Our first time visiting the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica back in July 2018 was a truly horrible experience. We bought the cheapest possible ticket, waited 20 minutes in the scorching midday sun, hated how unbearably busy it was inside the museum, and felt genuine relief when we left. But our second visit in May 2022 was the polar opposite. We paid for a guided tour, entered early, and the difference was like night and day. It remains one of the best tours we’ve ever done.
It is possible to visit the museum independently and still enjoy the experience (we’ll show you how we’d do a better DIY trip now than we did back then). But honestly, the guided tour we took was a massive improvement vs doing it ourselves, with a handful of huge perks that we appreciated more than most because we’d already had such a disaster the first time around. We’ve traveled Italy extensively, and for us the Vatican Museum is the one place we’ll always splurge on a guided tour.
Hi, we’re Mark and Kristen Morgan. We left our scientific careers in 2018 to become travel writers and photographers, and since then our expert guides have helped millions of travel planners take better trips. Read more about us.
Why trust us with your Vatican plans? We’ve done the museum as a DIY visit in July 2018 and with a guided tour in May 2022, so we know the major differences and what works. As always, all photos in this guide are ours.
Don’t worry, this isn’t some sales pitch for a tour we operate (we don’t)! We’re just two travelers, like you, who prefer to make the most of our trips and enjoy the attractions we visit – especially at places as iconic and symbolic as the Vatican in Rome. Being crammed inside the museum shoulder-to-shoulder once was enough for us.
In this guide we show you exactly what happened when we visited the Vatican Museum and St. Peter’s Basilica by ourselves and as part of a guided tour, so you can see our polar opposite experiences. Plus, we’ll show you the biggest mistakes to avoid, your ticket options and how to get the most out of your first time in the world’s smallest country. Let’s dive in.
Important 2026 update: Between January 12 and March 31, 2026, Michelangelo’s Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel will be covered by scaffolding for a preservation project. The Sistine Chapel remains open but the entire fresco is covered.
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July 2018: Our Independent DIY Visit
Let’s start with our first time at the Vatican Museum back in July 2018, when we turned up at lunch time for an independent do-it-yourself style visit.
Italy was just one stop on our 18 month honeymoon around the world and we had a set budget that needed to last the whole trip. So we had to be careful about splashing the cash, and as a result we only booked basic entry tickets to the Vatican Museum.
It was €17 to book a ticket in advance with a specific time slot back then, but now it’s €20 plus a €5 booking fee per person. St. Peter’s Basilica has always been free to enter, so we didn’t have to worry about adding that cost in.
We did some research and noticed that museum tickets always seemed to be sold out from around 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM. So we avoided the morning rush by booking our time slot at 1:00 PM instead. We thought we’d be fine – but boy, were we mistaken.
Getting Inside The Museum
We walked all the way across Rome from our hotel in Monti (here’s our guide on where to stay in Rome) to the Vatican’s external walls, and we arrived at the museum entrance (Viale Vaticano 100) – not St. Peter’s Square – at 12:45 PM. Perfect timing. They don’t let you get in your time slot line more than 15 minutes in advance, so we hit it right on the money.
We’d passed by a seriously long queue of people waiting to buy tickets on the day and felt really bad for them (that’s the biggest mistake of all). The line we joined for pre-booked tickets with time slots wasn’t too long but it still took a good 20 minutes to get through to security.
And to make matters worse, it was a scorching hot afternoon in July. You know what that meant? Everyone in line was melting, frustrated and acting up. It wasn’t a great start, but we were still optimistic.
Our Self-Guided Audio Tour
By the time we finally made it inside, we were sapped of energy and pretty frustrated at how long it took. But we composed ourselves, paid for an audio guide each (they cost €8 now) and started our self-guided tour of the museum.
The problem? All those people from the line outside plus everyone who arrived before us were now inside, and it was quite frankly ridiculous trying to move around the different rooms and halls. The idiom “packed in like sardines” had never been more true. Honestly, we couldn’t believe they let so many people in at once.
