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Get a Personal Pick →Turkey
88 destinations
City Aizanoi
"A complete Roman temple alone in a wheat field, grain prices carved in its market hall."
Water Akdamar Island
"A tenth-century Armenian church carved with biblical scenes floats alone on an island in Lake Van."
Wilderness Altınbeşik Cave
"An underground river opens into a cathedral-sized cavern holding Turkey's largest underground lake."
City Amasya
"Ottoman mansions reflected in a narrow river gorge, Pontic rock tombs carved into the cliff above."
City Ani
"A ghost city of 100,000 souls on the Armenian border, churches crumbling into wildflower meadows."
City Aphrodisias
"A marble city amid wheat fields, its sculptors' workshop dug out full of half-finished statues."
City Aspendos
"A Roman theatre preserved so completely that an unamplified voice carries to the topmost row."
City Assos
"A temple of Athena perches on volcanic rock above the Aegean, Lesbos shimmering on the horizon."
Water Bafa Lake
"A Byzantine monastery on a boulder-strewn island in a lake that was once an Aegean inlet."
Mountain Barhal Valley
"10th-century Georgian churches stand forgotten in steep valleys where the road ends and peaks begin."
Water Bozcaada
"A wine island you can cycle in a morning, its harbour fortress layered by four empires."
Water Butterfly Valley
"Only reachable by boat, a sheer-walled canyon where butterflies swirl above a hidden beach."
Wilderness Camili Valley
"Turkey's only UNESCO biosphere reserve, a Caucasian rainforest valley reached by one unpaved pass."
Mountain Cappadocia
"More than a hundred balloons rise at dawn through a forest of stone pillars."
Wilderness Çatalhöyük
"A 9,000-year-old town with no streets, where every front door was in the roof."
Mountain Cennet & Cehennem
"Twin sinkholes side by side: one a fern-filled paradise, one an abyss that held a monster."
Water Çıldır Lake
"Horse-drawn sleighs cross a frozen lake while fishers haul yellow carp through the ice."
Water Cunda Island
"A Greek island resettled by Cretan Turks, its cathedral now a museum, its chapel a library."
Water Dalyan
"River channels wind past Kaunos's cliff-cut temple tombs to a turtle-nesting beach, explored by wooden boat."
Water Datça Peninsula
"Two seas collide at a wind-raked cape where almond blossom blankets the hills each February."
City Derinkuyu
"Eighteen levels carved straight down into the earth, a hidden city for 20,000 souls."
Water Dilek Peninsula
"Wild horses drink from Aegean coves in a national park where pine forest meets the sea."
City Diyarbakır
"5.8 kilometres of black basalt walls encircle a city on the Tigris, contested for five millennia."
City Edirne
"A wrestling festival running since 1362, and Sinan's masterpiece dome rising over the same town."
City Ephesus
"Marble streets still grooved by Roman chariot wheels lead to a library that held 12,000 scrolls."
City Gaziantep
"Pistachio baklava layered by hand in copper-scented bazaars, a UNESCO city of gastronomy."
Water Giresun Island
"The eastern Black Sea's only island, its Hellenistic temple foundations sleeping beneath hazelnut trees."
City Göbekli Tepe
"Stone pillars raised before farming existed, six thousand years older than Stonehenge."
Water Gökçeada
"Turkey's largest island: organic vineyards, empty beaches and Greek stone villages coming slowly back to life."
Mountain Göynük Canyon
"Wade chest-deep through turquoise water between vertical canyon walls into a hidden waterfall chamber."
Water Hasankeyf
"A 12,000-year-old Tigris settlement now partly drowned by a dam, cave dwellings and minarets half-submerged."
City Hattuşa
"Crumbling walls and lion gates of a 3,300-year-old Hittite capital sprawling across a windswept plateau."
Mountain Ihlara Valley
"A 100-metre-deep gorge sliced through volcanic rock, its walls honeycombed with painted Byzantine churches."
City Ishak Pasha Palace
"A frontier palace with heating in its stone walls, its golden doors still in the Hermitage."
City Istanbul
"Minarets and cargo ships share a waterway where two continents nearly touch."
City İznik
"The lake town where Christianity's creed was born and Ottoman tile-making reached its zenith."
Water Kabak
"A cove reached by steep forest trail, wooden cabins under the pines above an almost-empty beach."
Mountain Kaçkar Mountains
"Glacial lakes above the clouds where herders still drive cattle to alpine meadows each summer."
Wilderness Kangal Fish Springs
"Thermal pools where tiny doctor fish nibble dead skin, the original springs behind a global craze."
City Kars
"Russian-grid streets and crumbling art nouveau facades in a frontier city where winter means minus thirty."
Water Kaş
"Lycian tombs glow orange at sunset above a harbour where sea kayaks launch toward sunken ruins."
City Kayaköy
"A Greek village of 500 houses abandoned in 1923: roofless, silent, overgrown with fig trees."
Water Kekova
"A sunken Lycian city whose stone staircases and walls shimmer beneath glass-clear Mediterranean water."
