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Sicily

Earth > Europe > Southern Europe > Italy > Sicily

Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and an autonomous region of Italy.

People in Sicily are passionate and friendly. Really friendly! They can invite you on a café, at home and they might be very touchy because of their character and warmness. Sicily is not very big and there aren't huge distances, so it is easy to find a spot for hitchhiking.There are 3 highways in Sicily, along the northern coast from Messina to Palermo, along half of eastern coast from Messina to Catania and crossing the island in the middle from Catania to Palermo. Waiting time as always depends on lots of factors such as your spot, attitude, panel etc, can be from 5 minutes upto several hours if you don't understand you have to change place. Hitch-hiking in Sicily might be hard, but it is more than possible and rewarding. It usually works well on small national roads, but, as usual, it is not easy to hitch out from a bigger city.

Contents

Hitchhiking In

It is possible to hitchhike onto the island (it means you don't need to buy a ferry ticket), if you hitchhike anywhere before or inside the harbour in Villa San Giovanni (Artti was 200km away) with a sign Sicily. The tickets for the ferry are paid by vehicles, that means it doesn't change anything 1 or 5 people inside the car (exactly as for the british channel tunnel); so that also standing at the harbour or asking people it's a very easy option to get inside a car and enter for free. In any case don't worry, also on foot, the ferry is free..lots of locals just walk on it every day without any ticket and in case you really want to buy a ticket, it should cost from 1 to 2.40 euro...The same should be for ferries from Reggio Calabria.

Ferries

Other options includes ferries from Roma (Civitavecchia), Napoli or Cagliari (Sardinia) in Italy or Tunis in Tunisia and Malta; all of them to/from Palermo, some (Tunis and Cagliari) also to/from Trapani or Porto Empedocle (Malta, Lampedusa, Linos). Hitchhiking these ferries it's almost impossible since most of containers are left at the harbour and picked by other trucks at the destination, so there is almost no truck entering. You can try blackriding them, without a ticket, entering sneaking inside a van, caravan or car; be careful and aware that is illegal.

Flights

Low cost companies fly to Palermo, Catania, Comiso and Trapani.

Cities

Sleep

Sleeping in Sicily won't be a problem for a hitchhikers. Further than hospitality is great, warm and widespread, Sicily is probably the region in Europe with the highest number of illegal/incompleted buildings under costructions which can be squatted easily and safely. From freshly started buildings, to old little houses in cities old town, to villas, any kind of building can be abandoned or under construction, confiscated or simply free to access..Fede found the most rainy and worse 2 weeks in February and March (2014) and never set up his tent, always finding a nice roof to lay down his mat.

Public Transport

It is possible to take buses without a ticket and have long rides out in most of the cities, not in Enna.

Other Useful Info

Traffic in Sicily might be crazy, not as crazy as Turkey, Iran, or Middle East though. Palermo and Napoli are actually the most challenging cities for car drivers in Italy..

Hitching in Sicily can be pretty slow. It took Ecasalicchio 24 hours to do about 150km one time. There aren't many service stations on the central autostrada. It's easy to find yourself having to hitch illegally on the autostrada; though is definitely better to avoid it. Entrances roundabouts and national roads are so much better options, also because lots of people prefer avoid taking motorways.