Advice on car and getting around Aeolian Islands
 

My husband and I are planning a trip this summer and will be heading to Lipari or Salina for 3 nights. We had planned to rent a car in Catania where we fly in, stay in Taormina for a cpl days and then ferry over to the islands.
Here are my questions:
1) Do we need a car on the islands? Should we plan to bring the rental car or turn it in and rent another after we're back?
2) What is the best way to get around to see the islands? I thought it would be easy & inexpensive to hop around and maybe for instance stay in Salina and head to Lipari for dinner, but when researching I just see the hydrofoil and it seems very expensive just from Lipari to Salina per person. Are there other ways that are recommended? Or should we just plan to say on the island we choose and maybe visit another island for one of the days...or plan to spend a ton on the ferries to see the more of the islands?
3) From what we can see we like the accommodations best on Salina but its expensive to island hop and there's less to do on Salina should we rethink to Lipari?

Thanks in advance!

If there is <b>any</b> chance that you will have jet lag, then I would strongly encourage you to take public transportation for your first night or two. Although many people are not aware of it, there is mounting evidence that driving with jet lag is just as dangerous -- to yourself and others -- as driving drunk, and <b>nothing</b> you can do will prevent the microsleeps (which you might not even notice) that are the apparent culprit. And please note – microsleeps aren’t dependent on getting sleep or not, they result from shifting your waking / sleeping cycle away from the one to which you are accustomed. Seriously -- NOT a good idea, no matter your other constraints and no matter your prior experience!

BUT you're in luck -- a car is not likely to be of much use for a single-day stay in Taormina (isn’t that your current plan?), and having a car while there could complicate your lives as you will need to find parking and driving in the area is not particularly easy. You can get to and from Taormina without a car and can use rome2rio.com to identify your options.

Sorry, I can’t answer your questions about the Aeolians.

Thanks for your concern KJA, I am thinking instead we might take a train to Taormina and then to the ferry dock especially if we don't need a car for any of those places :)

Good plan! You will actually take the train to Giardini Naxos, below Taormina, and then a taxi to Taormina itself.

JES.

I traveled from Taormina to Messina and used a private driver for this leg. I needed to be at the villa at a certain time to meet the lady with the key and there wasn't a hydrofoil early enough.

My driver was absolutely delightful, spoke excellent English and had taught skiing in Austria for many years. We got into a big discussion about our love for skiing and travel. Anyway I booked thru New Life Travel and was very pleased with their prompt arrival and service. Not something I would normally do, but in this case it was well worth the 90E.

I spent 3 days in Salina a couple of years ago.

I thought about a car there but it's expensive to take the car on the ferry or your other option would be to park it in Milazzo.

The thing is, the train or bus option from Taormina to Milazzo aren't great. Bus takes a long time and you have to switch in Messina. Train is better but the train station in Lipari is some distance away from the dock.

So I skipped the car for Salina but you can definitely use a car. I did take a long walk, with great views of Lipari going from Santa Marina down towards Lingua.

Then I took a bus to Malfa. Had some cloudy/rainy weather there so I didn't cover the island as much as I would have liked to, so Rinella for instance or in the middle of the island, there is a hike you can do to the highest point.

As for getting around, I had thought of Panarea in the morning and then to Lipari in the afternoon. Again, because of weather, I didn't go to Panarea but did go to Lipari for a couple of hours.

I think the way the ferry schedule worked out, you could go to Panarea for a couple of hours in the morning and then return to Salina and then take another ferry to Lipari or go from Panarea to Lipari and then back to Salina.

So best advice I can give about Salina is to pack some insect repellent. Some very loud and scary-sounding mosquitoes at night when you turn the light off. I was getting bitten and it was buzzing around my face. The hotel provided one of these plug-in mosquito traps with tablets which helped but I would be wary of the chemicals.

During the day, when you went out, if you sat at an outdoor table, these insects which looked like house flies but larger would swarm on your legs and arms, causing irritation. So I wish I had packed repellent.

Maybe it was the time of the year, which was late September when there was a lot of rain in the area (it was the year of the mudslides in Taormina, leading to the closure of the funicular).

Salina is definitely a return in time. It doesn't have the tourist infrastructure of Lipari but it definitely has its charms for a couple of days.

Oh, correction. I had a driver from Taormina to Milazzo.

During my visit there were no insects at all. I can say this with total confidence because if there is one mosquito (zanzari, if I remember correctly) within a 100 miles, it will find me. Early May.