An Italy family vacation planned by Trips 2 Italy is built around the people who are actually going: the kids who need a gelato stop before the museum, the teenagers who want a story to tell, the parents who want one week that does not feel like work, and the grandparents who want to be part of all of it without being rushed. Since 2003 our planners in Houston and in Italy have hand crafted family trips to Italy from what each family tells us, and no two of them have ever been the same.
This page is the starting point for every kind of family trip we plan. Choose the one that sounds like yours below, or keep reading for how a custom family vacation in Italy comes together, what changes when children of different ages travel together, where families do best, and what is included when we plan it.
Four kinds of family trips we plan most often, each with its own page. Every one of them is custom, and every one of them starts with a conversation about who is coming.
It is a private, custom trip to Italy planned for one family, from the first phone call to the drive back to the airport. We are not selling a scheduled tour with a bus and a flag. We hand select the cities, the pace, the accommodations, the private guides, the drivers and the experiences from what you tell us about your family, then we hold the reservations, arrange the timed entries and stay reachable while you are in Italy.
Families come to us for the same reason organizers of group trips to Italy do: someone at home has been carrying the whole plan, and it is too much. A family trip has more moving parts than a couple’s trip. There are bedtimes, nap windows, a child who will not eat anything unfamiliar, a teenager who needs Wi-Fi, a grandmother who cannot do stairs, and a father who wants to see Pompeii. We plan for all of it at once, which is what the planning pages for multigenerational Italy vacations and family reunions in Italy go into in detail.
The single biggest reason a family vacation in Italy disappoints is that it was planned for adults and the kids were expected to keep up. Italy welcomes children more warmly than almost anywhere in Europe, and it rewards a family that plans for the ages actually traveling.
Toddlers and children under six. Short distances, one base at a time, a pool or a beach within reach, and days that end early. Venice works surprisingly well because there are no cars, and children can run in the squares. Tuscany works because a villa with a garden gives the youngest family members somewhere to be children between outings.
School age kids, six to twelve. This is the golden age for Italy. Kids this age remember the history they can touch: the Colosseum, the gladiator school, the gondola, the pizza they made themselves and the Roman coins they found in a museum treasure hunt. We build these days around hands on experiences and keep the museum time short and guided by someone who knows how to talk to children.
Teenagers. Teens want a story of their own. Vespa sidecar tours, cooking classes they can post about, a boat day on the Amalfi Coast, a soccer match in Milan, a food tour through Naples. We give teens a say in the itinerary before we finalize it, because a teenager who chose something shows up for it.
Parents and grandparents. Adults on a family trip want two things children do not: a long lunch and a quiet hour. We build both into the day, and when three generations travel together we pace the trip for the oldest traveler and give the youngest an outlet, which is covered on our multigenerational vacations page.
We ask about the ages, the energy levels, the picky eaters and the must sees before a single reservation is made. The itinerary is written for your family, not adapted from someone else's.
Pizza and gelato making, gladiator school, treasure hunts in the Vatican, canal boats in Venice, a farm morning in Tuscany. Every child on the trip has something planned for them.
One base at a time, private transfers between them, and days that respect nap time, school age stamina and a grandparent's knees.
Our planners live and work in Italy. They know which entrance has the shorter line, which beach has shade, and which guide is good with an eight year old.
Family suites, connecting rooms, apartments with a kitchen and villas with a pool, chosen for how your family actually lives on vacation.
You never drive, park or navigate. A driver meets you at the airport and a guide meets you at the door, and both know children are coming.
Timed museum entries, high speed train seats together, restaurant reservations for a table of nine, a stroller friendly route through Rome. We sequence the days so nothing is wasted.
Our team is a call or message away for the whole trip, in your time zone and in Italy's, for the moment a plan needs to change.
A relaxed 10-day, land-only family journey through Italy’s south: Rome by electric tuk-tuk, seaside Gaeta, the ruins of Pompeii, the island of Capri, the street food of Naples, and
Bring the whole family home to Abruzzo. A relaxed 11-day multigenerational journey through ancestral hill towns, shared kitchens and castle-crowned peaks, from Sulmona and L’Aquila to a grand finale
A bright 10 day summer family vacation in northeastern Italy, combining Udine as a relaxed home base with hands-on cooking, storybook day trips, and a coastal finale in Trieste.
Ask any family that has been, and the answer is never the museum. Children remember the things they did with their hands and the places where they were allowed to run. Italy has more of both than any country in Europe, and our job is to put them in the right order.
Kids love making pizza in Naples and pasta in Bologna, hunting for gelato in a new flavor every day, sailing to the Blue Grotto on Capri, climbing the Leaning Tower of Pisa, walking the Roman Forum with a guide who tells the gory bits, and finding the secret passages of a Tuscan castle. Older children and teens take to Vespa tours, truffle hunting with a dog, a cooking class that ends with dinner, snorkeling off the Sicilian coast and the hike to a mountain lake in the Dolomites. Sightseeing with kids works when it is short and the adventure, the cuisine and the relaxation in between are what they remember. Our planners keep a running list of the attractions and activities that children of each age enjoy most, and the insider’s guide to family vacations in Italy on our blog goes through many of them region by region.
