Which trek in Türkiye? Compare terrain, effort and self-reliance

Compare hiking and trekking trips in Türkiye

Our answer to this question rarely starts with the name of a region. It starts with your legs: how many hours you can walk without thinking about it, how you cope with a long descent, what heat does to you, and if you would rather have a guide beside you or walk at your own pace. The table below starts from there: the hardest day of each programme.

Which trek in Turkey suits your level?

For each of our trips in Turkey, the table shows the most demanding day as it appears on the programme page. A 3/5 rating in Lycia and a 3/5 rating in the Taurus do not feel the same: the ascent and descent figures tell you more than the grade.

For the self-guided Lycian Way, day-by-day ascent figures are in the route book handed over in Fethiye.

The closer the hardest day is to your usual walks, the better the trip will suit you. If it clearly goes beyond them, move one or two rows up the table.

Which trek is best for a first trip to Turkey?

For a first trek in the country, we almost always point people to guided Cappadocia. Trails of Cappadocia is rated 2/5: four to six hours of walking a day on terrain that is sometimes uneven, carrying only a day pack. You sleep in Mustafapaşa, then Ortahisar, then Çavuşin, so there is little packing and unpacking. Transfers are short, except on the Ihlara and Derinkuyu day, which involves about three hours on the road.

If you are not yet sure about a full week of walking, Cappadocia – Istanbul is gentler. Three walking days in Cappadocia, the first about three hours long, then three days in Istanbul, on foot but in the city: Hagia Sophia, the Basilica Cistern, Topkapı, the Bosphorus.

Watch out for one reading trap. The Carian Trail is also rated 2/5, but its fourth day in the Latmos covers 17 km in six to seven hours, with more than 1,000 m of descent. The overall grade stays moderate because the second half of the trip, on a gulet, only has walks of two to four hours. For a beginner, that one day needs proper preparation.

A first trek is not a first hike: our most accessible programmes assume you can already walk five hours without suffering. If that is not yet the case, a few long weekend walks with the pack you will carry change everything. Our guide to assessing how hard a trek is offers a simple way to place yourself.

Lycia or Cappadocia: what is the difference on the ground?

They are two different worlds. In Cappadocia you walk on a high plateau in central Anatolia, through valleys carved by erosion into volcanic tuff. The path is often soft, sometimes sandy; it runs through small tunnels, past dovecotes cut into the cliffs, through apricot orchards and vineyards. Climbs are short and frequent. Rock-cut churches are everywhere, and the property "Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia" has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1985.

In Lycia the ground is limestone, stony and often dry. The trail starts at sea level and climbs through pine, maquis and juniper, sometimes up to the cedars. This is what surprises people most: a stage "by the sea" can begin with a thousand metres of ascent. Day 4 of the Antalya to Kekova trip lists 1,110 m of ascent from the Göynük canyon; the next day, the crossing to Beycik runs along the slopes of Mount Tahtalı, the Lycian Olympus, which rises to 2,365 m. The Lycian Way is waymarked in red and white, according to the Culture Routes Society, which created and maintains the route.

The reward in Lycia is the sea and the ancient cities: Olympos and its stream, the Chimaera flames at Yanartaş, Aperlai and its purple-dye workshops, Simena below its castle, the sunken city of Kekova seen from the boat, Patara and its long beach. In Cappadocia the reward is rather the light on the rock, the quiet of the Rose and Red valleys at the end of the day, and cave life seen from the inside at Zelve, Göreme or an underground city such as Derinkuyu.

The calendar also separates them. Our Lycian pages give April–June and September–October, up to November for Antalya–Kekova: in high summer, heat on paths with little shade makes the climbs hard work and forces very early starts. Cappadocia is walked all year on Cappadocia – Istanbul and from spring to autumn on Trails of Cappadocia, with nuances: midday heat in summer, cold nights in spring and autumn, possible snow and frost in winter. Our article on the best time to hike in Turkey covers these differences; our notes on the valleys of Cappadocia and the sections of the Lycian Way, along with the Cappadocia and Lycia pages, go further.

Caria and the Latmos: another side of the Aegean coast?

Caria appeals to walkers who already know Lycia by name and want less-trodden ground. The Latmos mountains, which rise to 1,367 m, overlook Lake Bafa, a former sea gulf that has since been cut off. You walk on mule tracks laid out by shepherds, among stone pines and strangely shaped boulders, to the rock paintings of Balıktaş and the area of the Yediler monastery. Nights are spent in guesthouses, at Karahayıt and then Kapıkırı on the lakeshore.

These are three solid walking days: 11 km on day 2 (ascent 580 m / descent 896 m), 14 km on day 3, then the long Bağarcık day, 17 km with more than 1,000 m of descent. Your knees work harder than your lungs.

The second part of the trip changes pace. In Fethiye you board a gulet for five nights: Gemili island and its Byzantine churches, Kayaköy, the village abandoned in 1923, the unexcavated ruins of Lydae, Hamam bay. A two- to four-hour walk every day, a different anchorage every evening. It works well for a group where not everyone has the same stamina: the Latmos days need preparation, the days at sea are restful. Published season: April–May and September–October. Our advice on preparing the Lake Bafa section and the Caria page complete the picture.

Is the Taurus only for mountaineers?

No, it depends on what you do there. The Aladağlar massif in the central Taurus has a high-mountain reputation, and it has earned it: Demirkazık reaches 3,756 m and its walls draw climbers. But our combined Cappadocia and Taurus programme does not aim for any summit. It follows gorges and valleys.

