Month in Sicily…

Sicily is a large island. It's impractical to try to see it on day trips from any single base. That includes Palermo, though that city has a lot to offer and would be a good base for part of a trip.

As a pedestrian, I found the traffic in Palermo scary and cannot imagine driving there. I'd want to be car-less while seeing Palermo's sights. It's also easy to head to Cefalu by train if you don't want to spend one or more nights there.

Several people on the forum have driven in Sicily, often combining public transportation in some areas with car rental in others. You should be able to get some good ideas via forum search. Here are some threads from the last two years.

Sicily by car

Thank you, acr… the Driving in Sicily posts were insightful and quite humorous! We wouldn’t attempt to drive in Palermo - we thought it would be helpful and convenient to have the car for exploring the island. Interesting about a home base not being very practical. We had thought about splitting our time between east and west coasts. Wondering if two weeks in east side might be a better approach. Maybe even add a third stay to better cover the island. Well, we will keep running scenarios - thanks again, for the driving posts and home base thoughts! Back to the planning!!

Take a look at what the other drivers have done. I think it's safe to say most of us don't enjoy the process of changing hotels, so we tend to set up camp in different cities primarily for logistical reasons. Having a car makes you more mobile than public-transportation users like me (Sicily doesn't have the sort of speedy trains running between Rome/Florence/Milan/Venice/etc.), but I think you'll find that folks with even much shorter trips than yours have split their time among more than two bases.

Siracusa, or somewhere nearby, is convenient for visiting not only that city (a favorite destination) but also the lovely Baroque towns in southeastern Sicily--Noto, Ragusa, Modica and Scicli.

Another cluster of potential destinations is farther up the east coast--Mount Etna, Taormina and Catania.

The northwest has Trapani, Erice and some other places mentioned on the forum that I haven't seen. There's enough in that part of the island that a day trip from Palermo wouldn't be sufficient.

You'll want to think about which of the Greek sites (Segesta, Selinunte, Agrigento and the much less visited Morgantina) are important to you. Consider also the Villa Romana del Casale in the interior of the island.

You'll even have time to see the Aeolian Islands if you're interested in them.

In case you are not aware, Rick now has a guidebook for Sicily. The first edition was published after my 2015 trip, and I really missed the sort of information found in the RS guidebooks as I traveled around the island.

As pointed out, basing in Palermo for the whole trip is not practical. There’s a lot of amazing things to see all over the island, but with a month you should be able to enjoy it all quite comfortably. How that all works is going to be entirely up to you.

Public transportation between destinations leaves a lot to be desired, so yes a car will mostly be a necessity. But you can massage that a bit. If you started in Palermo, you can pickup the car on your way out, and use it across the island until you get to somewhere like Siracusa. There’s decent bus connections between Siracusa, Taormina and Catania. Catania airport is actually the biggest on Sicily, you can fly out of there rather than head back to Palermo.

As for Palermo, you want to stay in the city center. It’s extremely walkable, fun to explore, and there are lots of reasonable accommodations. Having any sort of “commute” from your accommodations to the city center is a needless hassle. Anywhere around/between Piazza Bellini and Teatro Massimo would be great. Via Marqueda that connects them is entirely pedestrianized, and could count as Italy’s longest passegiata.

On Sicily, having a car is easier than piecing together itinerary segments by bus and/or train. However, if you are so inclined, I'd check out several companies offering drivers. We used one company that had drivers based around the island, so it was easy to have drivers do the transfers from hub to hub. Since I normally do the driving, I found it much more relaxing and enjoyable way to travel. I was quite surprised that in doing the math, the cost of drivers was only dollars more than the cost of renting a car, buying gas and paying for parking for a month.

acr - The different hubs are certainly interesting. Ideally a week in the different regions that would cut down on moving and driving distances for the outings. I have read a few travel blogs, and they have you moving every 2-4 nights. 4-5 nights would be easier! A week better! We will research the different hubs you mentioned and see what we can do with the info!

awr - That’s good to know about the public transport between Siracusa, Taormina and Catania. Another option! And, we were told to fly into Palermo and out of Catania if we are going to explore the island. Your Palermo central thoughts are something to take into consideration, but we have found staying just outside the city center is a bit more comfortable. Suggestions on an area?

wan - That brings us to a driver… wouldn’t that be nice?! There is something to be said about having the logistics taken care of, takes the edge off! Never even thought about a driver being cost effective… somewhat anyway ;) Interesting thought!

Thank you all! We’ve got so much more to think about! Back to the drawing board!