Pompeii/Vesuvius/Capri tours

You can't possibly see all of those places in a day. That's way too much. Maybe you can squeeze Pompeii and Herculaneum in a very long day. Then you can do a full day trip to Capri another day. Then you can do the Vesuvius the next, etc. you can buy tours, lets say to Capri, on the spot, or the day before, or even earlier, even when you are there. I'm sure you can do so online too with some companies.

I guess what I really am asking is, do you have to go by train or can you go with buses to these places. I should probably download a map so I can actually see where these places are. Any suggestions on tourist maps?

Seeing where these places are on a map would be a good start. You don't need to download anything, Google Maps will do. Regarding going with buses or trains or whatever, it depends from where you are coming from and where you are going. Also Capri is an island, so neither trains nor buses will work too well to get to it. Boats would work best (although swimming to it could be an alternative if your name is Michael Phelps).

Will be staying in Sorrento. Would like to see Pompeii, Herculanum and mt. Vesuvius . Will be staying one week.

You don't need a tour for Capri. You can find the boat schedule from Sorrento here: http://www.capri.net/en/ferry-schedule I highly recommend taking faster jetboat/hydrofoil over slow ferry. Once there, the island is not very large so with some advance reading, you can easily visit the highlights yourself. I do caution people about the infamous Blue Grotto: access is not an absolute depending on the roughness of the sea on any given day/hour. Take one of the little buses that leave from near the piazza in the town of Capri up the mountain to the other town of Anacapri. We also didn't use a tour for Pompeii - although some people prefer them. The site is much larger than most first-timers realize, and you can easily spend the better part of a day there. You travel between Sorrento and the Pompeii Scavi Villa Misteri station on local Circumvesuviana train. Round trip tickets are easily purchased at the Sorrento train station and are inexpensive. Schedules may be found here: http://www.vesuviana.it/web/en We purchased a guidebook from one of the kiosks outside the entrance and it made a nice coffeetable/reference book when we got home. Circumvesuviana is also the train you would use if traveling back and forth from Naples.

Thanks Kathy, that's great. Glad I joined Rick Steve's.

You're welcome, Sue. I'll just add that the jetboats/ferries from Sorrento to Capri and other towns around the coast leave from Marina Piccola. There are two marinas (Piccola and Grande) so make sure you go to the right one. But do make a visit Marina Grande during your stay? This is a picturesque little port where the fishing boats come in and it's fun to watch the day's catch being hauled in. I'll also recommend that you get yourself some gelato and take a stroll to the park (Villa Comunale) in the evening to watch dusk fall and the lights twinkle on all around the Bay of Naples. You'll have a nice look at Vesuvius from there.