Naples to Pompeii by Train: Every Route Compared (2026)

Five things genuinely run this route, and the gap between the cheapest and the most expensive is a factor of twenty-five. What follows is every option with a real fare against it, read in August 2026. The guided tour is in the table as one row among equals, because for a lot of people it is the right answer, but it belongs at the bottom of the list, not the top.

Our pick for most people is the plain Circumvesuviana. Not because it is pleasant, since it is a hot and crowded commuter railway, but because €6.60 return buys the same journey the $25 coach sells, and the twenty minutes you might save are lost again waiting for the coach's fixed departure. The case for paying more is a specific one, and it comes down to luggage, heat, or a rail strike.

All three are covered below.

Where you board

Two stations in Naples serve this line. Napoli Porta Nolana is the terminus, which means you board a train that is empty and you get a seat. Napoli Garibaldi is one stop later, underneath Napoli Centrale, and it is where most visitors join. By that point the seats are usually gone.

If you are arriving into Naples by mainline train, Garibaldi is signposted from the concourse and involves going down two levels. If you are staying anywhere within ten minutes of the station, the walk to Porta Nolana is worth it in high season purely for the seat.

Buying the ticket

Naples to Pompei falls in Unico Campania fare band NA3. That is €3.30 for a single on one operator and €4.10 for an integrated ticket that lets you change between companies, under the fare schedule in force since 6 May 2024. A return on the Circumvesuviana alone is therefore €6.60.

Buy at the ticket window or the machines before the platform. Validate before boarding: the machines are at the platform entrance, and an unvalidated ticket is treated as no ticket. Ticket inspectors do work this line.

What the journey is actually like

Honestly: hot, full and unglamorous. These are commuter trains carrying commuters, and the tourist traffic to Pompeii and Sorrento rides on top of that. Trains run two to three times an hour and the journey covers about 22 kilometres in 35 to 40 minutes.

There is no luggage space worth the name. Carriages fill between nine and eleven in the morning, which is exactly when everyone reading this wants to travel. Pickpocketing on the tourist stretch is a genuine and well-documented nuisance rather than a rumour. Keep bags in front of you, the same as on any city metro.

Strikes happen. Campania has a regular strike calendar and the Circumvesuviana has no substitute service when it stops. If you are on a schedule that cannot slip, that is the argument for a road option, not the crowding.

Branch, stop and gate, side by side

Two branches leave the same platforms in Naples and diverge after Torre Annunziata, and they deliver you to opposite ends of a site that is nearly a kilometre across. This is the table to check before you board, because correcting the mistake means walking around the outside of the city walls.

Getting off at the right stop

On the Sorrento branch the stop is Pompei Scavi – Villa dei Misteri. Leave the station, turn right, and the Porta Marina entrance is about a hundred metres up the road. You will see the ticket office and the ramp before you see the ruins. Piazza Esedra is a short walk further along the same wall.

Do not get off at Pompei Santuario unless you meant to: that is the Poggiomarino branch, in the modern town by the basilica, and it serves the Piazza Anfiteatro gate at the far eastern end of the site.

This is the part no other guide has caught up with yet. EAV has announced that the Campania Express is suspended from 1 October 2026 until further notice.

The Campania Express was the tourist version of the same line: air conditioning that worked, a reserved seat, hostesses at the station and on board, and hop-on hop-off rights at intermediate stops so you could break the journey at Herculaneum. It ran eight trains a day from 28 March 2026, leaving Porta Nolana and Garibaldi from platform 3, and the return leg could be taken on a different date.

Anyone holding a ticket for travel after 30 September 2026 can claim a refund through EAV's complaint form, quoting the alphanumeric code printed on the ticket. Tickets bought through resellers such as Omio or Distribusion have to be refunded by that reseller, not by EAV.

Practically: if you are travelling this autumn or winter and a guide has told you to book the Campania Express, that guide is describing a train that will not be running. Your options are the ordinary Circumvesuviana, the Trenitalia route below, or a road transfer.

Trenitalia's Napoli–Salerno line stops at Pompei, a mainline station in the modern town rather than at the ruins. From there, Pompei Link is a combined train-and-bus ticket that covers the remaining distance to the Archaeological Park in about fifteen minutes.

This is the civilised route. Proper trains, luggage racks, a seat you can reserve, and no scrum at Garibaldi. It costs more than €3.30 and it adds a connection, so it earns its place for people arriving from Salerno or continuing south afterwards, and for anyone travelling with a suitcase. For a straightforward day trip out of Naples and back, the Circumvesuviana still wins on frequency and price.

Taxi and private transfer

A taxi covers the 22 kilometres in thirty to forty-five minutes depending on the A3, which is unpredictable. Agree the fare or confirm the meter before you get in rather than after.

The return leg is the part people underestimate. You will not reliably hail a cab outside the Porta Marina gate at five in the afternoon in August, so either book the return in advance or plan to take the train back. For four people splitting one fare, a transfer starts to compete with four train tickets and removes the timing problem entirely.

Driving and parking

The A3 Napoli–Salerno motorway has a Pompeii Scavi exit, and there is a large car park near the entrance plus private lots in the modern town. Rates are set by the operators rather than by the park, so we do not print a figure here that would be stale in a month. Check on the day.

When you buy park tickets online you can add a parking ticket as an extra option. That is worth doing in high season, when the lots nearest the gate fill by mid-morning.

If you have read this far and the answer you want is "someone else deals with it", that is a legitimate answer, and the Pompeii tours from Naples we compare all fold the transfer into one booking and it costs about fifteen dollars more than doing it yourself.

A guided half day from Naples runs $70 and covers the van both ways, the entry ticket and two hours and ten minutes inside with a guide. The version that meets at the station door is $62 and three hours door to door. The coach day trip is $60 with pickup included, though its live guide depends on six people booking the same departure.

Against that, a train return plus the $38 archaeologist tour that meets you at the gate comes to about $45. The gap is real but it is smaller than the listings make it look, and what you buy with it is one meeting point and a driver who waits.

Start from Napoli Porta Nolana, not Garibaldi. EAV states plainly that Napoli Garibaldi is not accessible, and that Pompei Villa dei Misteri is accessible in the Sorrento direction only, so the outbound leg works and the return needs planning. Ercolano and Sant'Agnello are not accessible either.

Inside the site, none of the guided tours compared on this site accepts wheelchair users, and most also decline mobility scooters and non-folding strollers. The park runs its own accessibility route, Pompeii for All, which is a better starting point than any tour listing.

For luggage: the Circumvesuviana has nowhere to put a suitcase. Left luggage is available at the Porta Marina Superiore entrance for a fee, and at Napoli Centrale, which is the more useful of the two if you are moving on the same day.

The train is the boring answer and it is usually the right one. Six euros sixty, forty minutes, a hundred metres at the other end. Pay more when you have a reason: a suitcase, a sailing time, thirty-four degrees in August, a strike on the board.

Not simply because a coach looks easier on a booking page. If you would rather have the whole day handled, the guided Pompeii tours that include the transfer start at $60.