You know it. The tour with the guide holding up a sign, umbrella or some other object so you don’t lose your group. Though it doesn’t really matter if you do lose your group – it’s so large, you have to battle your way to the front to even hear what the guide is saying. And that’s not the only battle; if you want any decent photos, you’re no doubt sighing in annoyance as you try to avoid your fellow tour group members’ heads or, worse of all, their totally obnoxious iPads as they too try to snap photos of the sights. No, thank you! Instead, try this do-it-yourself tour of Pompeii.
In 79 AD somewhere around 20,000 Pompeians went about their daily lives giving nary a thought to the volcano they lived alongside. August 24th would change their lives forever. On that fateful day as Mt. Vesuvius spewed, though much of the city was destroyed, Pompeii was also buried under 20 feet of ash and pumice.
Centuries of history were sealed away until 1748. It was Rocque Joaquin de Acubierre that discovered Pompeii with intentional excavations after Herculaneum was accidentally discovered in 1738, when workers were digging the foundation for the King of Naples’ summer palace. Due to the lack of air and moisture, artifacts buried under the ash and pumice at both archeological sites were extremely well preserved. It’s no wonder that Pompeii is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Italy and some 2 million people make the trek south to see it every year.
There are several ways to visit Pompeii: on a pre-booked guided tour, to hire a Pomeii guide on the spot (the going rate is €100-115 and official Pompeii tour guides are identified by a badge and certified as guides by the Campania region), to rent a Pompeii audio guide (which is simply a recording of Pompeii’s Little Red Book that hawkers will be pedaling near the Porta Marina entrance), or on a self guided tour of Pompeii. Your Pompeii ticket includes a map and small pocket guide to the site, which is excellent and leads you number by number through the not-to-miss sights at Pompeii. You can also download a great guide right on your iPhone with the Pompeii app to make touring Pompeii on your own a piece of cake.
Planning Your Self Guided Tour of Pompeii
How long does it take to see Pompeii? That’s entirely up to you! With a pre-booked Pompeii guided tour, most tours spend 3-4 hours visiting selective sites within Pompeii. With a Pompeii self guided tour, you determine how much time you plan to spend or have to spend at Pompeii, and then plan your visit accordingly. You should allow at least 3 – 4 hours for your Pompeii self guided walking tour, and you can cover quite a bit of the site in that amount of time if you’re armed with the tools and a plan. Pompeii is big enough that you could easily make a full day of visiting it.
Download your Pompeii – A day in the past app in advance of your trip. We like this app, though there are several more DIY Pomeii guides in the app store, because you can break down your visit by the amount of time you have to spend at the archeological site with a 2 hour, 4 hour, or full day tour. Browse the app by building and mark your favorites right in the app. You can also look at seven different itineraries to see which monuments and sights that interest you most are located near each other.
If you really want to get a feel for the archeological site before your Pompeii visit, take a virtual walk through Pompeii’s ruins with Google Street View. You can also download this comprehensive free Pompeii guide PDF that is an explanation of all of the excavations by the Board of Cultural Heritage of Pompeii.
Finding Your Way Around on Your Self Guided Pompeii Tour
As I mentioned, your ticket includes a map and small pocket guide to Pompeii, which leads you number by number through the not-to-miss sights at Pompeii. And if you’re not a great map reader, you can use the app with location services turned on to guide you from sight to sight (this function will require an internet connection). If you’re not on any sort of time schedule, you can always wander the site and use the location feature to tell you more about which building you’ve stumbled upon.
The Guide on Your Do-It-Yourself Tour of Pompeii
The Pompeii – A day in the past app does a great job of providing information about each building and includes a Pompeii audio tour if you don’t want to read. If you use the audio guide feature, just be sure to bring headphones with you.
Our Recommended Must-See Sights at Pompeii
It’s best to enter Pompeii from the Porta Marina entrance. Don’t miss the Forum, which was Pompeii’s commercial, political and religious center. Alongside the Forum, visit the Grain Stores where you can see many of the plaster casts of Vesuvius victims.
