Turkey
Yanartaş
Flames seep from bare rock on a dark hillside, burning without fuel since antiquity.
Flames flicker from bare rock on a dark mountainside, dozens of small fires burning without any visible fuel. The heat is real — hold your hand close and you feel it — but the stone itself is the source. At night, the hillside glows with scattered orange light against the forest blackness, exactly as it did when ancient sailors used these flames to navigate the Lycian coast.
Yanartaş, known in antiquity as the Chimaera, is a cluster of natural gas vents on a rocky slope near Çıralı on Turkey's Mediterranean coast. Methane seeps through the fractured serpentinite rock and ignites on contact with air, producing flames that have burned continuously for at least 2,500 years. Ancient sources describe the fire as the breath of the Chimaera — the fire-breathing monster of Greek mythology — and the site is widely considered the origin of that myth. The main cluster sits at around 250 metres elevation, reached by a 20-minute uphill trail from Çıralı village. The flames are visible year-round but most dramatic in darkness, making the evening hike the standard approach. Below, Çıralı beach is a loggerhead turtle nesting site, and the ruins of ancient Olympos lie tangled in forest at the valley's mouth.
Solo
The night hike to Yanartaş is best alone — torch off, forest path, then the surreal glow of eternal flames on rock. It is one of the most atmospheric short walks in Turkey, and the solitude sharpens every sense.
Couple
Hike up at dusk, sit by the flames as the stars come out, and walk down through the forest in darkness. Paired with a stay at a Çıralı beach pension — orange trees, turtle-nesting shore, no high-rises — Yanartaş makes for an evening neither of you will forget.
- The flames are fuelled by natural methane seeping through fissures in the Lycian limestone — no human maintenance.
- Homer referenced the burning mountain in the Iliad; the ancient Greeks believed it was the breath of the Chimaera monster.
- Around twenty individual flame vents have been burning continuously for at least 2,500 years.
- The site is best visited after dark — the blue-orange flames are most visible against the hillside with no ambient light.
Çıralı's beachfront pansiyons serve home-cooked aubergine dishes and fresh-caught fish under citrus trees.
Turkish pancakes with honey and kaymak cream for breakfast, eaten within sight of the eternal flames.
Gaua
Vanuatu
A volcanic lake drains into the ocean via a waterfall that plunges through untouched jungle.
Quebrada de Humahuaca
Argentina
A canyon of fourteen-colour hills where Inca trails thread through villages older than the conquest.
Vale do Paúl
Cape Verde
Sugarcane terraces spill down a volcanic crater into the greenest valley in the archipelago.
Achik-Tash
Kyrgyzstan
Yurt camps at 3,600 metres beneath a 7,134-metre peak, alpinists and trekkers sharing vodka at sunset.
Yusufeli
Turkey
White-water rapids crash through a granite canyon where a medieval Georgian church perches on the cliff.
Cappadocia
Turkey
Hundreds of hot air balloons drift through a forest of stone pillars at dawn.
Ephesus
Turkey
Marble streets still grooved by Roman chariot wheels lead to a library that held 12,000 scrolls.
Pamukkale
Turkey
Thermal water spills down white travertine terraces like a frozen waterfall you can wade through.