Tours of Italy
 

I am looking for a Escorted tour to Italy Rome Florence and Venice. Can anyone help?

Until folks start replying, use the "Search to Forums" for escorted Italy tours-quite a few posts come up. There are also a "pile" of them on the internet as well. My hub and I DIY without guides for the most part so I can't help. If you see some that "call out" ask specifically about them on this forum-you'll get honest, good advice.

You'll have to look through lots of tours to find one that only goes to Rome, Florence, and Venice. Most tours add other locations as well and give you limited time in the three locations you want. That's the problem with tours.

You need to be careful when booking tours and read the fine print to see what is included and what is optional. Often tours with low prices offer many options which significantly add to the price or the hotels can be located outside the towns/cities or many meals are on your own.

Tours have become very expensive in the past few years and are usually more expensive than doing the trip on your own.

Here are some escorted tours you can look at:

http://www.collettetours.com/
http://www.gate1travel.com/
http://www.gct.com/gcc/general/
http://www.insightvacations.com/us/
http://www.maupintour.com/
http://www.tauck.com/

What about Globus? jmcardi, are there any travel agents in your town who could refer you?

I didn't include Globus because I didn't like the tour I took with them. A friend took one of their tours and was not happy with the quality of it. Many people do like Globus but it's all about expectations of what a tour should be. I went with Globus for my first tour and have subsequently taken tours with two other companies so I can compare them to better companies.

Always possible with such tours. Just thought of Elder Hostel-jmcardi are you an elder??!!

goahead and ricksteves both have a venice-rome-florence tour

http://www.goaheadtours.com/tours/VF...ome-9days.aspx

http://tours.ricksteves.com/tours09/...code/VFR09/200

as adrienne pointed out, read the fine print - goahead counts the day you leave the USA as one of the tour days

our best italy trip was the walking tour of tuscany from go ahead see my trip report super trip super price we are taking the lake como.. this year

Our first trip to Italy we did the Go Ahead tour to Venice, Florence and Rome - we were happy with it. We saw ALOT of the major "must sees", plus in each place we stayed 3 night so not too much packing and unpacking. I think in each location there was some time to explore on our own or do "optionals".We have returned to Italy several times on our own now but I do think for a first trip a tour lets you see alot of the sights without having to figure out the connections, tour guides, etc. I would adivse looking for a tour without alot of included meals - its easy to find good food in Italy and tour meals are usually pretty bogus.