10 Days Off the Beaten Path Tour of Southern Italy and Sicily

Zicasso’s travel professional crafted an unforgettable Sicily trip for our group of seven. After discussing our preferences, she designed a flawless itinerary, incorporating unique experiences that became trip highlights. Her communication was exceptional, with prompt responses to our questions before the trip and daily updates for the next day's activities, including driver and guide details, which were incredibly helpful.

We stayed at superb hotels in Taormina, Agrigento, Palermo, and Cefalù, each with stunning views and private tours. Sicily’s warm, hospitable people stood out compared to other European destinations. At our hotel on Via Leonardo da Vinci in Taormina, the staff greeted us warmly, setting a perfect tone. Other stops included Mount Etna, Erice, Castelbuono, and Savoca. All of these locations were great, but don't miss Castelbuono!

Two standout experiences were private meals with families. Near Erice, a chef and his family welcomed us into their sea-view home, preparing amazing Sicilian meals that felt like dining with family. In Palermo, another home chef and her husband created a similarly memorable evening, with lots of great conversation and stories.

Every driver was professional, friendly, and informative, while our guides — often archaeologists or historians — were engaging and knowledgeable.

Highlights included a welcome dinner in Taormina, a farm cooking class, two wine tours with lunch, a Mount Etna hike, a Valley of the Greek Temples tour, town and village tours, cheese and pastry tastings near Cefalù, and a farewell dinner. The Godfather tour in Savoca was special, with our guide introducing us to a local who played Apollonia’s mother, waving from her balcony.

Our travel professional's meticulous planning and personal touches made this trip extraordinary. Thanks to Zicasso for matching us with the tour company and we highly recommend them for a perfect Sicilian/Italian adventure!

Zicasso's travel designer did an excellent job planning a three-week trip for us in Naples, the Amalfi Coast, Capri, and several cities in Sicily. We appreciate that she met with us by Zoom on two occasions to tweak the draft itinerary to be sure it was the trip we were looking for. She listened to us and created an itinerary that met all of our needs.

The guides, drivers, and accommodations were excellent. The guides all spoke excellent English, were easy to understand, and obviously well educated and informed about the details of the history, architecture, art, and culture of each site we visited. The experience was educational, in addition to just enjoying the beauty of Southern Italy and Sicily.

We had one potentially disruptive event when a labor strike caused a cancellation of our flight from Naples to Sicily. Her team did an amazing job of creating an alternative, involving going by train to Rome, then catching a plane from Rome to Catania, and our arrival was only a few hours later than the original itinerary. Our word to describe their creative plan is "Brilliant."

Overall it was a great and memorable experience, thanks to the excellent recommendations, planning, and making all of the arrangements for our visit.

We will have no hesitation to recommend her and her team to our friends and family. Thank you for arranging for us to benefit from their incredible services.

This was a superb trip that allowed us to combine personal visits to Taormina and Syracuse with a pre-planned group meeting in Catania. Planning and communication were excellent, supported by an app that let us easily view our itinerary, complete with phone numbers for the drivers, hotels, and the tour operator contacts.

The hotels were perfect! They were wonderfully located, with impeccable service in Taormina and Syracuse. Our excursions were private and diverse, and allowed us to combine culture, foodie interests, and free time. The guides were top-notch, knowledgeable, and flexible.

We especially loved seeing the smaller towns of Sicily; Militello, Ragusa, Aci Castello, and Modica. We even arrived in one small town during their annual festival.

We had a dedicated driver for our trip who was, himself, a treasure; always on time, always ready to adjust to changes, and a delightful personality.

This was such a good experience that we have selected Zicasso's tour operator to book another Italy trip next year.

The travel company and staff were excellent. The trip coordinators accompanied us through the trip via WhatsApp. They were terrific. The service was top-notch, including the drivers, tour guides, and accommodations.

The one thing I would change about the trip is to have longer stays in each city visited. Moving to a new hotel every two nights prevented us from really enjoying each city we visited. I would also forgo Palermo and substitute a smaller city like Noto or Agrigento. But again, the itinerary was based on my interests and time. It is not an indication of the tour company's abilities. However, it may be good for the agency to suggest longer stays to other customers. Otherwise, we had a great trip and once again, I have recommended Zicasso and the tour company to family and friends.

Thank you again for a great time!

