Rick Steves Blogs About Italy

I'll admit to being a Rick Steves fan. That might lose me some "travel cred" with the backpacking crowd, but I find Rick's approach to travel really refreshing. It's not about telling you what you "have to do" or judging you for the way you choose to travel. It's about getting people out there to see the world, which I consider a worthy goal no matter how one chooses to do that seeing.

Italy is the country Rick keeps coming back to, and there's more of it on his site than ever: a blog, free audio tours, guidebooks, a TV series and a whole shelf of Italy tours. Here's where to find the good stuff.

His blog, then and now

Rick Steves' Travel Blog has two sides. The older posts are Rick writing in the first person from the road, and the Italy ones are still a pleasure to read. A few favorites:

• Siena: Italy's Medieval Soul
• Civita di Bagnoregio: Italy's Dead Town, the hill town he has championed for decades
• The Cinque Terre: Italy's Riviera and Vernazza After Dark
• Venice's Cicchetti Crawl and Acqua Alta: Venice Under Water
• The Italian Love of Eating
• His 2018 Sicily series, starting with Sicily's Cleaning Up, But Still Keeps Its Edge

Newer posts appear under "Insights" and are written by his team, with a practical, news-you-can-use bent. The Italy-relevant ones from 2026 so far:

• Venice's Access Fee Is Back in 2026: which days day-trippers pay, and how overnight guests register for free
• AI for Trip Planning? Tread with Caution: use chatbots for small jobs, double-check anything that matters
• Avoiding Ticket Scams in Europe: buy from the official site, not the lookalike reseller that tops the search results (worth reading before you book the Vatican Museums or the Colosseum)
• EES: Will You Wait in Line to Enter Europe?: the new biometric border checks for non-EU travelers

What Rick thinks about Italy now

Read enough of his recent material and a few themes stand out. On overtourism, his argument is that the "bad tourism" locals complain about comes mostly from blitz travelers, the cruise-ship and big-bus day-trippers who clog the streets and leave more litter than money, while visitors who stay for dinner and spend the night are still welcome. Hence his advice: sleep in Venice or the Cinque Terre instead of day-tripping, book the big sights online ahead of time, and remember that most of Europe has no crowd problem at all. He made that case in Is Europe Becoming "Anti-Tourist"?, and it's the logic behind the Venice access fee his team now explains. His team is also openly skeptical of letting AI plan your trip. And the basics that made his name haven't changed: pack light, go beyond the big three cities, and connect with the people who live there.

Rick Steves tours of Italy

If you'd rather someone else handle the logistics, Rick Steves' Europe sells a long list of Italy tours. The 2026 and 2027 line-up:

• Best of Rome in 7 Days
• Heart of Italy in 9 Days (Rick's own short version of the Best of Italy route)
• Best of Venice, Florence & Rome in 10 Days
• Best of Tuscany in 11 Days
• Best of Sicily in 12 Days
• Best of South Italy in 13 Days
• Village Italy in 14 Days
• Best of Italy in 17 Days
• My Way Italy (13 days in 2026, 11 days in 2027), his more independent format, with more free time to sightsee on your own

Several of his multi-country tours include Italy too: Best of Europe in 14 Days and in 21 Days, My Way Alpine Europe in 12 Days (with Italy's Dolomites), and Family Europe: London to Florence in 13 Days.

Prices on his site run from about $2,750 for the Rome week to about $6,800 for the 17-day Best of Italy in 2026 and 2027, per person, plus airfare. They're not cheap. What you're paying for is a small group, a guide and the logistics handled, so compare what's included with the price of doing the same route yourself. If you're building a bigger trip around a tour, with Italy as one stop among several, AirTreks can put the multi-stop flights together.

Free Rick Steves resources for Italy

• Rick Steves Audio Europe, a free app with self-guided audio walking tours, many of them in Italy, plus his radio interviews. Download the tours before you go and listen offline.
• His Italy pages, with a recommended itinerary, when-to-go advice, rail tips and guidebook updates.
• The Travel Forum, with a busy Italy board where travelers answer each other's questions.

And the guidebooks, of course. His Italy guidebooks cover the whole country as well as Rome, Florence & Tuscany, Venice, Sicily and more, and they're updated often. Buy the newest edition.