Clear on the opposite end of Pompeii and following Via dell’Abbondanza is the Amphitheatre, which was built in on the outskirts of Pompeii. It’s well worth the walk as the Amphitheatre is the oldest building of its kind in the world. Like the Colosseum in Rome, gladiators had bloody battles with wild animals while some 20,000 spectators watched.
Continue wandering this end of the archeological site and make your way back toward the Porta Marina gate via the Necropolis. You’ll find many beautiful tombs and gardens and you’ll practically have the area to yourself. You’ll also pass by the Villa dei Misteri if you’re following this route, which is a project to cultivate grape vines and produce wine from the very spot where vines grew in Pompeii some 2000 years ago. Only 1700 bottles are produced and they are auctioned off, so you can’t purchase or taste this special wine unfortunately. But the vineyard set in the ruins is truly unique.
Other Tips for Visiting Pompeii
Wear flats. The streets are very uneven and heels or even wedges are completely unsuitable for walking around the site. For this same reason, if you have little kids you’ll want to bring a carrier as opposed to a stroller, which we imagine would be incredibly hard to push over the stepping stones.
Bring bottled water. It’s perfectly fine to bring it in and you’ll be glad you did with the sun blazing on all those ruins.
You can even bring food in if you plan to spend the day at Pompeii. There is a restaurant on the ground, but there is also a picnic area near Amphitheatre Square and Casina dell’Aquila.
It’s also good to know that any type of bag exceeding 30 x 30 x 15 cm is not allowed inside Pompeii. There are luggage deposit services available at all three entrance gates if you do have a bag that needs storing while you visit Pompeii.
If You’re Set on Taking a Tour, These are the Best Pompeii Tours
There’s definitely appeal in taking tours of Pompeii. You don’t have to plan it yourself, and in some cases like a day trip from Rome, you don’t have to get yourself to Pompeii either. But if you’re really set on taking a tour, book a small group tour where you’ll still feel you got value out of the experience. We’ve taken many tours with Walks and feel they’re one of the best small group tour companies around. They have several Pompeii tours we’re confident in recommending:
Walks of Italy offers a Skip the Line Best of Pompeii Tour, on which their expert archaeologist will guide your small group to the best sights and tell you all about what they are. This is a really good Pompeii walking tour for those not wanting to decipher a map.
If you’re visiting Rome and want to take a day tour to Pompeii, the Pompeii & Amalfi day trip from Rome is the way to go. It makes for a long day (about 13 hours), but you’ll be able to sit back and relax. With just one day to visit the south, this small group tour makes it count with the guided tour of Pompeii plus a drive along one of Italy’s arguably most beautiful coastlines, the Amalfi Coast, and a stop in Positano.
Know Before You Go
- By train: Pompeii can be reached by train on Circumvesuviana. On the Naples – Sorrento line, use the Pompei Scavi-Villa dei Misteri stop. On the Naples – Poggiomarino line, use the Pompei Santuario stop.
- By bus: Pompeii can be reached by bus from Naples or Salerno on SITA. The stop is Pompei (Piazza Esedra).
- By car: Pompeii can be reached on the motorway A3 Napoli-Salerno (exit Pompei ovest) or motorway A3 Salerno-Napoli (exit Pompei est).
- Pompeii is open November – March daily from 8:30am – 5pm (last admission is 3:30pm) and April – October from 8:30am – 7:30pm (last admission is 6pm). Pompeii is closed on January 1, May 1, and December 25.
- Admission is €13 and is a single day ticket. A global ticket (Pompeii, Herculaneum and Oplontis, Stabia, and Antiquarium of Boscoreale) is available for €22 and is valid for 3 days.
- Audio guides are available at Porta Marina entrance in Italian, English, French, German and Spanish for €6.50 or €10 for two.
- There is a storage room for bags, strollers, and anything else you might not want to lug around Pompeii located at the Porta Marina entrance.
This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. For more info click here.
You can see all the UNESCO World Heritage Sites we’ve visited here.
