Quick answer: Base yourself in two places, not one — 4 nights on the coast (Amalfi or Positano), 2 nights in Ravello or Sorrento, with Capri as a standalone day. Don’t try to “do” every town; this coast rewards slowing down more than any checklist. Here’s the week we’d actually plan for ourselves.
Most 7-day Amalfi Coast itineraries online are written by people who visited once. They route you through Naples, Pompeii, Sorrento, Capri, Positano, Amalfi, and Ravello in a tight loop that looks great on a map and feels exhausting in practice — a new town every single day, bags packed every other morning.
We live two hours from this coast and have been coming back for over 15 years — as a couple, then with one child, then with two. This is the week we’d actually plan: enough structure to see everything worth seeing, enough slack to actually enjoy it.
How This Week Is Structured
Nights 1–2: Sorrento (arrival, easing in, Pompeii)
Night 3: Capri (or a day trip — your call, explained below)
Nights 4–7: Amalfi or Positano, with day trips to Ravello, Minori, Maiori, and the smaller towns
That’s two hotel changes in 7 days, not five. Every guide we’ve read recommends moving constantly — we think that’s the single biggest mistake in most itineraries.
🏨 Book your two bases early — for a 7-day trip in summer, the best properties go 2-3 months out:
👉 Browse hotels on the Amalfi Coast
Day 1: Arrive in Sorrento
Land in Naples, train or transfer to Sorrento (about 50-65 minutes). Don’t plan anything ambitious today — you’re jet-lagged and Sorrento rewards a slow first evening more than a packed one.
Walk Piazza Tasso, watch the evening passeggiata, eat gnocchi alla Sorrentina somewhere with no English menu posted outside. Down at Marina Grande, the fishing-village atmosphere is the perfect low-key introduction to this part of Italy.
Day 2: Pompeii
Pompeii deserves a real morning, not a rushed stop on the way somewhere else. Take the Circumvesuviana train directly from Sorrento — about 30 minutes, no transfers.
Arrive at opening time if you can. The site is enormous; a guide genuinely helps you see the best 40% instead of wandering the other 60%.
Afternoon: Back to Sorrento by early afternoon. Use the rest of the day to walk the Vallone dei Mulini, the hidden gorge behind Piazza Tasso, or take the coastal path to Bagni della Regina Giovanna — a free natural swimming pool inside Roman ruins, completely overlooked by most visitors.
🏛️ Skip the ticket queue at Pompeii — a guided tour with skip-the-line entry saves real time and adds context you’d otherwise miss entirely.
👉 Browse Pompeii tours from Sorrento
Day 3: Capri
From Marina Piccola, the hydrofoil to Capri takes just 20-25 minutes — the fastest connection to the island from anywhere in the region.
Spend the morning in Capri town and the Gardens of Augustus, looking down at the Faraglioni rocks. In the afternoon, take the bus up to Anacapri — quieter, less polished, genuinely more interesting than the postcard center below.
If the sea is calm, fit in the Blue Grotto — but don’t build your whole day around it. It closes in rough conditions with no warning, and queues in peak season can eat hours.
Day trip or overnight? Capri completely changes character once the day-trippers leave on the evening boats. If your budget allows one night here, the empty piazzetta after dark is worth it. If not, a full day from Sorrento works fine — just take the earliest boat over.
⛵ See Capri from the water — a boat tour around the island reveals sea caves and coves you simply can’t reach on foot.
👉 Browse Capri boat tours
Day 4: Move to Amalfi or Positano + Path of the Gods
Time to relocate to the coast itself. Ferry from Sorrento to Positano takes about 35-40 minutes and is far more scenic than the bus — arrive by sea and you get the dramatic cliffside approach that made this coast famous.
If you’re up for a serious hike, this is the day to do the Path of the Gods (Sentiero degli Dei) — about 6.5km connecting Bomerano to Nocelle, moderate difficulty, 2-5 hours depending on pace. Both villages sit above sea level, so the climbing is less brutal than it looks on a map.
Check into your second base — Amalfi for the best ferry connections, or Positano if the views matter more than logistics to you.