Sure, we expected it to be a popular attraction, but it was beyond outrageous. We thought the morning rush would be gone by now, but they weren’t. The audio guide was also hard to follow because there were too many other people at the exact same point we were at, which meant we couldn’t get close to the artwork the audio guide was explaining.
And the Sistine Chapel was just straight up not enjoyable. The whole place was swarming with tourists. Security guards were trying to usher people along as the crowds bottle-necked, but it didn’t do much because others would arrive and replace them from behind.
Overall, we thought the audio guide would be a better option because we could be flexible and go at our own pace, but it turned out to be pretty generic and it stopped at too many things which made us lose interest. Throw in the long line and the crowds, and it really wasn’t the experience we expected.
After we’d finished with the museum we actually felt relieved to be back outside where we could move. The plan was to visit St. Peter’s Basilica next but the snaking line to get in was enormous (it was like one of those monster airport security lines when you turn up and feel hard done by) and we really weren’t in the mood, so we just gave up.
As travel professionals years later, the lack of planning on our part looking back here to when we first set off exploring the world gives us the shivers – but it goes to show what can happen if you don’t get organized at the Vatican.
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May 2022: Our Excellent Guided Tour
Now, let’s look at what we did the second time we went to the Vatican Museum during our trip to Rome in May 2022 when we paid for an early entry guided tour. With 4 years non-stop traveling the world under out belts by this point, we had a much better understanding about how to plan efficient trips.
Now, we love visiting attractions when we travel, and we especially enjoy places with historical significance like the Vatican Museum. So we absolutely knew we’d try again the second time we visited Rome, but this time we had to do it so much better.
We did a ton of research about the best way to enjoy it without the crowds, and honestly there weren’t many options. It was either go early or go late. We eventually settled on paying for an early entry tour that got us inside the museum before it opened to the public.
Look, nobody (including us!) likes to waste money – but sometimes you get what you pay for, and this was one of those times.
Choosing A Tour
The most basic way to book a guided tour of the Vatican Museum was to book directly on the official site. Choosing the option to include a guided tour plus entry ticket was €40 per person.
But by the time we looked, the only available time slots available for the date we wanted to visit were around lunch time and we remembered how busy the museum was at that time from our 2018 trip, so that wasn’t going to work.
Instead, we scoured the web for other private expert-led guided tours – and there were a handful of great options with excellent reviews, but in the end we went with this top rated tour by Walks of Italy called “Pristine Sistine”.
We’d already done a few tours with the same company in other cities and they were superb, so we felt comfortable paying to book with them at the Vatican Museum. And it only cost €94 each at the time (it’s more now), so we took a calculated guess that it would be worth €55 extra each.
Why Our Tour Was Better
The “Pristine Sistine” tour we booked started an hour before the Vatican Museum opened to the general public – and this meant we were able to see empty galleries, halls, artworks, ceilings, and other areas with nobody else around except our small group. We won’t lie, it was a huge perk. But after a few hours the morning crowds burst in and it quickly filled up, so by the time we got to the Sistine Chapel there were only a few seats open on the perimeter benches.
Getting in early was awesome for the museum tour, but even better was having a professional guide who does this exact tour every day. Our group only had 10 people, so everyone on our tour had easy access to the guide with any questions, including us (we had so many outstanding questions from our first visit). And because it was so quiet with nobody else around, we could actually concentrate and focus on what the guide was saying.
Another massive difference-maker was being able to relax about our route, knowing that the guide would take us only to the most important rooms, galleries, halls and artworks. We didn’t have to wade through a million artworks on the audio guide to stumble across one of the highlights.
Finally, our tour group went through a “secret passage” straight from the Sistine Chapel to St. Peter’s Basilica, which was a gigantic benefit (by far the best part) because it meant we didn’t have to leave the museum and join a separate 1-2 hour line to get in the basilica at lunch time. This shouldn’t be underestimated.