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Cheryl says
Gosh, I’m dying to get here. It’s been on my Italy list forever. Thanks for the great tips!
Jennifer Dombrowski says
You’ll love it Cheryl! I wish we’d had time to visit Herculaneum too when we were there, so be sure to include time for that as well.
Devlin Madden-Perdue says
DIY Touring is the only way I like to tour a place – I just don’t like schedules, especially when I’m traveling. Sure it’s nice having a guide explain everything, but you can always overhear what some guide is saying if the place is busy enough, haha. I just prefer to wander about and read the plaques at the sites. Though having a little guide book/app sounds even better!
Jennifer Dombrowski says
When touring sites like Pompeii, we also much prefer DIY. We want to be able to spend time at the buildings or monuments that interest us and quickly move on from those that don’t. Group tours, even if they’re small group tours, just don’t give you that flexibility. There are other things, like say a walking tour of a city or a food tour, where we loved short small group tours though.
Kate says
I went such a long time ago as a young teenager – I’d love to go back and try a DIY version of the tour.
Jennifer Dombrowski says
It really is the best way so that you can linger over areas you enjoy and move on from other less interesting parts.
Tamara says
Thanks for this, I went about 10 years ago with a guide and we are taking our daughter next month and I’ve been debating whether or not to get a guide upon arrival or do it ourselves between this app and some guidance from Rick Steves.
Jennifer Dombrowski says
We really think that you can get just as much out of a DIY visit as with a guide – and save a whole lot of money in the process. Let us know what you decide and how your trip goes Tamara!
jenny says
go to the beach
Rhonda Krause says
I think I would have enjoyed my visit to Pompeii much more, if I wasn’t part of a tour group. Like you said, the groups are too big to hear anything anyways and, my least favourite part is how they rush you through the site. I much preferred my visit to Ostia Antica over Pompeii because I went alone and could linger as long as I liked, plus there were no crowds. I had the place practically all to myself!
I would go back to Pompeii though to give it a second chance, but next time I would do a do-it-yourself tour!
Jennifer says
We saw tour groups and how they were rushed through. Definitely not our style! We haven’t been to Ostia Antica yet. We’ll have to check it out. Any place that doesn’t have a crowd entices us.
Freya says
I visited Pompeii a few years ago with a guided tour, next time I would definitely do a do-it-yourself tour as well.
Valen says
I’ve definitely got to go here…and I would much rather explore on my own rather than with a group!
Ryan says
This is such a rad guide! You went super in depth with detail…looking to visit Pompeii myself while in Rome this week! Cannot wait! Again, amazing guide =)
Lori says
This is very useful! I admit I usually plan my travels, so these recommendations and tips come in handy!
Gale says
Awesome post thank you for sharing. Definitely keen to do our own tour rather than a group. We’ve downloaded the apps you suggested and can’t wait to see it tomorrow!
Alberto C. says
Great post! I recently had the chance to visit Pompeii and it was just amazing!
Happy travels!
Anya says
Thanks for the great guide! We were planning to do an organized tour, but they are only 2 1/2 hours long! I think we\’ll try it on our own. Do you have any recommendations about a place to grab something to eat? Thanks!
Jennifer Dombrowski says
There are several places just outside of the Pompeii ruins, but we’d suggest Il Ristorante Maccarone. They have really good pizzas and other dishes typical of the area.
Sylvain Belanger says
Thanks for the great details here. I’m planning a visit to Pompeii on a cruise stop at Naples. I had planned to take a guided tour that included the Vesuvius but my wife thought it would be to hard so after some research, I ended up on your Do it yourself guide of Pompeii so we’ll give it a try based on your tips.
I’m also taking note of one of your restaurant tip Il Ristorante Maccarone as we’ll have some time to eat before getting back to the ship.
Do you have some useful information to get to Pompeii from Naples’ port (taxi, train, bus, else)?
Thanks!
