Europe & Italy
The Italy trip you keep postponing.
Usually because planning it properly is genuinely hard, and planning it badly is expensive in a way you don't discover until you're there.
Europe punishes over-ambition. The itinerary that looks efficient on a map — Rome, Florence, Venice, the Amalfi Coast, in ten days — is four travel days, three hotel check-ins, and a fortnight you spend mostly in transit with luggage.
Fewer places, longer stays. Nobody has ever come back wishing they'd moved hotels more often.
How I'd build it
Start with the season, not the city
Italy in July is a different country than Italy in May. So is Paris in August, when much of it closes. Where you go should follow when you can go, not the other way around.
Two bases, maybe three
For ten days, pick two places and take day trips. You'll see more, unpack once, and actually remember it.
Book the constrained things first
The Borghese Gallery, the Last Supper, Alhambra tickets, the Uffizi. These sell out months ahead and shape the rest of the trip around them.
Rail where rail wins
Rome to Florence is well under two hours downtown to downtown. Flying that route is slower once you count airports. Elsewhere the maths reverses — I'll tell you which is which.
Guides on the days that need them
Half a day with a good private guide in Rome is worth three days of wandering. Most other days need no guide at all.
What I can put together
The tour operators and hotels I book with pay my commission, not you. And when I have access to an offer that isn't advertised publicly, I pass it on — which often means the same Europe trip costs you less than it would if you booked it yourself. Here's how that works
Lead times that actually matter
Summer villas in Italy and France go nine to twelve months out for anything good. River cruises book a year ahead. City hotels are more forgiving, but the well-located ones at reasonable prices are not.
If you're thinking about next summer, now is the right time to start — not February.
Tell me where you want to go.
No fee, no obligation. Most first conversations take twenty minutes and end with a couple of ideas worth thinking about.
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