Custom Family Holidays in Italy

Most tour operators offering tailor-made itineraries work from a database. They listen to your family, then match your brief to the suppliers and experiences they already have on file. The itinerary feels personalised because it reflects your preferences, but it is still built from a fixed inventory.

I work differently. Every custom family holiday in Italy I design starts from your family’s brief and researches outward from there. If the right experience for your teenager exists within my network, I use it. If it does not, I find it. My supplier network grows with every trip I plan because I never fit a family to what I already have – I source what they actually need.

I also work independently. There are no third-party operators involved, no commercial agreements that influence what I recommend, and no commissions that make one supplier more attractive than another. Every recommendation is made on one basis only: whether it is right for your family.

This is the question I spend the most time on and the one I enjoy most. The families I work with typically span a wide age range: a nine-year-old and a fifteen-year-old in the same group is not unusual. What makes it work is not finding activities everyone tolerates. It is designing days where each person has at least one moment that feels built specifically for them.

I start every custom family holiday in Italy with a detailed conversation about each member of your group – their interests, their energy levels, what loses them and what genuinely excites them. The itinerary is then structured around that information. A teenager who needs adrenaline and a grandparent joining for a day in Venice are not competing priorities. They are two separate briefs within one trip, and I design for both.

As involved as you want to be. Some families arrive with a detailed vision and want me to execute it precisely. Others say “we want northern Italy, active, not touristy — you decide the rest” and hand me complete creative control. Both approaches work. What does not work is me designing in isolation without understanding what matters to you.

The collaboration starts with a conversation and continues throughout the planning process. Your insights are the starting point. My expertise is what transforms them into something real. You bring the vision, the knowledge of your family, and the final say on every decision. I bring the local knowledge, the network, and the end-to-end execution.

That division of responsibility is what makes the process feel effortless on your side — and what ensures the result feels completely yours.

It starts with a 30-minute call. I want to understand your family before I suggest anything — where you want to go, how you travel, what your children are genuinely excited by, and what you are trying to avoid. That conversation shapes everything that follows.

From there I build an overall itinerary framework — a routing, a rhythm, a direction. But the detailed planning happens in stages, and each stage informs the next. I start with accommodation, because where you stay determines everything else — the experiences available, the logistics that make sense, the pace that is possible. Once accommodation is confirmed, I move to logistics, then to food, wine, and experiences. 

Each stage is a separate conversation and a separate approval. Nothing moves forward until you are confident the previous layer is right.

This also means the itinerary evolves as it is built. An activity I suggested at the start may shift once I know your exact base – a better version of it exists few miles  away, or a new experience becomes possible because of where you are staying. I research specifically for your trip at every stage, not just at the beginning.

By the time you travel, every detail has been approved by you and arranged by me. Most families find they never need to contact me during the trip. That is the point.

I stay available throughout your trip. Not as a call centre but as the person who designed your itinerary and knows every supplier, every booking, and every contingency. If a private transfer is delayed in Rome, if a weather shift affects your Amalfi boat charter, if something needs to change at short notice, I handle it. You do not spend your holiday managing problems. That is my job.

In practice, most of what could go wrong is identified and resolved before you travel. The detail-work that happens in the planning stage – double  checking logistics, flagging conflicts, building in alternatives — means genuine surprises are rare. When they do happen, you have someone in your corner who already knows the full picture.