Comfortably, and without anyone in the family behind the wheel. On a Trips 2 Italy family vacation a private driver meets you at the airport and takes the family to the first base. Between cities we use first class seats on the high speed train, booked together, with the luggage handled, or a private driver for the countryside, the coast and anywhere the train does not go. Inside the cities we plan walking routes a stroller can manage, arrange water taxis in Venice and boats on the lakes and the coast, and book private guides who meet you at the door of the hotel.
The difference for a family is not just convenience. It is that the adults arrive at every stop with the energy to enjoy it, and the children never spend a hot afternoon in a parking lot. If the trip includes a heritage village in the hills, the logistics are covered on our family heritage trips page.
Families ask us this question first, and the honest answer is that the best places in Italy for a family depend on the ages traveling and how much movement the family wants. The destinations below are the ones families choose most often, grouped by region. Most family trips combine two or three of them, one base at a time, with a private transfer between.
Venice is a city with no cars, which children figure out within minutes and adults appreciate all week. Families take the vaporetto down the Grand Canal, ride a gondola, watch the glass blowers on Murano, hunt for the lions hidden all over St. Mark’s Square and eat cicchetti standing up like locals. We keep the days short, book a family suite or an apartment with a courtyard, and arrange a private boat to the islands so nobody stands in a line. See what a family week can look like on our Venice travel guide.
The lakes are where a family slows down, and often the part everyone remembers. Days are built around the water: a private boat to Bellagio and Varenna, a swim from a lakeside garden, a funicular ride up to Brunate for the view, a hike above the shore with a picnic. Grandparents love the pace, teenagers love the boats, and younger children love the villa gardens with room to run. Our Lake Como travel guide covers the towns families base in.
For a family that wants mountains, the Dolomites in summer are Italy’s playground. Cable cars carry children and grandparents to the same alpine meadow, the hiking is gentle or serious depending on who is walking, and lunch in a mountain hut is an event. In winter the same valleys become the ski trip we plan on our Italy ski vacations page. Families base in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Val Gardena or Alta Badia and we arrange guides, e-bikes and the lift passes.
Rome is where a family trip to Italy usually begins, and it is the city where planning matters most. The Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Vatican and the Pantheon are all worth it, and all of them have lines a child should never stand in. We book timed entries, hire guides who run a treasure hunt through the Vatican Museums and tell children the stories behind the gladiators, and break the days with gelato, piazzas to run in and a pizza making class. Our Rome travel guide has the neighborhoods families prefer.
Florence is small enough to walk, which makes it easier with children than its reputation suggests. Families climb the Duomo, see Michelangelo’s David with a guide who keeps it to twenty minutes, take a gelato class, learn to make a leather journal in the Oltrarno and watch the sunset from Piazzale Michelangelo. From here a day trip to Pisa to climb the Leaning Tower is the photo every child wants. See the Florence travel guide for more.
If a family does only one thing right on an Italy trip, it is a few nights in a Tuscan villa with a pool. Children have space to be children, the adults have a terrace and a long dinner, and the days can go anywhere: Siena and the Palio square, a farm where the kids collect eggs and make cheese, a medieval hill town, a horseback ride through the vineyards, a truffle hunt with a dog. Our Tuscany travel guide explains why this is the region we recommend for almost every family.
The south is where a family trip stops being about museums and becomes about the sea. Children walk the streets of Pompeii with a guide who makes the volcano real, eat the pizza Naples invented, and ride a private boat along the Amalfi Coast to a beach club with a lounger for grandma and a swim platform for the teenagers. Positano, Sorrento and Capri make an easy family week. Start with our Amalfi Coast travel guide.
Sicily suits families with school age kids and teens who have already done Rome and Florence. Mount Etna by cable car and jeep, the Greek theater at Taormina, the beaches at Cefalu, the mosaics at Piazza Armerina, and the food in Palermo’s markets fill ten days without repeating anything. Our own summer guide to a multigenerational family trip to Sicily shows how three generations covered the island together. See the Sicily travel guide for the regions.
Puglia is the family secret of southern Italy: trulli houses children think are made for them, the cave city of Matera, whitewashed towns, a sandy Adriatic coast with warm shallow water, and farmhouses that welcome families with a pool and a kitchen. Read our guide to Puglia, Matera and Basilicata for an Italian family vacation, then the Apulia travel guide.
Many families ask which cities in Italy combine well with another country for a family trip, and the answer depends on where the family is flying from and how many days it has. Italy pairs naturally with Paris, London, Barcelona, Vienna and Athens by a short flight, and with the Greek islands or the French Riviera by sea. For a family arriving from a long haul flight, we recommend landing in Milan, Venice or Rome, spending the first two nights in one base to recover, and only then moving on.
