Kefalonia or Sicily

[newdiamondring]

Please give me your thoughts on which to head to for Summer '25. One adult and two 13 year olds.

Prefer to be independent, not package

Like a mix of culture beaches activity and lazing

Hotels or Airbnb recommendations welcome.

Thanks.

@newdiamondring It will be awful
in the high summer! Actually Sicily and Kefalonia are entirely different. If you don’t want drive you will need to plan local busses. The trains really don’t go where you might want to! Sicily has way more to offer than Kefalokia! It’s equivalent to the Greece mainland really.

We have been with teens to Kefalonia in August. We stayed in a Greek taverna in Fiskado for 4 days and then a villa with pool near Agrostolion for 7 nights. We had a hire car for the entire time which I would recommend and had no problems with driving. It was hot so we spent most of our time hiring boats, swimming in the sea and the villa's pool. The kids loved it but we didn't do anything cultural...too hot for too much wondering around. They preferred it to Crete as the beaches we went to were white pebbles so the water is so clear and blue.
We are going to Sicily this year !

I think zakynthos is nicer than kefalonia.

The quiet parts, not the party parts. So beautiful

Sicily. I loved Palermo, there's loads to see. There are good roads all round the island.

We loved Sicily. Loads to see and do, and the culture is so easy to absorb. Street food and eating out was fun and mostly inexpensive.
We went in October, and the weather was beautiful. We stayed in various places around the island, starting at Palermo, then Agrigento, Ragusa area, Ortigia and Taormina. There are long sandy beaches on the south of the island (and probably other places). We hired a car after Palermo, and driving was no problem at all. Just needed to watch out for the restricted parking zones in town centres (ZTLs).
The only place we didn't like so much was Taormina, because although it's very pretty, it was too busy and a total tourist trap (just our opinion though).

I've been to both and written blog posts about our independent travel in both places. Hope it helps

affordacool.wordpress.com/2022/07/27/sicily/

affordacool.wordpress.com/2021/07/26/kefalonia/

My step daughter has worked in Fiskardo on Kefalonia the last two summers, she enjoyed it, very beautiful and lots of nice mountain walks but super hot in the summer, she spent nearly all day every day in the water so no issue for her (teaching scuba diving). She would also say not a lot to do culturally and very expensive. October weather was lovely apparently

Sicily for sure, went 20 years ago to Palermo and then Cefalu which is beautiful, walled town, loads of culture, great beaches, boat trips, etc. plus the food! Would highly recommend.