The volcano is just the headline.
Summit hikes past steaming craters, sea caves off Favignana, arancini eaten standing up in a Palermo market, Greek temples at golden hour. How each one really goes, what you’ll pay, and how to book the right one.
Seven the island runs on.
First visit or fifth, these hold an itinerary together: the summit crater walk, a Palermo market eaten one fried thing at a time, the boat that noses into a sea cave, the temples lit gold at closing.
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★ 4.8Safe betPalermo: NO Mafia Walking TourFrom $402,431 reviews
★ 4.2Sells out fastFrom Trapani: Cruise to Favignana and Levanzo with lunchFrom $532,286 reviews
★ 4.8Crowd favouriteCatania: Sunset Jeep Tour of Mount Etna and Lava Flow CavesFrom $712,113 reviews
★ 4.2Worth every euroSegesta, Erice and Salt Pans Full-Day Excursion from PalermoFrom $821,791 reviews
★ 4.8Easy winEtna and Alcantara Gorges Full-Day Tour with LunchFrom $1051,766 reviews
★ 4.7Local favouriteEtna: summit craters trekking with volcano guide 3350mtFrom $771,712 reviews
The island keeps its own islands.
Sail out of Trapani and by mid-morning you are anchored off Favignana in water the colour of a pool. Sea caves you swim straight into, lunch on deck, the Egadi and the Aeolians all close enough for a day. Half the reason to come is the boat itself.
Pick your way up Etna.
Everyone comes for the volcano; how you take it is the choice. A summit trek, a 4x4 up the old lava, or the gorge and the vineyards on its flanks. Three routes up the mountain, each one already reviewed and priced.
Up top
The summit trek
6 hours · from $70 · 4,028 reviews
Rope up past the 3,000-metre line with a volcano guide, cross the summit craters where the ground still steams, and look down on Catania and the Ionian in one turn of the head. The big one, and the day a lot of people fly in for.
See the summit treks →
Lava and low gear
The 4x4 to the craters
5 - 5.5 hours · from $71 · 2,113 reviews
Ride a jeep up the black lava roads to the Silvestri craters and the lava-flow caves, headlamp on, no long climb needed. The volcano up close on the days your legs would rather sit it out.
See the jeep tours →
Gorge and vines
Etna and the Alcantara
8 hours · from $105 · 1,766 reviews
Pair the volcano with the river that cut through its old lava: the Alcantara gorge, black basalt walls and water cold enough to gasp at, then a tasting on the slopes. The full day that takes in two of the island’s strangest landscapes at once.
See the Alcantara tours →
Sicily saves its best hours for after dark.
Temples floodlit gold long after closing, a box at Palermo’s Teatro Massimo for a night at the opera, a street-food market that only wakes once the fryers are lit. The island does not clock off at sunset.
Palermo eats with its hands.
Arancini the size of a fist, panelle folded into bread, sfincione off a cart, a spleen roll if you are brave. Palermo and Catania did street food long before it had the name. Book a guide who knows which fryer to trust.
Learn to make the pasta.
A home kitchen in Ortigia, a seaview terrace above Taormina, flour to the elbows and a lunch you cooked yourself. Hand-rolled busiate, caponata, cannoli filled to order. Come home able to make the trip last.
The Greeks got here first.
Agrigento’s temple row has stood two and a half thousand years, gold at sunset and floodlit after. Segesta’s theatre still faces an empty valley, and Ortigia stacks Greek on Baroque on sea. Book the hours the coaches miss.
One island, several islands.
Sicily works like a handful of regions. Etna and Catania in the east. Baroque Ortigia in the southeast. Palermo’s markets in the northwest. Agrigento’s temples on the south coast. Each one is a base, each is a few days.
Got a type of day in mind?
Twelve ways to spend a Sicilian day. Pick the one that sounds like you and everything behind it is already reviewed and priced.
A day out from the coast.
The island rewards a hire car and an early start. The Alcantara gorge, the salt pans at Trapani, the Baroque towns of the southeast, Cefalù’s cathedral and beach. All an easy day from the coast.
Three days around the east.
You cannot see all of Sicily in one trip. You can do a clean first three days built around the east: the volcano, a clifftop town, a Baroque city on the water. Here is the order we’d give a friend flying into Catania.
Day 1
Straight up the volcano
Take Etna while your legs are fresh: the summit craters, a lava cave, a tasting on the slopes. Back down to Catania’s fish market and a granita to finish. Big island, first look.
Plan day one →
Day 2
Taormina and the coast
The Greek theatre in the morning with Etna behind it and the Ionian below, down to Isola Bella for a swim, then the hill villages of Savoca and Castelmola as the light goes.
Plan day two →
Day 3
Baroque Ortigia
South to Syracuse: the Greek theatre and stone quarries, then Ortigia island for a boat into the sea caves and a long lunch. Noto’s honey-stone Baroque on the way back if the light holds.
Plan day three →
Newest on the island.
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