And of course the guided tour continued once we were inside the basilica, which wasn’t as busy as expected by the time we arrived near midday. After the guided tour ended, we were left to our own devices in the basilica, so we explored as much as we could. We considered going up the Dome, but the line was far too long – and we really needed to sit down, eat some food and have a beer!
What’s Changed With The “Pristine Sistine” Tour?
Bad news: In 2024, the Vatican Museum changed its opening times from 9:00 AM to 8:00 AM. So the “Pristine Sistine” tour which we loved (in part because it got us in before anyone else) now begins as the museum opens, rather than an hour before. No fault of the tour company Walks of Italy, the museum just changed its hours and one of this popular tour’s major selling points vanished overnight.
Good news: After assessing all other options, we still think it’s the best value for money, bang for your buck way to experience the museum. There’s no better way to do it without paying a lot more for an exclusive VIP tour. The key is to book the 7:15 AM time slot so it begins at 8:00 AM as the museum opens. We still recommend it to our friends and family (Kristen’s sister and parents did it in 2026), and it remains our top choice for customers who book expert travel planning calls with us. We’ll show you why later in the guide.
Avoiding The Biggest Vatican Mistakes: Our Top Tips For Your Visit
Here are the mistakes we made and saw others making across our two trips, along with our tips and exactly what you should do instead:
Not Booking In Advance
Mistake: Turning up at the Vatican Museum without a pre-booked time slot entry ticket (especially in peak summer months).
Tip: Buy your tickets with time slot or book a guided tour well in advance so you guarantee entry and can plan a more efficient Rome itinerary. Otherwise you’ll either waste hours in a totally exposed queue, or worse – not get in at all. We saw the “no ticket” line and it didn’t look like fun. Honestly, we wouldn’t bother if we didn’t book in advance.
Booking 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Mistake: Having a slow relaxing morning, arriving just before lunch and expecting no crowds inside.
Tip: When you book tickets or a guided tour in advance, avoid 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM at all costs because inside the museum it will be wall-to-wall with tourists. Trust us, we’ve never been to an attraction in the world that got as densely packed in with people as our Vatican trip in July 2018. It was wild. Book 8:00 AM as a first priority, 8:30 AM second, after that we’d honestly leave it until 5:00 PM and do a “Night at the Vatican” before it closes at 8:00 PM.
Expecting St. Peter’s Basilica Entry To Be Included
Mistake: We’ll admit, we thought St. Peter’s Basilica entrance was included with Vatican Museum tickets during our first trip. It’s not. The Basilica is free to enter, but there are separate lines for the museum and Basilica (they’re actually a 15 minute walk from one another).
Tip: Guided tours are the only way you can use the “secret passage” between the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. That means if you buy a regular entry ticket to the museum, you have no choice but to line up for security to the museum and then another line to get inside the basilica.
Thinking You Have To Visit Both Sights At The Same Time
Mistake: Planning your itinerary so that you “must” see both the Vatican Museum and St. Peter’s Basilica one after the other.
Tip: You can walk in and out of Vatican City any time, so in theory you could visit St. Peter’s one day and the museum another day. It’s not especially efficient, but it’s an option if you don’t want to deal with two long lines and non-stop crowds on the same day.
Arriving On A Wednesday Morning Or Sunday
Mistake: Not realizing the basilica is closed on Wednesday mornings for the Papal Audience and the museum is closed on Sundays (except the last Sunday of each month when it’s free to enter between 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM).
Tip: Don’t visit on Wednesday or Sunday. Instead, plan your itinerary so the Vatican falls on a Tuesday or Thursday best case, Friday would be our next choice, then Monday and finally Saturday. Even though it’s free on the last Sunday of the month, we wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole because it always has the longest lines.
