Islands off Italy

Sardegna would be good, but, why not go to Malta and add another country to your trip?

How long is your stay? Sicily alone will eat at least 10-12 days just to scratch the surface of it.

If not Malta, as suggested above, there are quite a few smaller islands off Sicily, that you might want to consider. The Aeolian islands come to mind, but also the Pelagic islands (Lampedusa being the most famous), the southernmost islands of Italy (more to the south of Tunis and Algiers in fact).

Another vote for the Aeolian Islands here. Stromboli. Volcanic. Really volcanic! Lipari. Gorgeous. Where The Italians go on holiday, so clearly wonderful!

Hope you have a great trip!

Ian

Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean. You could easily spend 2 weeks there (I did) and still have a laundry list of places to go - Greek temples, Baroque towns, medieval churches, Roman Byzantine mosaics, beautiful beaches, and much more. My impression is that Sicily is a good tourist destination all year round. The water may still be warm enough for bathing.

If you have more than 2 weeks, spend 4-5 days in Malta. Fly there, do it without a car (they drive on the left and terrible traffic).

If you do want to go to another island, I agree that you should make sure to have enough time for Sicily. Also, before you get too far in planning, investigate transit links; they're not nearly as good as you might think, particularly if you want to go to another country (such as Malta, or Corsica which is part of France).

Sicily has four airports; Catania is the largest, then Palermo, with Trapani being smaller and Comiso being MUCH smaller. Sardinia has three airports: Cagliari, Olbia, and Alghero (again, largest to smallest). To find out where you can go nonstop from an airport, look at that airport's Wikipedia page. Since Sardinia is a seasonal destination, many flights only operate part of the year, and in late October your options will be more limited. To find actual flights and prices for specific dates, use Skyscanner: https://www.skyscanner.com/.

Remember that if you are flying a "budget" airline such as Ryanair or Easyjet, there will most likely be extra charges over the initial ticket price. Go to the airline's actual website and do a dummy booking (up to the point where you put in your credit card details) to see full price details before buying - particularly if you have a choice of carriers on a route.

I spent 10 nights in Sicily, rushed around, and merely got a "tasting platter" of the island. If you want all the details (I had a great time), here's my lengthy trip report from April-May 2014: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/sicily-palermo-caltanisetta-siracusa-taormina

Thanks for the suggestions. We do plan on spending at least 3 weeks in Sicily. What towns would be good to use as bases? We like to use airbnb or similar to book flats. And which airport is best to fly in and out of?

I'd fly into Catania and out of Palermo or vice versa to avoid unnecessary backtracking.

Your bases would depend on where you want to go in Sicily. You really cannot see the island from just 3 bases unless you want to do a lot of driving, so you need to digest a guidebook, mark possible destinations on a map, and look for clusters. You might end up with 4, 5 or even 6 different bases.

I wasn't interested in the classical sights in western Sicily, so I based in Catania (many people prefer the gorgeous Taormina; maybe it's not so incredibly touristy off-season), Siracusa (to also cover the lovely Baroque towns of Ragusa, Noto, Modica, Scicli, etc,), Palermo (to cover Cefalu and of course Monreale), and Trapani (to cover Erice).

It would have been good to have a base in the interior (perhaps Piazza Armerina), because repeatedly traveling inland from the coast can chew up a lot of time if you're using public transportation, as I was. And as previojsly noted, I wasn't trying to get to Agrigento, Selinunte or Segesta.

A vote for Stromboli! Hike to the top of the active volcano and sit in the dark and watch it erupt. One of the best things I have ever done.
Lipari and Salina are also nice. Vulcano has mud pots to soak in if you like that type of thing.
We are planning a few days in Malta after Sicily this fall. Malta looks very interesting with a great mix of historic sites.

My trip was late April to early May. I started in Palermo, and then Cefalu by train. Then I went back to Palermo to pick up my luggage (took a small overnight bag for 2 nights), rented a car and began my adventure.

My preference was an agriturismo near Segesta, but prepayment didn't work out, so I ended up in not the most scenic part of Castellamare del Golfo (3N) but it fit my budget. It was a very good base to explore the towns along the western coast all the way down to Selinunte. Nothing was more than an hour or so each way and the driving was easy.

With a morning departure, I headed south to Agrigento for the day, then spent the night in Piazza Armerina (wish I'd 2 nights there so I'd have time to explore it's centro storico) to visit the Villa Romana del Casale, and ended with 6 nights in Ortigia. I found it easy to drive in and out of Ortigia, so it turned out to be a good base for a day trip to Etna (disappointing), a crazy day to Catania for the WWII museum (excellent museum, terrible traffic - though it wouldn't have been quite so bad if I'd had GPS). It's also driving distance to Noto (maybe Ragusa), which I didn't get to. I spent more time in Ortigia itself than I'd planned, partly because of a special event there and partly because of a knee injury that kept me from Taormina.

With another week, I might have spent time in/around Taormina and the Aeolian Islands. I skipped Noto etc (Baroque's not my thing), spent lots of time on the archaeology sights, would have liked more time along the western coast. 2 full days in Palermo, one in Cefalu was enough, glad I had 2 nights there.