Is Tour Guide Recommended for Pompeii and Herculeum?

I would have been quickly bored of Pompeii without having an expert narrating the context. Guides are licenced and some cluster at the entrance gate, a little too freelance to be reassuring. An organized tour might be a safer approach especially if it includes the transport from the city.

Yes, a guide is very helpful for Pompeii. I have not visited Herculeum yet. Rick Steves offers shared tours led by Mondo guides for Pompeii which we went on. He also offers these tours for other nearby areas. www.sharedtours.com.

A couple of years ago we signed up for one of the Mondo tours of Pompeii. Unfortunately, only 3 people showed up, so the tour was canceled. However, our guide spent about 45 minutes outside the gate giving us the history of the site and telling us what to look for once we were inside. It was extremely helpful (and damned nice of him.) I recommend a tour. You'll get more out of it than you would with a guidebook.

I can’t comment on Pompei. I think you can do Ercolano without a guide. The site is small, and two or three hours is enogh to get a good understanding of the town. The brochure you get with your ticket is quite detailed. Audio guides are available at the ticket office, and the site generally is well signed.

Note there is no bar or cafateria on the site, just a food and beveragevending machine, so you’d be well advised to bring a water bottle with you.

We did Herculaneum and followed the Rick Steves Italy guide book thru it - found it very easy and we loved going at our own pace. He explains all the mosaics, etc. Don't miss the skeletons at the very end, we saw many people not going down the stairs and they missed the most 'chilling' part of the whole experience. We also had the BEST pizza in our whole 3 weeks in Italy on the way back from Herculaneum to the train - it's on the Left, Pizzeria Luna Caprese Sas Di Luna Michelina - they don't speak English, but the menu was easy (I think English was on the back) . . . we actually enjoyed our day in Herculaneum better than Pompeii.

I used the sight's audio guide in Herculaneum and Rick's audio tour in Pompeii. I had read quite a bit over the years and didn't feel I missed anything by not having a guide. At the entrance to Pompeii, I picked up a small booklet (about 2.5"x2.5") that had a brief explanation of most of the 'bits' there and that was also very helpful. There was a small photo of each bit, and they were numbered, very easy to use. I suspect the narrative was identical to the sight's audio guide. One of the best parts of Pompeii is the Villa dei Misteri. It's a rather long walk but well worth it. I skipped the long walk in the other direction to the amphitheatre, which I was told by friends was not worth the walk. Don't miss the small theatre in the central area.

Pompeii - yes, a guide would very helpful. Of course, you can do Pompeii yourself with the booklet you obtain when you buy your tickets or with the RS guidebook or audio app, but Pompeii is huge and the guide knows where he/she is going. Plus, our experience is that our guide provided info/took us to places that were not mentioned in the RS book or app.

Herculaneum - you can easily do on your own with the RS guidebook, as mentioned above. Herculaneum is very compact and easily doable in 1.5 hours.

Have been to Pompeii 2x, both in summer months, and we used RS audio tour and for us it was plenty of info and wked well. Been to Herculaneum only 1x and used the info in RS book and it was very good. When we did Herculaneum we went straight here from Sorrento in the a.m. and then Pompeii (2nd time here) and worked well. We had the best panini ever on our walk back to the train station. They made our bread in their wood fired oven while we waited and oh my...was sooo good! I found I only have pic of the baker and oven and not name of place.(Was on left side of street but not pizzeria mentioned by above poster) Have a great trip!
edit: it was the above-mentioned pizzeria--Pizzeria Luna Caprese Sas Di Luna Michelina in Ercolano that we had the most delicious panini!

We used a wonderful guide (Sasha Bianco) for a tour of both sites and I can’t imagine touring either site without a good guide. Sasha brought both sites to life and made it fun as well as informative. His web site is www.tourspompei.com and I highly recommend Sasha. We learned so much from Sasha and without a ton of time to spend at each site, he focused our time and attention on the most significant elements. His brother is also a private driver and we used him for transportation to and from our hotel in Sorrento and between each site. He also took us to a great winery at the foot of Mt. Vesuvius for lunch. He was so professional and interesting to talk with. It was a great day and I really enjoyed it. For what it’s worth, I liked Herculaneum more than Pompei as it’s more in tact and less crowded but I’m glad we visited both sites with Sasha.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my questions. I greatly appreciate it!! Kind regards, Debbie.

I’ll add to the advice you’ve received that we did a tour of Pompeii with Walks of Italy which we really enjoyed. It starts at 2 PM and goes until 5:30, so there is still an hour and a half until it closes. Our guide was Francesca, and she was great. You meet at the entrance to Pompeii, so it works if you’re staying in Naples or Sorrento (or elsewhere.). www.walksofitaly.com