Mark’s hidden gem tip: The “secret passage” that’s a major selling point for guided tours vs independent visits is closed on Wednesdays, Sundays AND Saturdays. Book your guided tour (which we show you later) for a Tuesday, Thursday or Friday.
Not Dressing Appropriately
Mistake: Forgetting that the Vatican is a place of worship and arriving in shorts or vests (even in the 90°F / 32°C heat). We remembered, but we both wore long sleeve shirts and long pants in the July heat and it was awful – instead we should have had something lightweight to wrap on and off.
Tip: You will straight up be turned away from the Sistine Chapel and St Peter’s if knees and shoulders are showing, so take a lightweight linen scarf to wrap around legs and waists for the indoors portions of the visit.
Forgetting Your ID
Mistake: Inputting the wrong name (nickname, maiden name or anything other than your actual name) when buying tickets because they’re checked on the day against ID.
Tip: Make sure your name is correct when booking, and make sure you take ID (drivers license, national ID, photocopy of passport) so they can confirm it’s you.
Being Scammed By Street Touts
Mistake: Unwillingly paying well over the odds for a ticket or tour outside the entrance because someone on the street lies about needing a special pass or the line is closed.
Tip: The only places you should buy tickets are at the official website or official third-party guided tour operators. Don’t listen or engage with anyone near the entrance being “helpful”, they’re not. And certainly don’t buy any tickets from them.
Thinking The Museum Entrance Is In St. Peter’s Square
Mistake: Arriving 15-30 minutes before your time slot entry, but in St. Peter’s Square and not at Viale Vaticano 100.
Tip: Set your GPS, maps app or taxi driver instructions for the correct museum entrance spot outside the northern walls of the Vatican. If you go to St. Peter’s Square you’ll have a 15 minute uphill walk to the entrance and you might miss your time slot.
Skipping The Dome
Mistake: Not allowing enough time or patience to wait in yet another line to go up to the dome. Both times we missed it, first because we didn’t make it through the long St. Peter’s Basilica security line, and second because the dome line was huge and we were exhausted.
Tip: If you want to go up the dome, allow enough time and energy to do it after visiting the museum. Or figure out a different way to do the basilica (with dome) and museum to avoid burnout. You can pre-book dome tickets, which we cover next.
Vatican Museum Tickets, Hours + Logistics
Some major attractions around the world have complicated ticket processes – thankfully, the Vatican isn’t one of them. Here’s everything we learned about tickets, hours, getting there and lines.
How to book tickets:
- Head over to the official ticketing service
- Click “Vatican Museum Tickets”
- Select a date and number of visitors
- Select admission ticket
- Add number of full price and reduced tickets
- Select a time slot (every 30 minutes)
- Select add ons like audio guides
- Review and pay
Tickets are available six months in advance: On January 8th, Mark checked for future availability and the calendar showed open tickets through July 7th. Our advice is to book your time slot as early as possible to avoid tickets selling out.
Museum Prices:
- Full price (adults): €20
- Reduced price (children 7-18 and students up to 25): €10
- Ages 6 and under: Free
- Booking fee: €5 (per person)
- Audio guide: €8
- Free days: Every last Sunday of the month 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM
St. Peter’s Basilica prices:
- Basilica: Free
- Dome (in person): €8 steps only / €10 lift + steps (in person)
- Dome (pre-booked time slot): €17 steps only / €22 lift + steps
Mark’s top Vatican hack: Pre-book a 7:30 AM time slot for St. Peter’s Dome and a 5:00 PM time slot for the museum. This would allow you to avoid crowds at both sights, and enjoy a relaxing day ticking off other nearby attractions or neighborhoods in-between.
