My husband and I are planning a trip to Italy in October. This will be our first trip there. I have gone on different review sites and quite a few people remarked that tour groups are not treated as well as individual travelers. They stay in segregated rooms that are not as nice and have a different dining area where the food is not as good. This was with Insight Tours and Globus Tours. I would be interested in hearing from those of you that have traveled both ways. Also, can anyone recommend a tour group that uses quality hotels that are centrally located in the towns you are visiting? Thanks for your help!

Hi

I have used Insight twice, Turkey and Egypt. I highly recommend them based on my experiences. Hotels were 4 or 5 star and the food was excellent. And I never felt our room was substandard. Have a look at the hotels listed by Insight for Italy. You can than Google for their website to check out location and standard. Check them too on Trip Advisor.

If you want a true first class tour, although pricy, take a look at Tauck Tours. They stay in the best hotels and the included meals are fabulous.

My sister and brother-in-law have taken a couple of Tauck tours and have been happy with them.

I travel solo and am happy with that.

Hands down solo is the way to travel in Europe. I always rent an apartment, and depending on where I go use the train or rent a car. If you feel that you need some support while there, check out this site: www.untours.com I have used them for 2 trips and was very happy each time. I knew if I needed them that someone was available. They are very good and I have been happy with each apartment.

Thank you for all your suggestions. I did check out Tauck and I agree that their tours sound wonderful, but I really can't afford their prices. I am leaning towards a tour group only because I've never been to Italy and want to make sure we don't miss any of the "must-see" sights. Would appreciate any additional feedback on trips you've taken to Italy using a tour group.

ttt

We've done both. Tour groups do a lot of things for you and generally get you to the front of lines faster. They are especially good if you don't want or have time to do planning for yourself. In addition, tours can be attactive to people who don't want to or who are unable to deal with renting cars or moving luggage onto and off of trains and into and out of hotels. They also give you a built-in peer group with whom to share the experience. However, they only do exactly what they say they will do in the brochure, so read the tour description carefully - if it doesn't say they will do what you want to do, they won't! Also, when you go with a tour you have a limited amount of time in any one spot. In general, you might see more sights with a tour, but not in the depth you could on your own.

Perillo and Insight are two upscale tour companies that do Italy. Globus and Trafalgar are less pricy than those two but still considered "first class." Cosmos and Trafalgar Costsaver are lower-price options that do not stay at city-center hotels and tend to have poorer quality food for dinners. You can find out from the tour description what the hotel will be in each city on the tour, and then google that hotel to get more information regarding the hotel in question.

Whatever you do, I hope you enjoy Italy!

A different kind of tour we've considered is through Girosole. My neighbors did one and loved it. You can select your tour size ( only 2 of you or up to 6), and you can select your accomodation level. They are walking tours; you might walk from village to village but your luggage is taken for you. Meals are often included. And the tour can be tailored to your selected dates, your needs, your wishes, etc. We would love to do one of these tours, but for our trip this year, we decided to save money by traveling independently. I think Girosole would be a great way to experience an area of italy without any stress whatsoever.
www.girosole.com

If you are doing a tour you need to understand how to read their brochures - since they can be confusing.

Assume you will have a 7 am start every day

Assume your hotel will be in the boonies and you will have dinner there versus at a restaurant frequented by locals

Undertand terminology about sights:
"View" means you see it out of the bus window as you drive by
"Stop" means a 5 minute photo op out front
Only "visit" means you actually go inside - which may not be long enough to actually see most of it

For better, more central hotels and decent tours Tauck is the best option. the less than this you pay the further you will be from the center of town, the less pleasant the hotel and the less acceptable the food, IMHO.

Friends of my parents did a Perillo tour (with some relatvies) and after the first group dinner they organized all the meals on their own - locating restauratns and paying cab fares to and fro - so they wouldn;t starve. Granted these people are a little foodyish - but my one experience with a mid priced tour left me thinking the food resembled that in a school cafeteria.

