Sicily Road Trip: Mini Guide
Caleb and I LOVED road-tripping across Sicily! The food is SO good and unique, there is SO much history and culture, and the scenery is just stunning!
Oh, and it’s Italy’s largest wine region. What more could you ask for?
OVERVIEW
We think the best way to experience Sicily is to rent a car (it’s cheap!) and drive around, staying in multiple cities. We decided to mostly stick to the coast, as there are so many beautiful cities and it makes driving easy
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PRO TIP: Many people just visit a few of the most popular cities (thanks White Lotus) but we highly recommend you visit some smaller cities, like we have on this list to get an authentic taste of Sicily!
Below, you’ll find CLOSE to our itinerary with where we stayed in each city (they have parking options, even if just street)! with the hotel accommodation, that would have been our second/third pick for variety. We’ve picked options that balance comfort with affordability, so you can save your euros for all the delicious food & wine that Sicily has to offer!
*Our actual itinerary was a bit random due to needing to do some things for Youtube, so we tweaked it to make sense for you if you’re not filming *
ITINERARY
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DAY 1: Land in Catania, pick up your rental car, and immediately leave (you’ll come back to Catania, and this way, you can drop your car off sooner & save $.) Head to Bronte for the night. This is Italy’s most famous pistachio town, so you must eat all the pistachio things!
WHERE TO STAY:
La Casa Di Giulia OR Bosco Ciancio
TO NOTE: there are not a ton of options right in Bronte. We were really torn between both options above but went with Casa Giulia and were so happy with it – such a local and wonderful stay!
DAY 2: Drive to Taormina and stay the day and the night
WHERE TO STAY:
B&B Floridia (ours) OR Villa Greta Hotel Rooms & Suites
DAY 3: Drive to Cefalu and stay the day and the night.
WHERE TO STAY:
B&B Panorama (ours) OR B&B Villa Rosa
DAY 4: Drive to Palermo. Make sure you do this cooking class one of your days. We LOVED how local and authentic it was.
NOTE: Driving in Palermo is NUTS. Be vigilant and careful! Also, we got scammed with parking. A man stands in front of the parking meter and says he is the attendant so you pay him and he gives you fake tickets. Our host told us we got scammed so we went back and confronted him and he gave us our money back.
WHERE TO STAY:
La Siciliana-di fronte la Cattedrale OR Le Cupole Design OR This AirBnB (ours)
DAY 5: Explore Palermo.
DAY 6: Explore Palermo
DAY 7: Drive to Erice and spend the night. Make sure you try the famous La Genovesi pastry at Maria Grammatico!
WHERE TO STAY:
Residence San Martino (ours) OR
Il Carmine Dimora Storica OR Bella Vista b&b
DAY 8: Drive to Trapani for lunch. Make sure to try Busiate al Pesto Trapanese and Couscous alla trapanese. You could stay for the night but we personally didn’t love the vibes here so we left and drove to Marsala so we had the full next day there for wine tasting .Make SURE to visit the salt flats (Stagnone) for sunset – it’s voted as one of the best in the world. You can see it on your way to Marsala from Trapani.
WHERE TO STAY (IN MARSALA)
Due Passi Dal Centro (we LOVED this. AMAZING breakfast on a gorgeous rooftop terrace!) OR Casa Sarina OR Controvento B&B
DAY 9: Wine tasting! We visited 3 wineries (book in advance) Alagna Vini (BEST experience, it’s a food and wine buffet) Cantine Florio (traditional and pretentious TBH) and Baglio Diar (GREAT but they make grape wine, no Marsala!)
DAY 10: Drive to the Turkish steps in the morning. (You can’t walk on them, it’s just a stop for a photo) Then explore the Valley of temples for the afternoon. Drive to Caltagirone for the evening and the night. This is a long day so start early. You could stay in Agrigento but it’s not that great in our opinion, so we decided to go to Caltigirone
WHERE TO STAY:
Casale Di Benedetto (LOVED. It’s a gorgeous country house just outside city center.) Palazzo Aprile OR B&B iMori
DAY 11: Explore Caltagirone. It’s a beautiful, under-the-radar town known for ceramics.