Museum opening hours:
- Monday – Saturday: 8:00 AM – 8:00PM (last entry 6:00 PM)
- Last Sunday of month: 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM (last entry 12:30 PM)
- Other Sundays: Closed
- Summer: Closing time is 10:30 PM Friday – Saturday
St. Peter’s opening hours:
- Daily April – September: 7:00 AM – 7:10 PM
- Daily October – March: 7:00 AM – 6:30 PM
- Wednesday mornings: Closed for Papal audience
Getting there:
- Metro: Cipro for museum or Ottaviano for St Peter’s
- Taxi: Viale Vaticano 100 for museum or Vatican for St Peter’s
What To See At The Vatican
If you book a tour you won’t have to worry too much about this section because your guide will plot your route to the major highlights. But if you’re visiting independently, we’re going to show you an efficient route to follow so you see the best bits without spending 6 hours worrying about missing anything important.
This is our highlights reel through the Vatican Museum and St. Peter’s Basilica based on our two visits:
Picture Gallery: Close to the start, the Pinacoteca houses Raphael’s Transfiguration (his last) and Caravaggio’s Deposition (one of his greatest). This was a nice easy start to the morning.
Pinecone Courtyard: We loved taking photos of the 13-foot bronze pinecone and “Sphere within Sphere”. It was much quieter outside for a few brief minutes but we definitely felt anxious about getting back to the major parts inside the museum before it got busier.
Pio-Clementino Museum: We’d say this is probably the most underrated museum on the one-way route. It’s basically 12 super photogenic rooms containing important Roman and Greek sculptures like Laocoon and the Apolo Belvedere.
Galley of the Maps: This 120-meter long hall with gold ceiling and 40 topographical maps of Italy was immense. It was easily one of our favorites as professional travelers!
Raphael Rooms: Four rooms of frescoes including the The School of Athens (Raphael and Michelangelo in a crowd of philosophers). These rooms were amazing and we’d like to spend more time really appreciating them next time without worrying about the grand finale.
The Sistine Chapel: Michelangelo’s most famous masterpieces Creation of Adam on the ceiling and The Last Judgement on the altar wall are the final stop. They’re both incredible to see but honestly the room is a hive of activity. And without getting a seat it’s hard to look up at it all and compare it against the laminated diagrams explaining each panel. No talking or photos allowed. The amount of people we saw taking sly photos was wild – respect the rules, don’t be that person.
Bramante Staircase: As travel photographers we’re always on the lookout for iconic photo spots. At the Vatican, the one place we couldn’t wait to photograph was the famous double-helix Bramante Staircase (you can buy the photo we took in our prints store). It was around 11:00 AM when we arrived so it took a long time and a lot patience to get the people-free photo we wanted!
Secret Passage: During our DIY visit we had to exit the museum after the spiral staircase (and join another line to get in St. Peter’s), but on our guided tour we got special access to a side door leading straight to the Basilica.
St. Peter’s Basilica: We visited Michelangelo’s Pieta, the Statue of St. Peter, The Baldacchino by Bernini, looked up at the Dome (Cupola) from below, The Chair of St. Peter and the Papal Grottoes. We did not go up the Dome because the line was massive but we would do it next time.
Kristen’s planning tip: It’s essential to know that the museums follow a one-way flow. We missed a room during our DIY trip in 2018 and we couldn’t go back to it. We noticed this was even truer the closer we got to the Sistine Chapel when the layout is designed to bottleneck people into the showcase room. Make sure you’re ready to leave each area before doing so!
Do It Yourself Or Book A Guided Tour
Okay, we’ve covered mistakes to avoid, the various ticket options and what to see when you visit. The next thing to decide is that age old travel dilemma – visit independently or book a guided tour? Nobody (including us) wants to waste money, and it’s hard to know the right time to splurge on a guided tour.
After doing the Vatican museums independently and as part of a guided tour, we can confidently say the guided tour was a million times better. At least in our experience. We would 100% pay for a guided tour next time, no doubt in our minds.
Why? Because we much preferred having an expert explain things in a deeper and less generic way, we had our questions answered, our route was taken care of, we saw all the major highlights stress-free, we got in first and we had the super-perk of the “secret passage” to St. Peter’s. That’s worth paying extra every time for us.
