Get inspired — there's more than one way to visit

Many individuals arrive at the Vatican Museums intending to see the Sistine Chapel and leave afterward. In reality, this approach to the Vatican Museums is misguided; there is so much more than one visit can cover here and your time spent will be wasted. First of all, while the Sistine Chapel is undoubtedly one of the most celebrated works of art ever created, reducing the Vatican Museums to nothing more than the Sistine Chapel ignores an entire section of the Vatican that contains hundreds of years worth of art and history. Not only that, but this massive complex represents an entire small city that contains its own gardens, its own underground cemetery, and facilities that were built long before many countries existed. Therefore, reducing the whole Vatican Museums down to just one ceiling, regardless of how beautiful it may be, is very premature.

The real question isn't whether you should visit the Vatican Museums — it's how deeply you're willing to go.

Many visitors take a standard daytime tour — typically there are about 10,000 of them at any time — and therefore move so quickly through the various galleries that they do not have the opportunity to truly "see" anything within those galleries. For the more adventurous travelers, there are options for private tours of the Vatican, which allow you to enter the Vatican before sunrise, when the hallways are silent and Michelangelo's work appears as if it was created just for you, the visitor. Likewise, there are options for night visits, during which you can see the beauty of the frescoes under a completely different light and, therefore, experience a shift in your understanding of the same place. For truly adventurous souls, there are experiences below St. Peter's Basilica, in the Vatican Necropolis and early Christian catacombs that are not usually known or experienced by the average visitor. Each of these experiences is a different lens through which you can view the same place and, therefore, change your understanding of what the Vatican actually is.

What many people do not realize is that in addition to all of the amazing art within the Museum of the Vatican, there is also a lot of area outside of the museum. For example, the Vatican Gardens represent more than half of the territory of Vatican City and contain Renaissance-style fountains and Baroque-style landscaping… yet very few people ever visit.

The same goes for attending a Papal Audience: even though these events are free and open to everyone, most travelers either do not know they exist or cannot figure out how to attend without wasting half of the morning dealing with logistics. Additionally, there are many family-friendly Vatican tours designed specifically for children, turning what might otherwise be a difficult day for kids into an experience they will always remember. None of these things are hidden in any way; they just seem to be ignored because people tend to think that once they buy their ticket, the only thing they're going to do at the Vatican is go inside. Two things are often responsible for making a visit unforgettable — timing and guidance. First, timing affects the experience of visiting the Vatican drastically depending on whether you are there at 7:30 AM or at Noon — it is literally two completely different experiences.

The second item is guidance; it goes from merely viewing a Caravaggio painting to instead giving you the background of why it was created. A good private Vatican guide does more than simply provide you with information about where you are at that moment. They read the people they guide, they change direction based on the interests of the people they are guiding, and they rely on their own experiences to give their patrons detailed information about the places being visited. The amount of value that a good guide provides is worth much more than any audio guide or Wikipedia page on the same topic ever will be. Because a "one size fits all" approach simply won't work for visiting the Vatican, we have categorized our Vatican experiences according to different groups of people.

For example, someone traveling with an early childhood child will have different needs than someone who wants to visit the catacombs at night; and someone who is visiting for the first time is also going to have different needs than a returning art history enthusiast. Therefore, we have provided a wide range of options below for you to match against your version of the Vatican and choose from the available options that will actually fit you and your needs. The last thing you want to do is consider visiting the Vatican as just another check off your bucket list; you want to experience the Vatican for all that you are and have.