Best way to see Pompeii and Herculaneum from Naples

I don't think that there is a combo pass for both Pompeii and Herculaneum. However, we were there last May and had the Campania Artecard which was helpful for us. It covers transportation on the Circumvesuviana train and other public transportation. We used the card for the train to Pompeii and other sites in Naples. If you are not spending much time in Naples, then the Artecard may not be worth it to you. We loved Naples, and found the people there very friendly and helpful.

There used to be a five-site ticket, with maybe a five day expiration. Note that no ticket permits same-day rentry and the five-day is one-time per site. No food sold inside Herculaneum.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/herculaneum-and-pompeii-questions

I am interested in the Campania Artecard, as we will be in Naples for three nights. That would allow us some transportation and the museums. Can I buy the three day pass, as we want to take the train from Naples to Pompei and Herculaneum? There will be two of us staying in Naples in May and then we will transfer over to the Amalfi coast for the next week. We already have our transportation over there and an apartment.

There are 2 cards that might interest you.

https://www.campaniartecard.it/all-cards/?lang=en

The 3 day includes transportation, with 2 sites free and a discount on others. 32€.

The 7 day gives you 5 free entry’s but no transportation. You can use them all in 3 days as you wish. 34€.

Transportation is very inexpensive in Naples, so you’ll need to do the math to see which card is the right fit for you.

OK great thanks for the ideas! We will arrive Sunday and we will be dead tired. Then will have Monday and Tuesday only because Wednesday at 11 clock a.m. we leave for the Amalfi coast, and we have transportation to that. We are provided with the rest of the transportation and are staying in Atrani

There are several flavors of ArteCard. There is a 3-day card for Naples, and there are three cards of different lengths for Campania. I opted for the 365-day Campania ArteCard (which only costs €43) since I was staying in Naples for seven nights and Salerno for four nights and didn't want to have to rush to make use of the card. There are also 3-day and 7-day Campania ArteCards. There are cheaper cards for young people; be sure you don't buy one of those for yourself unless you qualify.

The 3-day Campania card (€32) just gives you two free entries (you could choose Pompeii and Heculaneum); additional covered sights after the first two are only discounted, but I believe the discount is usually 50%, which is a better deal than you get on many such cards. This card has some transportation benefits. https://www.campaniartecard.it/campania-3-days/?lang=en

The 7-day Campania card (€34) provides five free entries and a discount to other covered sights. It would allow you to see the archaeological museum in Naples and the palace at Caserta (or other choices) in addition to Pompeii and Herculaneum. There are no transportation benefits.
https://www.campaniartecard.it/campania-7-days/?lang=en

The 365-day card (Gold Pass, €43) provides the cardholder at last one free entry to eleven covered sights in Naples plus most of the excavations outside the city; there's also a discount (usually 50%) to thirteen additional sights. There are no transportation benefits. https://www.campaniartecard.it/365-abbonamento-gold/?lang=en

You can download the bilingual brochure from those linked web pages. It lists the free and discounted sights for each card. It's possible the 7-day card would save more money than the 365-day card, because the former has a longer list of fully covered sights; it includes a bunch of the discount-only sights you'd get with the 365-day card. It would depend on exactly which sights you plan to see--are any of them fully covered on the shorter card but just discounted on the longer card?

I urge you not to try to buy an ArteCard after you arrive in Campania. I wasted a lot of time, going to two different places where I was unable to buy the card. It's possible some of the participating sights sell one or both 3-day cards, but I'm not sure about that. I was told to use the app to buy the 365-day card I wanted. That's what I did (it was easy), but you could also buy it online. You do not activate the card until you use it the first time. I assume a data connection is needed for that. It's possible that if you buy online, you can print out a document with your smart code, but I don't know for sure.

If you buy in the app, you log back in at each sight and navigate to the screen showing your smart code. That isn't really burdensome as long as the app works properly. It failed for me one day, for several hours, so I was very happy I had written down the "serial code" shown during the purchase. All I needed to do was show that serial code to the ticket person at each site, and I was readily admitted.

These cards (especially the 7-day and 365-day cards) are real money savers for folks who plan to see a lot of sights, and you don't have to run yourself ragged to make them pay off. The regular entry fees are €18 for Pompeii and €13 for Herculaneum. The archaeological museum in Naples costs €22.

The Circumvesuviana is cheap (Pompeii €6 round trip, Herculaneum €4.80 round trip), so I thought for longer stays the benefit of having more time to sightsee on the 7-day Campania card was worth more than the transportation benefits on the 3-day Campania card.

Thank you for the long post and especially the English brochure version, as I couldn’t seem to find that. It’s good to know what you want to do and we really figured out Naples but not the Amalfi coast yet. Our accommodations give us the city bus for the seven days on the Amalfi coast while we are there. I’m glad you mentioned don’t download the app and buy before we go. I suppose we could get the three day one in Naples as that is our first stop, then when we get over to Atrani/Amalfi coast we could buy the seven day if we decide we want to do more sites. I think we’ll be doing water taxis as well for some transportation. In Naples, we are staying in the historic section that was mentioned in the Rick Steves book.

Acravens advice…buy before. Activate at first site.

I urge you NOT to try to buy an ArteCard after you arrive in Campania.

The 7 day card will work for…

Day 1. Pompeii, make it as early in the A.M. as possible. Plan on 2-4 hours, bring water and sunscreen, there’s very little shade
Late afternoon pick one of the sites in Naples.

Day 2. Herculaneum and the Archeological Museum

Once you reach the Amalfi coast you have 5 days to use your last site which would be Paestum. (Ferry, Amalfi-Salerno 30 min.
Then train or bus to Paestum)

It's a fine line: Buy just before you leave if that gets you a physical printout with a smartcode on it (I haven't verified that it does) or wait till you know you've made it to Italy and buy through the app from your hotel room, where you can be relatively sure of solid Wi-Fi. Just have that code number written down in case of technical glitches. I'm really skittish about plunking down money for non-refundable sightseeing activities before I land in Europe. I had to significantly delay and reconfigure last year's trip due to cataract-related issues, and it was a relief to have only a frequent-flyer ticket to change and two hotel rooms to cancel, all at no cost. I know sometimes you really have no option--Vatican Museums, Borghese, Colosseum, etc.

My problem with the Artecard was that the app didn't always open on my phone when we were standing at the entrance to the site we were about to enter. Eventually, it did open at every site, but I still remember the hundreds (or maybe dozens) of people who got in ahead of us because my phone couldn't pull up the app.

That only happened to me once, though the problem persisted for several hours. But showing the ticket folks the code number worked fine.

I see there are lots of options. We leave on May 20 and arrive on a Sunday next day and we have until May 31 when we have to head back home. So some days are gone For Travel. We have T-Mobile and we never had problems in country with data. I think we’ll wait and get the seven day pass when we get over there or maybe both the 3 and 7. I had recent foot surgery and hopefully will be fine when we go, so it may be another reason to wait. Things do happen, and I hate to cancel our trip! Thanks everybody for all their suggestions and advice!