~ is exactly how I am treating my own upcoming trip to Italy, three rounds planned, with the main course being everything else.
I am heading to Italy (again 😉) soon, and this trip looks different from most of the ones I write about here. Positano and Ischia come first, followed by coastal Tuscany, then Terme di Saturnia, a thermal spa region I have wanted to visit for years. All the clients I have sent there have fallen in love with this property. Golf sits inside all of it, three rounds spread across the trip, but it is not the reason I booked the flight. That distinction matters more than people realize when they picture a golf vacation.
Why I Did Not Build the Whole Trip Around Golf
Plenty of golf trips fall into a familiar trap, where every day gets structured around a tee time and everything else becomes an afterthought squeezed into the margins. I wanted the opposite. Golf earns its place on this itinerary, three rounds scattered through two and a half weeks, surrounded by long lunches, thermal soaks, and coastline that has nothing to do with a scorecard. A trip built entirely around one activity tends to exhaust even the people who love that activity most. Spacing it out keeps the whole experience feeling like a vacation rather than a tournament schedule.
Letting the Course Fit the Destination
I did not go searching for the best golf in Italy and build a trip around it. I picked destinations I already wanted to experience, then found courses that fit naturally into the days I was already planning. A round near the Amalfi Coast becomes a morning activity before an afternoon back on a terrace with a view. A round in Tuscany slides in alongside a wine region I have wanted to explore properly for years. The golf enhances the trip instead of dictating it, and that order matters more than most golf itineraries acknowledge.
Making Room for the Non Golf Days
Terme di Saturnia actually has its own championship course, an eighteen hole layout designed by Ronald Fream that winds through the Maremma hills, so golf could easily take over even this stop. I am not letting it. The real draw at Saturnia is the thermal water itself, warm and mineral rich, flowing straight from the ground the way it has for centuries. A round there becomes one option among many rather than the reason for staying, which is exactly how I want it to feel.
What This Means for Clients Who Golf
This is exactly how I build golf trips for clients too, whether or not everyone in the traveling party plays. A round or two gets planned around the destination, never the other way around, and the days without golf get filled with something equally worth doing. Nobody ends up sitting at the clubhouse bar wondering what to do while someone else plays eighteen holes. The whole group gets a trip they actually want to be on.
Planning a trip with golf in the mix?
Visit amoretraveldesigns.com/contact-me or reach me at cathy@amoretraveldesigns.com. I would love to help you build the balance right.
Check out my other blog posts:
GOLFING IN OPULENT PARADISE