train pass in Italy

Why do you need a pass for such minimal use? Just buy individual tickets. It will be less.

Rail passes are not cost effective or useful in Italy.

Just buy point to point tickets on Trenitalia.

You can put all travelers in your account- no need for separate accounts.

You can print your tix at home and have those on hand to show conductor if relying on cell phone doesn’t appeal to you

Or get their easy to use app.
I found it easier to set up my account on their website.

https://www.trenitalia.com/content/tcom/en.html

When searching for trains be sure to spin the clock to 00:00 so you see the whole day.

You must use the Italian station names.
All fast trains-

Milano Centrale
Verona Porto Nuova
Venezia Santa Lucia
Firenze SM Novella
Roma Termini
Napoli Centrale

Your trip from Naples to Sorrento will be on the Circumvesuviana train. (Local commuter train) Not purchasable thru Trenitalia.

You will purchase that at the station.

Here is info:
https://www.positano.com/en/naples-to-sorrento-train-schedule?timetable_route=sorrento_napoli

Read thru all the FAQs at the bottom

Yes, figuring 5 adults, 1 senior, 1 youth 7-day comes to 1663 EUR outlay.
Assuming you are flying into Milan and out of Naples, I figure SuperEconomy tickets (which are still available for late May) for 7 adults for Milan to Verona to Venice to Florence to Rome to Naples is 850 EUR, nearly half the cost of passes.

You are so good! Thank you so much
Yes I was looking in the site about buying for each leg of the trip.
So glad for the post with the stations name!! And the 00 tip.
I think I will do that. It would be nice if I can have both ways. Printed and on the phone.

If I buy for each leg ahead of time, how to validate the ticket? Are they already validade?
How to activate when I get there ready to board the train?

Yes on Rick Steves book about the Amalfi coast I found out about that train. Great book by the way.

You should buy your tickets soon as the prices go up as time goes by. Each ticket will have an assigned seat on all Freccia high speed trains. You board your assigned carriage and find your seat. When the conductor comes by, show your ticket, easy as that.

.....If I buy for each leg ahead of time, how to validate the ticket? Are they already validade?
How to activate when I get there ready to board the train? ....... There is no validation or activation. That ticket is good for only that train at that time on that date. Miss the train and the ticket is gone.

Perfect!
Thank you very much !!👍

A few thoughts to add....

As the others have mentioned, rail passes are rarely cost effective in Italy. One point to note is that passes do not include the compulsory seat reservation fees on the express (fast) trains), and I don't believe Italo Treno accepts passes (should you choose to use them on some routes).

It's important to know which type of train you're using on each trip, and the rules that apply. You can easily buy tickets for Regionale trains from a ticket office or from the convenient kiosks in the station, which have English language menus. However, with locally purchased tickets, you must validate them prior to boarding the train on the day of travel or you'll risk hefty fines which will be collected on the spot (those are usually about 50€ PP).

Validating tickets also applies if using Metro or Buses in Rome. If you're going to be using public transit a lot in Rome, there are multi-day passes available, and those only have to be validated on the first use.

If you're using the express / fast trains such as the Freccia trains, those come with compulsory seat reservations which are specific to train, date and departure time. You must board the train listed on your ticket, or again you'll be subject to hefty fines and sit in the assigned seats.

As mentioned above, you could also use Italo Treno if their schedule works better for you. They operate a competing high speed service but no Regionale-equivalent trains, and again they have compulsory seat reservations. Their trains are a maroon colour so easy to distinguish from Trenitalia.

It would be a good idea to plan each of your trips so that you know the specifics of each train you'll be using.

We are finishing 2 weeks in Italy now and booked our trains from Rome to Florence, Florence to Venice and Venice to Rome all on Italo trains. I made the account online and booked ahead using their discount codes from their weekly emails and got very good deals. We chose both smart, which is their coach class and primo which is next class up, for different legs depending on price. There wasn't much difference in terms of comfort or storage. In the primo you get a beverage and snack.
We used the app for displaying our tickets, very easy to use, except at one station I was having trouble with network so I just pulled up my email.

thank you!!

I'm also using the Trenitalia app in Italy now. I find it really easy. I know someone else mentioned issues on one trip with lack of wifi service. I add my tickets to Apple wallet to avoid this issue. I really like not needing to worry about validating a ticket.

Just a query out to everyone that buys tickets in advance through Trenitalia online. I haven't done this since 2017, when I printed out the tickets here at home in the US, then scanned them into .pdf's on my phone. Thus, I'd have a hardcopy & digital copy as well. Does anybody else do this?

On the train, the ticket man would come by and either take a pic of my scan or some connection like that, and I had the hardcopy if that didn't work. No problem on that 2017 trip, but in 2015 we took trains for Paris all the way down to southern Italy, all bought in advance, and a couple times I had to pull out the hard copies.

Is that process still the case? We'll be returning to Italy a year from now. When I bought through DB Bahn train site for France & Switzerland, Trenitalia in Italy, I got deep discounts, as much as 60%. It's definitely worth it if you are on a specific schedule.