Rick Steve’s Best of Sicily on October 15, 2023

It was the best food and the best hotels of our four RS tours. And the travel between stops is short so you have more touring time and less bus time. Great tour.

This is a question for Stan who has been on the Sicily trip. I am going on that tour in early April of next year. I will stay 2 nights before the tour starts at the hotel in Palermo, and 3 nights in Rome after the tour is over. I am trying to pack very lightly. I was wondering since you were on the tour, was there any place around the middle of the trip where you had time and the ability to wash clothes? Anyone who might see this question is welcome to chime in with an answer. Thanks ahead of time for your responses.

Hello 3ddana. My wife and I did Heart of Italy this summer. We chose to wash our clothes in the hotel bathroom and hang dry with a travel clothesline halfway through the trip. However, at several of our hotels they offered third party laundry service. Many of our fellow travellers filled the supplied laundry bag with their dirty clothes, and they were washed, dried, and returned by late afternoon for about 15 euro. Contact the hotels via email and they will confirm if they offer this service. Have a great trip!

@3ddana, yes, about half the tour group had a laundry do their clothes in Siracusa (Ortigia). Others got by with sink wash (presumably). And the other cities had lavanderias around - just ask at the hotel. In our situation, it was supposed to be a service offered by the hotel (never cheap, but oh so convenient) , but for some reason they couldn't do it for us at the time. Our tour leader located and arranged for a nearby laundry to pickup and deliver back to the hotel.

But by all means, this is a question you should bring up to the tour leader at your initial meet-up in Palermo. This is routine stuff for them. Then you can plan around that. A tip is to have your laundry ready when you get to that destination, so you're not scrambling, and, if the hotel is doing it, they have max time to get it done.

@3ddana - look at the stops on the itinerary and search Google maps for lavanderia in those places. Hopefully there will be one near the chosen lodgings.

With laundromats overseas, my experience is they tend to be small with only a few washers and driers. Almost all have change machines to convert bills to coins, but you may want to have some 1 and 2€ coins set aside. Many include detergent and conditioner with the price that is automatically added to the wash.