Etna sets the weather. The rest of Sicily sets the table.
Which Etna trip actually reaches the summit craters. What the boat out of Trapani to Favignana costs. Whether Palermo or Catania is the better base. Reviews of every tour you can book on the island.
Five bookings a first week in Sicily is built around.
One on the mountain, one on the water, one in each of the three cities that matter. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The mountain dayMount Etna Morning or Sunset Day Trip with TastingUp the south side to the old craters, with a tasting on the way down. Morning departures beat the afternoon cloud.
02The island dayCruise to Favignana and Levanzo with lunchOut of Trapani to Favignana and Levanzo, lunch on board, swim stops in water you can see the bottom of.
03The Palermo walkNO Mafia Walking TourThe anti-mafia city told by the people who live in it, through Ballarò and the streets behind the cathedral.
04The Taormina hourAncient Theater Skip-the-Line Ticket & Audio GuideA timed ticket for the ancient theatre, with Etna framed between the columns. Go before the coaches.
05The temple eveningValley of the Temples Skip-the-Line Sunset TourAgrigento at the end of the day, when the sandstone goes gold and the coach parties have gone.
Eleven bases, and the day out each one is really for.
Every place on the island →Sicily is bigger than it looks on the ferry map — Palermo to Syracuse is a four-hour drive. Pick two or three of these and let the rest wait for the next trip.
Cataniathe base for the mountainMount Etnasummit craters, lava caves
Taorminathe ancient theatre, Isola Bella
Messinathe crossing, and the Stromboli boatAeolian IslandsLipari, Vulcano, an eruption after dark
Cefalùa Norman cathedral on the beach
Palermomarkets, mosaics, street food
Trapanisalt pans and the Egadi ferry
Agrigentothe Valley of the Temples
Ragusabaroque towns in the south-east
SyracuseOrtigia, and the theatre above it Etna is four different days out. Pick the one you actually want.
The same volcano sells a summit trek, a wine afternoon, a lava-cave morning and a sunset run, and they suit completely different people. Prices are per head, from the cheapest currently bookable.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · Mount Etna Morning or Sunset Day Trip with Tasting
Sunset on the cratersUp for the last light, back down through a lava cave.
Wine on the black slopesNerello grown in ash, tasted at the cellar door.
Lunch on the mountainCheese, honey and pistachio between two craters.
The full day from the coastPickup in Catania or Taormina, back before dinner.
All 383 days on Etna →
Three seas meet here, and the best days start at a jetty.
The Egadi boats out of Trapani, the night run to Stromboli from Milazzo, sea caves under Ortigia that turn the water green. Half of this coastline is only reachable by hull.
The days out more people book than anything else in Sicily.
Every Sicilian tour we have reviewed →Etna in every form, the boat to the Egadi, a walk through Palermo. What earns each of them the slot.
1
Mount Etna Morning or Sunset Day Trip with Tasting
Explore Etna from Catania with a small-group guide, crater walk, lava cave, Sicilian tasting, and sunset views from €70.
From · $70
Read our review →
2
Guided Volcano Summit Hiking Tour with Cable Car
from $124
3
NO Mafia Walking Tour
from $40
4
Hop-on Hop-off Bus Tour 24-hour Ticket
from $17
5
Cruise to Favignana and Levanzo with lunch
from $53
6
Sunset Jeep Tour of Mount Etna and Lava Flow Caves
from $71
7
Palermo Original Street Food Walking Tour by Streaty
from $83
8
Trek to 3000m with cable car and jeep
from $62
Palermo eats standing up. Catania eats at the fish market.
Street food in the west, seafood in the east, almond and pistachio everywhere, and vineyards growing in volcanic ash a thousand metres up. Book the market walk before the heat and the class that ends as lunch.
- 1Mount Etna Morning or Sunset Day Trip with Tastingfrom $70
- 2Palermo Original Street Food Walking Tour by Streatyfrom $83
- 3Street Food and History Walking Tourfrom $54
What a day out in Sicily actually costs.
Every tour on the site grouped by price. A lot of the island’s best hours cost less than lunch on the Taormina corso.
Site tickets, old-town walks, street-food mornings and the short boat hops out of the ports.
The standards: Etna with a guide, the Egadi cruise with lunch, Agrigento and the baroque towns by minibus.
