Getting to Palermo, Sicily

I'm a fan of going to the most distant place first. It is also best to be in your overseas flight city the day of your flight, so putting all your Rome time at the end saves another transfer between hotels/cities.

Where are you flying from? The total time involved in going in one shot is what makes the difference. Some flight itineraries have to have long layovers in order to make that connection.

Sicily can be tricky to get to from the US, even from the east coast where we have more flight options. From Oregon, I believe that others have posted that you can go from Portland via Amsterdam to Catania, all on one ticket. If you can do this, that would be great. If you are going to have to make multiple connections, or (far worse) if you have to be on separate tickets, I'd fly to Naples or Rome first, and put Sicily in the middle of the trip.

Note that while Palermo is the bigger city, Catania has the bigger airport with more flight options. From both of these, you will have multiple flight options to Naples, and tons of options to Rome.

Use Skyscanner to find flights within Italy https://www.skyscanner.com/, and then click through to the airlines' actual websites to find all the terms and conditions. Note that Alitalia has started offering "basic economy" fares, which, just like in the US, don't include checked bags; if your bag doesn't meet their carry-on requirements, you'll need to buy a "fancier" ticket to cover this. Also, often the International website of Alitalia has better prices for these internal flights than their US website: https://www.alitalia.com/en_en/

But before you book anything, how much time do you have for your total trip? And what is it in Sicily that you want to see? I had 10 nights in Sicily, rushed around, and saw a small bit of the island. If you have only a short trip, it may not pay you to go there on the same trip as mainland Italy destinations (unless you just want to see one or two places). Remember that you lose a half day or more when flying, even on the short flights to and from Sicily.

I'm planning overall 3-3.5 weeks and about half of it will be in Sicily. Catania won't work for me to fly into because I'm joining an 11-day RS tour in Palermo in April and plan to spend 3-4 days before that south of there to visit the village of my family origin. I've been to Rome but not the Amalfi Coast or Sicily.

But perhaps you've given me another option. If I flew to Naples first then and spent time on the Amalifi then went to Sicily, I could go to Rome on my way home (I only need 1-2 days there this trip). The downside is I'll have to leave Portland sooner than what I was expecting I'd be on the coast late March instead of mid-April.

From here there seems to be basically two airlines worthwhile to fly to Italy, Delta and KLM, which is a Delta partner.

As someone else stated, getting to Sicily with good connections can be difficult. When I looked at getting to Palermo from the Washington DC area, all the layovers seemed to be 1.5 hours or less, which can make for a tight schedule if your flight is late departing, or there’s a long line getting through passport control. For better connections, I flew into and out of Catania (which won’t work for you), with my layovers being in Munich going over and Frankfurt going back. Personally, I’d get the longest flight time over with first. My point being, If you did decide to go all the way to Palermo, you may not need to go through Rome which may give you more flight options.

Alitalia has 8 flights a day from Rome to Palermo, so even if your inbound fight is delayed, they should be able to get on the next flight, provided you book a through ticket on Delta/KLM/Alitalia. I'd do it that way.

We did US (1 connection in the US) - Rome - Palermo on Delta/Alitalia when doing the RS Sicily tour. It was booked as all one ticket/PNR.

I enjoyed this route as it allowed us to reach our final destination without having to do additional work. Our bags were checked through to our final destination. We did not have to retrieve them in Rome and go through security again as you do when returning to the US from abroad and have a connecting flight.

Many people urge carryon bags only. This is a valid strategy, but be advised if you fly Alitalia that they do have smaller overhead compartments and plan accordingly.

I found that booking through Delta was easy for the trip. I picked the option to book a multi-city trip and then just picked what worked best for my travel plans.

There is no right/wrong answer to this. It's all about how much time you have and what is your preferred travel style. This is just what worked for me.

I definitely appreciate the advantage of one booking. The other hurdle I'm dealing is getting the right amount of layover time. One of the more attractive flight has only 1 hour in AMS and that simply is not enough having been through a couple of times.

When I did the Sicily tour I flew Norwegian from Oakland to either Oslo or Sweden. From there it was a Norwegian connecting flight (all one ticket) to Palermo. And not very expensive. The flight to Palermo is only on Saturday so you might have to spend a few extra days in Sicily but to me that's a good thing.

One of the more attractive flight has only 1 hour in AMS and that simply is not enough having been through a couple of times.

One hour in AMS would never work for me. What are some of the other options? Do different flights open up if you shift your arrival/departure date by one or two days on either side?

Thanks for all the advice. I was getting a bit worried yesterday when as I was searching for flights and before I could decide the prices jumped up several hundred dollars. I finally called it quits and went off and watched a movie instead. This morning I put one more search into Kayak and luckily the prices had dropped back down. Booked a Delta flight with a few concessions, like leaving earlier (but getting to Palermo early, not a bad thing), and taking an extra hop from Seattle to home, I can live with that.

Have a wonderful trip!

PS - I'm not sure if it's the same, but if your luggage seems to be 'missing' when you arrive in Palermo, there may be a separate place where luggage from overseas arrives. That was our experience when we traveled at any rate. Just sharing that in case it happens to somebody else.