Has anyone used Road to Italy Tour Guide Service out of Canada or know anyone who has. We are planning a trip to Italy next fall and are contemplating using them. They plan custom tours.

Hi MN,

How custom will this tour be?

Are you going anywhere but Rome, Florence, Venice?

If not, you can do it yourself for much less.

I know that I can do it for much less, but will be traveling with my husband who is not much of a traveler and is not much of a fly by the seat of his pants kinda guy.

I have been to Venice and Rome before, he has not.

We have had private guides on international travel in the past and he loved it. Incidentally, I did also.

^ttt for MnGrandma

I booked a Globus tour and a customized trip to Sicily and the Aeolian Islands through Road to Italy. They had no problem booking the Globus tour but the customized tour was a nightmare.
I contacted them 6 months prior to my trip and spoke to them every few weeks or so and felt comfortable about the trip until one night about a month before I was scheduled to leave I was looking at the hotel I was staying in on the Aeolian Islands and decided to contact the hotel directly about a question I had. When I gave them my reservation dates they did not have me listed. At this point I called the hotel in Sicily where I would also be staying and they did not have a reservation for me. I called road to Italy and they insisted (and not pleasantly) that I had reservations. This went back and forth for about 3 weeks. The hotel on the Aeolian Islands explained to me that they were not familiar with Road to Italy, but did quite a lot of business with their middleman (Fransicily - an Italian travel agency), but were booked solid for thr month of August. The hotel offerred to contact Road to Italy but Road to italy insisted the hotel was mistaken. The hotel (Hotel Signum - Malfa,Salina, they deserve a free plug) understood that this was a trip of a lifetime for my wife and I because we were visiting my great grandfathers honetown and made arrangements to put us in a 4 room apartment on their property because they were booked solid.
I also was calling Road to Italy 24 hrs. before my departure for Italy because I didn't have my transportaion vouchers, which they had to fax to me.
I would look for another company if I were you, I had to repeatedly call them, they were ignorant and never even apologized, let alone offer a discount and I basically had to make all of my own hotel arrangements. Good luck.

I wanted to respond regarding Road To Italy out of Canada. We have had Road to Italy book 3 of our vacations to Italy. The service and the trips are outstanding. we travelled with as few as 6 people and as many as 15(including 9 children) and each time the trip was unbelievable. the services provided before during and after the trip are unsurpassed. It is truly shocking to me that someone would have such a bad experience.......

I used Road to Italy to book a custom vacation for February 2007 (I owe a trip report...it will be posted soon!) I couldn't have been happier with the service before our trip or the quality of the providers once on the ground in Italy. RtI has a variety of suggested itineraries on their website, along with some hotel options. I picked and chose among the offerings and fine tuned with advice from the folks here at Fodors. I ended up with exactly the trip I wanted with truly wonderful guides for my selected tours in Rome, Florence and Assisi and transfers between cities. There is no doubt that I could have put this together myself, probably for less money, but I was comforted by the fact that I had someone to turn to in case of problems. In fact, I asked the driver who transported us from Rome to Florence about his experience with Road to Italy, and he commented that they are one of his favorite companies because, once the relationship is established, they pay their providers when the service it booked, not after the service is provided. As a result, he will go out of his way to accomodate Road to Italy and their clients.

Again, I should stress that this is probably not the most economical way to travel. If you have the time to research and book things on your own, and the confidence that all will go well, you will save money by doing this yourself. I was very happy that I used Road to Italy for my first trip to Italy...now that I have some feeling for the "lay of the land," so to speak, I will probably plan the next trip myself. This is especially true if I visit just one city. On the other hand, I am one of those people who do not feel like I'm on vacation if I have to drive, so if I was going to visit multiple locations not easily accessed by train, I am sure I would call Road to Italy again.

My wife and I took two trips with Road to Italy, one in 2005 and another in 2010. Can't say enough about how pleased we were with the arrangements for travel in-country and the tour guides, as well as the excellent accomodations that were provided. Both trips were enchanting and unforgettable. I can definitely endorse this travel agency, and look forward to working with them again.

This is a 4 year old thread that allenj7 topped.