Ask a captain who has run every coast in the Mediterranean where they would take their own family, and Türkiye comes up more often than you would expect.
The stretch between Bodrum and Antalya has something none of the others still have: it is largely undeveloped. Pine forest comes down to the waterline. The bays are deep, sheltered and numerous. And the archaeology is extraordinary and mostly unfenced — you anchor above a Lycian city that subsided into the sea two thousand years ago and swim over its foundations before breakfast.
It is also, for what you get, the least expensive week in the Mediterranean. That is not the reason to come, but it is worth knowing.
Göcek and the twelve islands
Göcek is a small town whose entire purpose is yachting, with an airport at Dalaman half an hour away. It sits at the head of a gulf containing twelve islands and a great many bays, and the first two days of a week rarely leave it.
Bedri Rahmi Bay is named for the painter who put a fish on a rock there in 1973; Yassıca is a cluster of low islets with sand spits between them. Neither has a road. Most have a small restaurant with a pontoon, which will come out to take your lines and then feed you mezze.
East to Kekova
The run east along the Lycian shore is the heart of the week. Kekova is a long island sheltering a channel, and along its northern side the ruins of Simena run down the slope and straight into the water — staircases, doorways and walls visible through three metres of clear sea.
Swimming is restricted directly over the ruins, which is correct and worth respecting. The village of Kaleköy above has a Crusader castle, Lycian sarcophagi standing in the shallows, and no cars.
Ölüdeniz and Butterfly Valley
The Blue Lagoon at Ölüdeniz is the photograph on every Turkish tourism poster, and the lagoon itself is a protected park closed to yachts — you anchor outside and go in by tender.
Butterfly Valley, a few miles along, is better: a steep canyon opening onto a beach, reachable only from the sea, with a waterfall at the far end of a scramble.
West to Bodrum, if you want a town
Parties who want an evening ashore run north-west instead. Bodrum has a Crusader castle holding one of the best underwater archaeology museums anywhere, and the peninsula beyond it — Türkbükü, Gümüşlük — is where Istanbul spends August.
At Gümüşlük the tables are set on the sand above the sunken city of Myndos. You choose the fish, and then you wait, and that is the evening.
Practical notes
- The meltemi blows hardest in the north Aegean in July and August. The Lycian coast east of Fethiye stays notably calmer — worth knowing when choosing your direction.
- Turkish waters require a transit log and, for non-Turkish yachts, correct paperwork. Your operator handles it, but ask that it is confirmed before you fly.
- Gulets — traditional wooden motor-sailers — are the local vessel and a genuine option here, with a different rhythm from a modern catamaran.
- May, June, September and October are excellent. The water is warm well into October.
Why it stays quiet
Building along most of this coast is restricted, and much of it is national park. That is the whole reason it looks the way it does, and the reason a week here feels different from a week on a coast that has been developed to its limit.
It is not a coastline for people who want to be seen. It is a coastline for people who want to swim over a Lycian staircase and then have lunch brought out to the boat.
Tell us your dates and we will talk through whether this or the Greek islands opposite suits your party better.