DAY 12: Drive to Ragusa and stay the night. This was our FAVORITE city. It’s SO beautiful and we wished we had a little more time here, just as an FYI if you are planning.
WHERE TO STAY:
Pura Vida Barocca OR Risveglio Ibleo OR Ragusa exclusive flat with terrace & BBQ (ours and we loved this authentic stay and terrace!)
DAY 13: Drive to Modica and stay the night. Make sure to visit Sabadi – Cioccolato di modica for lots of free tastings of the famous Modica chocolate.
WHERE TO STAY:
Mimma holiday house (VIEWS!) OR Casa Sipione Papa OR Palazzo II Cavaliere B&B De Charme (ours and LOVED. AWESOME location and a gorgeous historical building where the family still lives!)
OPTIONAL DAY: We spent one day at Masseria Ciancio, a GORGEOUS farm stay in the middle of olive/carob trees as we needed a break. They have a gorgeous pool, amazing homemade liqueurs (that they make into spritzes by the pool!), and a DELISH, fresh breakfast. They will also make you a fresh-from-the-farm dinner if you let them know in advance. we LOVED this stay. Relaxing and romantic!
DAY 14: Get an early start and drive to the cute fishing village, Marzamemi for the morning (if it is off season, skip this – the town is dead) for the morning then Noto in the afternoon and head to Syracuse for the night. You COULD stay in Noto but we thought it was easy to do in just a couple hours. But, if you want to go to all the churches and stuff, you should probably stay. Make sure to ride the baroque train! It’s super fun and only 5 Euro a person!
WHERE TO STAY IN SYRACUSE:
Kyanos Residence OR Casa 68 Ortigia OR Domus Astra (ours – small but super cute apartment just 20 mins walk to city center!)
DAY 15: Explore Syracuse. We LOVED it here. Nice beach town but also a big city.
DAY 16: Drive to Catania and stay the night
WHERE TO STAY:
Diletta Oasi OR Terra dell’Etna or Midani Home (ours. Simple but spacious in a good location and laundry!)
DAY 17: Explore Catania or leave! If you have today, we loved doing this wine tour!
NOTES: We are covering a lot of cities here because we wanted to see as many as possible. You could cut some out and spend longer in some cities if you please. This is typically why we don’t book hotels in advance, so it gives us the flexibility to stay longer in some cities if we fall in love with them!
If you have 3 weeks this itinerary would give you a couple flexible days to stay in some cities longer!
What to Eat:
CLICK HERE for our ultimate Google Map of all the spots we ate at. If we didn’t LOVE it, we didn’t put it on the map…and you know we spend lots of time doing food research!
What to Do:
We’ve linked some of our favorite tours along with some of the must-see spots. Don’t miss any of the spots we outlined in the itinerary either!
- This cooking class in Palermo was one of the best we’ve ever done!
- If you don’t have time in Palermo, this cooking class in Taormina is a great option too!
- This wine tasting was an absolute highlight of our whole trip! So much good food and wine.
- Palermo is known for street food and this tour is the best way to try it all – we wish we did this instead of doing it on our own!
- Go 4x4ing up Mount Etna for a one-in-a-lifetime experience
- Try some amazing Sicilian food with this walking food tour in Taormina
- MUST visit Baglio Ingardia for olive oil and wine tasting. One of our top 10 experiences!
Our Best Travel Resources:
Here are some of our best overall travel resources to make your trip better/easier! These apply to anywhere you visit in the world:
- Our ultimate Europe travel guide with EVERYTHING you need to know.
- Check out our master list of all the best activities we’ve done across the world.
- Check out our master list of hotels we’ve stayed at across the world!
- We save the most money on flights using this service.
- These are all the traveling essentials that we use and recommend!
- Our favorite platform to find tours – from bucket list items to cheaper admission to popular attractions.
- We score the cheapest deals on rental cars with this site.
- How we get free service in all the countries we travel to without wifi.
- Or, our favorite SIM card company if you don’t want to change phone service carriers.
- We love this pass for getting into swanky airport lounges for free. (CCC readers get 20-30% off yearly membership!)
If you use any of our tips, please tag us on Instagram @culturecravingcouple!
We love seeing you travel!