DIY
Visiting the Vatican independently is the cheapest and most flexible way to do it (€25 entry ticket + €8 audio guide = €33 per person). This works best if you’re on a tighter budget like we were on our 2018 trip, or you can’t make specific guided tour starting times work for your itinerary. Book your basic entry tickets at this official site and nowhere else (be aware of spam sites).
We thought the audio guides were, let’s say good but not great, during our DIY trip – we definitely found ourselves losing interest because we didn’t know exactly which artworks to learn about, and it was just so busy that it was hard to concentrate on listening. That said, without the audio guides we’d have ended up wandering even more aimlessly around the museum, so they are definitely worth getting if you visit independently.
Mark’s best Vatican advice: If you choose to visit the Vatican Museum without a tour, book the 8:00 AM or 5:00 PM time slot to avoid the worst of the crowds. You’ll be able to hear the audio guide descriptions better and move around more freely. Trust us, you’ll have a far more enjoyable experience. If we ever take a DIY trip again, we will 100% book one of those two times (or we’d plan a night at the Vatican on a Friday or Saturday in summer when it stays open until 10:30 PM).
Guided Tours
The Vatican Museum is one of the world’s bucket list attractions. No joke, we’ve never done a more overcrowded attraction before or since our July 2018 visit. There’s a few different ways you can take a guided tour of the Vatican if you don’t want to deal with tickets, lines, figuring out how to navigate the jam-packed maze-like museum, or listen to generic audio guides.
Here are the top rated tours we’d consider booking:
Official Vatican tour: You can book a basic entry ticket with an on-site guided tour for your chosen language that’s provided by the museum. Tour times vary by language. Using English as an example, there could be 3 different guided tours you can join at the 9:00 AM time slot. The total price for entry and on site guided tour is €40 per person for just the museum, or €50 for the museum and Vatican Gardens – a separate area that can only be booked through this official tour.
Walks of Italy: We booked this 4-hour Pristine Sistine tour with Walks and it was fantastic. It got us in an hour before opening time, but that doesn’t exist anymore because the Vatican Museum opens earlier (at the same time as the tour begins). That said, it does still begin at 8:00 AM right as the museum opens so you’d be among the first in (as long as you book the 7:15 AM time slot. But there are other Vatican tours offered by Walks, including this complete 3.5-hour tour of the highlights and this express 3-hour tour with a late afternoon starting time. The only other option called the VIP key master’s tour is exclusive, very expensive and only has a few dates available but you go in at 6:00 AM to open the doors.
Viator: There’s a few options but we like the look of this 3-hour skip the line tour. It only has start times from 9:30 AM – 2:00 PM but the reviews make it sound like they actually do skip lines. Here’s another very similar 3-hour tour with an 8:30 AM start.
GetYourGuide: Again, there’s a few options but this 3.5-hour early entry tour sounds like it also gets you in as the museum opens so it’s the one we’d consider first with GYG. Alternatively, this 3-hour guided tour also has high ratings with options to choose length. We also like that GYG offers this standalone guided tour of just the Basilica with Dome climb, without the museum.
Price Comparison: DIY vs Tour
That’s a lot of information, prices and options to consider. We know it can be overwhelming, especially when all you want to do is have the best possible Vatican experience. You might only get one chance to see it and you want to do it properly, right?
