Pompei, Naples or Sorrento for 1 night only?

After spending a hot day in the Pompeii park, we probably will just want to spend the night hanging out and not doing anything crazy.

Sorrento would make a nice evening after and over night place

Just to clarify?
The day after Pompeii is NOT your flight departure day right?

Sorrento is lovely, great restaurants, fantastic views, one night would be fine there

There is a poster here who recently stayed in Pompeii and enjoyed that too
Might see if you can find those posts

@ChristineH: No, we fly into Rome and out of Venice (one of the reasons we were originally sticking to the North). Even if we spent the night elsewhere for the Pompeii trip, we would still spend one more evening in Rome before picking up the rental car.

Is there a way to rearrange do you don’t have to go back to Rome?
Could you pick up rental car in Salerno? That’s a very nice non touristy town, worth a visit as well.

One night in Naples would be fine too, just to get a peek
Plus you could visit the Archeological Museum after your Pompeii visit ( closed Tuesday )

Where are you going once you get the car?

I think Naples makes more sense. It’s just lesd complicated going back and forth since you will be leaving and entering the region through Naples anyways. Staying in Sorrento just adds distance, dealing with luggage, etc.

Pompeii opens at 9:00am and when we visited 20+ years ago in late June we knew it would be well worth it to get there when it opened, then stay until the increasing heat and crowds became too much for us. So, since we were driving from Venice to Sicily (we had reasons for that at the time, but wouldn't do it now), we stayed at the Hotel Forum Pompei right outside the gates of Pompeii for two nights, seeing Herculaneum the next morning before driving to where we were getting the ferry to Sicily. Our strategy worked perfectly and my unflappable husband thought driving in the area was fun (not many people would). I don't remember what we did after Pompeii and before dinner, probably just hung out at the hotel and took naps. If you didn't want to see Herculaneum or the Naples Archaeological Museum, you could return to Rome by trains.

On a later trip, we stayed in Naples for a week and visited the truly unmissable museum full of things removed from Pompeii. So, now, I would recommend your staying in Naples (perhaps near the archeology museum as we did), and taking the trains to Pompeii first thing in the morning (yes, even though it will be September), stopping whenever you've had enough, and then visiting the museum that afternoon --- it closes at 7:30pm, just in time for dinner (if you stay a 2nd night in Naples) or for you to get back to Rome if that's what you want to do. No need for a car. We walked from our Naples apartment to the train station to go to Rome, but you could take a taxi.

To me, staying one (or two) nights in Naples seems logistically simpler than staying on the Amalfi Coast, but maybe that's just because I know how to do it that way. Doing Pompeii as a day trip from Rome seems like a hellish day, although people sure do it.

Thanks for all your comments.

Unfortunately, I already bought the train tickets and also booked a guided tour for 10:30 because it seemed like the day trip plan was in stone, and bumping the rest of the trip by the day has already led me to eating some costs so I'd rather keep this as it is. But I will give it some thought whether Sorrento or Naples works best and will consider going to the Naples museum the morning of the next day before heading back.

I plan on keeping the hotel room in Rome the whole time since we will be staying there an extra night when we return anyways, so we will only need to take what we need for the night with us and leave the rest of the luggage in Rome.

I found Pompei the town rather uninspiring, so definitely choose between the apples and oranges of Naples vs. Sorrento, or Salerno as a sort of in between.

Although you have your personal travel plans, you can't imagine just how OFTEN this specific decision is discussed on this newsboard. You owe it to yourself to use the Search Box top center and pick out the information (for example, about the character of the Circumvesuviana commuter train ... ) that you need. Here's an example (I know you're not interested in Vesuvius and neither were we.):

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/pompeii-and-vesuvius-69e8366c-1e75-4a14-a0bc-0677269492d1