What this site is
High Maintenance Party of Four is the field guide to one specific trip: eighteen days across Paris, Provence, the Côte d'Azur, Venice, the Amalfi Coast, and Lake Como, for a family of four — two adults, two teenagers — at the seam where a real budget meets the kind of trip people usually photograph for someone else. The total cost was $77,558. The decisions behind it are the site.
Everything published here was tested by the people who planned it. No press trips. No paid stays. No comped meals. If something earned its place, it earned its place. The commission has never decided that.
Affiliate disclosure
Some of the links on this site are affiliate links. When you book a hotel via Booking.com, an experience via Viator or GetYourGuide, or a museum ticket via Tiqets through a link on this site, High Maintenance Party of Four may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.
We use these programs because they're the only way an independent site like this can be supported without paywalls or advertising. We disclose them openly. Restaurants and many independent venues don't have affiliate programs at all — those listings exist for love, not money.
Affiliate partners currently include: Booking.com, Viator, GetYourGuide, Tiqets, Amazon Associates, and Skimlinks. Inclusion on this site is never based on whether a property has an affiliate program. The reviews and rankings on this site are independent of any commercial relationship.
Privacy
The site uses Google Analytics (or a privacy-friendly equivalent) to understand which pages are read and how visitors arrive. We do not sell or share data. We do not run ads. We do not maintain a mailing list. The only personal data we collect is the standard server logs and analytics every website collects.
When you click an affiliate link, the destination site (Booking.com, Viator, etc.) sets their own cookies to track your purchase for commission purposes. Their privacy practices are governed by their own policies.
Contact
Questions, corrections, recommendations, or feedback: write to us at hello@highmaintenancepartyoffour.com. We read everything, even if we can't always reply.
If you spot a factual error or an outdated price, please let us know — we'll correct it. Travel content goes stale, and we'd rather get it right than be flattered.