Here’s a comparison table of prices and what you get:
| Category | Tour Name | Price (pp) | Duration | Major Perk | Major Catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DIY | General Entry | €25 | Self-paced | Cheapest possible | No Basilica shortcut |
| Official | Museum Only Guided | €40 | 2 hours | Official staff guide | No Basilica shortcut |
| Official | Gardens + Museums | €45 | 3 hours | Unique to see gardens | No Basilica shortcut |
| Opening Time (8AM) | Walks of Italy Pristine Sistine | €125+ | 4 hours | Get in first, longer tour | Dynamic pricing |
| Premium | Walks of Italy Highlights | €95+ | 3.5 hours | Cheaper than Pristine Sistine | Not opening time entry |
| Late Afternoon | Walks of Italy Express | €85+ | 3 hours | 4:15 PM start, quieter, cheap | Afternoons only |
| Open Doors (6AM) | Walks of Italy VIP Key Master | €950 | 2 hours | Door opening, exclusive, VIP | Very expensive, large group |
| Skip the Line | Viator Highlights | €100+ | 3 hours | Skip line | Middle of day, heavy crowds |
| Skip the Line Earlier | Viator Highlights | €190+ | 3.25 hours | Skip line, small group, 8:30 AM | Heavy crowds, more expensive |
| Opening Time | GYG Opening Time | €110+ | 3.5 hours | Cheaper vs Pristine Sistine | Shorter tour time vs Pristine Sistine |
| Flexible | GYG Build Tour | €60+ | 2-4 hours | Select length + what to see | Middle of day, heavy crowds |
| Dome Climb | GYG St. Peter’s | €40+ | 2.5 hours | Basilica and Dome only | Museum not included |
Important: All prices correct at time of writing. Be aware these are off-season (lowest) prices, but they can and will be higher in peak season months (May-October). Remember, every guided tour comes with the “secret passage” from Sistine Chapel to St. Peter’s Basilica built in, but the passage (and therefore the major perk) is closed on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays.
We loved our Walks tour and will book with them again next time we’re in Rome. Our guide was incredibly passionate and informative, paced us perfectly and gave each of us plenty of time for questions. But we’re sure the others would also be great, we’ve done tours with Viator and GYG all over the world and 9 times out of 10 they’ve been fantastic.
So we encourage you to check out all the different tour options to figure out which works best for your budget and itinerary, remembering that they have different start times and tour lengths.
Is The Vatican Museum Worth Visiting?
Personally, we love the Vatican Museums because they contain some of the most important collections and works of art in the history of mankind. We’re no art aficionados but we do appreciate masterpieces and the peak of creative excellence. The Sistine Chapel is incredible. St. Peter’s Basilica is amazing. The museums are non-stop wow moments.
But our honest answer when people ask us this question is “it depends”. And yes, we hate that answer too. But we really do think the Vatican Museum is one of those bucket list places that gets hyped up so much, yet we know it isn’t going to blow everyone away.
Here’s what we usually follow up with: If you have an appreciation for skill and expertise or art and history, yes the Vatican Museum is definitely worth visiting and you’ll have a fantastic experience. If you’re honestly not interested in those things (and that’s totally fine), you should skip it because you’ll just end up being frustrated by the overwhelming crowds. And there’s plenty more to do in Rome.
Next Steps
We hope our guide on how to visit the Vatican Museum helps with planning your trip to Rome.
Please let us know if you have any questions in the comments box below, and remember you can book an expert travel planning call with us if you want to make sure your plans for Rome and Italy are all set.
Still researching for your trip?
- Read our tried and tested 4 days in Rome itinerary.
- Book your hotel in one of these Roman neighborhoods.
- Don’t miss these top experiences in Rome.
- Here’s how to visit the Colosseum.
- And here are our favorite photo spots in Rome.
Finally, if you’ll be visiting more places on the same trip, we recommend reading our Italy travel guide for helpful tips and advice.
Happy Travels,
Mark and Kristen
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Mark and Kristen spent 6 years traveling the world, visiting over 40 countries across 4 continents and more than 30 US states. They created Where Are Those Morgans in 2018 to help others plan the best possible vacations by writing authentic travel and hiking guides based on their real experiences.
Since the arrival of baby Maya in late 2024, Mark and Kristen’s extensive travels have slowed down but they still take plenty of trips. Where Are Those Morgans now helps millions of travelers each year to visit new places and hike new trails through information-packed blog posts and expert travel guidebooks. Read more about Mark and Kristen.