As more and more travelers flock to Italy, more and more big tour groups traipsing behind screaming-flag-waving guides appear…This is NOT what you want for your Italian vacation.
It’s well worth paying the extra euros for a small group tour or a private guide to have an enriching experience of Italy’s world-beloved masterpieces and places. You have lots of choices when it comes to guides, especially in the big cities. All licensed guides have gone through years of study and rigorous exams to earn their badges, but there’s a huge range of differences out there between great guides and the ones who are…well let’s be nice and say “not so great”. Sadly, those Not-So-Great Guides can transform a beautiful Italy Experience into a baffling, boring drag….
So let’s be as discerning about choosing guides as we are about restaurants and hotels. Too often, I’ve seen travelers let the “boring guide thing” slide, without even speaking up about it. Some tell me…”Well I guess I’m just not that into history or museums….” I tell them: “It’s not YOU, it’s THEM! “.
There are Great guides out there, who know how to tell stories, bring in their passions, and customize their tour according to the desires of their clients so the experience becomes an enlightening adventure. To find these Greats, don’t be swayed by fancy videos or websites. On-line reviews can be somewhat helpful, though I took a tour with a TERRIBLE GUIDE of the Vatican Museums last May, who was begging for reviews from the start, and later saw that one in our group had written a great review of him on TripAdvisor…
The Best Way to Find a Great Guide is through a referral from a trusted travel agent, tour operator, or friend. And if you’ve booked a private tour, be sure to talk to the guide beforehand and be specific about what you’d like along the way. Let them know, for example, if there will be children, what the travel experiences of the group are, and if you’d like to take a specific focus…perhaps the HER-story (feminine history) of a place, as we do in Golden Weeks in Italy?
Here are a couple of tours for Special Interests…with Great Guides, bringing you wonderful experiences for the Memory Books…
Led by Extraordinary Guide, Eleonora Baldwin, granddaughter of Award-Winning Filmmaker Vittorio DeSica…CLICK FOR DETAILS
Led by Florentine Native and Wonderful Guide Sara (of Freya’s Florence Tours)….
CLICK FOR DETAILS...
I’ll be adding more to this collection, so stay tuned for more Golden Experiences…