Water Kızkalesi
"Twin medieval castles face each other across a turquoise strait, one on land, one on water."
Water Knidos
"Two harbours face two different seas at a windswept cape where the Aegean meets the Mediterranean."
City Konya
"Whirling dervishes spin in silent trance in the city that keeps Rumi's turquoise-tiled tomb."
Mountain Köprülü Canyon
"White water through a canyon spanned by a Roman bridge, a ruined city perched above."
Wilderness Kültepe
"Twenty-three thousand merchant tablets preserve Anatolia's earliest written record beneath a Bronze Age city."
Water Lake Salda
"White mineral shores around water so turquoise that NASA studied it as a Mars crater analogue."
Water Lake Tortum
"A turquoise lake behind a landslide dam, whose 48-metre waterfall thunders as the spring melt spills."
Water Lake Van
"A vast soda sea where you float without trying, ringed by snow-capped volcanoes."
Mountain Lycian Way
"A 760-kilometre clifftop trail threading ruins, coves and pine forest above the Mediterranean."
Water Mamure Castle
"Thirty-nine towers rise where a medieval fortress meets the Mediterranean surf."
City Mardin
"Honey-coloured stone houses cascade down a hill overlooking the flat Mesopotamian plain stretching to Syria."
Wilderness Midas City
"A rock facade inscribed to Midas the ruler, alone above a plateau of Phrygian tombs."
City Midyat
"Syriac silversmiths hammer filigree in stone courtyards while Aramaic chants drift from the monastery."
Mountain Mount Ararat
"Turkey's highest peak rises alone from the plain, perpetually snow-capped and steeped in flood mythology."
Mountain Mount Ida
"Homer sat Zeus on this summit to watch the Trojan War, above forests found nowhere else."
Mountain Mount Nemrut
"Giant stone heads toppled from their thrones at 2,134 metres, staring across millennia at sunrise."
Wilderness Munzur Valley
"Crystalline springs feeding ice-blue pools in a gorge where brown bears still roam undisturbed."
City Myra
"Rock-cut Lycian tombs stacked like a honeycomb above the church where Saint Nicholas was bishop."
Water Nemrut Crater Lakes
"Two lakes inside a volcanic crater, side by side, one steaming warm, one ice-cold."
Water Ölüdeniz
"Paragliders spiral down from 1,969 metres to land on a lagoon so blue it looks retouched."
Wilderness Olympos
"Lycian ruins tangled in wild fig roots where a forested valley opens onto an empty beach."
Water Pamukkale
"Thermal water spills down white travertine terraces like a frozen waterfall you can wade through."
Water Patara
"Kilometres of empty sand where loggerhead turtles nest beside half-buried Lycian ruins."
City Pergamon
"The ancient world's steepest theatre drops at a vertigo angle from a windswept hilltop acropolis."
City Safranbolu
"Timber-framed Ottoman mansions built on saffron wealth, their carved ceilings untouched since the 1700s."
City Sagalassos
"A Roman city at 1,500 metres still being excavated, its monumental fountain reconstructed and flowing again."
Mountain Saklıkent Gorge
"Ice-cold river water rushes through a 300-metre-deep slot canyon narrow enough to brush both walls."
City Şanlıurfa
"Abraham's cave meets the pool of sacred fish in a city haunted by Mesopotamia's oldest memories."
Water Sinop
"A prison peninsula where Diogenes was born and waves crash on three sides."
City Şirince
"Grandmothers sell peach wine on doorsteps where Greek prayers gave way to Turkish ones in 1923."
Mountain Sumela Monastery
"A monastery clinging to a cliff 300 metres above a misty Black Sea valley."
Mountain Termessos
"Alexander the Great judged this mountain city too costly to attack, and pine forest swallowed it."
City Troy
"Nine cities layered on top of each other where Homer's war may have actually happened."
Wilderness Tuz Gölü
"Blinding white salt stretches to every horizon, mirroring the sky when millimetres of water return."
City Uzuncaburç
"A Roman temple city swallowed by a Turkish village where children play between Corinthian columns."
City Vize
"A forgotten Thracian royal seat where Roman walls, Byzantine church and Ottoman baths share one hillside."
City Xanthos
"The Lycian capital whose people chose annihilation over Persian surrender, then repeated it centuries later."
Mountain Yanartaş
"Flames seep from bare rock on a dark hillside, burning without fuel since antiquity."
Wilderness Zerzevan Castle
"A Roman frontier garrison's underground temple of Mithras, unopened until archaeologists reached it in 2017."
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Legendary Destinations
Little-known places, unlike anywhere else, that leave you awestruck and full of stories.
6 destinations
Legendary Destination
Rows of carved stones stand like an army that will never march.
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A doorway in stone holds a puzzle that scholars still cannot settle.
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A minaret rises from the water where a town used to stand.
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These beehives are homes, built from mud instead of wax.
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Two languages carved together gave a lost one its voice back.
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The ancient city became a village without ever quite being left behind.
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