Paestume

I would stay in Salerno, easily arriving by train for anywhere. Nice small city and easy to get to Paestum for a day.

Train to Palermo is a very long trip. I would go back to Naples on the fast train from Salerno and fly.

Will you be driving? If so, I would recommend the Cilento region, particularly Sanata Maria di Castellabate which is about 25 minutes from Paestum by car or 35 minutes by bus (but they only run every two hours).

Alternatively Agropoli is close - and has a railway station, although it is a good walk from there to the main town.

The modern town of Capaccio-paestum might be an option, there are quite a few hotels there, as I believe it is a beach holiday location.

To get to Sicily, it would be possible by train (there are overnight services) - but the other option would be a ferry from Salerno
to either Palermo, Messina or Catania (I believe the former now only runs twice a week)

Just out of curiosity, is there a reason you wish to avoid Naples itself? - I really like the city, and think it gets a bit of a bad press.

While it is not true that Paestum is in the middle of nowhere, you might want to be careful in selecting a place to sleep where there are reasonable things to do for a few days without a car. While I agree that you might be unwise to overlook Naples, you didn't mention Pompeii, Herculaneum, Amalfi, Positano, Ravello, Capri, or Caserta - among many other options in the area. Salerno is not a "town", but some posters here have enjoyed staying there. We stayed in Sorrento, which is so far (both time and distance) from Paestum that we gave up on the idea of visiting.

Your plans also need to recognize the less robust infrastructure in southern Italy.

Why not stay in Paestum? Not only can you visit the Archaeological site and Museum, but you could spend some time on the beach or visit a mozzarella producing farm. I stayed at a B&B called La Chora di Paestum which is about a 15 minute walk from the entrance to the ruins. If you do choose that, take a taxi from the rail station to the B&B. It’s a long walk.

Your options to get to Palermo would be to either return to Naples and fly or take the train. According to the TrenItalia site, there’s a morning train that takes about 10 hours and the night train the takes 12. Both require 2 changes en route. VisitingPaestum is worth the inconvenience.

When we visited Paestum we were going the other direction, coming from Sicily, but we also had a rental car. The town of Paestum is pretty small, and we got some fresh mozzarella cheese from a shop, visited the temple site and the museum across the street, and drove north for the night in Salerno. As noted above Salerno is a small city, not just a town, but it was a good place to stay for the night, and we ate at a very good restaurant there.

We flew to Palermo from Rome, a pretty quick and easy flight. There’s also a ferry that runs directly to Palermo, but it leaves from Naples to get there. If you go by train or bus, you will be crossing to Sicily on a ferry anyway from the Italian mainland to the east side of Sicily, and then continuing across Sicily to Palermo.

Thank you very much everyone. I like small town and also Greek temples. Your advice are fantastic , Thanks. I will not use car so I have to plan to be close to train or bus area. Will research more on Air B&B. Stayed on 3 different B&B and 2 are not good and one is fantastic. Will love to know more on your experiences. Thanks all. Why did I avoid Naples? Because I am a Senior female and travel alone. An advice from Rick Steve book and also an advice from my Italian female friend told me so. She said "I am an Italian and I will not travel or stay in Naples alone. ", To answer the question of why I did not go to Pompeii,Amalfi coast .... was because I already been there . I actually want to see the small town Italy,Farmers markets, local markets.

We stayed in Sorrento and then had a driver take us to Paestume and then visited a buffalo farm (enjoyed lunch) and saw how they made the mozzarella cheese. Enjoyed the ride and sights along the way.

We were just there last week. Tacked on 2 nights to our Amalfi trip specifically to see Paestum.
Stayed in Salerno at Hotel Montestella- 5 min walk to train/10 to ferry. Very nice inexpensive hotel with a very good bkft.
Be sure to check the train schedule carefully. We took the 9:37 to Paestum- there is a big gap in service after that train.
Found some great food in Salerno and some really good gelato. Not touristy at all. At first we didn't like the town but by Day 2 we were enjoying it very much.

Someone here recommended to have lunch at La Fattoria Del Casaro - a mozzarella farm near Paestum- about a 10 min walk- when we got there it looked like it hadn't been open in at least a year. Very disappointed!

Paestum was lovely. They have raised their admission fee- it was 12€ each.

We stayed in Salerno this year, the last week of April, and visited Paestum for a day.
If you can look back over the last few weeks, I've posted info on my day there.

We got our Salerno hotel via Hotels.com
It was Il Reticolo at
Via Giovanni Angelo Papio 14, Salerno 84122

As an above poster said, the trains to Paestum are sparse in the middle of the day.
We ate a late breakfast and got to the train station late. So we took the bus there. That wasn't too bad.
Paestum was a GREAT place to visit.

If you really just want to see it and nothing else, it may make sense to stay right next to the archaeology site. The modern town of Paestum stretches to the southeast and you may not want to handle the walk / taxi alone.

The bus from Salerno stops at three locations that are near the site. Our bus stopped at the north, east and south sides. We got off at the south side and were very close to the southern temple - fun! We had to walk up to the mid-point to get through an entry.
The train station was unmanned and was perhaps a 1/4+ mile walk east of the site.
Several tourists were walking the paved path (maybe "street") - I don't know if you'd be uncomfortable walking it alone. But you would most likely have other tourists walking along, as we did.

The train station was unmanned and was perhaps a 1/4+ mile walk east of the site.<<

Thanks for this reminder.
Buy a RT ticket in Salerno and do check the return times as well. I believe the Paestum station was manned after 2:30 but much smarter to have your RT ticket in hand. It's very inexpensive. 2.90€ each way
The walk from station to Paestum site is perfectly safe, flat and actually very pretty. There were about a dozen or so others who disembarked and were walking along with us.

Hello everyone. Thank You very much for all the great information. I will stay in Paestum because that what I want to do the most. I will perhaps go to Salerno just to see what it is like. From my last trip to Paestum I came by train from Naples and have no problem at all there and back. I walked from the train station to the site and there are many tourists which walked with me. Also there is a wonderful restaurant which Rick Steve recommended right across from the ruin. Great food , great price and in a quiet trees covered site. Love it.
Thanks again to all my advisers

"Also there is a wonderful restaurant which Rick Steve recommended right across from the ruin. Great food , great price and in a quiet trees covered site. Love it."

Please share the name of the restaurant. We are going to Paestum in Oct. Thanks

In the Search box on this forum, type in Zoe Paestum. She was a wonderful forum member, fairly recently deceased, who traveled on her own. You might enjoy her comments.