Pompeii by ourselves

We visited in mid June and there wasn’t a line at all...just lots of people wanting to be our guide.

Unless you have a scholarly knowledge of Pompeii, the place may be confusing and its significant points hard to recognize. It is, after all, a vast pile of rubble. I think a guide can be worth the price, especially if it includes transport from the city.

Hundreds of families choose this option every summer day. We waited about ten minutes to buy our tickets - the turnstile had no line. The luggage check (optional) has its own line, but that didn't look bad. Your plan suggests that you are experienced at independent travel.

That means you know that you need a little bit of research, and ideally, a guidebook you like and are familiar with, to make the most of any major attraction. Pompeii is MASSIVE. It would take more than a day to see most of it. You need a sketch of the high points, and the benefits of the writer's experience of being there. I happen to like our host's books, but I was unlucky in that high tourism had already changed his "recommended walking tour" and I wasted time backtracking from streets that had be permanently closed simply to create a manageable line for the Brothel building! But I stand by the book recommendation.

You also need general information, like that Pompeii has a substantial lunch cafe inside the site, and that you cannot exit and re-enter the site itself on a same-day ticket. We bought a three-day ticket that covers five sites, because we knew we wanted to see at least three, during our five nights in Sorrento. Heat and sun are major issues in June, as well as crowding. You need plenty of water (more can be bought inside, I forget if there is a water fountain at some of the restrooms ... ) and head and skin protection. I would not wear flip-flops to walk on Roman stone streets, but many people today walk from their SUV's to their Mall stores in flip-flops. That's not what Pompeii is like. The Circumvesuviana is easy to use, but you have to validate your tickets before boarding a train. Where are you sleeping? (I mainly ask to find out if you have chosen a lovely remote village that is poorly connected to ancient Pompeii - some rail stops make it unclear whether they are ancient ("Scavi") or modern Pompeii city.)

Another thing you get from the book you choose is learning that the statues and frescoes at Pompeii are almost all replicas. The originals are mostly inside the Archaeology Museum in Naples. That's an optional visit if you have time. Most books don't make it clear enough that certain villas will be suddenly closed for repairs, lack of guards, or conservation reasons. You need at least a vague list of villas and buildings that might interest you, so you know where to move on to when something is found to be closed.

We went in June and there was no queue to get in. It wasn't very crowded inside either, at least compared to other tourist places we've been.

As to whether you need to hire a guide, I suppose it depends on your level of interest or need for information. For us, previously seeing Mary Beard's excellent documentary TV programme (now available on YouTube, but that's probably against copyright), and walking around with a few pages from the Rough Guide was "in depth" enough. I suspect most general guidebooks - RG, LP, RS, etc - are the same in practice, when it comes to providing details of a specific sight such as this.

The two of us have had a life-long interest in history, and one did graduate work in Classics. In retrospect, I think we would still have benefited from a guided tour. When we visited Herculaneum, we did rent audioguides; and that helped us a lot to understand what we were seeing. It’s an example of the adage, “you don’t know what you don’t know.”

I’m pretty sure that the guides who solicit customers at the gates are licensed. They have their i.d.s around their necks. If you hire one, you would not be part of a large group.

When you say you want to do "the museum" first, I hope you realize that this is the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, which is at least an hour away from Pompeii depending on how you connect the two sights. If you are staying in Naples or Sorrento, you could do the museum one day and Pompeii the next. If you are planning do to a long day trip from Rome, you'll need to plan your day very carefully to fit everything in. On a day-trip from Rome, it's best to do Pompeii first and the museum afterwards, so that you are already in Naples and can take a late train back to Rome at the end of the day.

We used the RS audio guide when we went and found it to be excellent. Did a lot of wandering beyond the 'program' as well.

We went in July and had just 2-3 people ahead of us in line.( Usually spend more time in line at a grocery store than we did there)

We went in July and went on a guided tour. We did it inside the site where there was a desk for guided tours. We thought it was well worth the money.

I visited Pompei with my sister back in the late 90s. We spent a few hours wandering on our own. About ten years later, after I got married, my wife and I visited and hired a guide when we arrived, which made the first visit seem like a complete waste of time. There’s SO MUCH to learn that you’ll miss without a guide. Totally worth the expense!