Day Trip from Rome to Pompeii, Sorrento and Positano

This sounds like too much for a one day trip from Rome.

This is a tall order. Doing Pompeii on your own by train from Rome is feasible, but adding in Positano is an added complexity.

If it were me, I would use Walks of Italy and consider their Pompeii and Amalfi Tour from Rome. Takes the pressure off an ensures you get to experience what you want to in the one day. You won't get lost, have to buy tickets, find a provate driver or guide.

Way, way too much. Really cannot be gone unless you are willing to drive. Put some pins in a map so you get feel for the distances. You will not find a tour company because it beyond their capabilities. A private driver might do it but it could be close to a 1000 euro.

It looks like you can do 2 of the 3 on the Walks of Italy Tour in a 13 hour long day....this text is worth noting from the link provided: "In low season (Nov - Mar), most of the businesses in Positano town close. During this time we will visit Sorrento town instead"

Your itinerary (or a very similar one) comes up over and over on this forum and each time the answer is the same. This itinerary will rush you at Pompeii (2 hours is really short shrift) and it will be a very, very long day... and you can't fit in 3 stops. If a tour group won't do it, there's a reason for that. On these tours, you're essentially paying a lot for the "drive" part that can be easily replicated by train. That part has little value (unless you are really pressed and this is your only opportunity to see the area). The most value from a tour is the tour guides and their expertise, so it's best to maximize their time. That's why I always advise to try to see these sites using Sorrento or Naples as the base, not Rome.

Do you want to do this just so you can say you did it, or do you actually want to enjoy it? I know that's harsh. But I was staying in Naples and took a day trip to Sorrento and Positano, and I consider it one of my biggest travel "mistakes." These are places to be savored, not seen in a hurry. I spent much of the day in transit and didn't have any time to enjoy them, and I was coming from much closer than Rome. If I had come all they way from Rome, I'd have been really upset.

Pompeii in one day from Rome is a bit far, but certainly doable, either on your own or with a bus tour. But don't go any farther than Pompeii, and don't try to fit in other things on your Pompeii day.

Voting with the others: too much.

While there are tours which do both Pompeii and Sorrento or Positano, I personally wouldn't do them, and don't know as I've seen any which include all three locations in a day.

Consider that some of the random escorted (large or small-group) road tours just to Pompeii from Rome list travel times of 3.5 hours one-way (a short stop mid-journey included). That's not travel time from Pompeii to Sorrento or Positano, and then road time back to Rome. So, you could figure that of a 13-hour tour, over half of it will be taken up in transport time.

You could shave some of that time by taking the train to Naples but I still don't think trying to do all three in a day will give you a quality experience at any of them. 2 hours is a very short amount of time for Pompeii.

Obviously there are tours which do 2 of the three from Rome in a day. If still determined on doing it, "Walks of Italy" has an excellent reputation so you could go with the "POMPEII TOUR FROM ROME WITH AMALFI COAST DRIVE" tour Laurel mentioned above. I have family members who took and enjoyed that one last fall but it's more travel time than I'm willing spend on a day trip.

Sounds like an episode of "The Amazing Race". You may want to stay longer than "collecting your next clue".

I suspect if you do it, your most significant memory of the trip will be how exhausted you were by the time it ended.

There is maximizing your time and then there is the futility of trying to put a gallon of water into a quart bottle.

I believe I've said in the past that this is doable, but only to Pompei, not to the A.C. in addition. And for a sense of adventure (and to save a ton of money), you don't need a driver--you can definitely do it on your own.

Don't have the exact particulars, but here's how I'd map out the day. You'd leave Roma Termini about 7:30 AM, train to Naples Centrale, transfer to the Circumvesuviana train to the Pompei Scavi stop. The ruins are right there. Take a good 3-4 hours--not enough but if you've done your homework and/or have a good guide that you can hire at the entrance to the ruins, you can see at least half of the ruins--they're expansive to say the least, and spectacular.

You would leave Pompei Scavi at about 2:00 PM, train back to Naples Centrale, then take a taxi to any one of a number of great Napoli pizzerias. Experience that, taxi back to Naples Centrale, train back to Roma Termini. Home before 7:00 PM.

Enjoy your planning!

The logical option would be to spend the night of the 14th in Naples and do the tour from this company.

https://www.sharedtours.com

It should cost less than the full day tour from Rome, including a hotel room, and be much less stressful.

Too much!

Pompeii is doable as a day trip.
If you were budgeting for an all day private driver, I could even see Positano / Amalfi Coast drive working as a long day trip option from Rome
BUT not both.
If you choose the later ; would skip Sorrento go to Positano, then Amafli and then Ravello before having a driver return you to Rome. Expect to pay a small fortune and be in a car most all day. Without a private driver from Rome I would not even attempt this.

Agree with mreynolds, this CANNOT be done from Rome. The Op would have to spend the nite of the 14th in Naples for this to work.

Should allow enough time to catch the 19:00 train back to Rome after the tour.

Many thanks to everyone who replied to our post and provided advice, tips, thoughts and recommendations. We decided to cut some of the driving time by booking a fast train from Rome to Naples in the morning and then taking a tour from there. We booked a day trip with Tours of Pompeii with Lello & Co. The driver will pick us up at Napoli Centrale train station and take us to Pompeii, where we will meet our tour guide. We will have a 2.5 hour tour of Pompeii. We know it's not a lot of time to tour Pompeii, but we also wanted to see the Amalfi coast and Positano. Someone had mentioned Ravello and that may be a possible option vice Sorrento. Our thought is that whenever we return to Italy, we can spend a week in this area and see the sites in greater detail. Again, thank you!

Too much. You’ll regret it.

Looking forward to the post trip report

This is your trip and you should do what you want. We have done similar 13 hour day trips and once it was wonderful (Tuscany) and once it was a disaster due to a 4 our train delay which turned our planned 5 hours at the location to 45 min. If you have been to Pompeii already i would skip it and from Naples have the driver take you to Amalfi, Positano and Ravello. We hired a driver from Sorrento for this exact trip and made a list of all the places we want to go back to now that we know the lay of the land we did not feel rushed but felt like we saw just the tourist area of each place. I will come back and tell you the name of the company we used, very reliable and we had a Mercedes Van, which was important to be high up to see the coast. For four of us it was like 200 euros for each couple. I have never heard of the company you hired.

The company we used was Amalfi Coast Destinations. You can read reviews on Trip Advisor.