Mediterranean Turkey Family Holidays & Breaks

Mediterranean Turkey Best Beaches and Resorts

• Visit Olüdeniz, Turkey’s most famous beach, and one of its best, with turquoise waters, a gorgeous lagoon and lots of watersports. From here there are cheap taxi-boat trips to Butterfly Valley, where between June and September you can see unique Jersey tiger butterflies – otherwise, it’s an unspoilt beach with a tiny restaurant, wooden beach huts and a few hippies.

• Head to Marmaris in its sheltered bay, with a seafront promenade running the length of the town, lined with hotels, restaurants and clubs, a swanky marina, a big bazaar, and busy holiday villages nearby.  

• From Fethiye, take the full-day ‘12 Island’ boat trip, stopping at various islands and bays and allowing plenty of time to swim – many of the double-decker boats even have a slide into the water.

• Hop from Kekova (see below) to the pretty, jasmine-scented seaside resort of Kas, relatively unspoilt and offering tranquil cafés, bars and guesthouses. This is one of Turkey’s best sites for diving, with courses for ages 13+ offered by the likes of Nautilus. As well as dramatic dive sites (including shipwrecks), there’s a wealth of sealife, from octopus to dolphins. Don't miss Kapitas Beach.  

Mediterranean Turkey History and Culture

• Discover Dalyan, a pretty riverside village worth visiting for the amazing Lycian tombs carved into the cliff face across the river, as well as its quayside restaurants, its hot springs and mud baths, and – best of all for kids – its wooden boat trips to Iztuzu Beach, famous as a rare breeding ground for loggerhead turtles. This been a protected area since David Bellamy made international headlines opposing the building of a hotel complex on the site.

• Seek out the ruined Lycian cities in this area – Pinara, Myra and Xanthos. Or, if the ancient sites are too exhausting a prospect, this is a region of rocky inlets, turquoise seas and pretty harbourfront towns – an ideal way of exploring them is by gulëts, traditional wooden yachts.

• Marvel at the sunken city of Kekova on a small island, preserved by salt-water after being partly submerged during earthquakes. Adults and older kids can canoe over parts of it, or you can dock in a boat and explore the remains of a church, shops, houses, staircases and more.  

• Spend time in the elegant provincial capital Antalya,  with a seaside setting and a dramatic mountain backdrop. Its boulevards are lined with palm trees, and it is famous for its shops and parks. It is also a good base for exploring the classical sites of Termessos, Perge and Aspendos.  

• Venture further down the coast to the pretty resort of Side, where ancient remains are interspersed among traditional village streets. In this region to the east of Antalya, the Mediterranean coast becomes considerably less developed, and the ambience becomes much more Middle Eastern.