I would absolutely recommend this tour and doing with a guide instead of on your own. If you have your own hiking equipment (hiking shoes and clothes) and are willing to bring your own lunch, this tour is perfect. It was perfect for me (middle level), some beginners found it quite hard. It was just great and I would always do it again! We were thinking about doing it on our own in the beginning but I'm glad we didn't because we learned so much from the guide during our tour, received and wore helmets (essential due to security reasons - there are always lava pieces that can fall on your head) and we wouldn't even have found the paths because everything is just black lava. Highly recommend.

It was amazing, Luca was a great guide and I learned a lot about volcanos. We started out on 1900m and took the cablecar up to 2500m, where we started hiking up to ~3000m. The summit at 3300m cannot be climbed at the moment due to the Etna activity and code red. Luca led us through the dried lave streams and fields, some of which were still warm, and provided lots of information. He also showed us videos of recent Etna activity. The whole landsscape was mesmerising.

We had a very nice trip. Luca our guide was great. He took us as far up as possible. Due to some restlessness of the volcano we could not reach the highest point, but we were quite close. It certainly didn't make it any less spectacular and the situation of the mountain was well explained so we also understood that it would be irresponsible. In my opinion, our group went along further and more unique routes than many other tours around us. A lot was explained along the way, very interesting. The walk was quite strenuous but definitely doable!