Description

Founded in 1894 by a group of bicyclists to promote the values of cycling and travel the Touring Club Ciclistico Italiano published its first maps in 1897. It did not take long before the club had 16,000 members and was promoting tourism in all forms including auto tourism. Today, the Touring Club Italiano (TCI) is a major Italian national tourist organization.

Through the years, Touring Club Italiano has produced a wide variety of maps and guidebooks, and is known for its high standard of cartography. TCI is known for its detailed regional road maps of Italy which are published at a scale of 1:200,000.

Touring Club Italiano also publishes prestigious guidebooks called the "Guide Rosse" or Red Guides (not to be confused with the Michelin Red Guides). These guides, which cover Italy in 23 highly detailed volumes, are printed on bible paper. TCI also produces a wide variety of other guides to Italy.

Touring Club Italiano also publishes translations of foreign guidebooks such as the French Guide Bleu.