My husband and I are planning our first major trip outside of NOrth America to Italy. We have looked into a couple of guided tours but felt the accomondation and luggage situtation to be questionalbe. Does anyone have any info to help us..

I'm a little confused by what you mean about &quot;accomodation and luggage situation to be questionable&quot;. I don't do tours, but it seems that the best feature of them is that they handle your luggage for you. And do you mean the accomodations of the tours you've looked at are too &quot;lowscale&quot;, too &quot;upscale&quot;,too &quot;out of the way&quot;, or something else?<BR><BR>Personally I think if you have the time and interest, you can do far better planning your own tour than joining a package, but I agree that guided tours are the way to go for some, especially for a first time outside of North America.

This forum excels in helping furst time Europe travelers make good decisions about the kind of trip (you think) you want to take. There is a strong bias here in favor of independent travel, but you can find useful info on various other kinds of group trips here, commercial and otherwise.<BR><BR>It is a common complaint that &quot;tour company&quot; trips use hotels that have less than ideal features, locations or both. But what do you mean by ...<BR><BR>&quot;felt the... luggage situation to be questionable&quot; ??<BR><BR>Do you mean that you think they might mishandle your luggage? Not allow you to take as much luggage as you want?<BR><BR>I just don't understand your concerns.<BR><BR>Packing light is a hallmark of a trip to Europe that you will enjoy and want to repeat as soon as possible. you'll find lots of trips and advice about that here - - whether you plan to travel independently, with a tour company or any other kind of group.<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR><BR>Rex Bickers<BR>Westerville, Ohio<BR>

topping<BR>

We too are planning our first trip outside of North America for next year. We are planning to travel to Italy with our 14 year old daughter. I would like to plan this trip myself and I have started to prepare by taking a course in the Italian language, reading books and surfing the internet for information. I would like to have any information anyone can give me. Especially if anyone has an itinerary that they have followed for 7 to 9 days.We would like to go in April.

We like tours but we also add on days before or after to be on our own. You would also have time to yourselves during the tour.<BR>A few tours that we have been on that were superb were Trafalgar's Wonderful France (added on time to see Lourdes and more time in Paris) and Globus-Best of Austria and Switzerland. Of the two companies we preferred Globus for selection of hotels, service and great tour guide. There are many tours offered to Italy. You can find more information online by typing out Trafalgar Tours or Globus and Cosmos.

Maybe take a look at this:<BR><BR>http://www.frommers.com/cgi-bin/[email protected]^[email protected]<BR>

ttt<BR>