It is a great honor to be featured in the latest issue of I Love Sicilia magazine with an article by Liliana Rosano and photos by Chiara Musumeci Fotografia (taken along with Claudio Romano and Rosella Di Brigida)!
Grazie Liliana!
Grazie Chiara!
My passion for sharing Sicily through Experience Sicily continues to reach far and wide.
Allison Scola: “BIG APPLE and CANNOLI”
By Liliana Rosano, I Love Sicilia magazine April/May 2024
Allison Scola created Experience Sicily, which offers American tourists tastes and bites of a land that lived only in the imagination of family stories. The key is ‘slow travel’ and the discovery of places and people far from the must-see.
Allison remembers with emotion—as if it were yesterday—her first time in Sicily. It was 1996 when she set foot in Palermo, arriving by train with a backpack on her shoulders and a great desire to get to know the island from where her grandfather came. It is a passion that has become a job for Allison who was born and raised in the New York area by a father of Sicilian origins. She is also a singer and musician with a former career in marketing and communications.
Experience Sicily is its boutique tour operator which deals with experiential tourism and immersive itineraries with a unique interpretation for exploring Sicily.
It seems that the island is experiencing an extraordinary period on the tourism front. What kind of season will it be?
“An extraordinary season. It would seem record-breaking. Since the television series The White Lotus aired, my phone has not stopped ringing. I am aware of the impact it has had on my business. There is a lot of interest in Sicily—from Etna to the extreme west, passing through the smaller islands.”
From stereotypes, which often die hard, to a glamorous vision of this island: what has changed?
“The public’s perception of Sicily has finally moved beyond clichés. With more people traveling to the island and the rise of social media featuring places previously unknown, this undoubtedly has communicated to the greater population the true beauty of the island.”
In your tours a certain approach is preferred, as well as different themes that do not only include archaeological must-sees.
“Experience is the key word. The approach is that of slow travel, which feeds on relationships with local people, as well as the beauty of the places. Visit a small dairy farm in the Madonie mountains, watch a theater performance at dusk, prepare a typical dish together, go hiking in the Iblean mountains: all experiences that help our guests connect to Sicily in a profound way.”
Many of your tours are related to discovering the roots of your Italian-American customers. What exactly is one looking for when he seeks to find his/her roots?
“They are searching for history, family, and a connection to the past. There are many requests for tours driven by a desire to understand their family history and the reasons for their ancestors’ migration to ‘The New World.’”
What do your customers think of Sicily after visiting it?
“They often realize that their preconceptions about Sicily, shaped by stereotypes, were far from the reality. They are surprised by the island’s beauty and the warmth and kindness of its people. Not to mention the food!”
Do some still ask to visit the places of The Godfather?
“Yes, but we tell them about the anti-mafia movement and those who fought and continue to fight against the organized crime, like my cousin, a now-retired magistrate engaged in the fight against the mafia.”
When you first set foot in Sicily in 1996 at 24-years-old what feeling did you have when you got off the train at Palermo?
“I felt at home. I began to explore the land that my grandfather had left for the United States years earlier. I was enchanted by the beauty of Monreale cathedral, of the island of Ortigia. With a backpack on my shoulders, everything was a discovery for me as I made a profound connection with my roots.”
Before then, what was Sicily for you?
“Something distant but present. It was the dialect, the Sicilian cart that we had at home, the stories of my grandfather, originally from Porticello in the province of Palermo, my cousins who came to visit us in the United States carrying a suitcase of flavors and memories. An island that I knew belonged to me, but I desired to understand how.”
Not just tours in Sicily, The New York Cannoli Crawl is also part of Experience Sicily — a first approach to the island which begins with the cannoli tour in the Big Apple. More than anywhere else, food is the favorite way to explore Sicily.
“I grew up in New York and ‘cannoli’ after ‘pizza’ was probably the second most known Italian food. But I — like many other Americans — didn’t know that the origin was Sicilian. I found out much later, and I was immediately fascinated enough to create a tour which aims to be a small taste of Sicily through the history linked to this beloved dessert.”
You live in New York but are you ready to return to your roots?
“I’m ready to embark on a new chapter in my life and complete the circle that my grandfather began years ago in Porticello.”
