There's a stretch of the SS163 just past Positano where the road narrows to one lane, a sheer drop opens up on the right, and every driver coming the other way seems to have made peace with it in a way you haven't yet. That's the Amalfi Coast road, and it's also the first thing I tell people to stop worrying about — because you're not driving it.
I get some version of the same question every week: "Is the Amalfi Coast worth it, or is it just an Instagram thing at this point?" Fair question. The honest answer is both — it's absolutely become a backdrop for a certain kind of photo, and it is also, underneath all that, one of the most genuinely beautiful coastlines I've ever stood on. The trick is knowing which version of the trip you're building.
The version everyone builds by accident
Three nights in Sorrento, a day trip to Positano that's really four hours of it (two of them in traffic), a rushed lunch, and a drive back before dark because nobody wants to do those hairpin turns at night. You'll have seen the coast. You will not have been there.
The version I build on purpose
Base yourself in Positano or Ravello for several nights, not one. Let a driver handle the road instead of you. Pick one real thing to do each day instead of four rushed ones. Get on a boat at least once — the coast was built to be seen from the water, and most people never do it.
The Path of the Gods hike is the one piece of advice I give that people almost always thank me for afterward. Start at 7am from Bomerano, before the day-trip buses arrive, and you'll have long stretches of a genuinely spectacular ridge trail entirely to yourself. It costs nothing but an early alarm.
If there's one thing I'd want someone to take from this: the coast rewards slowness in a way few places do. Every itinerary I've built that tried to cram in more ended up worse than the one that did less, more carefully. Go slow. Take the boat. Eat the long dinner. That's the whole secret.
