our Rome airport hotel 8 hours later. This sounds like something you might be interested in with different itineraries. I don't know if Tuscan Escapes operates out of Florence, but you could try looking for "Transfer Tours". I was also considering My Day Trip, but we are using Tuscan Escapes for a couple of other tours.

https://www.tuscanescapes.com/transfer-tours

Will definitely check this out--thanks!

a driver from Florence to Bolzano so we could stop in Verona to explore,

I am afraid this part of your adventure will be very expensive. It's a five hours drive, but you'll have to pay also for the driver's return journey, plus gas and toll costs.

So expensive that I am wondering if you couldn't use this luggage service offered by TNT and Trenitalia:

https://www.trenitalia.com/en/services/luggage_transportservices.html

while you'll be taking a Trenitalia high speed train to Verona via Bologna. Of course you'll have to get discounted train tickets in advance to keep the total costs down and maybe you'll have to spend one night in Verona because of the trains' timetable.