Getting Around Sicily: Train, Bus, Rental Car, or Driver

Sicily divides cleanly in two for a visitor. The east coast, from Messina through Taormina and Catania down to Syracuse, is served by trains and buses well enough that a trip can be done without a car. The interior, the Hyblaean hills, the wine country on Etna and most of the small towns are not, and there a car or a driver is the difference between seeing them and reading about them.

Is Sicily doable without a car?

Yes, if your trip follows the coast and you accept two or three fixed bases instead of a moving itinerary. A week of Taormina, Etna by organized excursion, Catania and Syracuse works entirely on public transport, and our eastern Sicily itinerary is built so that most of it can be done that way.

No, if you want the countryside. The farms, the villages, the gorges and the small wineries are all reached by roads with two buses a day, timed for schoolchildren, and none on Sunday.

The trains

The line that matters runs along the east coast: Messina to Catania to Syracuse. Regional trains are cheap, they follow the sea for long stretches, and they connect the places most visitors want. Catania's airport has its own station, and there are hourly regional trains from it toward Taormina.

Three things to know.

The line is being rebuilt. The doubling of the Messina to Catania stretch is under way and is not expected to be finished before the end of the decade. More immediately, Rete Ferroviaria Italiana has scheduled infrastructure work between Bicocca, just south of Catania, and Syracuse from October 1, 2026 to January 31, 2027, with changes to services during that period. If you are traveling this winter, check your connection rather than assuming the timetable you found in the summer.

Stations are not always in the town. Taormina-Giardini station is on the coast, a long way below the town, with a bus up. Several other towns in this part of Sicily are the same, and Ragusa and the interior are served slowly and rarely.

Away from the east coast, the network thins out. The Palermo side is a different world, and crossing the middle of the island by train takes most of a day.

The buses

Buses are the real backbone of Sicilian public transport, and visitors underuse them because they are harder to research than trains. Intercity coaches connect Catania with Taormina, Syracuse, Ragusa, Agrigento and Palermo, often faster and more frequently than the train, and most of them start from or pass the airport. The direct airport bus to Taormina, for example, is scheduled at about 85 minutes and runs every 15 to 30 minutes for much of the day in season, as our guide from Catania airport to Taormina sets out in detail.

The drawback is information. Timetables live on each operator's own site, in Italian, and they change between summer and winter. Check the date you are traveling, not a generic timetable, and be careful with Sundays and holidays.

Is it a good idea to rent a car in Sicily?

For the countryside, yes. For a trip that stays in the cities, no: you will pay to park it and then walk everywhere anyway.

What American drivers should know:

• Get an International Driving Permit before you leave. The US Embassy in Italy advises Americans who plan to drive to carry one alongside their license.
• ZTL zones. The historic centers of Taormina, Syracuse's Ortigia, Catania and most towns are limited traffic zones, watched by cameras that photograph plates. The fine arrives at your home address months later, forwarded by the rental company with a fee on top. If your lodging is inside a zone, ask them to register your plate before you drive in, and confirm what the registration does and does not allow.
• Tolls. The A18 along the east coast is a toll road with gates; the A19 across the island toward Palermo is free. Keep coins or a card handy.
• Parking. Blue lines mean paid parking, white lines free, yellow reserved. In Taormina and Ortigia, use the parking structures at the edge and walk in.
• The driving itself is assertive rather than dangerous, and the roads are good on the main routes and narrow on the country ones. Smaller car, better trip.
• Fuel. Many stations are unattended in the evening and on Sundays, and the machines can refuse foreign cards, so do not run the tank down on a Sunday in the hills.

Is Uber a thing in Sicily?

Barely. Uber operates in Palermo and Catania, but only as Uber Black, its premium service with licensed professional drivers, along with Uber Van. There is no UberX in Sicily, and outside those two cities there is nothing at all. The app also shows licensed taxis in the area.

For everything else there are taxis, which in Sicily wait at ranks and at stations rather than cruising for fares, and private hire drivers, known locally as NCC, who are booked in advance and quote a fixed price for a route. For airport transfers and for a day in the countryside with several stops, a driver costs less than most Americans expect and removes the ZTL problem entirely.

What about the ferries

Sicily is connected to the mainland at the strait of Messina, where ferries carry trains, cars and foot passengers across from Villa San Giovanni in Calabria in about twenty to thirty minutes. Trains from Rome and Naples are loaded onto the ferry, which is a strange and pleasant experience, and also a slow one.

In the season there are boats from the east coast to the Aeolian islands, from Milazzo and from Messina, which is the usual way of adding Lipari or Stromboli to a Sicilian trip.

What to be careful of

Nothing that is specific to Sicily. Watch your bag on busy buses and in markets in Catania and Palermo, as in any European city, park in lit places, and do not leave anything visible in a parked car. Our guide on whether Sicily is safe goes through what the numbers actually say, including the State Department's current advisory level for Italy.

The genuine risks are more boring: a fine from a traffic zone you did not notice, a bus that does not run on a Sunday, and a road up Etna closed by weather.

What we do on our journeys

All the transport inside our Sicilian journeys is arranged and accompanied: airport transfers, the drive up Etna, the day in the Hyblaean countryside and the run to Syracuse, with a small group and no logistics for the guests. That is most of what a driver is for, and it is why the Amber and Jasmine routes can spend their days in places a rental car would make hard work.

If you are building your own trip and want to know honestly which parts need a car, ask us in Design your trip.