A comment from the OP “and want to make sure we don't miss any of the "must-see" sights”.

I think that a tour group will decide for you what the “must see” sights are, and that may not align so well with what you want to see. In Rome, street markets might interest you more than the Vatican, say. But the tour is likely to do the Vatican.

Have a think about the sort of things that interest you, and then structure your plans around those things. And if you don’t see Pisa, the Coliseum, St Peters or the Grand Canal, you’ll still have seen things that interest you.

Another thing with tour groups, or groups that I’ve seen in Venice. They do move very slowly, and this could be frustrating for you.

While my wife and I usually travel 'solo' when travelling in the Caribbean we have taken 5 tours with Insight Vacations (Ireland/Scotland, Egypt, Greece, Sicily/Malta and Italy) the most recent being last September/October. I have posted trip reports for 4 of these trips.

The only time we have ever had any difficulties with our accommodation (the rooms, food or location) was during our last trip and the accommodation in Florence which was promptly addressed by the Tour Director.

For us the main benefits of travelling with a tour group is the cost (would certainly be much greater if we were 'solo' and followed the same itinerary), the fact that the entrance fees to major sites are included in your tour, the fact that groups are most often given 'preference' to enter these sites (rather than standing in long lineups as a solo traveler) and the compansionship of other travellers from all over the world.

If you want very nice, centrally located hotels and don't mind paying for them, I would recommend Tauck. I will list a few examples where I have stayed in Italy, or will stay on my next trip in September, so you can see what I mean. Venice - Danieli, Luna Baglioni, Europa & Regina; Florence - Excelsior; Rome - Excelsior; Sorrento - Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria. Virtually all meals are in the hotel's restaurant, not a separate room. I have taken six Europe tours with Tauck (two to Italy) and have only had an issue with a room on three occasions. On each occasion I told the tour director and/or front desk and was immediately provided with another room. Rooms are not segregated and are not in a "block." I have even frequently had rooms with the hotel's best view.

Meals are usually a la carte, except for breakfasts, which are buffet (usually lavish buffet, frequently including prosecco in Italy). Often, if the hotel has more than one restaurant, you may select the one in which you wish to dine. Sometimes meals are at a local restaurant, and again you are in the same dining area as all the other diners.

I like traveling with a tour since I am a female who frequently travels alone and does not travel light. I enjoy not having to worry about logistics between cities/countries. When we reach the destination, I stay with the group if I want to or explore on my own if I want to see something additional or different.

If you're up to the challenge of driving a rental car in a foreign country, definitely avoid the tour groups. You can be so much more spontaneous that way

If money was not a concern, Tauck probably would be my tour company of choice, but we've used Perillo on two extended tours and were extremely happy with their hotels and service and seeing the highlights of Italy with a great group of people. We would use them again, however, our last tour was in 2002, and things can change. I believe the tours were memorable in and of themselves, however, you can never get enough of Italy and these tours allowed us to get more out of our "do it on our own" follow-up visits. However you decide to go, have a great trip and a gelato for me.

You might check out tours offered by Grand Circle Travel. We have taken a total of 9 tours with GCT and their sister company OAT, and all have been fantastic. We have traveled in the past with both Insight and Globus (also with Trafalgar), and much prefer our experiences with GCT and OAT.

With GCT and OAT, there are experiences included (home hosted meals/school visits) that you just don't get with the other tour companies that we have traveled with. (We have never traveled with Tauck because of the cost.)

The best thing about each and every one of our GCT and OAT tours have been the Tour Directora - the best in the business IMHO.

Recently, I have started doing excel spreadsheets comparing what is offered by the various tour companies to our destination. GCT and OAT invariably are my choice because of value and the number of days spent in each location. We tend to skip optional tours and like to have time to go off on our own, and the longer stays allow us to do that.

If you have any questions about traveling with GCT, feel free to email me at: [email protected].