Sylvain
Jennifer Dombrowski says
It would be quite expensive to take a taxi to Pompeii and the traffic in Naples can be atrocious. The center of Naples is easy walking distance from the cruise port, so you can easily take the train to Pompeii. Pompeii can be reached by train on Circumvesuviana. On the Naples – Sorrento line, use the Pompei Scavi-Villa dei Misteri stop. On the Naples – Poggiomarino line, use the Pompei Santuario stop.
Caroline Gregory says
Hi
We are visiting Pompeii on 22nd July and I keep seeing different views on booking ‘skip the line’ tickets for Pompeii Ruins. We are going independently and this post is the best I’ve seen so I’m confident that the replies will be very useful.
Jennifer Dombrowski says
Hi Caroline,
We didn’t have to wait in line long, and that’s typically the case if you arrive at opening. Peak time at the ticket offices is from 10-11am when most groups and visitors arrive. Especially in July, it’s best to go early anyway because it just gets so incredibly hot.
karen escalera says
TErrific article, thanks. I want to go to Opolontis and Herculaneum. Any info on DIY tours or tour companies offering that? Can one combine two of these in one day?
Jennifer Dombrowski says
Hi Karen,
We don’t have any personal recommendations. This private day tour that visits all 3 sites has a lot of great reviews on TripAdvisor. https://benvenutodriver.com/
Lisa Vergara says
Was an amazing tour!! Thanks. Pompeii is awesome but very hard to visit. We have used the app you suggest, Pompeii, a day in the past) perfect! We’ll follow you everywhere .
Bronnie Q says
We are coming over for a European holiday from Australia and Pompeii is on our to do list in November. Do we just pay the entry when we get there or do you have to pre book entry tickets for a self guided tour. We have zero interest in being on any kind of tour anywhere as we also prefer to do our own thing. Any help would be appreciated 🙂
WINIFRED JENSEN says
PLANNING ONE DAY AT POMPEII ARE THERE TOILET FACILITIES???? AT ENTRANCE ONLY? PLEASE EXPLAIN…….. AND HOW LONG A WALK AFTER YOU GET ON YOUR BUS, TRAIN ETC???? THANKS
Jennifer Dombrowski says
No, there are toilet facilities throughout the archaeological site, not only at the entrance. As for the walk from the train/bus, the closest stop is the Pompeii stop. It is about a 20 minute walk to the entrance of the archaeological site, and it is flat.
Winifred jensen says
Thanks for info. Now about Paestum. Toilet facilities there? And far is the town of Pompeii from the ruins there? We ll. Be there in middle October this year. We are in our later years and all info is greatly appreciated ? Also lodging at Parstum
Fiona says
Hi Jennifer & Tim,
I’m Fiona from Singapore. Nice to e-meet the both of you.
I have some questions with regards to travelling to Pompeii.
Are you able to send me your travel itinerary and do you recommend that I do not purchase the online ticket with the gudied tour. As I am looking at a cheaper alternative to go for a day tour in Pompeii.
Kindly let me know your thoughts, thanks!
Cheers,
Fiona
Jennifer Dombrowski says
Hi Fiona,
We lived in Italy, so we just made a day trip to Pompeii while staying on the Amalfi Coast.
If you are looking for the cheapest way to visit Pompeii, then that would be by the do-it-yourself visit as we recommend here. You can download the free PDF we linked to that tells you about Pompeii. You would pay the admission at Pompeii and it’s a few euros more if you also get the audio guide there.
We don’t not recommend taking a tour. As we mentioned in our article, Walks of Italy has very good tours and we do recommend them. It’s worth considering doing the day tour with Walks as their guides are very good and you skip the line. Their groups are small with no more than 15 people, so you’re not fighting a bus load of others to hear the guide and see inside the buildings. That’s this tour: https://www.walksofitaly.com/pompeii-tours/best-of-pompeii-tour/?tap_a=8993-5dea35&tap_s=47168-63b831
We’re just telling you how you can also do it yourself if you don’t want to take a tour. What we DON’T recommend is the overpriced private guides available for hire at Pompeii itself or massive bus tours with huge groups.
Hope that helps!
Georgie Ray says
Hello Jennifer and Tim,
Your Pompeii info was so helpful! Just about to download the apps you suggested.
