How to Do the Amalfi Coast in Style Without Spending Half the Trip in Traffic
Everything on the Amalfi Coast hangs off one road. The SS163 is roughly seven metres wide in places, carries traffic both ways, and has rock on one side and a long drop to the sea on the other. Buses take the bends in wide arcs. Everyone else waits. On a summer weekend the queue can stretch for kilometres, so the real luxury here isn’t the room or even the view. It’s not losing half your day getting between them.
Why a car and driver makes more sense than a hire car
Driving yourself sounds romantic until you meet a SITA bus on a hairpin. There’s also the number-plate rule. On busy dates in spring and summer, non-resident cars can only use the coast road on alternate days, depending on whether the plate ends in an odd or even number. The dates change each year and are announced locally, usually in spring. You won’t know a rental car’s plate until you collect it, and parking in Positano or Amalfi, when you find any, is expensive.
NCC cars, meaning cars hired with a driver, are exempt, and so are taxis. If you’re checking in or out on a restricted day you can usually drive to your hotel anyway, though it’s worth an email to make sure. Most people are better off booking a driver for the airport run and a couple of day trips. The view’s better from the back seat.
Positano, Ravello or Amalfi: picking the right base
Positano is the postcard, and you pay for it. It’s also built almost entirely on steps, so a hotel near the main road can be worth more than one with a slightly better view further down.
Ravello sits high above Amalfi and empties out once the day-trippers leave. People come up for the gardens at Villa Cimbrone and Villa Rufolo. Stay the night and you get them early or late, without the coach groups. Amalfi itself is the practical choice, with the most ferry and bus connections. Praiano, between Positano and Amalfi, is quieter still.
Staying reachable when the plan changes
Plans here change all the time. The swell picks up and the afternoon ferry doesn’t run. Your driver is stuck behind a delivery van near Furore. The restaurant rings to move dinner from nine to half past. Nearly all of it happens by message, so you want data working from the moment the plane lands in Naples.
The easiest way to manage that is to set up an eSIM before you leave home. It only works on an unlocked phone that supports eSIM. Holafly, which sells travel eSIMs for Italy and Europe, says to keep its eSIM switched off until you arrive, and to install regional plans no earlier than a day before you fly, since they can activate on their own. Even then, signal drops in some of the deeper coves and on the high paths, so download offline maps and screenshot your bookings first.
Seeing the coast from the water
From spring to autumn, ferries run between Amalfi, Positano and Salerno, and when the sea is calm they beat the road easily. Better still, hire a private boat with a skipper for the day. A wooden gozzo can nose into swimming spots the ferries sail straight past and tie up for lunch at a beach restaurant. Book it well ahead in summer.
Walking the Path of the Gods from Bomerano to Nocelle
The Sentiero degli Dei, or Path of the Gods, follows the mountainside high above Praiano and Positano. Start at Bomerano, in the hills of Agerola, and it’s mostly downhill to Nocelle. Get the driver to drop you there. It saves a fiddly bus change up from Amalfi.
In summer, be walking by eight. Parts of the path are narrow and stony, with little shade, so wear walking shoes and take more water than seems necessary. Ask the concierge about a private guide if you’d like someone to explain what you’re looking at. At Nocelle there are two ways down to Positano: a long flight of steps or the local bus.
Timing your trip around the plate restrictions and the crowds
The exact dates of the number-plate rule are confirmed each year, but the pattern is fairly predictable. Restrictions usually apply daily over Easter and the late-April to early-May holidays, at weekends through early summer, and every day in August, sometimes into September.
Aim for late May, June or September instead. September is a particular sweet spot. The sea has been warming all summer, the evenings are still long and the terrace restaurants find it easier to fit you in. Come between November and Easter and you’ll find many hotels shut.
Trading a packed itinerary for one town a day
Three days, four towns and Capri is how people end up seeing the SS163 rather than the coast. Pick one thing a day: Ravello’s gardens in the morning, perhaps, or an afternoon on the boat, then dinner somewhere you can walk home from. Let the driver and the skipper do the moving around, and the coast starts to feel as easy as it looks in the photos.
