Trading volatility VIX

Yes. VIX. VVIX. VXX in selected short term instances only.

I trade options on the futures contracts, and the spot VIX. If you trade the securities, you are not really trading the underlying.

So here's the most real example I can give, if you're trading VIX as a security, and VIX settles, it settles at symbol VRO, which might or might not be the index. I bought last month's $11 puts. Last day of trading it was at 10.85. Doesn't matter that the option was only fetching a couple of pennies, if $10.85 was the settlement price, since there are no shares I would have received cash in lieu, or .15 per share X 100 for every contract. That's the way it works, no shares, cash only, and in some instances the actual future's contracts.

So sorry Iowa Golfer, VRO was actually $11.74.

I wouldn't trade it. I would buy VIX calls as portfolio insurance. The only reason I traded it in the above example is that it was short term, and I bought it at a nickel. So for every 20 contracts I risked $200 as speculation to make 33%.

When you buy long term, you pay for it as the insurance is priced in. You really need to look at it as buying the delta of a certain month. The posted delta and gamma are almost always wrong. I won't bore you with the details, but they are.