BootsnAll Travel Community

Okay, so we're in Syria right now, and have realized a few things.

1- We're tired of cities, we need someplace quiet to relax. There's slim pickings here outside of the tourist trail.
2- We've spent a lot of time seeing things in Syria, and not much time actually doing anything.

And sooo...for the Turkey experts, we were hoping for some pointers.

Are there any nice, quiet towns, with decent accomodation anywhere in the region near the Syrian border. We'd really like to just lie around for a few days. Maybe a beach, or something. Hopefully also somewhere we can meet people, too. We're hoping somewhere either like Dahab in Egypt or Dana in Jordan, if you're familiar with either of those.

Also, anywhere in the country, are there any places where its easy to organize activities. We're thinking things like horseback riding, white water rafting, kayaking, things like that. Other suggestions for fun things to do welcome.

Thanks.

Activities? Saklikent Gorge has some water activities including some mild rafting options, some decent food, cheap treehouse lodging and some general tomfoolery available. It's not too far from Fethiye.

Of course, the best place in Turkey is Goreme.

I don't have a lot of personal experience in the Turkey-Syria border region, other than zooming through on my way from one country to the other. My impression, though, was that the pickings were slim for laid-back traveler's pit-stop type of places.

I've never heard of any "Dahabs" in the immediate border area. For that, I'd head to Olympos or elsewhere in the Western Med coast. I personally liked the Aegean much better -- particularly closer to Istanbul. (PM me if you want a recommendation for a great beach up that way)

I can tell you one beach to skip (in case you're tempted): Anamur. The castle is kind of cool, but the beach sucks, the city is pretty bland, and it's basically set up as a resort to attract lower-middle class Turks (although it is interesting in its own way for the latter reason).

In the Syria-Turkey border region, you might have better lucking finding a "Dana" type place. The Harran area and Mt. Ararat sound cool, but I've never made it out that way. Good luck and let us know what you come up with.

The valley of Olimpos. There is a beach and ruins in the woods. Very chill. Or near Fethiye is Buttetfly valley. camping at the bottom.

Thanks a lot. We ended up just relaxing in Antakya, which, as far as cities go, wasn't too bad for friendly factor, though we had larger language problems there than anywhere we'd been in Syria, Jordan or Egypt.

We're still on the prowl for activities. We've gotten ourselves to Göreme, mainly because we really needed to find somewhere where guidebooks might be sold, to be able to get an idea of where to go. We're looking into horseback riding and white water rafting from here, but both look like they may be budget breakers, which is a bit frustrating. Hiking though, there is aplenty, so we're going to get a bit of that done, and hopefully that will make us feel a little bit more involved in our holiday.

We will definately check out Olympos and the nearby coast. We've also fround some spots in the NE, near Georgia, that we're interested in going, but we're a little iffy on whether the 10 hours it would take us on a bus to get there is worth it.

yep, rafting around Cappadocia looks like 95€ per person for one day of rafting - that's almost 4 days worth of our budget. (I'm also disliking that the new Lonely Planet (was it the same in the old one?) has prices in Euros, and many tour companies seem to be listing that way too - which would be fine if they actually used the Euro, but I find I have to convert things so many times in my head to figure out what the price really means to me. oh well)

so - any suggestions on good areas of Turkey for affordable, easy to get to (ie, don't need your own car) camping, hiking, 'alternative tourism' as some people call it. we don't have any camping gear aside from one sleeping bag, so we'd prefer to go with a tour that can provide, unless it turns out to be cheaper to actually just buy our own gear. we're not too keen on carrying gear either, as we still have about 4 months to go (would it be worth carrying that kind of stuff through Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary?)

We did hike briefly through the Ihlara gorge yesterday, and that was wonderful - I could easily spend a couple of days there, but aside from the day tour, getting there is a bit more challening. (it is doable, though)

and we are finding the LP to be a little lacking in the adventure/alternative touring type stuff. there's a whole lot about ancient sites, and not a whole lot on actually doing stuff. We wanna do stuff!

harumph.

we spent 8 hours on a bus yesterday (traversing some most wonderful terrain, I must say - I do recommend the road from Konya to Egirdir, poppies and fields and mountains and lakes... gorgeous).
but!

we chose our pension here based on a poster we saw at the last pension - alternative tourism, free boat tours and fishing, guided trekking and camping, internet...

we arrived to find that on June 1, we are the only guests in the place, and we are still too early in the season for any of the arranged trips. also they have no internet. (why do people have to advertise for stuff they don't have?! we've encountered that several times on this trip)

if we want to go to the national park tomorrow, we have to hire a cab (the fare is sort of reasonable), but we have no map of the park, don't know what is available there, etc.

we also just received a reply from ANZ guesthouse in Selcuk that it is also too early there for trekking trips.

so, um, when does tourist season start in Turkey?

it's getting a little frustrating, because we dont want to be surrounded by tourists, but then again, it seems that several of the things we want to do are only options when there are lots of tourists. catch 22, isn't it?

Yeah the tourist season is late this year. It is said to be starting around June 18th for the Kusadasi area.

Hello,

I'd give another vote for Olympos! I was there in April before the season kicked off but it's as chilled out as you want it to be with the option of lots of places to head for some drinks and dancing. Loads of adventure activities operate out of there and I did a 'Blue Cruise' from there up to Fethiye over 4 days, 3 nights. Was fantastic and there are lots of shorter options going to other places too. Great way to kick back and see the med coast at the same time.

Cheers,
Kirsty

tip about the blue cruises - bargain! at least in shoulder season, and especially it seems this year they are lower in customers (one theory is because people are staying home to watch the world cup), they aren't full up, and bargains should be possible. the usual quoted price is 99 pounds (sterling), which amounts to something like 250 lira, give or take, but we paid 150 lira each, and the quality was not compromised. We went with Olympos Yacthing, which I would recommend. The food onboard was great, I felt confident in the captain and crew, the boat seemed decent. (we had originally booked through the Saban pension, with Big Backbackers cruises, but they didn't have enough people to fill a boat, so they managed to get us on to the Olympos boat)

things are getting a bit better as we move into the more touristy west coast, but it's still a little disappointing that a lack in tourists has resulted in some activities not being available. guess that's the way it goes, sometimes.