A Very Subjective List of the Best Tour Guides and Companies in Rome
Issue #102
When I was growing up, my family never did guided tours. I’m not entirely sure why. The world of guided tours opened up to me when I started going on press trips almost a decade ago—and now I love them. A good guide can make history come alive and share the kind of insights about a place that you’d never get from wandering around on your own with a guidebook. The best guides can open doors to off-limits places or introduce you to people you would never otherwise meet.
Rome in particular is a city that lends itself well to guided tours because there’s so much history that no matter how much you read up in advance, you’ll never be able to grasp as much as an expert guide who has studied the subject for years. In Italy, there are stringent requirements to become a licensed tour guide and, from what I’ve heard, the exam is no joke. Only a small fraction of people who take the exam actually pass.
Over the years, I’ve done my fair share of guided tours in Rome, including both group tours and private tours. I tend to prefer private tours because you can set your own pace, your guide can tailor the tour to your interests, and you get more personal attention, so you can ask as many questions as you want. The advantages of group tours are that they tend to be more affordable and if you’re traveling solo, they can be a good way to meet fellow travelers.
Readers sometimes ask me to recommend guides, so I thought it would be useful to compile a curated list of my favorites. I’m only including guides and companies that I have personal experience with, so it’s certainly not exhaustive, but it’s a good place to start.
Scooteroma
What could be better than feeling the wind in your hair as you zip through the streets of Rome on the back of a Vespa? With Scooteroma, a professional driver-guide deftly navigates the traffic to show you the city’s best sights. Founded by Annie Ojile, who’s originally from Minnesota but has been living in Rome for more than 15 years, Scooteroma offers private half-day tours with themes like a street art tour, a cinema tour, and a foodie tour.
And for people who don’t feel comfortable on a Vespa, they offer tours in an Ape Calessino. I have personally done several Scooteroma tours, both on the Vespas and in the Ape Calessino, and have recommended them to friends and family—everyone raves about them.
Roma Experience
Run by Elisa Valeria Bove, an archeologist who dug in the Roman Forum and Ostia Antica, Roma Experience offers bespoke private tours of Rome and beyond. Elisa works with some of the most knowledgeable and talented guides in Rome and is herself an extremely smart and enthusiastic guide.
Elisa’s Vatican tour is so popular that she likes to joke that she has spent more time in the Sistine Chapel than Michelangelo. She also offers unique and exclusive experiences, like visiting the catacombs alone, escaping the crowds on the Appia Antica and Quintili’s Villa, and wine tasting at Fiorano, a winery owned by a prince on the Appia Antica that only opens its doors on special request.
Imago Artis Travel
Founded by Fulvio De Bonis, his wife Alessia Tortora, and their friend Chiara Di Muoio, Imago Artis is one of the top luxury travel companies in all of Italy—not just Rome. They partner with some of the city’s top five-star hotels and have many VIP clients, including movie stars like Angelina Jolie and Sylvester Stallone and athletes including Tom Brady and Mike Tyson.
They excel at organizing exclusive experiences and opening doors that are otherwise firmly shut. Over the years, I’ve done tours in vintage Fiat 500s, visited the garden of the Knights of Malta on the Aventine Hill, gone inside a church overlooking the Roman Forum that’s normally closed to the public, and done a mosaic-making workshop with them.
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