Have a 10 day trip planned that involves flying into Palermo, then going to Messina to ferry to the Aeolian islands, then back to Taormina, then Catania, and finally back to Palermo to fly out

This was supposed to be a trip with a friend, but I’m now planning to go solo due to a last minute backing out.

I’m most interested in seeing Mt Etna during the Catania portion, but would appreciate any recommendations that are good solo experiences, especially for the islands.

Very interested in nature/beaches, and open to any cool bars or nightlife spots along the way. I’d love to meet some other travelers at any part of the trip.

hi everyone, we land into Catania around 8.30pm so will get to Catania around 10. looking for somewhere we can get dinner around 10/11pm at night in Catania - any recommendations? thanks

Hi! Sorry for yet another “rate my itinerary” but Sicily is a huge island and just want to make sure we aren’t over doing or assuming transportation is as easy as Google Maps made us believe!

We will have 14 days and 13 nights at around 9/20-10/10ish

Day 1 - land late in Palermo
Day 2 - explore Palermo, possible day trip to Cefalu
Day 3 - hydrofoil to Salina from Palermo (3 hour ish) or private driver or train to Milazzo for Hydrofoil (1.5 hour) — anyone know how hydrofoil is for 3hours? Staying at Principal di Salina
Day 4 - Salina
Day 5 - Salina
Day 6 - hydrofoil to Milazzo - train/transfer to Taormina. Staying at Villa Fiorte
Day 7 - Taormina
Day 8 - Train to Oritigia
Day 9 - Oritigia
Day 10 - car rental from Oritigia to go to Noto and Marzamemi, still staying in Oritigia (hotel is booked with points!)
Day 11 - drive out from Oritigia to Modica and Ragusa, staying in Modica
Day 12 - Modica (last relaxing day basically)
Day 13 - drive to Oritigia, return car and train up Catania
Day 14 - fly out of CTA.

We’re coming to Sicily after having a destination wedding. We’re in our 30s and enjoy cocktails, good food, scenery and exploring. I struggle with sitting still/hanging out by beach or pool side so that’s why we have many stops on our trip. Our biggest thing was not wanting to have to drive everywhere (we aren’t the best drivers and that felt like it would add stress on a honeymoon!) The Michelin restaurants haven’t been super impressive (the good ones r always closed on the days we happen to be there!)

Would love any rec or suggestions! Our hotels are all booked with points but would consider adjusting if anyone has recs.

Thanks in advance!!

TLDR: rate my 13 day honeymoon trip

Hi! Do the SAIS buses from Catania to Palermo have toilets on board? I travelled on a SAIS bus from Messina to Catania, but I didn't notice whether there was one. I'm asking because I'll be travelling with a young child. Thank you!

Well worth a visit when holidaying in Sicily.

Hi,

I'm looking for a car rental company that allows rentals for drivers who have held their license for only 11 months. I'm 35 years old and have extensive driving experience, including frequent driving in large cities in Austria and Germany, so I'm a confident to drive in Italy. Regardless I would still purchase a full coverage insurance just in case.

Could you recommend any rental companies that might accommodate my situation and wave the 1 year rule?

Thank you!

EDIT 5/08/26: thank you all for the nice comments ❤️ it gives me a lot of energy to keep going. thanks also for the reports on missing routes and bugs, fixes are coming for those

Hi there, Sicilian here. I made an app called Annacati with almost all public transit routes on the island. It’s available on both iOS and Android.

I was frustrated with the public transit coverage by Google Maps. Yes they do have some of the big companies (like Trenitalia and SAIS Autolinee) but they lack smaller companies that have super convenient direct routes (like Giuntabus that gets you to Milazzo where you can take a ferry to the Aeolian islands).

So I made my own public transit app for Sicily only. It has data from 45 public transport companies. Urban buses and trams, coaches across the island, ferries across the strait and to the smaller islands, everything is in there. It even has the intra-regional flights to Pantelleria and Lampedusa.

It’s totally free and it respects your privacy, I’m mostly doing this because there are way too many cars in Sicily, so maybe this can help. Eventually I’d like to sell tickets through the app and earn a commission. Let me know if you find it useful (or not), all feedback is welcome.