→ Full guide: Amalfi ·
→ Full guide: Positano
Day 5: Positano (If You Based in Amalfi) or Amalfi (If You Based in Positano)
Whichever town you didn’t sleep in, visit it today by ferry — about 30 minutes each way, and genuinely one of the best short boat rides in Italy.
In Amalfi: the Cathedral complex, the Cloister of Paradise, the Crypt of St. Andrew, and the Paper Museum up in the Valle dei Mulini. In Positano: the majolica-domed Church of Santa Maria Assunta, Spiaggia Grande, and the quieter Fornillo Beach a short walk further.
End the day with dinner wherever you’re staying — by now you’ll have a feel for which town’s rhythm you actually prefer.
Day 6: Ravello + the Eastern Towns
This is the day most 7-day itineraries skip entirely, and it’s one of the best.
Take the SITA bus up from Amalfi to Ravello — about 25 minutes through switchback roads lined with lemon groves. No beach, no crowds at sea level, just the best views on the entire coast. Villa Rufolo and Villa Cimbrone’s Terrace of Infinity are both worth the climb.
Afternoon: Bus back down and east to Minori — home to a remarkably preserved 1st-century Roman villa, completely free to enter. Walk the Path of the Lemons to Maiori, which has the longest beach on the whole coast and a flat promenade, genuinely rare in this terrain.
→ Full guide: Minori ·
→ Full guide: Maiori
If ceramics interest you more than beaches, swap the Maiori/Minori afternoon for Vietri sul Mare instead — the eastern gateway to the coast, with family ceramic workshops you can visit directly and the longest sandy beach in the area. It’s consistently overlooked, which is exactly why it’s worth the detour.
🍋 This is the day to do a lemon grove tour or cooking class — the area between Ravello and Minori has some of the best agritourism experiences on the coast.
👉 Browse food experiences on the coast
Day 7: Slow Morning + Departure
Don’t schedule anything significant for your last morning. Whichever town you’re based in, this is the day to do the things you didn’t have time for — a coffee in the piazza without checking the time, one more walk along the water, the shop you kept meaning to go back into.
If you’re flying from Naples, allow 2-2.5 hours from Amalfi or Positano including the drive or ferry-plus-transfer connection. Don’t cut it close — this stretch of road has no shortage of ways to lose 30 minutes you didn’t plan for.
What This Itinerary Deliberately Skips
Every “complete” 7-day itinerary we found tries to also fit in Naples properly, Herculaneum, Vesuvius, and sometimes Procida. Here’s why we didn’t:
Naples as a full destination. We’ve given it a transit role here (you’ll pass through arriving and departing), but Naples genuinely deserves its own multi-day visit, not a rushed afternoon squeezed between coast days. If you have an 8th or 9th day, add it as a proper stop, not an extra stamp on this trip.
Herculaneum. Smaller and in many ways better preserved than Pompeii, but adding it means rushing Pompeii itself. If ancient sites are your priority, swap Day 2’s afternoon in Sorrento for Herculaneum instead.
Driving yourself. Several competing itineraries route this entire week by rental car. We genuinely don’t recommend it in peak season — the SS163 backs up for hours in summer, and parking in Positano and Amalfi ranges from difficult to nonexistent. Ferries and the SITA bus cover this route well without the stress.
Practical Tips for 7 Days on the Amalfi Coast
Book ferries in advance for Capri in peak season. The hydrofoils sell out in July and August. Book the day before at minimum.
This itinerary works best Easter through October. Outside that window, many ferries stop running and you’ll rely entirely on the SITA bus.
Pack one bag you can carry up stairs. Both Amalfi and Positano have hotels reached only by staircases — confirm this before booking if mobility or heavy luggage is a concern.
Don’t book every dinner in advance. Leave at least two evenings open. Some of our best meals on this coast happened because we wandered into somewhere unplanned.
Want a Different Pace?
Shorter trip: Our 3-day version focuses purely on Amalfi, Ravello, and Positano — no Sorrento, no Capri.
→ See our 3-day Amalfi Coast itinerary
A bit more time: Our 5-day version adds breathing room without the full week commitment.
→ See our 5-day Amalfi Coast itinerary
We’ve lived two hours from this coast for over 15 years and have walked this exact route — and variations of it — more times than we can count, as a couple and later with kids. All photos in this article are our own. Questions about adapting this to your trip? Leave a comment below.