southern italy and ???

How much time do you have ?

i am guessing 10-11 days

For 10-11 days, just stay in Italy. There is so much to see and so different from north to south. When you say southern Italy do you mean Puglia, Almagro, what?

We lived in Italy for 2 1/2 years and were never at a lack of new places to visit.

With 10 days you have time only for ONE region in Southern Italy, maybe two if one of the two is Molise, you choose which one.

We spent 21 days in Italy back in 2019 and I feel like we only saw a wee bit of that beautiful country. In 2022 we went to Sicily for 17 days and that was enough. This October we are going back to spend 16 days to tour Southern Italy. I am feeling jealous of Karen from Monterey County who got to live in Italy for 2 1/2 years. With 10-11 days I would just stick with Italy and try to see as much as you can. Have a wonderful time whatever you decide.

Yep, agreed it would be best to stick with Southern Italy rather than breaking up the trip & taking a day to fly elsewhere to try and settle in again, blah blah.

Then it would come down to narrowing it to areas and interests, and of course the time of year. I would start by watching RS Youtube videos on Naples, Amalfi Coast & Sicily, and then other suggested videos will pop up. Museums, art specifically and/or hiking, classes or wandering, food walking tours, busy days preferred, cities or combo in the countryside, Pompeii, Herculean & Archeological museum of Naples for Vesuvius archaeology..... There are a LOT of threads on the Forum about S Italy, just go RS home page, use search bar at top. Once you have a better idea of your interests & timing, I'm sure others will chip in with specific ideas!

I guess you should determine what you're interested in seeing. We based ourselves in Sorrento for 11 days and never ran out of things to do and see.

Ditto--I would for sure stick to one country (unless you were at a border area). Connections among Croatia, Greece, and Italy are not that simple. You would want more than 11 days to do southern Italy and Croatia by ferry.

as expected, lots of good info! right before covid we spent 11 days doing florence, rome and venice and some other side trips. i will definitely check out sorreto and sicily as home bases and appreciate all the feedback. assuming these cities would give us easy-ish access to amalfi coast?

Sicily could be a trip in itself. For the Naples-Sorrento-Amalfi Coast area, my dream trip would be a few days on one of the islands (Ischia, Capri, or Procida), a few days in one of the Amalfi Coast villages or up in the Sorrentine hillside somewhere, and a few days in Naples.

so, sicily vs sorrento? we like good food, local flavor, perhaps an excursion or two, of course, the must see sites. sorrento is more of holiday coastal visit vibe, i'm gathering. lots to think about and more to research ....

I'd base it on airfare--it can be more difficult to get to Sicily versus Naples or Rome (within reach via train). ) Enjoy your research!

i will definitely check out sorreto and sicily as home bases and
appreciate all the feedback. assuming these cities would give us
easy-ish access to amalfi coast?

Sorrento will give you as good as any access to the Amalfi Coast, but it will always be challenging. You can get direct flights from Sicily to Naples which is only an hour train ride from Sorrento.

I can highly recommend Sicily. We had a wonderful, self-drive trip there last September. Food was great. We had been to other parts of Italy previously but Sicily is now our favorite. This is how we spent our days:

1. Arrive Catania drive to Taormina via Castelmola
2. Etna wineries loop, back to Taormina
3. To Ortigia
   
4. To Ragusa via Noto
   
5. Ragusa - Modica - Scicli - Ragusa
   
6. To Agrigento via Villa del Casale
   
7. Agrigento, Valley of the Temples at dusk
8. To Cefalu’
9. To Palermo via Monreale
10. Palermo
11. Depart from Palermo

For us, the only disappointment was Cefalu. We found it extremely crowded, touristy and, overall, unwelcoming. So, in retrospect, would add a night to Ortigia and leave off Cefalu. Typically, we do not make return trips but we’d return to Sicily in a heartbeat!

I would stick to one country unless you have unlimited time. You don't want to try and do too much. It will only exhaust you! We took the road less traveled and went to Puglia having Lecce for our home base. It's beautiful there, but you want find many people, if any, who speak English and we didn't run into any tourist from the US. We had a rental car and explored the area on our own, visiting the many small villages in the surrounding area. Cantele Winery was one of the highlights of the trip. Good luck with planning. Relax and enjoy!

Don’t mix Sicily with other locations. There is so much to see there.
If you want Amalfi coast/ Sorrento then do that area. Don’t mix countries unless you have months to travel.
Ten to eleven days is only enough for Amalfi/ Sorrento. Not enough time for Sicily even by itself.

again, thanks sooo much for all the input ... i would say its unanimous that we stick to sicily :)

i have a friend going to puglia for the second time next month ... loves it there!!!

If you do decide to self-drive in Sicily, the one place you definitely do not want a car is Palermo. We were able to drop the car off in the city on arrival, take a quick taxi to our accommodation and then, on departure, taxi back to the airport which worked out great. Have a wonderful trip!