You have just landed in Antalya — in through the palms at AYT, and one tram ride later you are standing at Hadrian's Gate with a walled old town for a city centre. This guide runs the first hour and everything after it: the ride in, the free Roman harbour loop, where to base from Kaleiçi's lanes to Konyaaltı's beach, a first plate of şiş köfte and piyaz, and the ruins, terraces and island boats that fill the days after.
You just landed in Antalya. The AntRay tram reaches İsmetpaşa, at the edge of Kaleiçi, in about 45 minutes for ₺42, an eSIM keeps you connected from the station, and the old town maths is easy — Hadrian's Gate, the harbour and the cliff-top loop are all free, and the big days out to Perge, Pamukkale and Suluada reward booking ahead through GetYourGuide.
Find your arrival stop, hotel, and first meal. Stays, sights, and landmarks in Antalya — live hotel prices plus the key places from this guide.
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Land at Antalya Airport and ride the tram first. The AntRay T1A leaves Terminal 1 about every 15 minutes — ₺42 with an AntalyaKart, ₺50 by contactless card — and İsmetpaşa station puts you a five-minute walk from Hadrian's Gate and the Kaleiçi lanes.
Set up your data before you leave the terminal: an Airalo eSIM loads a Türkiye plan in minutes, so maps and taxi apps work from the curb. For a longer run down the coast, compare Saily.
Run the arrival checklist in this order:
Check the tax line when the hotel quotes your rate. Türkiye's accommodation tax — 1% through 2026, normally 2% — is charged by your hotel on top of the room rate and shown separately on the bill; confirm whether a quoted total already includes it.
If the flight in went wrong, AirHelp checks whether compensation is owed before you spend your first evening on forms.
Take one hour: Hadrian's Gate, the clock tower and the Roman harbour sit within ten minutes of İsmetpaşa. Find your bearings over a tea in the harbour, then start the old town.
Journey times are approximate and refer to the listed stop — not necessarily your hotel. Allow extra time for waiting, walking, and connections.
Runs from Terminal 1 only — Terminal 2 passengers shuttle to T1 first; get off at İsmetpaşa for Kaleiçi
Leaves from outside arrivals for the bus station, then on to Konyaaltı — pay on board
Yellow taxis at the rank outside arrivals — insist the meter runs
Pre-booked driver waiting in arrivals — best with heavy bags or a late landing
Kaleiçi is a walking district — cars barely fit its lanes. The AntRay tram rings the centre and runs west to Konyaaltı and the bus station; city buses cover the rest, and no bus or tram in Antalya takes cash — it is AntalyaKart or a contactless card everywhere. The airport rides are these:
Choose the tram with light bags and a Terminal 1 landing; choose HAVAŞ for Konyaaltı, where it drops you along the beach road. Bus 600 also links the airport and the bus station about every 30 minutes at the same ₺42 fare. In high summer, leave for the airport a full two hours ahead — the airport road clogs badly.
Book the ticketed days out early — the Olympos cable car and the aquarium sell their morning slots first, and Tiqets is the practical route for both.
Compare a pre-booked transfer when the group maths demands it — a fixed price removes the meter guesswork. Compare a Kiwitaxi transfer with Welcome Pickups, both with a driver waiting in arrivals.
Start at Hadrian's Gate. The marble triple arch, raised for the emperor's visit in 130 AD, is the old town's front door — free, always open, and the natural start of every Kaleiçi walk. From it, the lanes drop past Ottoman houses with carved bay windows to the Roman harbour, where tour boats tie up under the city walls.
Walk the free sights as one loop. The fluted brick Yivli Minaret rises over the old town from every angle; the clock tower is a surviving gate of the Roman walls; and the Hıdırlık Tower stands in Karaalioğlu Park at the cliff edge, with the bay spread out below. The small Kaleiçi Museum, in a restored mansion and church, fills in how these houses were lived in.
Know before you go: the Antalya Museum is closed — its building was demolished in 2025 and a new museum is rising on the same site, with reopening targeted for late 2026 but no firm date. Take the ruins themselves instead — Perge is a tram and dolmuş ride east — and book paid days like the aquarium and the Olympos cable car through Tiqets when slots matter.
Ride the coast west. The heritage tram runs along the cliff top to Konyaaltı, where a long pebble beach backs onto cafés and the Taurus mountains fill the horizon — the city's own swim, free and reached on the same AntalyaKart. Rent a bike for the beach promenade through BikesBooking and ride it east along the cliffs at sunset.
End the day at the water. The Lower Düden Waterfall pours off the cliffs into the sea east of the centre — free to watch from the cliff-top park, and best in late light when the tour boats have gone.
Stay at Hesapçı Sokak 22 in the heart of Kaleiçi, five restored Ottoman houses around a garden pool, with a small museum of the Roman and Byzantine finds excavated beneath the hotel. Expect an adults-only calm, a heated pool and breakfast in the courtyard — book it for a landmark trip or a honeymoon.
