First Time Tour Booked!! - Best of Rome Feb 2027 | Seeing some suggestions, too!

Are you planning any extra days before/after the tour?

Best of Rome (March '26) was my first "tour." The guides and sites were fantastic.

I think we will fly in a few days ahead so as to have at least two full days prior to beginning the tour!

Thanks, mbh, glad to hear it. I am glad to hear you say that about the guides and sites visited. It seems like a great "first" tour!

We have done one RS tour, it was the Best of Rome. We really enjoyed it. We do a lot of independent travel. It was lovely to sit back and not have to worry about logistics and tickets. There was a woman on our tour who was likely late 70s/early 80s and she did just fine.

Can I ask your mother's age? I'm planning a trip for my 89 year old mother, and I keep asking myself if I'm crazy. . .

The Best of Rome was our very first Rick Steves tour. Now we are ten tours in! It was a wonderful tour and it will not disappoint. We learned our first important lesson, arrive at least one day in advance. We had a one-stop flight, so navigating the airports and train into the city, got us to the hotel 15 minutes after the group started their orientation tour. We quickly dropped our bags in our room and the receptionist pointed us in the direction they took and we were able to find the group easily. Read the RS guide and read and watch some of their book and video recommendations. Have a wonderful first Rick Steves' tour! We tacked on three days in Paris afterwards.

I was on the Best of Rome tour February 2025, my 9th RST. Once I received hotel info, I promptly reserved nights both before and after tour dates. I used the hotel's vendor for airport transfer, Michs Ride Rome and was met in the terminal, the driver handled my bag for me (I was his only passenger) and gave me a bottle of water for the ride. I arranged a private guide tour of the Baths of Caracalla before the tour started and it was fabulous. I brought an AirFly Bluetooth transmitter so I could use my wireless earbuds with the audio whisper system and appreciated that I didn't have to hang the receiver around my neck. I like to get on Google maps street view and 'walk' around the neighborhood I'm staying in as well as around the city in general to familiarize myself with locations. I read and reread the guidebook and bring it along on my trip. If posted by our guide, I take a photo of the day's agenda and always have the hotel's business card on me. I like to check out the member reviews of the tour on this website as I can get some good intel regarding guides, hotels and activities. Have a great trip.

Thanks for these notes. @jules m, my mom is mid-60s. I believe I am a much younger Rick Steves adventurer than the standard demographic! :) I would just like to add that I am a huge proponent of taking the adventure! I think you should travel as much as you can, especially with those whom you love. Maybe look into some more easy-paced trips? I have heard river cruises are lovely and often provide various activities for all mobility levels. I hope you do book that trip!

Would love to hear more about suggestions of places folks visited that weren't visited on the tour that we could check out on the couple of days before the tour begins.

Milo, I love churches. I believe some of the best art is in churches, especially Rome. I really like mosaics in particular. Here is a link to churches in Rome people really like:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/rome-churches-66095dcb-821f-4d2a-b300-db52ce01b1a8

This is an excellent free, small museum related to the SS in Rome.
https://www.turismoroma.it/en/places/museo-storico-della-liberazione-di-tasso

Our tour did not go to the Capitoline Museum
https://www.museicapitolini.org/en

We really liked the Jewish museum and synagogue
https://museoebraico.roma.it/en/

We did this tour as a family a while back. We actually won two tours from our PBS station. Those were the days. Our kids were in HS & College & there were other families on the trip. So you never know what the group will be like.

I think the tour has changed a lot since we went.
In our free time we did a cooking class and food tours. Also took the train to the Cineciatta studios. Son was a film student then but if you like old movies it was very interesting. Many famous films were filmed there.

We also went to the top of Victor Emmanuel monument that had great views.

For a very different museum we really enjoyed Centrale Montemartini. A unique museum set in an old power station. Part of the Capitoline museum sculptures are there. Gave off steam punk vibes in the best way & we practically had the place to our self.

We came in two days early to go to Sorento & Pompeii.

It was a great tour and hope you enjoy it.

We stumbled across the Museo dei Fori Imperiali, Trajan's Market museum, when we were in Rome and spent ages wondering through it. I rarely see it mentioned online, but it is thought to be the world's oldest shopping mall and the arcades in Trajan's Market are now believed by many to be administrative offices for Emperor Trajan. It is really worth a visit if you are into antiquities at all.

If Ostia Antica is not on the tour itinerary, you might consider going there as a day trip. Easy to get there using public transit, it has relatively few visitors, and the ruins are very well preserved. With an 8 or 9 a.m. start, you can be back in Rome by early to mid afternoon. Do some google searches and see if it holds any interest.

Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia https://www.museoetru.it/

National Roman Museum - Palazzo Massimo alle Terme https://museonazionaleromano.it/palazzo-massimo/

Museo Nazionale Romano - Palazzo Altemps https://museonazionaleromano.it/en/palazzo-altemps/

Basilica di San Clemente https://www.basilicasanclemente.com/eng/

Museo di Scultura Antica Giovanni Barracco https://www.museobarracco.it/en

Palazzo della Cancelleria https://www.turismoroma.it/en/places/palazzo-della-cancelleria

Palazzo Farnese https://visite-palazzofarnese.it/palazzo-farnese/?lang=en

Villa Farnesina https://www.villafarnesina.it/en/

San Clemente is amazing, but is typically included in the RS Rome tour.

I agree with TC, Ostia Antica is a great place. Rick Steves has a free audio tour you can download and listen to while you are there. It was better than the audio version they have. it is an incredible place full of mosaics and structures. Allow most of a day. It is easy to reach by the metro and one train change ( on the same ticket) and you can continue to the beach too if you plan well.

Over 20 years ago, I took this tour with my mother. It was our first Rick Steves tour, the first of several. She loved it! At the time, I was about your age and she was your mom’s age. When we traveled together, she always deferred to me to do all the planning. The tours were a nice way for us to travel together as co-travelers instead of me being the leader.

Ostia Antica was on our RS Rome tour.

I’ve not taken this tour, but if your Mom is at all interested in a day trip to Herculaneum and Pompeii, high speed trains make this extremely doable from Rome. I chatted with a fellow passenger on a day tour recently that had caught a 7:45 train from Rome to Naples (1 hour 10 min trip) and then simply walked across the street from the Naples train station to the tour meeting point ( small group tour of Herculaneum and Pompeii with an archeologist). We did the day tour. The bus dropped the group back at the Naples train station and she boarded her train back to Rome.

It would take a full day, but if either of you find this a high interest activity, it is very doable.

I have not done the Best of Rome but have done 3 other RS tours that included Rome.

I looked at the itinerary and this one includes the Borghese. IF your Mom is in to Bernini, I'd also visit the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria where Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Teresa is located.

I am not particularly well educated in art so the before my last RS trip that included Rome, I watched some excellent Youtube videos on Bernini recommended by a forum member I was the 4-part Simon Schama Story of Art which I currently can't get to come up on my Youtube search. (likely user error, lol).

I also very much enjoyed the Capitoline Museum if you all enjoy them as well. They are not on the itinerary and do not need a reservation to enter. Their restaurant on the top floor has a magnificent view!

Also the Basilica of San Pietro in Vinculo which has the Michelangelo Moses. This is fairly near the Colosseum so depending on where your hotel is located you might walk by it on the way to the Colosseum/Forum.

On to practical matters....I am much older than your Mom but I recommend she start adding in stairs or hills to her walking routine. The first time I went to Rome I thought my feet were going to drop off from the amount of stairs!

Have an awesome time!