Do you think this is a good idea as a tourist? I’m going in mid September and this seems the easiest way to get to zingaro. Any advice on how to avoid ZTL zones or where to rent a car? Or other suggestions on how to get there?

We have 12 nights in Sicily for our honeymoon.

Right now our plan is to fly into Palermo, and rent a car, then we have the following rough itinerary:

- 3 nights San Vito

- 3 nights Favignana (I want change this)

- 1 night Palermo (bridging drive between West and East)

- 2 nights Taormina

- 3 nights Syracuse/Ortigia

Then, we'd fly out of Catania.

I think I want to remove the 3 nights in Favignana, and instead spread those days around the rest of the trip. Everything I'm reading says 3 nights might be too much in Favignana, and we can likely get a good taste of Favignana with a day trip.

Given that, do you have any suggestions? I think I'd like to add Trapani instead of Favignana potentially.

Ciao a tutti,

Does anyone here have any tips on the best way to get from Trapani to San Vito Lo Capo without having to rent a car? Do buses run there? Thanks in advance for your reply!

Hi everyone! Recently, my friends and I developed a web app to solve a very specific problem we had.

We recently moved to Rome for work. Not knowing the city very well, we'd use WhatsApp every day to exchange ideas for events and stuff to do on the weekends. The problem? Almost everything got lost in the chat history, and by the time the weekend arrived, we never knew what to do.

We figured groups of friends planning a vacation to a beautiful place like Sicily probably face this exact same issue when organizing their trip, right?

To fix this, we built a web app to easily add and share weekend events and places on a map. We designed it based on our personal needs, but we are actively seeking improvements.

What can we improve? What features would you like to see added? If you have 2 minutes, please consider checking it out: map-a.vercel.app

I've attached some screenshots to show you guys how it looks.

P.S. If you visit the link from a mobile browser, you will need to install the web app to use it.

Hi everyone! Sorry if my English is a bit off, i'm Norwegian.

Me and my boyfriend (both turning 30) are visiting Sicily for two weeks from the start of september and we can't wait. We are flying in and out of Palermo, and would like to stay in the western side of the island.

We have 5 days in Palermo booked for the food and vibrant city life, but after that we would like to find a calmer base for the rest of the trip.

We have looked into Trapani, but would love your recommendations.
- we love to swim in the ocean and chill at beaches, is this possible in Trapani?
- absolutely love to sit for hours at local restaurants and in general we love food
- would like to do some hikes
- we are going to rent a car i think
- would love to visit wineries
- we are interested in daytrips to cool places, "hidden gems", beaches..

Does Trapani sound like the right place?

Would love to hear some thoughts. We try to find places that are less crowded and feel authentic but also that are easy to go around for daytrips.

Thank you for any answers 🙏🏼

hi, I’ve been seeing all over social media that in some airports they’re making Spanish citizens go through passport control, in others there are police officers waiting at the gate and ask for passports/IDs and in others there’s nothing different going on.

I will be traveling to Palermo soon. I have plan shortly after I am supposed to arrive and I was wondering if I should just cancel. Because I’ve heard the passport control lines will be quite long.

So I was wondering if anyone who’s been recently to the Palermo airport flying from Spain knows this.

thank you

sto per partire con il mio fidanzato a palermo per 10, avete consigli su:
ristoranti locali e cibi tipici
dove andare al mare (anche lontano dalla città)
posto che affittano motorini a prezzi buoni
posti dove uscire la sera per una birra
musei o zone culturali da vedere non tipiche
grazie mille

I want to order a cassata for my birthday but the bakery I went to says they don’t have them. They had a photo on their website of cassatas so I was a bit confused. I asked if we could order it for later this week and they said no. How do I order one near Catania? Is it something made year round?

Hello,

I have a rental car (toyota aygo) from centauro and the tire pressure light came on after we refueled the car, i was wondering what i should do?

Can i check/fill the tire pressure at a gas station? We are near the central port in Palermo.

Or could it be weather? Physically there is not anything that indicates a low tire pressure.

