When to book local guides for Sept 2022 My Way Italy?

Can you supply a few more details? Is this your first visit to the places on this tour? What are you interested in seeing? We’re doing this tour in May 2022🤞🏻. We chose it because it allows us to revisit Rome, Florence and Cinque Terre and see things we didn’t get to last time, as well as adding places we’ve wanted to visit for the first time. I’m looking at small group tours in Venice as well as food/cooking tours in some of the other places. If it was our first time, I probably would have booked local guides in Rome & Florence. I’m thinking we have enough info to do Varenna and Assisi on our own.

I went through the scrapbook archives to see how others had done the My Way Italy tour.

Thanks for asking. We've traveled in Europe, but not Italy. I once read that RS said the Italian guide books are longer (than other countries) because travel is a bit more complicated there. We're ok coming up with things we want to see in each location, but would like a one-day navigation/orientation in Venice and Rome. We chose My Way because I have a knee that prevents me from staying on a dead run all day. I will have read-up before we arrive, but not my spouse.

My suggestion is yes, book a guide for a tour in each city. Choose the right local guide can give you much more details about the place that any generic guidebook. If you find the right guide is better book him/her in advance, when you are sure about the date of the travel. Remember that September is high season for art cities in Italy, so several guides are very busy.
A deposit, or an advanced payment, is usually expected when booked a guide. Mainly if the guide has other requests for the same day/time. Unfortunately quite often happens that a person hire a guide and then decide to don't do the tour and the guide lose the service and even other services required for the same time. Sometimes the tourists even decide to don't inform the guide.

Hi Barb -
Without having taken a "My Way", I do know that you do not have a "guide" on these tours; you have a Tour Director. Different animal. As the info states, "This is an "un-guided" tour — giving you the freedom (and responsibility) to manage your daily sightseeing schedule and meals." So while you may get some sightseeing/restaurant suggestions from the director, support for how you spend your free time will be minimal. All tickets/reservations for attractions which require them will be up to you to book, usually in advance if they are most-visited sites.

https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/italy/my-way-italy

Professional guide services can be excellent purchases, especially if not wishing to do a lot of reading in advance...although I STRONGLY suggest that you do so to get the most out of the trip. They can also be nice in cases where the entry tickets are included, thus eliminating the need to purchase those yourselves. That said, a tour with a guide could also have you moving at a pretty good clip, and/or on your feet for considerable time with little-to-no breaks or places to rest a bit if that bad knee demands it.

So an alternate suggestion? Many guidebooks include self-guided walking tours you can do on your own pace. As well, Rick provides a number of audio tours you can download to your own devices and follow along as quickly or not as desired (see link below; scroll down to "Italy"). In addition, many of the museums have audio guides which can be rented.

https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/audio/audio-tours

Using an audio guide would mean advance-booking tickets for some of the attractions yourselves but many, many of us have done it so you'll find lots of help/advance here! As well, I'm not sure where/why RS said that Italy was "more complicated" than other countries to travel in but we didn't find it so. Now, we didn't journey through during an international pandemic, which has added its own layers of complexities in more than just The Boot, but as you've traveled in Europe before, I wouldn't think you'd find the places you'll be going any more difficult to sightsee (other than managing your knee; this will be especially true in the Cinque Terre) than places you'd already been.

I once read that RS said the Italian guide books are longer (than other countries) because travel is a bit more complicated there.

I don't think that's why. After all it is simpler than travel in Switzerland which has a book half the size.

No, I believe that it is just because there is just so darn much incredible top quality stuff to do and see in that long skinny country. Even now Rick, with that huge guidebook, leaves out vast swathes of magnificent countryside because the publisher won't let him add more pages....

Enjoy Italy.

I would reach out to local guides now, just to get your name on their lists. We're booking a private guide in Siena and a tour in Venice for June 2022, and the guides with whom we have been in touch have both said something like: "You're on my radar; get back in touch with us after the first of the year, and we'll follow up on what you want to do." We have also had two B&B hosts say the same thing.

I don't know how much of this scheduling delay is Covid related, though.

2019 I booked a tour with Sonia Tavoletta, a recommendation from Francesca Caruso (fabulous, also local guide for RS but hard to book for individual tours) for a tour of the Vatican. At that time, she did not require a deposit. She was fabulous.