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How to Visit Pompeii and Herculaneum in One Day Without a Tour

· Updated · BootsnAll

You can see both Pompeii and Herculaneum in one day on your own, by train, without a tour. Jessica did it on a trip in October 2010 and it's still very doable, though the ticketing has changed a lot since then. Plenty of tours cover one or both sites (some add a hike on Vesuvius), but if you'd rather set your own pace, here's how to do it.

For background on each site and what not to miss, read the overviews by former Naples resident Karen Landes:

This plan assumes you're based in Naples. Sorrento and Salerno work too, but Naples is on the same train line as both sites, and it has the National Archaeological Museum, which holds the best mosaics, frescoes and statues taken from Pompeii and Herculaneum. See the museum the day after, when you know what you're looking at.

How to Do a DIY Tour of Pompeii and Herculaneum

The Plan in Brief

  • Morning: early train from Naples to Pompei Scavi, about 3 to 4 hours in Pompeii.
  • Lunch near Pompeii, away from the entrance.
  • Afternoon: train back toward Naples, stopping at Ercolano Scavi, about 2 hours in Herculaneum.
  • Evening: train back to Naples.

Why Pompeii First

You can do the sites in either order, but Pompeii is so much bigger that it makes sense to start there.

  • Pompeii has almost no shade. In warm weather you want to walk it in the morning, not the afternoon.
  • Your feet get a rest at lunch, and Herculaneum is small enough that tired legs can handle it.
  • Herculaneum is on the way back to Naples, so you're heading home when you finish.

The catch is that the tour groups also arrive in the morning, so the main entrance can be busy at opening. Pompeii is big enough that the crowds thin out within minutes if you don't follow the standard route.

One timing warning: Herculaneum can close earlier than Pompeii, and last entry comes well before closing time. Check its hours for your date, and in the short winter days (Pompeii's last entry is 15:30 from mid-October to mid-March) think about swapping the order or giving each site its own day.

Buy Your Tickets Ahead

Pompeii tickets have carried the visitor's name since November 2024, entry is by time slot, and the site admits at most 20,000 people a day. Book at pompeii.vivaticket.it, the official seller, and bring ID that matches the ticket. Prices in 2026:

  • Pompeii only: about 20 euros. This is the one you need for this plan.
  • Pompeii plus the suburban villas and Boscoreale, with a shuttle: about 25 euros.
  • A 3-day pass for Pompeii and other sites in the area: about 30 euros.
  • EU citizens aged 18 to 24 pay 2 euros.

Pompeii is open 9:00 to 19:00 from mid-March to mid-October (last entry 17:30), and 9:00 to 17:00 the rest of the year (last entry 15:30). Entry is free on the first Sunday of the month, which makes those days the most crowded of all. Bags larger than about 30 x 30 x 15 cm aren't allowed. Details are on the park's official site.

Herculaneum sells its own ticket, about 16 euros in 2026. On the days the Suburban Baths are open, a combined ticket with the baths costs 20 euros. Check the Herculaneum site for hours before you go. If you're also planning museums in Naples, look at the Campania Artecard, which bundles site entries with regional transport.

How to Get to Pompeii from Naples

  • Take the Circumvesuviana, the suburban railway run by EAV, on the Naples to Sorrento line. It starts at Napoli Porta Nolana and calls one stop later at Napoli Garibaldi, which is underneath the main Napoli Centrale station. Follow the Circumvesuviana signs downstairs.
  • Get off at Pompei Scavi - Villa dei Misteri. Don't get off at the other stations with Pompei in the name; they serve the modern town.
  • Buy your ticket at the station before you board. It costs a few euros. EAV also ran the Campania Express, a tourist train with reserved seats, on this route, but it is suspended from 1 October 2026, so plan on the regular trains.
  • From the station, turn right and walk about five minutes to the Porta Marina entrance.

The Circumvesuviana is a commuter railway, not a tourist train. The carriages can be crowded and hot, and pickpockets know that visitors use it. Keep your bag in front of you and your phone in a pocket. New trains have been arriving on the line since 2024, but you may still get an old one.

Pompeii Tips

  • Allow 3 to 4 hours inside to cover the essentials, more if you want to explore the edges of the city.
  • Bring snacks. Food inside the site is limited and expensive, and hungry people make bad sightseers.
  • Leave the stroller at the hotel. The ancient streets are big uneven stones with high curbs. Jessica watched families fighting with strollers all morning. Use a child carrier instead.
  • Bring a water bottle. There are drinking fountains around the site, fed by modern pipes, where you can refill it.
  • Get a map before you go in, from the park's website or its app. Pompeii is big and signage is patchy. An audio guide, a downloaded walking tour or a licensed guide adds a lot. Split between a few people, a licensed guide hired at the entrance is good value.
  • Sun hat and sunscreen, even in spring.

How to Get a Good Lunch After Visiting Pompeii

Between the station and the entrance you run a gauntlet of restaurants, souvenir stands and people waving menus. The food there is overpriced and mediocre. You can picnic instead, or you can walk.

That's what Jessica did. She left Pompeii and headed along the main road away from the entrance, and within about 10 minutes she was out of the tourist zone and in a pizzeria and deli full of locals, eating a sandwich the size of her head for a few euros. (She'd actually walked away from modern Pompei toward Torre Annunziata.) The point stands: ten minutes on foot away from the gate gets you a better meal at local prices.

If you wander, have a proper map of the area on your phone, not just the site map, so you can find your way back to the station for the train to Herculaneum.

How to Get to Herculaneum from Pompeii

  • Take the Circumvesuviana from Pompei Scavi - Villa dei Misteri toward Napoli and get off at Ercolano Scavi.
  • Leave the station, go down the steps and walk straight downhill on the main street for about 10 minutes to the site entrance.

Herculaneum Tips

  • Herculaneum is the Latin name. The Italian is Ercolano, and just as with Pompei (the modern town, one "i") there's a modern Ercolano built around and above the excavations.
  • Allow about 2 hours. The site is small next to Pompeii, but far better preserved: upper floors, wooden beams and furniture survived under the volcanic mud.
  • At the bottom of the station steps, taxi drivers will offer rides to the ruins and to Vesuvius. Walk past them; the site is 10 minutes downhill. The walk back is uphill, but it isn't bad.
  • The no-stroller advice goes double here. Herculaneum is hillier than Pompeii, with steep ramps and cobbles.
  • Keep the water bottle. There are fountains here too.
  • Bring your own guide. There's an audio guide at the entrance, but Herculaneum doesn't have the crowd of guides for hire you find at Pompeii. Jessica got a map and booklet with her ticket; if you don't, download a map before you arrive.

How to Get from Herculaneum to Naples

  • Take the Circumvesuviana from Ercolano Scavi toward Napoli.
  • There are two Naples stops. Get off at the first, Napoli Garibaldi, for the central station, the metro and most hotels. The line ends one stop later at Porta Nolana.
  • Climb the stairs up to the main station level, and from there take the metro wherever you're staying.

Next morning, head to the National Archaeological Museum and see what the sites looked like before the excavators took the best bits indoors. More ideas are on our top 10 things to do in Naples page.

all photographs by Jessica Spiegel and may not be used without permission