10 days in Türkiye: the Aegean version

What the three extra days should buy

Not three more cities. The most common mistake in a ten-day Türkiye itinerary is to treat the extra days as extra ground, which turns a good trip into a coach schedule.

Ten days buys two things a week cannot: slack — a spare morning for the balloon, an afternoon that can absorb a delayed flight — and depth in one region. We put that depth in the southwest, because it is where the density is and where we operate ourselves.

The route

İstanbul → Cappadocia → Antalya → Salda → Pamukkale → Aphrodisias → Ephesus, flying out of İzmir.

The line still runs in one direction. Cappadocia to the Mediterranean coast, the coast inland past Salda, then Pamukkale as the base for the Aegean interior, then west to the coast again. Nothing is backtracked.

İstanbul and Cappadocia

As on the classic route. Cappadocia is where the balloon morning goes, and in ten days it finally gets the spare morning behind it that a seven-day trip struggles to find. The flight decision is made at dawn by the licensed operator, on that day’s conditions; with a second morning in hand, a cancellation costs you a lie-in rather than the experience.

Antalya

The Mediterranean stop, and the point in the trip where the pace drops. Old harbour, city beaches, and dinner somewhere above the water. It also gives the route a second airport — useful if your long-haul arrival or departure is easier here than in İstanbul.

Salda — read this before you picture it

Lake Salda is extraordinary and it is also strictly protected, which is not the impression given by most of the photographs circulating online.

The lake is 184 metres deep according to the Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change. In 2024 it was included in the IUGS Second 100 Geological Heritage Sites list, at number 131. Its white shoreline has been studied as a terrestrial analogue for Jezero Crater on Mars — the crater NASA’s Perseverance rover was sent to.

And: at the White Islands (Beyaz Adalar) area, entering the water, swimming, using the beach and driving in are all prohibited. Within the barriered zones, even bringing food and drink in is not permitted. Anyone selling you a swim or a picnic on that shore is selling something that is not allowed to happen.

So we plan Salda as what it legally is — a viewing and walking stop in the permitted areas, on the road between Antalya and Pamukkale. Planned that way it is one of the most striking hours of the whole trip. Planned as a beach day it is a disappointment enforced by a barrier.

Pamukkale

The anchor of the second half, and where our own office is. The travertine terraces and Hierapolis above them share one ticket, currently €30 for foreign visitors on the Ministry’s DÖSİM tariff, with three gates into the site: North, South and the pedestrian gate in the village. Hierapolis-Pamukkale has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1988 (list no. 485) as a mixed cultural and natural site under criteria iii, iv and vii, covering 1,077 hectares — a dual inscription very few places in the world hold.

Hierapolis passed to Rome in 133 BC, so the colonnaded street is roughly 2,100 years old. The terraces are walked barefoot, and the surface is wet and slippery. The status of Cleopatra’s antique pool has been reported differently by different official sources; we verify its current condition before booking rather than promising a swim.

The balloon is an option here too, over a much emptier sky: civil aviation rules cap Pamukkale at 40 balloons airborne at once, against 100 morning slots in Cappadocia, and the Ministry states that more than 80% of the country’s balloon flights happen in Cappadocia.

Aphrodisias

The stop that ten days makes possible and seven does not, and for many visitors the quietest surprise of the trip: a marble city with one of the best-preserved stadiums of the ancient world, and the Sebasteion reliefs. It was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2017. It is close enough to Pamukkale to be visited as a day trip.

One current caveat we would rather you heard from us: the museum building on the site is closed; the archaeological site itself is open. Some official pages still describe the museum as operating, and some list the UNESCO inscription as 2015. Both are out of date.

Ephesus

The finish. Entry is €40, including the Ephesus Experience Museum; the Terrace Houses are a separate €15 ticket, with no combined ticket available. Fly out of İzmir.

How this route is run

We are based in Denizli, and the Pamukkale leg is operated by our own team. On the other legs we work with local suppliers on the ground. The tour is organised by us under one contract either way, so there is a single counterparty for the whole ten days.

Dates, pace and inclusions are built per request, with each site entry named individually in the written programme rather than folded into a round number.