Time was, that travel agent was pretty much your only option, unless you happened to have extremely well-traveled friends or family who could make an itinerary

Time was, that travel agent was pretty much your only option, unless you happened to have extremely well-traveled friends or family who could make an itinerary with you. Even finding a list of which airlines fly from where to where and the visa processes was a major hassle. Let alone making a connection at the other end. How would you even get a regional Italian train timetable without the internet? At least it would take an afternoon on the phone. And if your local agents weren't good at it, or they only knew about, say, Spain in detail and not Italy, you'd be pretty out of luck.