1 week Amalfi coast - Positano, Amalfi & Ravello. Too much? Help please!
 

Me and my husband are planning a trip along the amalfi coast for one week (beginning and ending in rome).
We are planning to take the train from rome to salerno. Then take the ferry:
3 nights in positano
2 nights in amalfi
2 nights in ravello
And then track to rome via Salerno.

As we do not plan to rent a car, we will be commuting between these towns via SITA buses/ferry. Is three towns as bases in a week too much. We pack light and do not mind moving often as long as the journeys in between towns are not too tedious. But will this itinerary lead us to spend too much time on the road? Even if we were to take one place (say position) as our base, wouldn't we anyways be spending a lot of time on the buses/ferry even on day trips to the other places?
Please suggest if we should stay at one place as opposed to three and if we need to add or subtract anything from this initial plan?
Thank you very much in advance!

The villages are very close, so IMO there is no need to change locations.

I spend a week in Positano each June and have yet to run out of things to do/see.

The ferry from Positano to Amalfi takes 35 minutes and the ferry from Positano to Salerno takes 70 minutes. The bus from Amalfi up to Ravello take 20 minutes. So if you stay in one place, you will not spend hours "commuting" and you will save time by not packing/unpacking and checking in/out of hotels.

Well you do not say when--anytime from mid May to mid September, moving around can be a real pain.
I have suggested more than one base to people before, but only when they wish to stay at opposite ends of the AC. You have chosen the three towns that are probably the closest together and more frequently linked, so one base would be fine. However, there is nothing wrong with shorter overnights if you really want to get a feel for a place after dark (when day trippers depart, etc.)
Have you identified what day trips you will do aside from those three towns?

I totally agree with the advice above. See which town grabs you ( I love Positano!) and use that as your base rather than moving around.

You might also consider the fast train from Rome to Naples ( 70 minutes) then a private transfer to your hotel on the AC.(about 120E, takes about an hour and a half).

I certainly would not stay in all 3 places! but maybe 2 because Positano is just so darn hilly and quite possibly the SITA bus will be very crowded. So maybe Ravello and Positano, that would be one water town and one hill town!

I agree. I stayed in Positano and took the bus to the other locations. It's a 45 minute boat ride from Positano to Capri which is worth the trip. Check out Hotel Albertina. Lorenzo owns it. It's a perfect location. I've stay there three times.

Sorry, forgot to mention. We will be in the amalfi coast from 17th to 24th June. We are mainly interested in ravello to get a feel of the more smaller towns at night & also we would want to get away from the more touristy bits of the coast at least for a couple of days. Keeping that in mind, should we give amalfi a miss and use positano & ravello as bases for exploring the area?
We're looking at praiano, furore, minori and Capri for day trips. How far is ravello from the town of amalfi if we want to visit for dinner, etc at night?

If you are going to eliminate one, make it Amalfi for sure. You will have to pass through for the bus. It was really mobbed with people during the day when I was there in May.

If you don't want to stay in one town for the entire trip, it makes sense to split your time between Positano and Ravello.

Ravello is a 20-30 minute bus ride up the hill from Amalfi.

You can catch the ferry to Capri from Positano and you can walk or take the bus to Praiano from Positano.

Furore and Minori are only accessible by bus and are closer to Amalfi (I think - check a map).

We stayed in Positano for our honeymoon in August 2009 and took day trips to Ravello and Amalfi. We absolutely loved Positano and are happy that we made it our base.

This is my personal opinion, but Amalfi is a pretty small town and worthy of a day trip, but I don't see the benefit in switching hotels to actually spend a night(s) there. On the other hand, Ravello is absolutely breathtaking (very quiet though) and actually staying in a hotel there seems worthwhile. We wished we had spent at least a night or two there just to experience different times of the day.

So I would split my time between Positano and Ravello, with more nights in the former.

You could also do a day trip to Capri from Positano! We loved Capri, very beautiful island. It's a short boat ride from Positano.

Yes, if you want to split your time I would go with either Positano and Ravello or Positano and Capri, which is a completely different place after the day trippers have left.

Not sure why you want to day trip to Praiano.

All of these places will be mobbed by mid-June, so try to pick a hotel in Positano that is uphill from town, away from the crowds. (We love Hotel Poseidon, and were there for the fifth or sixth? time this July, but there are others, too).

Also definitely get an early start on any day trips. Use the boats between towns as much as possible. The SITA buses can be extremely packed in the summer months.

If walking interests you:

You can hike between Ravello and Amalfi via the town of Pontone and Valle dei Mulini. This is a nice walk (mostly downhill from Ravello) and takes you past streams and through a wooded valley that used to house paper mills. Also passes lemon tree groves. In late April and early May, we saw beautiful wisteria, too.

You can also walk down to the town of Atrani from Ravello and then it is a short walk (5-10 min) over to Amalfi where you might catch a bus back to Ravello.

I'm a rare Fodorite who doesn't mind relocating with frequency. I really like seeing places in the different lights of day and evening, having different rooms to help anchor memories, etc. So if you are willing to make these moves, do it! Just be aware of what it entails -- packing/unpacking, etc.