I would consider myself a seasoned traveler and generally plan all vacations myself. However, as I was traveling with a larger party/wider range of ages than I'm used to organizing, I wanted the expertise of an agency. Given the wonderful reviews of this company on Zicasso and a great conversation with the travel agent via the phone, I decided to utilize this travel company. I was sold on the travel agent's vision for a trip that was personalized, accommodating to all age groups, and catered to our foodie/adventurous spirit. However, things became a bit challenging for me shortly before I left. Items that we had previously discussed adding into the itinerary were left out with no explanation, and only some were added back in at an additional cost. The items previously discussed that were not provided I had to organize myself as the other members of my party were looking forward to them. The travel agent had also stopped responding to my direct emails but was communicating through another member of the team.

I made it very clear from the get-go that we are not a family that enjoys structured history/walking tours. We prefer to be immersed in the culture, food, and water activities. I was advised that the guides for tours would be there to follow our lead on what we wanted to see in each location and help with recommendations. This was not the case as the guides were on a very tight time frame with designated stops and regimented talking points. I had members of my group including two children who were unfortunately bored. It got to the point towards the end of the tour that it was necessary to organize my own itinerary as I usually do. This added stress to me on a vacation that was supposed to be relaxing.

The flow of the scheduled itinerary made little sense and wasted a lot of time. We got off the plane in Palermo to stay at our villa at least an hour and a half away to turn around a couple days later and go back to Palermo for a day trip. Palermo should have been scheduled the first day since we were already there, given the distance. The scheduled Palermo trip didn't even start until 11 a.m, which meant by the time we got there, we basically had time to see one street and eat lunch before needing to move on. This was very inconvenient for one family in my party as they were leaving the vacation early. They had to go all the way up to Palermo again the next day for their flight home. It was a lot of back and forth in the car for absolutely no reason. Additionally, I was assured water would be all around me when asking about the beach, but for our first villa it was nowhere close. I had two children going home who that is all they wanted to see before leaving. Asking our driver to stop at the beach on the way back from Palermo was quite the hassle (from my agency's standpoint) though my transportation company stated I was still within contracted hours.

I was assured our trips during the day would be a reasonable distance, but we did an almost 5 hour drive in one day to move from our first villa to the next with a brief stop in Agrigento to break it up. We basically wasted a day of our vacation in the car.

The location of our first villa was very inconvenient for a group relying on drivers to take us place to place. I was told if we wanted to stay in villas we would be outside the main town. While I understood this, it was not noted that I would be far from everything with poor taxi service. Once our driver dropped us off at our villa for the evening we were essentially stuck in isolation. Even our tour guides didn't understand why we were not placed in a villa with a better location.

Our boat tour (which was initially supposed to be added then turned into an additional cost) got cancelled due to weather and I have yet to receive a refund. I was told I went overtime with my driver and the extra money from the cancelled boat might be allotted to this. This is crazy given my drivers told me I was within the hours of their contract. Additionally concerning, our in-country contact initially wasn't even aware I had a boat ride scheduled.

According to my itinerary, I was supposed to have a 4x4 off-roading trip in Mount Etna, though my transportation company assured me this was not the case. The only thing I was scheduled for was a wine tasting near this location as they spoke with my agency to confirm. My family was really looking forward to a nature portion of the trip. I therefore updated my driver and guide that I was skipping the whole scheduled itinerary entirely and did my own planning.

I was impressed that I was told this travel company hand picks their experiences / guides / transportation services and has a personal connection with the island. However, many of the service professionals I encountered admitted they had not heard of this company before. While I have no complaints about those that were contracted, it does make me question the travel company's integrity and reputation.

I did reach out to our in-country contact about my grievances, but they were in my opinion unfriendly, unhelpful, and rude. I asked for the travel agent's phone number, in order to speak with him directly as I contracted with him, and this was not granted. I was only given the email contact information that I already had. I sent an email while I was away on 9/25; it has yet to be answered. I may have given this company at least 3 stars for the accommodations being very spacious and clean, our tour guides friendly, and our drivers top-notch, despite not exactly receiving the vacation I was expecting. However, the lack of customer service, professionalism and responsiveness is unacceptable to me. I would not recommend this company for your Sicily vacation. I was beyond overwhelmed and saddened with how poorly arranged this trip was and how I felt terrible that I had 11 other people spend their money and vacation time on this company. My advice: find a villa in a convenient location and hire a driver vs. rent cars. Save yourself the headache and extra expense of having to reorganize the itinerary independently anyway.

This was such a great trip. We visited a number of locations all over Sicily and Italy. We did not encounter any issues during our 18-day trip. I would recommend our Zicasso agent over and over again! She is simply amazing!