A fascinating world, with incredible landscapes, cozy towns climbing the mountain, a water of an unreal blue, constantly crossed by yachts, and an Italian elegance, without excesses but with a unique style.
We also arrived in Amalfi in 2023, we wanted for a long time and look we managed to organize ourselves. I would like to share with you this meticulous planning that I prepare for each trip, I am sure it will be helpful to you.
Where Is the Amalfi Coast and Why Is It So Fascinating?
The Amalfi Coast is located in the south of Italy, in the Campania region, 50 km from Naples and about 270 km south of Rome. More precisely, it is the stretch of coast that extends between Sorrento and Salerno, with elegant towns like Positano, Amalfi, and Ravello.
I am sure the fascination started with the Hollywood stars who vacationed here in the 60s. We are talking about the golden years of Hollywood, which we recently saw in Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" (2019), with a glamorous lifestyle, oversized sunglasses, chic swimsuits, and parties every day. How could we not want at least a piece of this luxurious life? Well, on the Amalfi Coast, even if you travel low-cost as we did, you still feel a bit of the charm!
How to Get to Amalfi
The nearest airport is in Naples, and you should spend a few extra days in the area to visit Naples, as well as Pompeii and Vesuvius. From the airport, you can take a private transfer to the Amalfi Coast if you prefer; you can book it through GetYourGuide from home. It is an excellent platform that guarantees the best price, offers 24/7 customer service, and has plenty of reviews for each activity.
But if the flights to Naples are too expensive, you can do as we did: we flew to Rome and rented a car directly from there since we planned to rent a car anyway. There are cheaper flights to Rome, and all the low-cost airlines arrive there from several cities. The only inconvenience is an additional drive from Rome to Naples of about 2.5 to 3 hours and a highway toll of about €15 for a one-way trip.
To get from Naples to the Amalfi Coast by public transport you have to take the Circumvesuviana train, which runs every half hour between Naples and Sorrento, and also stops at Pompeii or Herculaneum. From Sorrento you have to go further with SITA buses.
Accommodation on the Amalfi Coast – the Best Place to Set Up Your Base
Let's get down to serious organizational stuff: where are you staying on the Amalfi Coast? Many recommend setting up your base in Sorrento, but I disagree. Sorrento is a big city, it's beautiful and worth visiting, but the Amalfi Coast means small towns, winding roads and dreamy views.
As an idea, it takes about 40 minutes from Sorrento to Positano, even if it is only 18 km, the road is difficult to cover, and it takes an hour and 15 minutes to reach Amalfi. So day trips would take forever with this go – come.
I recommend you to stay right on the coast, be there among the lemon groves and wake up with the sea and the coast in front of you!
The Amalfi Coast is very expensive, from accommodation to food, souvenirs, everything. But if you go up the mountain a bit, in the villages that are not so accessible, that is, they are not down on the coast, the prices drop dramatically and the beauty of the landscape increases considerably, because you are only at a height and the panorama is more spectacular!
Accommodation in Agerola at Valle degli Dei
We discovered a wonderful accommodation in Agerola, a village high on the mountain above Praiano, which you reach after half an hour's drive from the small town of Amalfi. It's called Valle degli Dei, it costs about €75 per night with breakfast included (that's how much we paid in 2023) and it's a family business, with accommodation run by Vincenzo and his sister.
The family also has a restaurant in Agerola, which I also recommend as it has good food and more than decent prices for the Amalfi Coast. The restaurant is Pizzeria & Gastronomia Mascolo Agerola (here on google maps), and we had dinner here every night. They even took care of us, once we ordered a seafood platter and they prepared it for us on a pizza top, even though it wasn't on the menu, and after each meal they offered us limoncello made by them.
You really feel like you are welcomed into the bosom of a family, everyone is extremely kind and open to help you with any information. Especially Vincenzo, with whom we also met at the restaurant in the evening but also at breakfast in the morning, helped us organize our route on the Sentiero degli Dei (which starts right from Agerola, that was very useful), and gave various useful tips.
However, you need a car to get here. There are buses from Amalfi to Agerola with a frequency of one per hour, but they stop in the center of town and it is 3 km to this accommodation. However, if you find accommodation closer to the station, it is possible to stay in Agerola without a car.
Itinerary proposal
You need about four days on the Amalfi Coast to see the highlights. But of course you can devote more time to it, especially if you also want to go to the beach, and there are many small towns on the coast that we didn't get to see.
