ferry Naples to Procida, ferry vs hydrofoil, prepurchase vs upon arrival

One way from Napoli to get to Amalfi is to take a train to Salerno and walk about 1/4-1/2 a mile to the dock and take the ferry there....I mean, it is a number of travel legs, but being on Procida, anywhere you go will have many.....looks like sometimes there are ferries from Naples to Amalfi, its a long trip though (and sometimes you have to connect in Capri)

Thank you. I know it won't be easy to get from Procida to Amalfi. I'm a little nervous to buy any ferry ticket ahead of time. Hopefully at that time of year, they don't fill up. I'm also wondering if we should reconsider staying in Amalfi and just using Salerno as our base. We want to experience the Amalfi Coast, but don't have anything specific in mind, mostly just figured this might be the best opportunity, after the summer crowds but before everything shuts down. I'll look at taking day trips from Salerno. I think it's the same bus that would get us to the town of Amalfi, just a matter of whether we want to spend more time on the bus each day, vs one longer transfer day from Procida to Amalfi.

If you are day tripping, I would say ABSOLUTELY Salerno. While Amalfi IS the most well connected town on the Amalfi Coast, you do have to trek to get anywhere else off of the coast. I just checked the ferries and they are still running on your week, so that would be my pick. You could even do visits to Amalfi/Ravello one day, Positano another, and there is a longer ferry to Capri as well. My daytrips from Salerno have been Pompeii, Herculaneum, Caserta, Vietri, Capri, Amalfi/Bomerano (to hike the Path of the Gods), Positano, and Paestum. Easy ferries or trains from Salerno. If you only want to be on the coast and do coastal things, Amalfi makes the most sense towards the end of the season.

Salerno is a city, probably upwards of 300,000 people, but it has a great historic center, bustling shopping streets, and my FAVORITE part about it is the Lungomare, the seawalk where the entire town comes out on a beautiful day to enjoy the sun and the sea. Even in bad weather I love it. If they're not on the Lungomare, they will be on the Corso and Via Mercanti where all the shops are. It's more Italian than touristy, so it's more of a real taste of Italy, with all the conveniences of transport connections to get almost anywhere.

Thank you Katherine, that's very helpful info. I am leaning toward staying in Salerno all 4 nights. That would give us more flexibility on which days to visit AC towns vs going to Pompeii and Paestum.
I emailed Caremar to ask about ticket reservations and refunds for the Naples-Procida ferry. They responded that prepurchased tickets are only good for the sailing booked but the tickets can be purchased day of, at their ticket offices. Since we're dealing with an overnight flight, I think we will just wait and walk up to the ticket office at either of the docks (ferry or Hydrofoil) and buy our ticket then. I'm hoping that since we'll be there late October midweek, they won't be sold out.

I'm assuming that for ferries from Salerno to AC and between AC towns we also can buy tickets before boarding, rather than in advance. Hopefully that's the same for the buses as well?