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Sicily: Affordable Private Drivers Recommendations?

Posted by (New York) on

I'm new to this forum. I'm traveling with my husband who has a health condition. However, his health is really good at the moment and he has been encouraged by his health care team to travel now, while he can. He is unable to do long hikes or walks. 2 (with stops) miles on flatter areas is fine. And so, it's really important that I make a bucket list dream come true for him: Sicily. I have been researching online for weeks and I'm a little overwhelmed. So, hoping fellow experienced travelers can please give me some suggestions.

We are planning to go there for 2 weeks in September. We can stay a couple of days longer if needed. Does anyone have recommendations for various drivers or taxis to make transfers with day trip stops, who doesn't charge an arm'n a leg? We don't drive and I don't think that we can rely heavily on public transport. I'm also trying to limit the amount of transfers. So combining them with day trip stops would be ideal. We don't need to see and do everything. I think a leisurely trip would be better.

So far: 4 nights in Palermo and 4 nights in Siracusa. But would like to go stay in another 2 locations if possible. We are not interested in going to some of the more popular overcrowded areas the : eg Etna or Taormina. Neither of us drink, so vineyard visits are lost on us. I would love for us to stay a couple of nights in a really great agriturismo with excellent food. I would also love to explore an option of staying somewhere very special along the south west area. And I would like to spend the last few days of our holiday in a small town next to a beach with seats or loungers that I can rent for my husband to rest. And of course dine on the freshest of fish and seafood.

Wish with all my heart we could stay in smaller authentic towns, meet the locals and eat great food! But, I know I'm limited without a car. However, I'm determined to make this happen.

Some of the more tourist sites I would like to include in our itinerary are:
Selinunte
Villa Roman del Casale
Erice

And so, I'm reaching out here to this community. Please for those more seasoned to Sicily, can you give me some suggestions and guidance to go beyond the major tourist hubs without us driving. Thank you.

Posted by
9547 posts

I am sure you will get recommendations for specific drivers but meanwhile you can play around with daytrip.com to get an idea of costs, travel times, sightseeing stops along the way

Posted by
12160 posts

We found that the east side of Sicily offered better choices of hotels and restaurants than the west side of the island.
Hotels and agriturismos can recommend drivers.
Contact a few and get recommendations. That is what we did. We enjoyed visiting Selinunte and stayed in an BnB nearby. It will take extra planning to visit Sicily without a car.

Posted by
189 posts

Affordable and private transportation do not go hand in hand.

20 years ago I used to arrange private transportation all over Europe, and all over Italy (not so much Sicily though). I would say the average cost for a driver for an 8 hour period was $1K back then. Same would be true for a one way transfer where the drive would be between 2 and 3 hours in length.

Posted by
73 posts

If you have not purchased it already, I would recommend the RS Sicily book. He includes some recommendations for drivers based on locations. We used Sicily Life for a transfer from Catania to Ortigia. It was €120 and about an hour drive. It felt reasonable coming off a transatlantic flight and not wanting to drive. It was also comparable to the water taxi transfer in Venice. They mentioned they will also do transfers from Palermo to Catania or it could be worth asking about Palermo to Ortigia. I think stringing together day trips or transfers as you suggested will likely be more cost effective than a private driver for two weeks.

It is possible to visit Villa Romana when you drive from Palermo to Ortigia. With a transfer, you won’t need to worry about your luggage being in the car.

We enjoyed Cefalu. There were multiple beach clubs where you could rent chairs/loungers for your husband and the walk along the beach and old town is flat (though with cobblestones in some areas).

Posted by
100 posts

I can't help with transportation, as our trip to Sicily was on a tour (with Overseas Adventure Travel). But I can recommend the beautiful agriturismo where we stayed the night before we went to Villa Romana del Casale. It's called Vecchia Masseria (https://www.vecchiamasseria.com/en/). The setting is lovely; we all wished we could stay there longer. The room was very nice, with a large bathroom and spacious shower (unlike some of the "telephone booth" showers we had at a few of our other stops). It was 3 years ago and I can't recall whether the food was "excellent", but if it was lousy that's something I would probably remember. (Unfortunately, I've found that if I don't take a picture of my meals, I don't remember them unless they were exceptionally bad or good.)

The down side is that it's about 30 minutes from Villa Romana del Casale, and quite isolated, so transportation would be the sticky wicket. Lodging in Piazza Armerina would probably be half as far.

I hope you are able to make a visit to Villa Romana work, because it was probably my top attraction in our two weeks in Sicily. If at all possible, try to arrange to go at open (9:00 am), or later in the afternoon (I believe they are open until 7:00 pm). Virtually all of the floors in the villa are amazing mosaics, which they have protected by building elevated walkways. They can get quite crowded, so it's best to be there before or after the tour groups roll through. About 2-3 hours would do it justice.

Good luck figuring it all out; have an amazing trip!

Posted by
2 posts

Thank you all so much. I'm deeply grateful for all your suggestions. I will be contacting the recommendations you kindly shared with me. Will let you know how we go. xo

Posted by
49 posts

I don’t have driver recommendations, but based on what you want to do, I would suggest a potential itinerary which could also be done in reverse if preferred. Fly into Catania and transfer to Ortegia; transfer Ortegia to agritourismo Mandranova visiting Villa Romana enroute; transfer to Trapani visiting Selinunte enroute, visit Erice from Trapani, transfer to Palermo from Trapani, finally, transfer to Cefalu for your beach vacation from your vacation.

Posted by
3572 posts

I was just going to add that the only place you might consider public transportation is between Palermo and Cefalu. It is an easy train ride which we did as a day trip (but did not spend time on the beach).

In general the trains are not as widespread in Sicily as in other parts of Italy.

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