After three days in Cappadocia, day 5 enters the Kazıkali gorge: three to four hours on the canyon floor, 364 m of ascent. Day 6 starts on the Sokulupınar plateau and descends the Emli valley, five to six hours, 600 m up and 940 m down, with no technical difficulty according to the programme. Day 7 is the Cimbar canyon from the Arpalık nomad camp: 843 m of descent and a short passage where you use your hands, without exposure. Then the drive to Tarsus.

What matters here are the descents. Nearly a thousand metres down in one day on a stony mountain path is what tires thighs and knees. Trekking poles help. Another Taurus reality: it is a limestone massif, and water disappears quickly into the rock. Up high, you set off carrying what you need for the day. The published season runs from May to October.

A summit project in the Aladağlar is a different undertaking, with camps, high-mountain leadership and longer days. We cover it in our practical guide to the Aladağlar and on the Taurus page.

Do you need to be a mountaineer to climb Ararat?

You do not need technical mountaineering skills, but Ararat is not a trek like the others. Our Mt. Artos and Mt. Ararat programme is the only one rated 5/5, and altitude is the reason: the summit stands at 5,137 m, the highest point in Turkey. You climb on foot, with crampons on the glacier section from about 4,750 m.

The programme is built around acclimatisation. Day 2 is the ascent of Mount Artos (3,537 m) above Lake Van: about 1,737 m of ascent, seven to eight hours. Day 3 is an easier day at Akdamar and Van fortress. Day 4 climbs to base camp at 3,200 m, with luggage on pack animals. Day 5 is a round trip to high camp at 4,200 m and back down to sleep at base camp, so the body gets a taste of altitude without spending the night there. Day 6 moves up to high camp, with a refresher on ice axe and crampons. Day 7 starts around 3 a.m. for the summit, nine to ten hours in total, then the descent all the way to base camp.

The climbing permit is included, as are crampons and ice axe on loan if needed, two-person tents, a team of muleteers and cooks, a portable hyperbaric chamber, a pulse oximeter and a first-aid kit. The ascent is led by an English-speaking mountain guide. None of this guarantees the summit. Altitude sickness gives no warning, it sometimes affects very fit walkers, and the decision to turn back belongs to the guide.

The right profile: someone who has already slept above 3,000 m without trouble, who can handle a ten-hour day, and who accepts cold nights in a tent. Season: July to September. Everything is detailed in our article on preparation and safety on Ararat and on the Ararat page.

Guided or self-guided: what difference does it make?

The region does not tell the whole story. The format matters just as much. Our guided trips bring together 4 to 15 people, with a Turkish hiking guide who speaks your group's language. Full board is included, picnic lunch and dinner, except meals on the first and last days. Transfers in the programme, luggage and entrance fees for the listed sites are included. The guide handles the route, the pace and the fallback option if the weather turns.

Self-guided, you travel from two people up to fifteen. We book the guesthouses stage by stage, move your luggage every day and supply the route book and GPS tracks. On the other hand there is no guide on the trail, and entrance fees to archaeological sites and museums are yours to pay, as is the airport transfer on the last day. Meals depend on the option you choose: bed and breakfast, half board or full board.

We offer two self-guided trips in Turkey. The self-guided Lycian Way links Ölüdeniz, Faralya, Kabak, Alınca and Gey, with a day at Patara. The climb from Kabak to Alınca is the heart of the week. Cappadocia, Call of the Hidden Valleys works from two guesthouses, in Mustafapaşa and then Çavuşin, with an emergency phone line available day and night.

Self-guided walking suits people who can read a map, pick up lost waymarks and make a decision on their own when a path has been swept away by a rockfall. If the thought of taking the wrong side valley would spoil your day, choose a guided trip. Our comparison of guided versus self-guided goes through these criteria one by one.

Can you combine two regions in one trip?

Yes, and it is often the best way to see Turkey on foot. Three of our programmes do it, each in its own way.

• Cappadocia – Istanbul, 8 days: four days in Cappadocia, a domestic flight, then Istanbul.
• Cappadocia and Taurus, 8 days: the valleys, then the Aladağlar gorges, about an hour and a half by road between the two.
• Cappadocia and the Lycian Coast, 13 days: from Kayseri to Antalya, with a stop in Konya at the Mevlânâ mausoleum, then Ulupınar, Maden bay, Aperlae, the boat at Kekova, Arykanda and Termessos.

Combining means hours in a vehicle, and the programme states them: on the Cappadocia and Lycian Coast combination, days 6 and 7 each involve about three hours of transfer, with a stop at the Sultanhanı caravanserai to break the journey. Within one week, two regions remain possible if you accept half a day on the road.

A tip from the field: when you combine, put the gentler region first. Cappadocia before Lycia or before the Taurus gives you a few days to get your legs going before the big descents.

How do you decide before booking?

Take three recent hikes and note the duration, ascent, descent and pack weight of each. Compare them with the hardest day in the table. Then look at how the days follow one another: Trails of Cappadocia lines up three days of five to six hours from day 5 to day 7; the Antalya to Kekova trip also lines up three, from day 4 to day 6, with noticeably bigger climbs.

Then ask yourself what tires you most. Climbing? Avoid the first Lycian days around Göynük. Descending? Be wary of Emli, the Latmos and the descent from Ararat. Heat? Stick to the published seasons and favour Cappadocia outside high summer. Navigation? Go guided.

Finally, tell us about your group. We know which days can be shortened, where a transfer can replace a stretch of trail, and which stages have no way out. For your pack, our article on trekking gear for Turkey will help. Practical questions are answered in the travel FAQ, and all our itineraries are on the hiking in Turkey page.