The Zingaro Nature Reserve is one of the most beautiful areas of Sicily. There are many web sites showing beaches, sea and nature of the reserve with a lot of wonderful pictures, even better than ours. This article focuses on some tips to visit the reserve at its best, a bit differend from the classical description of the routes we do on Etnatracking.

Ticket: fare is 5 Euros. There are free and discounted tickets for some categories of visitors.
Opening time: depends on the season. We suggest you check on the website http://www.riservazingaro.it/
Best season for your visit: we suggest to avoid July and August. We went in late June and the situation was still sustainable.
What to do in the reserve: from the map you can see in the reserve there are several paths (both on hillside and along the coast), 4 museums ( manna museum, woven straw museum, old farm activities museum and museum of sea activities), some cave (the most famous is the grotta dell'Uzzo). Thera are also many wonderful flowers and plants found along the reserve, including the dwarf palm, the symbol of the reserve.
However, the vast majority of visitors came on for two main reasons: take a bath in one of the beautiful beaches or cross the coastal path from side to side.
Tips for those who want to cross the reserve on the coast track: this is what we did, our chart shows length and difference in heigth going from Scopello to the last bay in San Vito lo Capo side. The path, one way, is about 8 km. The distance may vary in case you decide to visit all the beaches or not. Unfortunately there is no service by land or sea that will bring you back, so once you get to San Vito lo Capo from Scopello or vice versa you must remember to go back on foot, for a total of about 16 km. It's a nonsense to us, I would have paid to be able to go back by boat or bus, but in my own region lacks the entrepreneurial mindset. In the reserve there is no food or water, you have to bring everything with yourself. In the beaches there is very little shade so we suggest you to bring a beach umbrella with you. If you want to cross all the reserve, you can start either from Scopello or San Vito lo Capo side.
Tips for those who just want to take a bath in one of the bays with limited effort: next to the two entrances there are two bays, but those flock immediately. However, on the side of San Vito lo Capo, it has been recently tracked a path along the coast which allows you to get from the first bay (Cala Tonnarella dell'Uzzo) to the second ( Cala Torre dell'Uzzo) without facing any elevation gain. Our suggestion for those who do not want to walk too much, then, is to enter from San Vito lo Capo side and reach the second bay crossing the picnic area. The museums are small and quite interesting (don't expect English language explanations!), but definitely take a back seat compared to the beauty of the coast.

Last tip refers to Cala Marinella: many people says it is the most beautiful of the reserve, but as you can see from the photo, there is not much space. We suggest you go there only in the case of totally flat sea, otherwise there is no room even to lay on a towel.

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