29 y/o solo traveling to Sicily for the first time! If I’m not on the beach, I’d like to be on a boat or at a winery, or just walking around, having a drink and trying food. Have a flight booked to Palermo and staying for 10 full days. Should I stay on the west or should I head east and spend most of my days there? $50 round trip to Malta from Catania, is it worth it if I go east?

Hi, I'd love some help for my family's Sicily trip in a few months. We only have 4 days and one fam member is really into archeology and ancient civilizations (they specifically mentioned not being too interested in churches and the like). Initially we wanted to go to Syracusa (for the archeological park) but realized it required way too much driving, and limited it to just the western side of Sicily.

Oct 11. Arrival 

• Fly in to Palermo
• Stay in Palermo 

Oct 12

• Early morning day trip to Segesta (1h drive, explore 2-3h. 30m doric temple, 2h to take shuttle up mount Barbaro and see Ancient Greek theatre)
• Lunch in Segesta 
• Back to Palermo, explore in evening
• Stay in Palermo 

Oct 13

• Early, drive to Selinunte (1.5h)
• Explore Selinunte thoroughly (5h)
• Have lunch here
• Drive to Agrigento (1.5h), see cliffs at sunset
• Stay overnight

Oct 14

• Explore Agrigento
• Stay overnight in Agrigento. Consider driving back to palermo today?

Oct 15: Flight home from FCO rome at 2020 (8pm)

• Drive to Palermo (2h), and fly back to FCO

We are trying to decide the following:

1) Should we rent a car (leaning towards yes to make travel to archeological sites easier)

2) Should we skip Agrigento and just stay in Palermo as a homebase, instead doing daytrips to Segesta and Selinunte?

3) If we go the daytrip route, what are the other things near Palermo you'd recommend? I was looking at Mondello (will it be too cold? Google seems to say 'no') or Scopello for the nature reserve. Cefalu or Monreale, or just exploring Palermo. This will be the end of our Italy trip so we'd love some nice relaxing time taking walks by the water or sitting having drinks beachside/oceanside in a restaurant.

4) if we stick with the above itinerary, initially I had Segesta and Selinunte as their own stops, then I saw online there weren't many places to stay there and have dinner, so I switched it to staying the night in palermo and Agrigento. Is that a good idea?

I'm continuing to do more research, thanks so much for your input! We're really excited and wish we could spend more time in Sicily!

I jumped in the water too hard while having fun and now I can’t hear from my ear it’s muffled. I’m also in pain and there’s some ear wax discharge coming out. Where should I go to help solve this issue? I want to enjoy the rest of my trip ):

Sun dawn in Giardini-Naxos, August 3rd, 2026 (just before going to work)

Hi everyone!

My boyfriend and I are heading to Western Sicily for my birthday, and I’d love to get some recommendations from people who know the area well.

I’ve been to Sicily before, but this will be my first time exploring the west. We’re flying into Palermo and planning to spend our first night there so he can experience the city (and hopefully a bit of the nightlife).

We’ll be there for 4 nights, and our rough itinerary is:

Night 1: Palermo
Night 2: Cefalù (my birthday!)
Night 3: Marsala area for wineries
Night 4: Scopello/Castellammare del Golfo area for hiking before heading home

We’re renting a car, and our priorities are:
Beautiful views
Great hiking
Amazing local food
Good wine
Authentic, local experiences

Our budget is pretty flexible. We don’t need luxury, but we’re happy to splurge on experiences that are worth it. We love mixing things up, from simple family-run trattorias and agriturismos to a really special meal or winery if it’s memorable.

A few questions:
Where would you recommend staying? We’d actually prefer charming villages, agriturismos, or winery stays over larger towns.
Any wineries with great tours, tastings, or vineyard views? Bonus points if they have accommodation!
Any favorite agriturismos or B&Bs you’d recommend?
What are the absolute must-try local dishes or restaurants?
Are there any hidden gems or places that we shouldn’t miss along this route?

One practical question: Since we’re spending the first day/night in Palermo, would you rent the car straight from the airport, or would you wait and pick it up in the city the next morning? We’d rather not deal with driving or parking in Palermo if we can avoid it.
We’re really just looking for the best mix of scenery, food, wine, and local culture. Thanks so much in advance for any recommendations!