Mom and Daughter Duo Take on Italy!

Are you intending to spend time in Florence? I was not certain. You would want to at least shake off the jet lag before driving. Your first task should be to flesh out the Tuscany portion, as it is a large area with tons of options. You may not have to travel via Florence as there are car pickup locations in other smaller cities.
Overall, I would do something like 4 Tuscany, 4 Amalfi Coast, 4 Rome, but it depends on your specific wish list. Late May is a wonderful time to be in Italy, enjoy!

Hello Travel Teeny,
Have you looked into multi-city (open jaw) flights? That would save you backtracking, and added travel expenses.
From IAD fly to Florence, spend your time there, train to Rome, spend your time there, on to Naples and home from Naples.
With your short amount of time I'd spend 3/4 days in each area, which would give you a light overview of each area. Definitely, not a deep dive anywhere.
If you are really planning on relaxing more and absorbing more, would you consider aiming for two bases and do any day trips from there?
BTW....Flying into Rome, training to Florence, then getting a car and driving further into Tuscany? Not a good idea IMHO.
Happy planning.

We fly into FCO from IAD often…usually on United.

Where in Tuscany do you want to visit?

We usually pick up our rental car at FCO and drive to our accommodation in Tuscany…never more than 2-1/2 hours or so. Taking the train from FCO into Rome Termini, and then a train on to Florence, and then to the Florence rental car location (most convenient location for us for rental cars is the Florence airport) seems unnecessarily complicated when you could drive from FCO directly to your first stop in Tuscany…unless you are interested in northern Tuscany and not as much the Chianti and Val d’Orcia regions.

Hello Travel Teeny, and welcome to the forum!

Your profile doesn't say where you're flying from but flight+train+car seems ambitious for you first day. I would advocate staying somewhere - maybe Florence - for your first night and then tackling the car rental. That bing said many people choose Chiusi - specifically Chiusi–Chianciano - for car rental because it is more rural and already close to southern rural Tuscany.

Which brings me to "Tuscany". You need to figure out where you want to visit because Tuscany a very large area. I would figure out how many nights, choose a home base and see what towns are reasonable to visit in the surrounding area.

Most people here count nights for your stay which helps with lodging and travel itinerary - keeping in mind that two nights is one full day - so you'll communicate best with people here if you plan it that way. Figure out the number of nights you have and where you want to spend them. It sounds like to have 12-ish nights in Italy and are flying in and out of Rome and it sounds like you are mostly interested in rural areas and small towns rather than cities. Figure out how many nights you want in Rome before your flight out and then distribute the rest.

If you real goal in Naples is seeing the Amalfi Coast I would suggest a different destination - either Sorrento or Salerno - since they are closer. If you want to tackle Naples as a city well as Rome I think you're going to be short nights. Travel in both rural Tuscany and the AC are time consuming and subject to unexpected delays.

With 12 or 13 nights I would tackle 3 destinations - maybe 3 and a half - and concentrate on them and not try to do too much. If you are looking to stay on the AC for next year I would start looking for lodging right now as it is crazy busy. If you are just looking to day tour it and stay elsewhere then I would look to leave from Salerno.

Hope that helps, you'll get tons of advice here,
=Tod

flight+train+car seems ambitious for you first day.

I would define it as "reckless" more than ambitious (in this forum, "ambitious" means "trying to cram too many things in too short a time"). After an intercontinental flight, with jet lag, you tack a train trip to it. On the top, you add a car hire (it will take some time) and a car drive. Tuscany is large, and most of its routes require attention. The Florence/Siena highway has narrow lanes, while driving a couple of hours on the SR222 is exhausting even when your attention is fresh. It is not a long travel day, it is an endless travel day.

I wouldn’t combine Tuscany and Naples. Both locations offer so much and you wouldn’t be able to do either area justice. Visit Tuscany this year and Naples/ Amalfi Coast another year.

I'd suggest a couple days, at least, in Florence prior to car rental. I'd use the car just to visit rural Tuscany.

As far as days, that's hard to estimate not knowing you. However, if you think you will be back to Italy, you might consider concentrating time in Tuscany/Florence and Amalfi. Use remaining days for Rome. When you return, you could visit new places and easily start or end your trip in Rome. Perhaps, 4 nights for Amalfi area, 6 nights for Florence/Tuscany and 3 nights in Rome (if you know you'll be back)

Open Jaw is often a good strategy. If you want to go that way, check flight schedules before putting extensive time into your itinerary. On our last trip, we had planned to fly into Rome and out of Naples. However, I discovered, that, at least with Delta, most flights from Naples left fairly early in the morning. So, we flew into Naples and out of Rome. You say there is a price difference between sticking to Rome and Open Jaw. Do the math and make sure to account for the cost of train tickets and consider the time savings of the Open Jaw. Time is money, too.

Welcome!

How many nights in the ground in Italy?
It’s best to count nites-gives a clearer picture
( ex: a 3 night stay gives you just 2 full days in that location )

Traveling onward on arrival is smart -but doing that and renting a car and driving in a jet lagged state is not smart
Not just for the risk of driving but the chance of flight delays etc could screw up all of your plans

Do look into open jaw or “multi -city” flights-NOT 2 one way flights
I believe United has seasonal direct to/from IAD and Naples and of course to/from Rome
May be just certain days of week so play around with Google flights to see what there is-always book with the airline

If you can fly in to Naples and out of Rome
Start in the south-and I would stay in Salerno for better access to AC (we really liked Salerno-less crowded, less touristy, less expensive, direct fast trains north)

4 nites in the AC region is barely enough-it’s a slog to get there (except from NAP) and transportation is chaotic

Then train to Florence to pick up car for Tuscany
Drop car in Chiusi (or Orvieto-Hertz only) and train to end in Rome
You must be in your departure city night before departure flight
That way you are driving mid trip not jet lagged

All drivers must have an IDP-required by law (we just witnessed someone being denied a rental without it!)
Do your homework on driving in Italy

There are multiple threads here with instructions how to pick up car in Florence and exit the center without incurring ZTL or bus lane violations

We always use AutoEurope to book our cars -excellent customer service and usually best rates

If you can add nites to your trip add as many as you can
Each location change eats up at least a half a day

Search this forum for threads on AC-the crowding is real
We were just in Sorrento about a week ago and the crowds were as bad as they were our last visit which was in month of May a few years ago
Book lodging as soon as you have itinerary and flights nailed down