Off to Naples next week!
Kind regards,
Georgie Ray
Jennifer Dombrowski says
Hi Georgie,
Thanks so much for the note and we’re happy to hear you found the information about Pompeii helpful. Enjoy your trip!
Jennifer & Tim
Vita says
Jennifer and Tim:
Thanks for your great article. We are coming to Naples on a cruise, the itinerary states that we land at 7 am and depart at 6 pm. We are three adults, from Canada, and we like walking, We are not too keen on driving to Pompeii ourselves.
What do you suggest is the best way to see Pompeii and Mt Vesuvius given our time frame. It will be on Aug 9 – yes likely extremely hot!
Thanks, Vita
Jennifer Dombrowski says
Hi Vita,
You can easily get to Pompeii from Naples on your own. Is the ship docking right in Naples? If so, you can by either bus or train from Naples to Pompeii.
By train: Pompeii can be reached by train on Circumvesuviana. On the Naples – Sorrento line, use the Pompei Scavi-Villa dei Misteri stop. On the Naples – Poggiomarino line, use the Pompei Santuario stop.
By bus: Pompeii can be reached by bus from Naples or Salerno on SITA. The stop is Pompei (Piazza Esedra).
As for Mt. Vesusvius, there are tourist buses that go right from Pompeii train station. I’d recommend taking the bus company Busvia del Vesuvio https://busviadelvesuvio.com/en/. It departs hourly between 9am – 3pm and the tour to Mt. Vesuvius takes 2.5 hours.
If the ship isn’t docking right in Naples, you may want to check if the ship offers an excursion to Pompeii as it may be difficult and expensive to get from the ship to Naples to change to the bus or train.
Just take a big bottle of water since the day will be hot!
Peterina Spanjers says
Hi,
Thank you for the information, it is a great help in the decision to do the tour by ourselves at our own pace.
It has been recommended that we book on-line entrance and the audio-guide, but I was wondering it this is absolutely necessary. There are a number of different sites with different prices for on-line tickets, with or without audio-guide so it is confusing which to use.
We are pensioners, going on August 14th and not all too Iphone/smart phone savy so prefer printed tickets.
Any suggestions regarding the tickets/audio-guide would be greatly appreciated! And yes we will be using the PDF as a reference!
Kind Regards,
Peterina Spanjers.
Jennifer Dombrowski says
Hi Peterina,
The official online ticket office for Pompeii is TicketOne. You can get your tickets online in advance, which I do recommend doing as the busiest time will be in August and you don’t need to wait in line at the ticket booth. You can buy and print the tickets here: https://www.ticketone.it/biglietti.html?erid=988882&doc=artistPages/tickets&action=tickets&fun=artist&language=en
Enjoy your trip to Pompeii!
Sinohe says
This was incredibly helpful! The suggested App does not seem like the best choice now based on app reviews (I went with the PompeiiMap app and it looks amazing). The information listed above was just what I needed.
Thanks!
Jennifer Dombrowski says
Let us know how you like the PompeiiMap app. We still like the audio tour in the app we’ve suggested.
Daniel E Herron says
Is it still possible to freely walk through the city streets in Pompeii?
Jennifer Dombrowski says
Do you mean without a ticket? No, you can’t enter Pompeii without a ticket. The site is ticketed in order to preserve it. But you don’t have to visit with a guide.
Maryanne says
Pompeii is so amazing though i find it difficult.
Elle says
I come from a volcanic country (New Zealand) and was always terrified and fascinated by Pompeii. Lucky enough to go there a few years ago. Italy is a museum, incredible!
I would recommend spending a couple of days at Pompers… it’s huge. As you say, a small tour, then maybe download a guide and self navigate.
And Herculean next time too!
Maybe hire a campervan and follow the coast.
What a wonderful world…
Cheers
Elle
Carole Eglash-Kosoff says
Hi…my friend and I are both elderly. Are there any vehicles, such as golf carts, that are available at Pompeii and Herculaneum for those who struggle with extended walking?