Summit treks with equipment, private drivers for the interior, chartered boats and multi-day runs.
Palermo: markets first, mosaics after.
Everything in Palermo →
The old city is loud, Arab-Norman and best on foot. Start in a market before the heat, eat standing up, and save the gold interiors for the middle of the afternoon.
The old city on foot
Quattro Canti, the Martorana, the fountain everyone photographs and the lanes behind it. Walking is the only way the four quarters make sense.
Ballarò and Capo, standing up
Panelle, sfincione, a spleen sandwich if you are brave, and a glass of something cold between stalls. The stalls close in the afternoon, so this is a morning job.
Monreale, up the hill
Six thousand square metres of gold mosaic, eight kilometres from the city. The cloister next door is the part people forget to book.
Three things that happen in Sicily and nowhere else.
Temples and beaches exist all over the Mediterranean. Doric columns in a valley of almond trees, a volcano that erupts on schedule for the sunset boat, and a city that eats its lunch off a market stall do not.
The Valley of the Temples
Seven Doric temples stand along a ridge above the sea, built by the Greeks of Akragas in the fifth century BC and left largely alone by everyone since. The Temple of Concordia survived because it was turned into a church. It runs a mile end to end through almond groves, so the evening ticket is the kind one: the stone goes amber and the heat comes off the path.
- 1Valley of the Temples Skip-the-Line Sunset Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,512 reviews
- 2Agrigento and the Valley of the Temples Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 1,240 reviews
- 3Valley of the Temples Ticket & App Audioguide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 1,160 reviews
Stromboli after dark
Stromboli has been erupting more or less continuously for two thousand years, on a rhythm reliable enough to sell tickets against. Boats leave Milazzo in the afternoon, circle Panarea, then hold offshore of the Sciara del Fuoco as the light goes and the mountain throws orange down the slope into the sea. Nobody talks much on the way back.
- 1Panarea and Stromboli Boat Trip by Night★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 1,605 reviews
- 2Sunset Trekking at Sciara del Fuoco★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,372 reviews
- 3Lipari and Vulcano Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 1,166 reviews
Eating standing up
Palermo has fed itself off market stalls since the Arabs ran the city, and the vocabulary is still theirs: panelle, sfincione, arancine, and the spleen sandwich the tourists circle warily. The markets at Ballarò and Capo work in the morning and shut for the afternoon, which is the single fact that decides how you plan the day.
- 1Palermo Original Street Food Walking Tour by Streaty★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,105 reviews
- 2Street Food and History Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,294 reviews
- 3Street Food Walking Tour with Local Guide & Tasting★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 632 reviews
Four Sicilian bookings that will not wait.
Most of the island can be arranged the night before over a granita. These four run on guides, permits, ferry timetables and a mountain that closes when it feels like it.
- 01Guided Volcano Summit Hiking Tour with Cable CarAbove 2,900 metres you go with an authorised guide or not at all, and the whole summit area shuts on weather or activity at a day’s notice.
- 02Panarea and Stromboli Boat Trip by NightThe sunset sailing runs to one timetable and a boat that holds a fixed number. Swell cancels it outright.
- 03Cruise to Favignana and Levanzo with lunchThe Egadi boats leave Trapani once or twice a day and fill through July and August, lunch included or not.
- 04Valley of the Temples Skip-the-Line Sunset TourEvening entry is on capped timed slots, and the last ones — the only cool ones — go first.
The mountain shuts and the coast hits forty degrees. Go indoors.
Two things reliably break a Sicilian plan: the summit closing on wind or activity, and a July afternoon that makes any open ruin unbearable by noon. Both have the same answer — do the outdoor thing at dawn, then spend the middle of the day in a cellar, a kitchen or a sea cave.
By place — the eleven bases
By kind of day — crater, boat, kitchen or ruin
The newest Sicily tour reviews.
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Private transfer from Palermo airport to Mercure Palermo Centro or vice versa
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Private 8-Hour Monreale and Cefalu Tour from Palermo
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Visit to the Museum and show of Sicilian puppets in Syracuse
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ERICE and SEGESTA Private Exclusive Tour starts from Palermo with Guide Driver
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Favignana and Levanzo full-day tour with lunch and aperitif
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Private 10 hour tour to Agrigento (Valley of the Temples) from Palermo
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