I almost didn't go. I had the flights booked, the hotel confirmed, the itinerary printed — and then I spent two weeks talking myself out of it. What was I thinking, going to Italy alone? What if something went wrong? What if I got lonely? What if I looked ridiculous, a woman my age, solo at a table for one in Positano?
I went anyway. And I want to tell you what actually happened — not the Instagram version, but the real one.
The Amalfi Coast is not easy travel. The roads are narrow, the stairs are steep, the towns cling to cliffs at angles that make your calves burn and your breath catch. It is, in other words, exactly the kind of place that makes you feel magnificently alive.
Getting There (And What I Wish I'd Known)
Fly into Naples. Not Rome, not Milan — Naples. It is a forty-five minute drive to the coast from there, or you can take the ferry from the port, which I recommend unreservedly. Arriving by sea, watching the cliffs rise out of the water with their pastel-colored houses stacked improbably on top of each other — that is the arrival the Amalfi Coast deserves.
I stayed in Ravello rather than Positano, and this was the best decision I made. Positano is beautiful and completely overrun. Ravello sits higher up, quieter, with views that stop you mid-sentence. The tourists thin out by evening. You can actually hear yourself think.
The SITA buses that run along the coast are cheap, frequent, and absolutely terrifying — the drivers navigate hairpin turns above sheer drops with the casual confidence of people who have done this ten thousand times. Take them anyway. They are part of the experience.
The Swimsuit Moment
I need to tell you about the third day. I had walked down to a small beach below Amalfi town — not the main beach, a smaller one you reach by a path that most tourists miss. I had my swimsuit on under my dress, and I stood there for a full five minutes before I took the dress off.
I am 52. My body has carried three children, survived a pandemic, run half marathons, and done things I am proud of. It also looks like the body of a 52-year-old woman, which is to say it looks nothing like the bodies in the travel magazines photographed on these same beaches.
I took the dress off. I walked into the Mediterranean. The water was cold and clear and tasted like salt and something ancient. Nobody looked at me. Nobody cared. The Italian women on the beach — women my age, older — were completely unselfconscious, laughing, eating, existing in their bodies without apology.
Something shifted. I cannot explain it better than that. I stopped carrying the weight of how I looked and just felt the water, the sun, the extraordinary luck of being alive and in this place. I stayed in the water for an hour.
There is something about being somewhere so beautiful that it makes self-consciousness feel like a waste. The Amalfi Coast does not care what size you are. The Mediterranean does not care. And eventually, neither did I.
The Food (Obviously)
I am The Fit Foodie. You knew this section was coming.
The lemons on the Amalfi Coast are not like other lemons. They are the size of grapefruits, fragrant in a way that makes you want to eat the peel, and they are in everything — the limoncello, obviously, but also the pasta, the seafood, the granita, the gelato. I ate lemon granita for breakfast three days in a row and I regret nothing.
Scialatielli ai frutti di mare
A thick, short pasta native to the Amalfi Coast, served with whatever came out of the sea that morning. I had this at a place in Atrani with four tables and no menu — you ate what they made. It was the best pasta of my life.
Mozzarella di bufala
Not the rubbery supermarket kind. The real thing, made from water buffalo milk, so fresh it weeps when you cut it. Eaten with nothing but good olive oil and a little salt, it is a complete argument for slowing down and paying attention to what you eat.
Colatura di alici
Anchovy sauce from Cetara, a small fishing village on the coast. Intensely savory, used in tiny amounts over pasta. I bought three bottles to bring home. I use it on everything now.
Delizia al limone
A dome-shaped lemon sponge cake soaked in limoncello cream. I had this at the restaurant that invented it, in Sorrento. I ate every bite and then sat quietly for a moment in gratitude.
What Solo Travel Actually Feels Like
People ask me if I got lonely. Honestly? For about forty-five minutes on the second evening, when I sat down to dinner and the table next to me was a couple celebrating what looked like an anniversary. I felt a small, quiet pang. And then my food arrived and I opened my journal and I was fine.
What solo travel actually feels like, most of the time, is freedom. You eat when you want. You stop when something catches your eye. You spend three hours in a garden because the light is doing something extraordinary and nobody is waiting for you. You change your plans on a whim. You have conversations with strangers that go somewhere real because you are not performing for anyone.
I met a woman from New Zealand on the path to Villa Cimbrone who had been traveling alone for six weeks. She was 67. She had been widowed two years earlier and had decided, after a year of grief, to go everywhere her husband had always said they would go someday. She was radiant. She was the most alive person I met on the entire trip.
I think about her often.
Practical Notes for the Trip
Go in May or September
July and August are beautiful and absolutely packed. May has the wildflowers and the light without the crowds. September has warm water and the summer tourists gone.
Stay at least five nights
Three nights is not enough. You spend the first day getting oriented, the last day packing. You need the middle days to actually be there.
Wear shoes you can walk in
The towns are built on stairs. Hundreds of them. I saw women in heels on the steps in Positano and I genuinely worried for them. Bring good walking shoes. Your feet will thank you.
Learn five words of Italian
Grazie, prego, scusi, per favore, and buongiorno. That is enough to be treated with warmth everywhere you go. Italians appreciate the effort enormously.
Book the ferry, not the bus, for your first arrival
The approach by sea is one of the great travel experiences. Do not skip it to save twenty euros.
What I Brought Home
Three bottles of colatura di alici. A linen dress I bought from a woman who made it herself in a shop the size of a closet in Ravello. A notebook full of observations I have been mining ever since. And something harder to name — a loosening, maybe. A reminder that the world is large and generous and full of beauty, and that I am still capable of being surprised by it.
I am already planning the next one. Portugal, probably. Or maybe Greece. The woman from New Zealand said the Greek islands in October are something else entirely.
Book the trip. You will not regret it.
Dr. Simone Okafor, LMFT
Dr. Simone Okafor is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist specializing in midlife transitions, identity, and emotional resilience. She writes about the inner work of reinvention, relationships, and what it means to come home to yourself.
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