Tipping

Most of the tipping that you would normally do if you were traveling on your own is unnecessary. The tips for the porters at the hotels, and the waiters at the included and optional meals are taken care of by Trafalgar.

Miscellaneous

The city tour guides should be tipped at the end of the tours. There did not seem to be any guidelines for the amount, but I think most people gave them anywhere from 1000 lire (less than 50 cents) to around 5000 lire (a little less than $2.50). Some may have given more, and there were probably some who gave nothing.

At the dinner on the optional excursion on the first night in Rome, there were two men singing Italian songs for our entertainment. Since they were also trying to sell CDs, I did not tip them.
At the dinner on the optional excursion on the second night in Rome, there was one guy singing Italian songs for our entertainment. Since he was not selling anything, I tipped him, and I think most other people did also.

Tour Director and Bus Driver

Trafalgar provides guidelines for tipping the Tour Director and Bus Driver. The paperwork we received indicated $2.00 per day, per person for each of them. Most other people on the tour said that their paperwork from Trafalgar had guidelines that suggested $4.00 per day, per person, for the Tour Director, and $2.50 per day, per person, for the Bus Driver. Since we were extremely happy with both people, we went with the higher guidelines.

I have seen messages on the Trafalgar Tours bulletin board from people who seem to think that this is excessive. But the salaries for the TD and driver are set based on that idea of them receiving tips from travelers.
This is much like the situation in the U.S. where waiters and waitresses receive a low wage that is supplemented by tips from the customers.
Many of the complaints come from Australians. Their reasoning goes something like this: "We don't have to tip people in Australia, therefore we should not have to do it anywhere else". This kind of reasoning is totally ridiculous. Just because wages are set up in Australia so that people do not have to rely on tips to supplement them, that does not mean that it is like that everywhere.
But the bottom line is that you should tip them as much as you think is appropriate.

We based our tipping on the 12 days of actual touring. The first "day" was spent flying and we didn't even see Italy until day 2. The last day, Marco and Tonino did have to do some work to get us to the airport, but we did not include this in our calculations.

Marco (the tour director)

12 days * $4.00 per day * 2 people = $96.00

$96.00 * 2000 = 192,000 lire

We rounded this up and gave Marco 200,000 lire as a tip.

(After we returned home, we realized that we had made a mistake. Using the actual exchange rate of approximately 2262 lire/USDollar, we should have given Marco more like 220,000 lire. The 200,000 lire we gave him was only about $88.42)

Antonio (the bus driver)

12 days * $2.50 per day * 2 people = $60.00

$60.00 * 2000 = 120,000 lire

We felt that Antonio had done an outstanding job and gave him 150,000 lire as a tip.

(Once we returned home, we realized that the 150,000 lire was only about $66.31. So we did not give him as much of a bonus as we thought.)