Fighting back tears, the US student said it felt unreal to be back in her hometown of Seattle.
"I'm really overwhelmed right now. I was looking down from the airplane and it seemed like everything wasn't real," Knox said as she addressed supporters and a media scrum at Seattle airport shortly after her plane landed.
"What's important for me to say is just thank you to everyone who's believed in me, who's defended me, who has supported my family," she said in her first public comments since being freed, brushing away tears.
"My family's the most important thing to me right now. I just want to go be with them. So thank you for being there for me."
Her parents, Kurt Knox and Etta Mellas, also offered their thanks, as they accompanied their daughter off the plane and back home.
Lawyer Theodore Simon said the 24-year-old had been through "a trying and grueling four-year nightmarish marathon that no child or parent should have to endure."
The family has said little about her immediate plans -- reports suggest she will try to lie low in Seattle and take time to readjust to normal life, despite the huge media interest here.
Experts say she could earn millions of dollars in book, TV or film rights for the story of her ordeal.
"Amanda Knox is going to be big, because she is so young and she's so all-American looking, and we go by how things look," said Charlotte Gusay, a Los Angeles literary agent.
Knox left Rome swiftly after the decision was handed down by an Italian court, first heading for London to board a connecting flight to Seattle on the US west coast.
She had been convicted along with two others and sentenced to 26 years in prison for taking part in the murder and sexual assault of her British housemate Meredith Kercher, then 21, who was found stabbed to death in the cottage they shared.
Knox's ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, who also had appealed his conviction on the same charges, was likewise acquitted Monday in the university town of Perugia in central Italy where Knox and Kercher were studying.
Kercher was found in a pool of blood on the floor of her bedroom. Her body was covered in dozens of knife wounds and bruises and investigators found traces of a sexual assault.
The only person now convicted of the crime is local drifter Rudy Guede, who is serving 16 years after his earlier appeals were rejected.
Though she was cleared of murder and sexual assault, Knox was found guilty of slander for incriminating the owner of a local bar where she worked as a waitress in her first interrogation just days after the murder.
She was sentenced to time already served and will have to pay compensation to the unjustly accused man, Patrick Lumumba, as well as his legal fees.
Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini said he will petition against the ruling in Italy's highest appeals court to "ensure justice is done."
But an appeal by the prosecution would probably have to be held in Italy in absentia as the US does not extradite its citizens abroad for trials.
The still pending legal action in Italy could pose a potential problem for any deal for her story, say experts.
"The legal question has to be resolved that she is free to tell her story without jeopardizing her future," said Dijkstra, while adding that a book could earn her "several million dollars, with world rights included."
Kercher's mother, brother and sister, who traveled to Italy to hear the verdict, said the truth of what really happened on the night their loved one was killed on November 1, 2007, had suddenly been thrown into doubt.
Knox and ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were convicted in 2009 of killing Knox's British roommate, Meredith Kercher. Knox was serving a 26-year prison term, and Sollecito was given a 25-year sentence.
Theodore Simon, the Knox family's U.S. legal adviser, told those assembled for Knox's airport homecoming not to forget about Kercher.
"Let us not forget that Meredith was Amanda's friend, and I know Amanda and the family wants you to remember Meredith and to keep the Kercher family in your prayers," Simon said.
He added that Knox's return ended "a trying and grueling, four-year, nightmarish marathon that no child or parent should have to endure," but that Monday's Italian court decision "unmistakably announced to the world" that she was not guilty in Kercher's killing.
After Knox was hustled out of the courtroom in Perugia, Italy, crying and stumbling after her acquittal, Knox returned to Cappane prison where she received an exuberant welcome from the inmates.
"All the prisoners, 500 or 600 of them, started to greet Amanda from the windows, like soccer stardom," Corrado Maria Daclon, secretary general of the USA Italy Foundation, told ABC News. "It's difficult to describe the happiness of them seeing Amanda and greeting her and seeing her free now -- yelling, 'Oh, wow, ciao Amanda!' It was really, really incredible emotion."
Daclon said Knox walked back into the prison through its central square, surrounded by blocks and blocks of prison buildings with small windows. Two to three prisoners crammed into each small window, cheering and waving clothing in the air, as if they were flags.
"All the prison was greeting her like a champion," he said.
An elated Knox returned the greeting.
"She was moved and jumped two times to greet them. She was so touched, you can't imagine," Daclon said.
Daclon said he engineered Knox's departure from the prison, an overnight stay near Rome and getting her to plane under the radar of the media.
"The foundation had been working on the plans to get Amanda out of jail for 20 days, carefully studying how to get her out of jail, her arrival in Rome, transfer to the airport, her arrival and transit through nonpublic area of the airport," Daclon said.
They were trailed by a convoy of paparazzi on motorcycles, so they sped off on a country road, changing directions several times until they lost the media. Once they were alone on the road, they headed for Rome.
"We met up with the rest of the family along the way," Daclon said. About 15 family members and friends accompanied Knox to Rome.
Knox and her mother, Edda Mellas, stayed together while the rest of the family registered at a hotel. Daclon picked up Knox again this morning at 8:30 a.m. and headed for the airport.
Knox thanked Daclon and her supporters in a letter released today.
"To hold my hand and offer the support and respect through the barriers and controversies of the Italians. There was the Italy USA Foundation, and many who have shared my pain and helped me to survive on hope," Knox wrote.
"I am forever grateful for their caring hospitality and their courageous efforts. Those who wrote to me, who defended me, who stayed close to me, who prayed for me. We are forever grateful. I love you. Amanda," the letter read.
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