What sites should I consider a guided tour for in Rome?

I would say an early entry to Sistine chapel and a tour of the borghese gallery if you like art. Can be hard to get tickets as they only allow so many per day and only go for sale about 90 days out…

Walks of Italy tour company is very popular. The Colloseum, Forum and Pallintine Hill are put together in one tour. They offer Pristine Sistine early more before the public tour. I’ve done both and they were fantastic. We are going back again in May with our sons and doing them again.

Another wonderful tour is Travestere Twilight food and wine tour with Eating Italy. It was a highlight of ours.

Lulu and I are on the same page. I would highly recommend both the companies she mentioned with Walks of Italy offering a discount with multiple tours booked and I think RS also has a discount code. I have gone on the food tour twice it was so fun.

I did the early entry Sistine Chapel tour and found it very valuable. It was the Walks of Italy one, and I'd highly recommend it.

I also did a Colosseum and forum one, which was very good. Many people say you need a tour for the forum, and it is kind of hard to picture it intact, but I would have been fine - I feel like I learn better doing the research and putting it together myself to be my own guide. However, it came as part of the Colosseum tour, and I needed that to see some areas like underground and maybe a higher up level (I forgot if that was tour-only). If those areas were accessible to self-guided visits then I would have preferred that, but they were not. So I took the tour and it was a good experience.

Lastly, if you have much interest in local food, I'd suggest a food tour! The one I did through Eating Europe is not available right now (It was a wine pairing dinner), but there are so many food tours in Rome that I'm sure you can find one that is highly recommended and excellent. What you want to look for is one that will go places/taste things you would have a hard time doing yourself. Off the beaten path restaurants, or tastings of unusual specialties, that kind of thing.

Another vote for the Walks of Italy early entry tour into the Vatican (officially titled "Pristine Sistine" tour). It was the most we've ever paid for a tour, especially one that isn't private (although the group was small - I think there were 10 of us), but it was worth every. single. penny. The Vatican in general and the Chapel in particular become a complete zoo and being able to be in the Chapel with maybe 20 or 30 other people (they only let a few early-entry groups in at a time), was magical. Plus, the guide imparted a ton of knowledge and knew how to maneuver us deftly around crowds in the Vatican museum.

We've found the RS audioguide to be sufficient for what we wanted to see at the Coliseum, although we didn't get to go underground so if that's something you're interested in, I think a tour would definitely be worthwhile.

The Roman Forum is the sight, where a guided tour would be handiest. After visiting Rome three times I give up on trying to decipher its ruins.

We were so lucky with our guide during the Forum section of the tour. He had drawings of what the ruins would have looked like, that really made them sort of come alive. It sounds Like that’s not the standard practice with the guides but it should be.