June 2006 and we should be college-free!! To celebrate, I would like to surprise my daughter with her 'wish'...to go to Tuscany on a 'mother-daughter road trip'. We are pretty road savvy and not afraid to travel. We would like to stay on our own and drive on our own, rather than hook up with an agenda-driven tour.
Any suggestions on must-see places, good hotels and safety would be greatly appreciated.

Hi caz,

You might find this link helpful

Helpful Information: Italy http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34443340

I see that this is your first time, ever to post here... (how do I know this? click on your own name - - a way to find all of your previous posts that Fodor's fails to tell you when they acknowledge by e-mail that you are newly registered)

And this is more directed to other (relative) newbies, as much as it is to you. You need to mention your destination in the message &quot;header&quot; (Fodors calls it a title); this is something they <i><b>do</b></i> tell you, although it is buried in the &quot;FAQs&quot; (click on the little red &quot;HELP&quot; in the upper lefthand corner).

Your questions have everything to do with Tuscany, and almost nothing to do with how should a mother and daughter travel together.

Best wishes,

Rex

CAZSCUBA,
See my trip report fot ideas in Tuscany
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34494897
Feel free to e-mail if you have questions.

&lt;&lt;Feel free to e-mail if you have questions.&gt;&gt;

I get criticized every time I point this out - - but hopefully CAZSCUBA will, for the most part, NOT do this - - unless it would be for questions of a highly personal nature (and even then, they would be posed to essentially a total stranger).

This forum works this way - - the questions get asked here; the answers get posted here.

Imagine what a dismal failure this forum would have been in the beginning, if all the questions were answered &quot;e-mail me&quot;. There would have been little or no substance to attract an audience.

The lifeblood of this forum is the appearance of newcomers, asking questions - - both novel and creative, and answered-a-thousand-times-before. The heart is the posting of answers... here.

cazscuba, just want to encourage you to stay on your own and drive on your own. It's the best way to see Tuscany, IMO. Be sure you get a good map. Also, if you start reading some guidebooks and doing some research on this forum and maybe slowtrav.com (italy section) you'll get a good idea of where you want to go.

My daughter and I did a mother-daughter road trip in Italy at the end of her sophomore year in college. We flew into Venice, took the train to Florence, train to Rome, train to Orvieto - where we rented a car for a few days in Tuscany. We stayed a couple of nights in Siena - it was fabulous. Probably our other favorite town was Pienza. We also stopped for a few hours in San Gimignano - it was pretty but very touristy - even for Tuscany!

Bringing your message back up &quot;to the top&quot;...

Cazscuba, my daughter and I took two trips to Tuscany and based ourselves at Montecatini Terme. Neither of us were interested in driving which was fine as Montecatini is on the main regional train line (Pisa, Lucca, Prato, Pistoia, Florence). It also a good base for car travel. It's hot in June and Montecatini is in the mountains and many hotels have pools. We stayed at the Grand Hotel Ambasciatori on the &quot;two meal American plan&quot; - excellent location, rooms,food, roof pool. Montecatini is home to Excelsior Borghese Spa - we really enjoyed the mother-daughter spa visits.Our first visit was in 2002 when my daughter was 19 and we went again the following year. We're planning on spring '06 again (poor kid, these last two years I've been traveling with her dad . Have you heard of the travel club, Club ABC tours. They have excellent fly &amp; drive packages to Tuscany - very worthwhile to look into.