Day trip to Pompeii and Herculaneum from Naples

Please don't spend on a tour. Both sites are trivial effort on the Circumvesuviana.

Circumvesuviana train goes directly between Naples Centrale and stations at Pompeii Scavi and Herculaneum. Walk from station to the excavations in under 15 minutes each place (follow the crowd)

So easy on your own. For Herculaneum, just walk downhill on the main street from the train station, about 10 minutes, to the site. The entrance to Pompeii is almost right across the street from the station. I rented the audio guide in Herculaneum. In Pompeii, there were free booklets at the entrance that were very good. It had a photo of each stop on the audio tour with a description, probably the same as the audio guide. I just used that and Rick's free audio guide. There were similar booklets at Herculaneum but I didn't see them until I was on the way out and there weren't any in English (it was off-season so they'd probably run out of them.).

Many people find it worthwhile to hire one of the licensed guides at the entrance for a 2-3 hour tour - not break-the-bank expensive. If you have the time, you may want to visit each on a different day. The train doesn't run frequently and it not always on time. Be sure to allow a couple hours for the National Archaeology Museum in Naples, where most of the artwork from the excavations is housed (much of what you see on-site are copies).

I've never had a problem in Italy and the only Italian I know are a couple of polite phrases.