In addition, I would recommend that you reserve an extra day for Vesuvius, Pompeii, but also Herculaneum (we spontaneously decided to go here and we really liked it). And another day or possibly two for Naples. In total 6-7 unforgettable days in the area! I will even recommend the itinerary we followed, it was very ok and we didn't feel rushed (apart from a couple of times when we got off the ferry and ran to get tickets and catch the bus, because otherwise we had to wait an hour).
- Day 1-2 – Naples (we only stayed one day in Naples)
- Day 3 – Vesuvius, Pompeii, Herculaneum
- Day 4 – Ravello, Amalfi, Atrani
- Day 5 – Sentiero degli Dei, Positano
- Day 6 – Capri
- Day 7 – Grotta dello Smeraldo, Fiordo di Furore, other coastal towns, Sorrento
Other towns on the coast that I've heard good things about and you could include in your itinerary if you have time are Minori, Maiori, Cetara or Vietri sul Mare.
For the first 3 days I recommend accommodation in Naples, and for the coast, as I mentioned above, I would recommend accommodation in a small town high on the mountain, for unforgettable views at breakfast!
In fact, on the day you visit Vesuvius and Pompeii you can go ahead to the coast and stay there, you don't have to go back to Naples. Also, you can make the trip to Capri from Naples, not necessarily from the coast.
How Much Does a Vacation on the Amalfi Coast Cost?
How much did the whole Amalfi adventure cost us? Well, not a fortune, but not a little. €1185 for two people, 5 nights and 6 days. But I mention that we were together with our finnies, so all the expenses for the car (rental, tolls, fuel, parking) were divided by two.
Vacation Costs Amalfi - Total €1,444
- Accommodation 5 Nights: €375
- Road Tolls: €41
- Fuel: €72
- Food: €238
- Attractions: €191
- Parking: €51
- Souvenirs: €66
- Transport: €410
Because we stayed in Agerola, a small town high on the mountain, more difficult to reach than the charming (and incredibly expensive) towns on the coast, in the sense that you have to go up a winding road for about 30 minutes either by car or by the bus, everything was very cheap there.
From the accommodation, where I paid 75€ per night, to the food, where I paid respectively 19-21-26€ for both of us in the 3 evenings I had dinner there. As I mentioned before, the family that owned the accommodation also had a restaurant in Agerola, Pizzeria & Gastronomia Mascolo Agerola, and I only ate at their place.
We had provided breakfast at the accommodation, and for lunch every day we had bread rolls and sausages from a small shop in Agerola, in their central square, which we came across by chance on the first day, and after that we I only went there. Two nice old ladies served us the best Italian delicacies, prosciutto crudo, bresaola, mortadella, all freshly cut. So with €8-9 a day for both of us we prepared some delicious sandwiches for lunch and we didn't have to spend money on food in Capri or Positano.
Besides these of course we enjoyed gelato (we even found limoncello flavored!), cannolli, sfogliatelle in Naples, and some really good lemon cakes in Amalfi.
Car expenses – €104
But we paid this amount because we divided the total costs by two. I will detail the full costs of the rental car a little further.
I paid 42€ tolls, most of which was for the Rome-Naples motorway, as I flew to Rome and rented the car from there, about 30€ round trip in total. For the rest, we kept going on the Naples-Pompeii highway, the day we went to Pompeii - Vesuvius and returned to Naples, and then when we returned from the Amalfi Coast to Naples, on departure. On these occasions I paid €2.10 each time I exited the motorway.
For fuel I paid a total of €104, I filled up three times. But if you're only going to Naples - the Amalfi Coast shouldn't cost you that much, it cost us the way to Rome too.
The first time we went full throttle, we stopped, we don't even know why, at a tiny gas station, actually a roadside station, in Naples. Only later did I realize that they were some dubious people, who knew what they would do if I didn't pay them, so I gave them what they asked for, €40, and quickly left there. I then calculated that I paid about €1.9 per liter of petrol, enormous. In the rest, I fed with 1.5 - 1.7€.
I only spent 62€ for parking. But even so I came out well. I paid the most in Naples, because we didn't have parking at the accommodation and we had to leave the car at a cheaper parking lot near the train station, but I still paid about 20€ there in two days.
I also paid 12€ for parking in Pompeii, it was 3€ per hour, but apparently we entered in the fourth hour, although I think we stayed for two hours or so, we arrived late around 6. In Ravello again we paid 11€ , it was about 5€ an hour, then in Herculaneum 4€, in Amalfi 5€ (it was 5€ per hour, I only paid on the first day when I arrived, because otherwise I left the car upstairs in Agerola) and 4€ in Sorrento.
I have given you enough tips to organize your holiday on the Amalfi Coast, now run and get your plane tickets! And come back here, because I have written many articles about the wonders you can see there!
