Help Planning a Trip to Italy

The first thing I'd ask is what cities or regions interest you. Italy has a lot to offer. Don't bite off more than you can chew.

The other thing I will add is that a "travel agent" is going to sell you a tour. If you're ok with being shuffled around like a herd of elephants it may be for you.

What I'd suggest is that you post what interests you most about Italy and the good people on this board will help you plan an itinerary.

I am torn if I want to explore the Florence/Venice or Amalfi Coast and Southern Italy. That is why I’d like to talk to a travel agent to see what they recommend, where to stay and help set it all up. Someone with a lot of experience and knowledge of the country. I don’t want to do a tour group at all but want someone to help set up the trip.

I don't typically use them, but we won a 8 day/7 night villa at a charity auction in Tuscany that is through Hill Town Tours. They have been great so far with helping us plan as we typically don't stay in one place for a week when we travel.

If you're just looking for places to stay, I've used Paris Perfect (They have expanded around Europe) to locate apartments ion multiple occasions in both Paris and Florence

Paris Perfect

I have used Tripmasters multiple times and have been very pleased with the experience. Can modify it to nicer hotels, change flights etc.

YMV, but since it’s your first time out of the country, would recommend you focus on the big cities and not southern Italy (and yea sure southern Italy has cities).

How long are you looking to go? Let’s assume a week. You could easily spend that in Florence and tack on a day trip or two into a hill town or other Tuscan city. Or go to rome and do the same thing.

Sometimes the more rural aspects of Europe (such as say provence in France) require much more driving and logistics. This can be frustrating if it’s your first trip.

But to be honest, this board has more people I’d trust with travel advice than one random travel agent you may find.

Before I got comfortable planning big trips myself, I would look at itineraries from companies like Tripmasters, to get an idea of options. Then I would do it myself. I spend many, many hours planning out my trips now so I would understand if you are strapped for time, or simply don't want to do that.

To plan a ~10 day trip in Italy I would likely spend about 20-30 hours doing research and building out my trip. But I enjoy that very much.

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I would likely spend about 20-30 hours doing research and building out my trip.

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Those are rookie numbers.

Just kidding.

Planning travel is easy these days if you are the type of person that likes doing it.

This last trip, I was really busy with work and relied heavily on my buddy to do a lot of the planning and research.

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had friends that went with a tour group to Italy. A day trip on Monday to see the statue of David was included. When they got to the location it was closed. And is always closed on Monday. I don’t know the name of the tour but that’s enough to keep me away from all group tours.

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Same thing happened to my parents and pretty much the only thing my mom wanted to see was David. She was so so upset.

I will avoid doing tours for eternity.

I appreciate all of the responses. I will talk with my wife and narrow it down to location, number of days there and etc.

Tuscany and Umbria are the best regions to visit and it’s not even close. Plenty of towns with way fewer people and tourists but just as much history and amazing food as you’ll find in bigger cities, along with even more spectacular landscapes. Volterra, Pitigliano, Siena, Todi, Orvieto and Cortona were some of our favorite spots. My all time favorite of those is Todi. Spend most of your day in one of these towns and mix in some dinners at agritourismos as well.

Do not recommend driving in the bigger cities, but driving in the countryside is easy enough. Then just park at a parking lot just outside the smaller towns I mentioned, not worth risking driving into the city center and getting a huge ticket for entering a ZTL area.