If you are even considering doing it on your own, as opposed to a tour, I say go for it! Everyone here will be more than happy to help. My husband and I did a 30-somethings first-timer trip several years ago, so I know just how you feel. You can click on my profile to see my trip report if you are interested.

One thought is that you might enjoy having at least one day in a smaller town/countryside, to mix up all of the busy, museum-filled city time. If that sounds appealing, you might consider basing in two cities and taking a day trip from there. If you can squeeze two or three more days into your vacation, you would have time to stay in the countryside, as a 3rd destination.

But Venice, Florence, Rome certainly makes for an easy first trip if that suits you more!

For a first-timer who is worried about how to manage in Italy as an independent traveler, I recommend Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door. That book goes over all the different aspects of European travel, from changing money to avoiding pickpockets to taking the train. Italy is one of the easier European countries to visit, as the people are very friendly and English is widely spoken in tourist destinations.

Agree with Janis. Choose ONE city. Trying to cover three major world cities with 7 days all but assures that you will have little time to relax and soak up the atmosphere of the place...

Rick Steves

I went on a Gate1Travel tour to Scandinavia and was pleasantly surprised and pleased with how well it went. Something to say when someone lines up for tickets, organises local guides and works out logistics for you. What I really loved with this tour company (compared to Contiki, Trafalgar and Globus all of which I've taken) was how central and well located accommodation was.
The other company I've had great experience is G Adventures. They were a bit more chilled and easy going. Great local places to stay, public transportation getting around town and lots of free time.

If you have nine days, I’d recommend just doing two places, Venice and Rome. (A caveat, I’m a Venice nut case.) Flights out of Venice heading west often leave early in the morning, Both Venice and Rome are very dense in terms of things that you would like to see, you could do weeks in both cities and barely scratch the surface.
Doing it by yourself is easier than you would think. Here’s what you would need to do:
Book air fares, say into Venice and out of Rome, these are known as open jaw flights or multi-city.
Book hotels in both cities, booking.com is your friend or any other booking site you fancy.
Find out how to get from Marco Polo airport in Venice to your hotel. This question gets asked about twice a day on Tripadvisor, take a look here: https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowF...ce_Veneto.html
Buy a train ticket from Venice to Rome. You can do this in advance, or even at the station you can use vending machines that speak English. Trains from Venezia SL to Roma Centrale run about every hour hour, take about four comfortable hours.
Take a taxi to your hotel in Rome.
On departure, get your Rome hotel to organise a transfer to the airport.

That is about six or seven tasks, once you sort those you are under way. It’s no more complicated really than doing a holiday from the USA to Canada, fly out of LA to Vancouver, get to your hotel, travel to Calgary, fly back to LA.

If you have, say, 7 nights then I would choose only one or maybe two places. If you choose one, then you can plan some day trips from that central location. You only have to book one hotel then too.

I know that tours often spend only one or two nights in each place but in my view that wastes an awful lot of time packing up and moving on.

Actually I think in your time frame you could do any of the suggestions above and have a good trip.

If you stayed in one city the whole time it would minimize hotel bookings and moving around, might be less stressful for a first time trip. And there are enough day trips from any of the 'big 3' cities to fill your time.

Or you could pick two, very doable in a week's time and you might feel like you are getting to see more.

However, last year I took a friend who had never been to Italy and we did do the 'big 3' - Venice, Florence and Rome - in a week and we had a fantastic time and she said she didn't feel rushed at all. I wrote about it here: https://andiamo.zenfolio.com/blog/2017/5/italy-through-fresh-eyes---chashing-the-sun-in-italy-in-march

It really is very easy to do on your own - even though I've been to Europe 31 times now, I do still remember my first trip and how anxious I was. But now with everything bookable online it is so easy. I'm sure there are some trips where being on a tour would be worthwhile, but an intro to Italy is not one of them.


If your 9 days means a work week with two weekends, and you were planning to fly out on Saturday, I would suggest you consider flying on Friday. Many flights from the US depart late enough that you might be able to work a regular work day on Friday and fly that night. That gives you one whole extra day and one day really can make a difference.

amy~ There's your trip!! Just do what isabel posted. WOW I would put those photos up against any organized tour or travel agent -lol- for how to plan a trip.