Small town Sicily. Recommendations?

Try Scicli, one of the small baroque towns in the southeast of the country (not far from Ragusa and Modica)
http://www.visitsicily.info/en/scicli-2/
Noto is also very nice, and only 1 hour away from Siracusa.
http://www.bestofsicily.com/noto.htm

I did not go there, but my friend really enjoyed Castelbuono in the Madonie Mountains. It's not a place most US visitors would check out. I'm fairly sure she took a bus there from Palermo (or Cefalu).
http://www.visitsicily.info/en/castelbuono-in-the-madonie-mountains/

Whenever I start researching a country I always look to see if Rick has a tour. I read through his itinerary to see where they go and read about the different places. If the place is on his tour then it is in his guide book. It helps me to reasearch the city/town/village frither to determine if it is a place i want to visit.

Thanks Barbara. Appreciate it. We avoid tours at all costs. We enjoy the planning and the prep. We have the RS guidebook but were hoping for info beyond that.

I would not limit yourself to the RS Sicily book. I couldn't believe it didn't touch on the Aolian Islands. Try Lonely Planet and others as well.

Something inland would be a good idea. Scicli and Noto are in that category. Or you could consider Piazza Armerina (though lots of tourists pass through it on the way to the Villa Romana del Casale), Caltagirone, Enna, etc.

One of the towns that I very much enjoyed was Mazara del Vallo. We took a train from Palermo to get there but if you are planning to visit Trapani it is in the same province. It is a fishing town with lots of Tunisian influence. It has a beautiful historic old town, a casbah, lots of narrow alleyways, with large murals on the walls depicting the history of the town. A great town for wandering. Mazara del Vallo is also fairly close (about 35 km) to the wonderful ruins of Selinunte. We easily took public transportation to get there (train and bus). The ruins are expansive and beautiful, right on the coast. I enjoyed visiting Selinunte more than the ruins of Agrigento, because it wasn't filled with crowds of tourists. I saw Mazara del Vallo featured in the BBC video series titled “Sicily Unpacked” which follows a British art historian and an Italian chef on their travels around Sicily. It is excellent and can be found on youtube and will give you insight into what to expect, and may give you ideas for the type of places you would like to visit.

We have been to three of the Aeolian islands: Stromboli (made somewhat famous by a movie of the same name starring Ingrid Bergman), Vulcano and Lipari. All are very beautiful. They are accessible from various ports in Sicily by ferry or hydro foil. We made the trip from Tropea in Calabria. Panarea is reputed to be very lovely. Lipari is quite lovely and is worth an overnight stay.

We enjoyed Marsala and the nearby salt farms. While there are no major sights, it’s a nice place to relax. We also enjoyed Caccamo. It’s between Palermo and Cefalu and the main attraction is its 12th century Norman castle. We too enjoyed Noto.

Edited: Due to time constraints, we had to cut out Mazara Del Vallo to get to Marsala (where our hotel was) before it got dark as I didn’t want to drive on unfamiliar roads in the dark. We had wanted to see the church of San Francisco and the Kasbah. Depending on the time you arrived in town, one night would probably be sufficient. When we were in Sicily in 2018 there’s were some petty crime issues in Mazara due to the numbers of immigrants/refugees that migrated there. It wouldn’t have stopped us from going, but we would have taken more precautions keeping items out of sight in the car and paid a little more attention to our surroundings.

We are also in the process of planning a trip to Sicily using the RS guide. We will travel independently with car. Would you recommend spending a night or 2 in Mazara del Vallo?? Is there enough to see and a do to warrant a few nights?

Ray,
I've been to Sicily and LOVED it! We only used public transportation while there; trains and busses. The people were FABULOUS! Anywhere we went, they were friendly. You can't pick a bad small village. Food was really good. Never felt unsafe.

Cefalu is an easy train ride from Palermo. Palermo is very walkable.

To visit Agrigento, we stayed in a great castle like BnB in Villaggio Mosè, Sicilia. If interested, pm me & I'll send the details. It was a short walk (10 minutes) to San Leone, good restaurants by the water, dedication statue to Padre Pio, and REALLY great people. Easy bus to Valley of the Temples and city of Agrigento.
We did a day trip to Sciacca by bus. Great little town, lot's to see and do, wonderful seafood.

Syracusa had so much to see and do. And it had good transportation options to smaller towns.

Can't wait to go back. For planning the trip, I used DK Eyewitness Travel Sicily book and Lonely Planet Sicily. Rick Steves didn't have one out then.

