Every Antalya day, reviewed.
Which Suluada boat still has room to lie down. Whether the Köprülü water is really that cold (it is). What the cable car costs before you join the queue. Every day out of Antalya, ranked by the people who took it.
Antalya runs on boats, buggies and one very old harbour.
A gulet out to an empty island, a raft down a cold mountain river, a morning lost in Kaleiçi’s lanes, a foam-and-marble hour in a hammam. Start with the six days most trips are built around.
The Suluada day is why people come back to Antalya.
South of Kemer, past Olympos, the coast turns to pine and empty water. The gulets go out mid-morning, anchor off a bare island with nothing built on it, and feed you on deck. Every other boat day here gets measured against that one.
From Suluada down: Antalya’s most-booked days.
Every review →The tours more travellers take than anything else on this coast — and what each one actually gets you for the day.
1
Suluada Island Small-Group Boat Tour w/ Lunch
Suluada Island boat tour from Antalya/Kemer with 3-course lunch, three swim stops, and easy hotel-area pickup. Great value at $21.
From · $21
Read our review →
2
Ziplining, Rafting, Jeep Tour & Quad Safari w/Lunch
from $26
3
Old City, Waterfalls, Olympos Cable Car, Boat
from $29
4
Suluada Boat Tour From Antalya (Maldives of Turkey) with Lunch & Hotel Transfer
from $23
5
Pamukkale Hierapolis and Cleopatra’s Pool Tour with lunch from Antalya
from $84
6
Antalya Luxury Old Town Tour with Cable Car & Boat Trip
from $32
7
Suluada Island Boat Trip with Lunch & Hotel Pickup
from $18
8
Pamukkale and Hierapolis Tour with Lunch
from $41
Kaleiçi is small. Give it a whole morning anyway.
The old town is a few hundred metres across and takes hours: Hadrian’s Gate, the fluted minaret, lanes of Ottoman houses that all lean the same way, then the harbour steps down to the boats. Most guided mornings finish with a run along the cliffs to the falls.
The Köprülü is cold, fast, and ninety minutes from your hotel.
All rafting trips →
The Köprüçay comes off the Taurus as snowmelt and stays cold through the hottest month of the year, which is the whole point of it in August. Most of the canyon is sold welded to a buggy run and a zipline — that is also what holds the price down, so all three start at the same place.
Köprüçay through the gorge, nothing bolted on
Down the canyon below the old Roman bridge, a stop to jump off a rock if you want one, then trout at one of the restaurants built out over the water.
Raft, buggy and zipline in one long day
The one most people book. You finish it covered in dust and river water, having seen the same canyon from three different angles.
Jeeps up the Taurus, above the tree line
Open-sided Land Rovers on forest track instead of tarmac, a village lunch on the way up, and a water fight on the way down that nobody warns you about.
When Antalya pushes forty degrees, get in the water or under the pines.
July and August here are properly hot and the middle of the day is not for ruins. The answers are all cool: a boat with a swim ladder, a dam lake shaded by cliffs, mountain water at the top of the cable car, an hour on wet marble in a hammam. Ancient cities are a morning job.
What Antalya costs, from a boat seat up.
Every reviewed tour sorted by what it actually charges. On this coast a very good day out still starts near the price of lunch.
Boat days, hammams, quad runs, ancient-city tickets — the everyday best of the coast.
The long ones: Pamukkale and back, the Kekova sunken city, diving with two tanks, the theme-park days.
Private guides, chartered boats and the two-day runs inland to Cappadocia.
The best days out of Antalya are three hours away.
All day trips →Pamukkale Hierapolis and Cleopatra’s Pool Tour with lunch from Antalya
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A gorge, a cable car and a foam bath: only in Antalya.
Beaches and boat trips belong to the whole Mediterranean. The Köprüçay run, the cable car up Tahtalı and a proper Turkish hammam are this coast’s alone.
The Köprüçay
The river runs through a limestone gorge in a national park, under a Roman bridge that is still standing and still in use. It is snowmelt water off the Taurus, so it stays cold through the hottest month of the year — which is exactly why the rafting season here peaks in the middle of summer rather than the spring. Wetsuits are usually optional and usually a good idea.
- 1Ziplining, Rafting, Jeep Tour & Quad Safari w/Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 3,260 reviews
- 2Rafting & Buggy, Quad Safari & Zipline Adventure★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,545 reviews
- 3Köprülü Canyon Antalya: Whitewater Rafting Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 974 reviews
Tahtalı by cable car
The mountain the Greeks called Olympos sits straight behind Kemer, and a gondola climbs it in about ten minutes from a station near the shore. You leave a beach at thirty degrees and step out into wind and, for much of the year, snow. Go early: the cloud builds over the summit by mid-morning and the view down the coast disappears with it.
- 1Old City, Waterfalls, Olympos Cable Car, Boat★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,896 reviews
- 2Antalya Luxury Old Town Tour with Cable Car & Boat Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,880 reviews
- 3City Tour w/Olympos Cable Car, Boat & Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,116 reviews
The hammam hour
A proper bath is a sequence, not a room: sweat on the heated marble slab until you have stopped thinking, then a coarse mitt takes off more of you than you expected, then a pillowcase of olive-oil foam, then cold water over the head. Antalya’s resort hammams sell it with a massage attached and it is the best forty minutes of any beach holiday.
- 1Traditional Turkish Bath Experience in Antalya★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 225 reviews
- 2Alanya/Kemer/Side: Turkish Bath and Massage with Transfers★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 131 reviews
- 3Traditional Turkish Bath & Oil Massage & Spa★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 90 reviews
Four Antalya trips that eat the whole day.
Most of this coast can be booked from the hotel desk the night before. These four cannot be squeezed between breakfast and the beach — they take the day, and one of them takes two. Put them in the week first and let the sunbathing fall around them.
- 012-Day Cappadocia, Cave Hotel, & Balloon TourTwo days and a night inland, usually with a cave hotel and a dawn balloon. It is a trip inside your trip — book it early in the week.
- 02Pamukkale Hierapolis and Cleopatra’s Pool Tour with lunch from AntalyaAround three hours each way to the terraces and the ruins above them. Superb, and gone by sunset. Not a lie-in day.
- 03Suluada Island Small-Group Boat Tour w/ LunchA full day at sea with no way off the boat. Take a settled-weather day early on, so there is a second chance if the wind turns.
- 04Belek: The Land Of Legends Theme Park Entrance TicketA whole park day, and the night show with the boat parade runs after it. Plan nothing else around it.
By where the day goes
Out to sea132 tours
Up the Köprülü87 tours
Into Kaleiçi29 tours
Inland to Pamukkale47 tours
Around the ancient cities24 tours- Up Tahtalı23 tours
- Along the falls50 tours
- Every review →
By experience — what kind of day is it?
A first week in Antalya, in the order that works.
Latest Antalya tour reviews.
All recent →
Private Yacht Tour with 3 Swim Stops and a Meal
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Antalya/Kemer/Bekek: Suluada Boat Tour with Transfer & Lunch
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Super Combo Rafting, Jeep Safari, Quad/Buggy & Zipline f/Kemer
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Scuba Diving Tour in Kemer with Lunch and Transfer
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2 Hour Olympos Cable Car Tour to Tahtali Mountains from Kemer
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Full-day Boat Tour from Kemer with Lunch and Foam Party
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Kemer Jeep Safari With Free Hotel Transfer & Lunch
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Kemer Full Day Pirate Boat Trip with Lunch and Optional Transfer
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Kemer Adventures ATV Quad Safari Tour with Transfer
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