The Amalfi Coast is one of the only places in Europe where the marketing consistently outperforms the infrastructure. You have seen the photos: pastel houses tumbling down cliffs, turquoise water, plates of spaghetti alle vongole under a pergola. What the photos do not show you is the 400-person queue for the SITA bus in 35°C heat, the €30 cocktails that taste like battery acid, and the fact that getting from one town to the next can take longer than flying from London to Rome.
If you are going in Summer 2026, you cannot just "show up and figure it out." The coast will punish you for poor logistics. Here are the seven most expensive, most frustrating mistakes people make—and exactly how to bypass them.
1. Taking the SITA Bus During the Day
The SITA bus is the public transport that connects Naples, Sorrento, Positano, Amalfi, and Salerno. It costs about €2. It is also the single worst experience you can legally subject yourself to on a European holiday.
In July, the buses run late, they have no air conditioning, and they are packed so tightly that you will be standing with your backpack pressed against a stranger's sweat-drenched shirt for 45 minutes while the bus crawls along a cliff edge with a sheer 200-meter drop on the right side. If you are prone to claustrophobia or motion sickness, this bus will break you.
2. Eating on the Main Drag in Positano
There is an unwritten law on the Amalfi Coast: the closer a restaurant's tables are to the main pedestrian street, the worse the food is, and the higher the price will be. These establishments exist to capture foot traffic from cruise ship day-trippers who will never return to leave a bad review. You will pay €22 for a Caprese salad made with flavorless out-of-season mozzarella and a view of someone's selfie stick.
How to find the real food
In Positano, walk down the steps toward the beach, then keep walking past the beach clubs until you hit the residential area. In Amalfi, walk away from the piazza and climb the stairs into the upper town. Look for hand-written menus in Italian, plastic chairs, and a high percentage of local elderly people eating there. That is the algorithm for good food on this coast.
3. Basing Yourself in Positano for the Entire Trip
Positano is visually staggering. It is also a vertical parking lot. It has no real center, no square to sit in, and every single movement requires climbing hundreds of stairs. After two days of walking up from the beach to your hotel, the romance wears off and your calves will hate you.
Base yourself in Salerno or Praiano. Salerno is flat, has an actual Italian city feel (excellent coffee, no tourist markup), and the ferry to Positano or Amalfi takes 35 minutes and costs €8. You get the Amalfi experience during the day, and a functional, reasonably priced life at night.
4. Doing The Sentiero degli Dei at Noon
The Sentiero degli Dei is the famous cliffside hike from Agerola to Positano. It is one of the best walks in Europe. It is also largely unshaded. If you start this hike at 11:00 AM in July, you will be exposed to direct Mediterranean sun on a rocky path with no escape for three hours. People collapse on this trail every summer.
Start at 7:00 AM. The light is infinitely better for photography, the temperature is tolerable, and—critically—you will have the trail to yourself. By 10:00 AM, the tour groups start arriving, and the serenity vanishes.
5. Paying for a "Private Boat Tour" with 12 Strangers
There are dozens of operators selling "Private Boat Tours" along the coast that actually just put you on a small Gozzo boat with 10 to 14 other people. It is not private. You cannot control the itinerary, you cannot control the music, and you will pay €120 per person for the privilege.
If you want a boat experience—and you should, because the coast is best seen from the water—seek out specifically labeled Small Group or Max 6 People tours, or genuinely rent a dinghy yourself (no license required for small engines). Do not blindly trust the men with signs on the Positano dock.
6. Day-Tripping from Naples
You cannot "do" the Amalfi Coast in a day trip from Naples. The Circumvesuviana train to Sorrento takes 70 minutes and is notoriously delayed, late, and crowded. From Sorrento, you still have to get a bus or ferry to Amalfi or Positano. You will spend four hours in transit to spend three hours in a crowded town where you don't have time to find a good restaurant. It is a waste of a vacation day.
If you only have one day and are based in Naples, go to Pompeii or Herculaneum instead. If you want the Amalfi Coast, commit to at least two nights minimum, preferably in Salerno.
7. Skipping Ravello
Everyone goes to Positano for the aesthetic, and everyone goes to Amalfi for the cathedral. Almost everyone skips Ravello, which sits 350 meters above the sea, accessed by a 15-minute bus ride from Amalfi town.
Ravello has no beach. It has no crowds. What it has is Villa Rufolo and Villa Cimbrone—two estates with gardens that hang off the edge of the cliff, offering views down the entire coastline that make the Positano viewpoints look pedestrian. It is cooler up there, quieter, and infinitely more refined. Go at 4:00 PM, walk through the gardens, and have a drink at the Cimbrone bar as the sun sets over the water. That is the Amalfi Coast at its absolute best.