Alot of great suggestions. We're gonna follow up on these. We'll also explore using public transportation, which I prefer much more than a car. We had heard that the trains werent as reliable in S. Italy, so we considered renting. Thanks to everyone and keep em coming.

Trains in Sicily are limited as to their routes and their frequency, and they are rather slow. In my experience (2015) they weren't unreliable, but I needed to use buses frequently. The buses pretty much showed up when expected, but they are a bit tricky because the schedules vary by day of the week and also between school periods and non-school periods. You have to pay serious attention to the footnotes on any bus schedule you use. Although I totally trust rail schedules I find on the internet (in the absence of a strike or other anomaly), when it comes to buses, my policy is to verify everything at the bus station in the departure city. I do get a bit nervous when I'm in a small town that doesn't have a bus station. Usually there's a schedule posted somewhere near the bus top, but it's not quite the same as being able to find the schedule on line.

My husband and I have made two trips to Sicily, five weeks total. You have received many wonderful suggestions and I'll add one that's more of an outlier. Read Vincent Schiavelli's book "Many Beautiful Things" and you will feel compelled to visit Polizzi Generosa, as we did. Teresa Maggio also has a chapter on Polizzi in her book "The Stone Boudoir." In fact, we stayed with the family she wrote about in that book. Our trips were all by public transportation and yes, it's slower travel than having a car but it's our preferred way. I'll also mention that finding the bus stop is often a challenge. We've learned that many of the locals you'll encounter as a tourist don't take the buses, so it's futile asking them where the bus stop is. (How many forum members know where the cross-country bus stops in their town?) Happy planning!

Hi Ray,
Since you are looking into public transportation, I thought I would chime in. Last fall I spent 22 days traveling counter-clockwise from Catania, around the whole island. It was my second trip to Sicily. For the most part we used trains and busses and never had a problem. Here are our basic stops and routes. After staying three nights in Catania, (which I liked very much) we took a bus from Catania to Taormina. From Taormina another bus to Messina where we directly caught a train for Oliveri, to see the beautiful sanctuary and ruins at Tindari. From Oliveri another train to Cefalu. From Cefalu a train to Palermo. From Palermo a train to Mazara del Vallo. From Mazzara del Vallo to Selinunte and back we did a combo route of train and bus. i posted earlier about Mazara del Vallo. It turned out to be a real gem of a destination. From Mazara del Vallo to Agrigento, bus. The next stretch we did use a private driver that was highly recommended here on the forum. He took us to Siracusa/Ortygia via Piazza Armerina, Villa Romana del Casale, and a stop in Caltagirone. That was a packed day and it would have been difficult to see all of those places without more time and a car, so we opted for the driver. From Siracusa to Catania airport by bus. All very easy, spread out over three weeks. Timetables were all published online. All trains were on time. Not all trains were air conditioned. Busses were quite comfortable, but more crowded than the trains. The Taormina bus station was a little hectic due to crowds of people waiting for busses and it is outdoors so it was very hot. Both trains and busses were very cheap! We just walked up to the machines or counter and purchased tickets on the day of travel. In fact, the whole trip was relatively cheap. We stayed in BnBs, AirBnBs, and one hotel (in Cefalu,) all reasonably to very reasonably priced and centrally located. Those were the basic stops. In Catania we met up with friends who live there and so they drove us to Etna and the surrounding countryside. Very pretty area and I admit that would be hard to see without a car. But look into the Circumetnea train. We had originally planned to take that to see the Etna countryside but our friends ended up inviting us out for a day. We spent the most time in Palermo, a whole week because it is a great base for travel and has so much to see and do. There we did two daytrips with a very reasonable and friendly private driver out to Segesta and Erice and Marsala. I regret not having visited Trapani. So that is on my list for the next visit.

Compared to the trains, the buses were very modern. I preferred the bus over the train in Southeast Sicily (the Hyblean Region)

Hi Ray,
A forum friend (thanksJanis!) alerted me to your post, and I thought I’d add my 2 cents.

Anyway, I visited Sicily in the spring of 2018, and traveled solely via public transportation.
You may be interested in reading my trip report here: My trip to Sicily - In Zoe’s memory...

And... I also urge you to read Zoe’s trip reports here: Remembering Zoe...

Please note: Zoe was an amazing contributor to this forum for many years, but sadly she passed away in 2018.

Wishing you a wonderful trip to Bella Sicilia!