GETTING AROUND
Getting Around the Amalfi Coast
The SS163, the SITA Sud buses, the seasonal ferries and why self-driving the Amalfi Coast rarely pays — how to actually move along this cliff in each season.
Check dates and availability ↗One road, and only one
There is essentially one land route along the Amalfi Coast, and everything moves on it: the Strada Statale 163, the Amalfi Drive, running roughly 40 kilometres from Vietri sul Mare in the east to Positano in the west. It is carved into the cliff face, barely two lanes for much of its length, with a low parapet and a long drop, and it curls through blind hairpins and straight through the middle of the towns. There is no bypass, no coast railway, no alternative when it jams — and in July and August it can seize solid for hours. Understanding that single fact explains most of the coast's logistics. Whatever you do here, you are sharing one narrow thread of tarmac with buses, coaches, mopeds, delivery vans and everyone else who came the same day.
Why self-driving rarely pays
You can drive the SS163, and in the shoulder seasons, started early, it can be a joy. In high summer it is mostly a chore. The road demands constant attention — coaches reversing on switchbacks, mirrors folding past one another, pinch points where traffic runs on alternating one-way flow because two large vehicles cannot pass. Then there is parking, which is scarce, expensive and gone early in Positano and Amalfi alike; you can spend the best hours of the day circling for a space rather than looking at the sea. Add unfamiliar rules, mopeds appearing from nowhere, and the sheer concentration the cliff edge demands, and the driving eats the day. If you do self-drive, go off-season, set out at dawn, and accept that the road is the event.
The SITA Sud buses
The public buses along the coast are run by SITA Sud, and they are the backbone of independent travel here, linking Sorrento, Positano, Amalfi and the towns between along the full length of the SS163. They are inexpensive and run through the day, and the front seats offer a view you would never dare take your own eyes off the road to enjoy. The catch is that they sit in exactly the same traffic as everyone else, so summer journeys can be slow, and they fill quickly — at peak times you may have to let a full bus pass. Buy tickets before boarding where you can and validate them onboard, and check current timetables locally, since they shift with the season. For a patient traveller on a budget, the bus is a perfectly good way to see the coast.
The ferries — but only in season
From the water, the coast finally makes sense: the towns reveal how impossibly they are stacked up the cliffs, and you skip the road entirely. Passenger ferries connect Sorrento, Positano and Amalfi, with some services reaching Salerno and beyond, and on a busy day they are often faster than the bus as well as far more beautiful. The important limit is the season: boats run mainly through the warmer months, roughly April to October, with reduced or no service in winter, and rough weather can cancel a sailing at short notice even in summer. Timetables and operators change from year to year, so check locally close to your date rather than trusting anything printed months ahead. When they are running, a ferry leg is one of the best things you can do on this coast.
The smartest plan: mix the two
The travellers who come away happiest rarely pick one mode and stick to it. The classic move is to ride one way and sail the other — bus or car out along the cliff, ferry back across the water — so you see the coast from both the road and the sea in a single day. It also spreads your risk: if the boats are cancelled by weather, the bus is still there, and if the road gridlocks, the water is moving. Build in more time than the distances suggest, because 'short' here is measured in traffic, not kilometres. And treat the first and last hours of the day as yours — the crowds and the jams belong to the middle. A private driver simply buys you all of this without the waiting, the changes or the platform crush.
Reaching the coast in the first place
Most visitors arrive from Sorrento, on the far, Bay of Naples side of the same peninsula, because it is closer and better connected than the coast itself; from there it is a short crossing of the mountain spine — short in distance, slow in practice. Naples is the wider gateway, with its airport and mainline station feeding trains and the Circumvesuviana line down to Sorrento, from where the coast road begins. Salerno anchors the eastern end and is a useful, often overlooked entry, with ferries up the coast in season. Wherever you start, the last stretch funnels onto the same single road, so the question is less how to reach the coast than how to move once you are on it. Plan the joins, and leave margin for the traffic.