Maybe you’ve looked at our scheduled tours and thought: that’s exactly what I want — I just want it for my own group. Or maybe you have specific dates that don’t line up with what’s on the calendar. Or maybe you’ve been to Umbria before and you want something built from scratch around what you haven’t seen yet.
All of that is possible. Here’s how it works.
The simplest version of a private Villaggio Tours experience: you book out the entire tour for your group, and it’s yours. Same itinerary, same Six Keys guesthouse, same family dinners and cooking classes and mornings in the village — just with no strangers around the table. Only the people you invited.
This works well for a group of friends who’ve been talking about doing Italy together for years, for a milestone birthday or anniversary trip, for a multi-generational family gathering, or for a travel advisor who wants to bring a client group to Umbria without putting them in a mix of people they’ve never met.
Groups of eight to twelve work best at Six Keys. Smaller groups — six to eight — are also possible and still make financial sense. If you’re not sure whether your headcount works, the easiest thing to do is book a discovery call and we can figure it out in twenty minutes.
There is no extra charge for this. You pay the per-person rate for the tour you’re booking out. That’s it.
If the tour you want doesn’t fall at a time of year that works for your group, we can often replicate it at a different point in the calendar. Not every tour translates to every season — an Allerona spring morning and an Allerona October morning are two completely different experiences — but if there’s a version of the itinerary that makes sense when you need it, let’s find out. Take a look at the tours that interest you and schedule a call — we’ll figure it out from there.
If we’re working from an existing itinerary with mostly the same structure, there’s generally no extra charge beyond the standard per-person rate.
Some groups come to us with something specific in mind — a particular region, a mix of interests, a pace that doesn’t fit a standard itinerary, a dynamic that calls for something built from the ground up. That’s where this comes in.
A bespoke Villaggio Tours trip isn’t trip planning — I’m not handing you an itinerary and wishing you well. It’s a fully escorted tour I design and run for your group, with Paolo and his family there when the itinerary calls for it, built around what your group needs, drawing on the relationships we’ve spent years building across Umbria and beyond.
When you sit down with me for an initial call, we’ll talk about your group’s travel style and pace, who’s coming and what matters to them, any physical considerations, what they’ve already seen in Italy and what they haven’t, and what they’d regret leaving without. From there, I’ll put together an itinerary proposal that’s specific and real — not a wish list, but an actual plan built around what we can genuinely offer.
The fee for custom itinerary design is $250, which covers the initial consultation call, my time building the proposal, and any back-and-forth needed to get it right. If you decide to book the tour, that $250 is applied toward your deposit.
We don’t try to go everywhere — and if I think another operator can better serve your group, I’ll say so. We go where the relationships are real and the experience is something we can actually stand behind.
If you’re a travel advisor or travel agent, here’s the short version: you help your clients get here, and we take care of everything else.
Our fully escorted tours include private airport transfers, comfortable lodgings in historic village houses with daily breakfast, all meals and wine, private tours and tastings, cooking and craft-making classes, guided nature walks — and something genuinely harder to find: real access to our small, close-knit family and community in the village where Paolo was born and where I’ve lived for fifteen years.
For clients who’ve already done Italy and are looking for something that goes deeper than the major sights, Villaggio Tours is an experience they won’t find anywhere else.
We work with travel advisors on a commission basis. Write me at liz@villaggiotours.com or schedule a call and we’ll talk through the details.
A presto,
Liz
Download Liz’s free guide:
5 Roadblocks to an “Authentic” Italy Trip
(…plus how to avoid them, from someone who’s lived here for 17 years).