Within Italy the pairings that work best for families are Rome with the Amalfi Coast, Venice with Lake Como, Florence with a Tuscan villa, and Sicily on its own. Two bases in ten days is the comfortable rhythm for children. Three is possible for a family with teenagers. Four is a trip for adults. If a family wants Italy at the end of a longer European itinerary, we plan Italy as the slow half, so the trip finishes at a pool rather than in a museum.
Ten days to two weeks is the range most families settle on, and it is the range that works. Ten days gives two bases and a day trip or two. Two weeks gives three bases, or two bases with real rest days built in, which is what we recommend when children under eight or grandparents over seventy are traveling. A week is enough for one region done well, Tuscany with Florence, or Rome with the coast. Anything shorter than a week we plan as a single base and we say so.
The days themselves are shorter than an adult itinerary. One planned activity in the morning, lunch, and a loose afternoon with a pool, a beach or a piazza, is how a family stays happy for two weeks. We schedule the big ticket entries early in the day when children are fresh and the lines are short.
Everything on the ground in Italy, coordinated by one team. The accommodation, hand selected for the family and confirmed. Every private transfer, from the airport to the last hotel. High speed train seats together. Private guides for the sights the family chose, with timed entries so nobody waits. The experiences: the cooking class, the boat, the farm morning, the gladiator school. Restaurant reservations that can seat the whole family. A detailed day by day itinerary with the addresses, the times and the names of the people meeting you. And our planners, reachable for the length of the trip.
What is not included is anything the family did not ask for. We do not fill days for the sake of it. Since 2003 we have planned more than 250 distinct itineraries, and the family ones are the ones with the most empty afternoons on purpose. If you are weighing whether to plan it yourself, our article on working with an Italy travel expert versus planning it yourself is an honest look at what changes.
Rome, Florence, Venice, Tuscany, the Amalfi Coast, Lake Como and Sicily are the places families choose most, and each suits a different age. Venice and the lakes work well for younger children because the days are short and the water does the entertaining. Rome and Florence are best for school age kids with a good guide and timed entries. The Amalfi Coast, Puglia and Sicily suit families with teenagers who want beaches, boats and a volcano. A Tuscan villa with a pool works for every age, which is why most of our family itineraries include one.
Late April through June and September through mid October are the best months for a family, with warm weather, open beaches and lakes, and lighter crowds than midsummer. July and August are hot in the cities and busy on the coast, but they are also school vacation, so we plan summer family trips around the lakes, the mountains, the coast and villas with pools, and keep city days short and early. Easter and Christmas in Italy are wonderful with children if the family does not mind cooler weather and some closures.
Ten days to two weeks. Ten days allows two bases, for example Rome and the Amalfi Coast, or Venice and Lake Como, with private transfers between them. Two weeks allows three bases or two with real rest days, which we recommend when the youngest travelers are under eight or the oldest are over seventy. A single week is enough for one region done properly.
Italy is one of the most child friendly countries in Europe. Children are welcome in restaurants at any hour, the food is easy for picky eaters, the distances between sights are short, and there is gelato on every corner. Younger kids love Venice’s boats, Tuscan farms and the beaches. Teenagers take to Vespa tours, cooking classes, Pompeii, Mount Etna and a boat day on the Amalfi Coast. The trick is a guide who knows how to talk to children and a schedule that leaves the afternoons free.
No, and we recommend against it. On a Trips 2 Italy family vacation a private driver meets you at the airport and handles every transfer, the high speed train carries the family between the major cities in first class seats booked together, and private boats and drivers cover the coast, the lakes and the countryside. Nobody in the family navigates, parks or worries about a limited traffic zone, and the adults arrive at every stop with the energy to enjoy it.
Yes, and it is the kind of family trip we plan most often. We pace the itinerary for the oldest traveler and give the youngest an outlet every day, choose accommodations with connecting rooms or a villa where the whole family can be together, and build in the quiet hours the adults need. Our multigenerational Italy vacations page explains how we plan for three and four generations at once.
Custom family vacations of every shape, and four kinds in particular: graduation trips for a son or daughter finishing high school or college, multigenerational vacations for grandparents, parents and children traveling together, family reunions that bring several households to one place in Italy, and family heritage trips that take a family back to the town its ancestors came from. Each has its own page here, and each is planned from what your family tells us.
Tell us who is coming, roughly when, and what the family cares about most, using the planning form on this page or by calling our Houston office. A Trips 2 Italy planner will call you to talk through the ages, the pace and the places, then send a first itinerary for the family to react to. We refine it together until it is right, and then we book everything and stay with you through the trip.
A family trip is the one that has to go right, and the one whose memories the family will talk about for years. Since 2003, Trips 2 Italy has planned Italy for families of every size and every age, from a first trip with a toddler to a four generation reunion in a Tuscan villa. Tell us who is coming and we will build the rest. Call 713-952-4055, toll free 1-866-464-8259, or start with the planning form below.
Other Vacation Packages That May Interest You
Not every family trip is a family vacation. These are the other trip styles we plan, each on its own page.
