Sicily is bigger than your week.
Which Etna tour actually reaches the crater rim. Whether the Aeolian boat is worth the early start. What a Palermo street-food walk really costs. Every tour in Sicily, reviewed and ranked.
Mount Etna: pick the tour that gets you high enough.
All Mount Etna tours →
Above the 2,900-metre line you go with an authorised alpine guide, not on your own — so the tour you book decides how far up the mountain you actually get. These three carry the most travellers; the full list splits the rest by how you want to climb.
Cable car, 4×4, then the crater rim on foot
The Sapienza side in stages: cable car to the ski station, a 4×4 across the ash, then an authorised guide for the last climb to the summit craters.
Jeep to the lava flows and into a lava tube
Off the tarmac onto the 2002 flows, then down into a lava tube that stays cold in August. The sunset departures are the ones people rebook.
Vineyards on the black slopes, lunch included
Etna is a wine appellation as well as a volcano. Old vines on terraced lava, nerello mascalese in the glass, and a lunch that takes as long as it should.
You cannot do Sicily from one hotel.
The island is 250 kilometres across and the good days start early, so where you sleep decides what you see. Catania and Taormina own the volcano and the east coast. Palermo runs the west, the markets and the Norman churches. Syracuse and the Baroque towns are their own trip, and Trapani faces the islands. Most first visits split the week between two bases; almost nobody regrets it.
Every tour on the island →
The tours Sicily books first.
Every review →Ranked by how many travellers have actually been and rated them. Start at the top and work down — the order is theirs, not ours.
1
Mount Etna Morning or Sunset Day Trip with Tasting
Small-group Mount Etna day trip from Catania with hotel pickup, guided crater walk near 2,000m, lava cave visit, and cantucci wine tasting.
From · $70
Read our review →
2
Mount Etna: 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
Mount Etna: Trek to 3000m with cable car and jeep
from $62
What people actually fly to Sicily for.
The volcano, the temples, the water, the food and the film villages. The handful of days most Sicilian itineraries get built around, and the best way to book each.
Palermo is eaten standing up.
Ballarò and the Vucciria open early and shout. Between the stalls sit Norman gold mosaics, a Baroque opera house and the catacombs — the city stacks nine centuries into a twenty-minute walk, and feeds you the whole way round.
In Palermo, the anti-mafia walk is a history tour, not a thrill.
Guides who grew up in these neighbourhoods walk you past the courthouse, the bomb sites and the shopfronts that stopped paying, and say plainly who died to change it. Two sober hours, and among the highest-rated walks anywhere on the island.
- 1NO Mafia Walking Tourfrom $40
- 2Palermo No Mafia walking tour: discover the Anti-mafia culture in Sicilyfrom $39
- 3Anti-Mafia Heroes Evening Walking Tourfrom $39
Anti-mafia walks in Palermo: See all →
One earthquake gave Noto, Ragusa and Modica a single style.
The Val di Noto came back after 1693 as one Baroque idea in honey-coloured stone: churches you climb steps to, balconies held up by carved faces, and Modica’s chocolate still made the grainy way the Spanish brought it. Ortigia anchors the coast an hour north, and it is an island in its own right.
Sicily has three archipelagos and they are nothing like each other.
Volcanic, turquoise, or nearer Tunisia than Palermo. Pick the sea day that matches the trip you are actually having.
The Aeolians
Seven islands off the north coast, and one of them is alight most nights. Boats leave Milazzo for Lipari and Vulcano by day; the Stromboli run times itself so you are offshore when the Sciara del Fuoco starts throwing sparks after dark. Trekking on Stromboli is regulated and the permitted height moves with the volcano’s mood, so the boat is the dependable way to see it.
- 1Panarea and Stromboli Boat Trip by Night★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 1,605 reviews
- 2Stromboli: Sunset Trekking at Sciara del Fuoco★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,372 reviews
- 3Lipari and Vulcano Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 1,166 reviews
The Egadi
Favignana and Levanzo sit a short crossing off Trapani in water that goes turquoise over white limestone. The day cruises are the whole point: swim stops in Cala Rossa and Cala Azzurra, lunch aboard, back before the afternoon wind gets up. Levanzo keeps a cave of prehistoric paintings for anyone who wants a reason beyond the swimming.
- 1Cruise to Favignana and Levanzo with lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 2,286 reviews
- 2Day Cruise to Favignana & Levanzo with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 1,483 reviews
- 3Boat Tour Egadi Day discover Favignana and Levanzo from Trapani★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,183 reviews
The Pelagie
Lampedusa is nearer Tunisia than it is to Sicily, and the water shows it — the Isola dei Conigli is the beach people fly down for. Boats circle the island in a day with swim stops and lunch on board. It is a flight or a long ferry away, so treat it as a trip of its own rather than a day out from Palermo.
- 17 hours Boat trip to Lampedusa lunch, SUP and Snorkeling★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 453 reviews
- 2Lampedusa: Yacht excursion, swimming stops and typical lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 195 reviews
- 3SciatumiaDay boat tour to Lampedusa with typical lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 135 reviews
The best hour in Palermo costs less than lunch. The best day on Etna does not.
Every tour on the site, sorted by what it actually costs, with the most-reviewed pick in each band.
Street-food walks, market mornings, temple tickets and the boat that simply goes round the island.
The standard Sicilian day out: Etna with a guide, an Egadi cruise with lunch, a cooking class that feeds you properly.
Private drivers, chartered boats, and the summit days that need a guide of your own.
Taormina watches Etna from a Greek theatre.
The theatre has pointed at the volcano for well over two thousand years, which is why every photograph of it looks staged. Below the town the coast road drops to Isola Bella; above it are the hill villages where the wedding was filmed, and the bar in Savoca is still a bar.
- 1Ancient Theater Skip-the-Line Ticket & Audio Guidefrom $25
- 2Seaview Cooking Class & Taormina local flavors with Chef Mimmofrom $157
- 3Opera Performance in the Nazarena Theaterfrom $35
In a Sicilian August, plan around the heat rather than through it.
July and August run hot enough that the Valley of the Temples sells evening slots for a reason. The island’s answers are underground, indoors or in the water: catacombs and cathedrals hold their cool, a cooking class is air-conditioned by definition, and a boat with swim stops turns the worst hours of the day into the best ones.
The Sicilian bookings that will not wait until you land.
Most of Sicily can be arranged from the hotel the night before. These cannot — they run on guide quotas, short island seasons and a volcano that sets its own timetable.
- 01Mount Etna: Guided Volcano Summit Hiking Tour with Cable CarThe summit zone is guided-only and the groups are capped. Morning departures go first.
- 02Panarea and Stromboli Boat Trip by NightThe evening Stromboli boats fill through the season, and trekking permits are limited and weather-dependent.
- 03Cruise to Favignana and Levanzo with lunchThe Egadi cruises run a short season and sell out across August.
- 04Pizza and Gelato Cooking Class with Dinner and WineCooking classes run in genuinely small groups, which is exactly why they fill days rather than hours ahead.
From Palermo, the whole west is one very good day.
The Salt PansJust reviewed, somewhere in Sicily.
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