Sleep at Karanlık Sokak 18 in Kaleiçi, a few lanes from Hadrian's Gate. Expect Ottoman houses around gardens and a pool, a free breakfast buffet and three restaurants — book it for old-town evenings with resort comforts.
Bed down at Hesapçı Geçidi 9 in Kaleiçi, a stone pension around a courtyard, five minutes from the harbour and Mermerli Beach. Expect a free breakfast, a roof terrace with mountain views and adults-only quiet — book early, because small Kaleiçi pensions fill fast.
Stay inside Kaleiçi for atmosphere — Ottoman lanes, harbour mornings and no cars. Choose Konyaaltı for a beach-first trip with the tram at the door, and Lara for the big resort hotels, a taxi ride east of the centre.
Book any of the three early for July and August, and confirm whether the quoted total includes the accommodation tax before comparing prices.
Eat close on day one — Antalya's own dishes are the point. Three first stops cover the essentials:
Order the Anatolian tasting plates and the testi kebab, the clay-pot stew cracked open at the table. Expect the old town's fine-dining room — book it for the first-night splurge.
Sit where Antalya has celebrated since 1937 and order hibeş, the tahini and lemon dip that starts every local table, then the pumpkin dessert with tahini and walnuts. Expect an institution, priced like one.
Graze the grill shops for şiş köfte with piyaz — white beans in a tahini sauce, Antalya's signature plate — and finish with yanık dondurma, the city's slightly burnt goat's-milk ice cream. Expect the city's real lunch crowd.
For guided food walks and market tours, browse the Antalya listings on GetYourGuide and book a slot for your first free evening.
Antalya's hinterland does the big days well. Perge is a tram ride to Aksu and a short dolmuş hop; Denizli buses from the bus station serve Pamukkale in about three and a half hours, and the Suluada boats sail from Adrasan, a morning's drive west. Book the guided versions ahead through Klook or the operators below — in season, the small-group departures go first.
Ride about an hour east to Perge's colonnaded streets and stadium, then to Aspendos, whose theatre is the best-preserved of the Roman world and still stages concerts. Finish in Side, a living town inside its own ruins, at the Temple of Apollo on the harbour point, and the Manavgat Waterfall. Site entries run about €30 on the day if your tour option excludes them. Check availability →
Spend a long day — about three and a half hours each way — at the white travertine terraces, walking barefoot in the warm shallows as visitors have since Hierapolis was Rome's spa town. See the theatre and the vast necropolis, and pay the extra fee to swim among fallen columns in Cleopatra's Pool. Check availability →
Ride west to Adrasan harbour and sail to an uninhabited island of white sand and water so clear the seabed shows from the boat. Swim stops fill the day, lunch is served on board, and the last stop is Hacivat Bay under its shadow-puppet cliffs. Pack for a morning on the road and an afternoon in the sea. Check availability →
Come in May or June: the sea is swimmable, the ruins are walkable and the full boat season runs without the August squeeze. September and October keep the warmest water of the year and lose the crowds — the locals' favourite weeks, at shoulder prices.
Come in July and August for the full-throttle version: beach clubs packed, boats sailing daily and Kaleiçi at its liveliest, traded against 35°C afternoons, siesta-pace sightseeing and the year's highest room rates.
Come in winter with your eyes open. November to March is mild, bright and cheap — T-shirt days happen — but the sea cools, boat trips thin out and some resort hotels close entirely.
Budget Antalya by the day, not by the headline. A pension bed, a ₺42 tram ride, the free old-town loop and köfte-and-piyaz eating keeps a careful day near ₺3,000 to ₺4,500. A mid-range hotel, one boat day and a Seraser dinner pushes a day towards ₺8,000 to ₺11,000 per person sharing.
Count the fixed costs: the tram in is ₺42, a HAVAŞ coach about ₺230, a taxi about ₺850 to ₺900, site entries on the Perge day about €30, and accommodation tax at 1% of the room rate through 2026.
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Pack for a walking city of cobbles and cliffs — Kaleiçi lanes are steep, the sun bounces off white stone, and the sea is the plan most days. This is the full list:
Pack swim shoes too — Konyaaltı and Lara are pebble beaches, and the Suluada swim stops reward them. Evenings on the water cool fast once the sun drops, even in August.
✓ Visa-free entry for eligible passport holders
Turkish runs everything in Antalya; English is the coast's working second language in hotels and tour offices, thinning out in local shops and dolmuş queues. A few words of Turkish go a long way.
Four phrases do most of the work:
Most visitors need no visa at all. Holders of US, UK, EU, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand ordinary passports — and many others — enter visa-free for up to 90 days in any 180. Everyone else should check the official e-Visa site, evisa.gov.tr, before flying: it is the only genuine portal, the fee varies by nationality, and copycat sites charge over the odds for the same document.
Carry a passport with at least six months left on it — Turkish border officers can refuse shorter validity, and airlines check at the gate. Hotels register every guest's passport with the police by law, so keep it to hand on check-in day.
Build tipping into the budget — it is a thank-you, not a tax. Round up taxi fares, leave about 5 to 10 percent in restaurants when the food earns it, and tip boat crews and hammam staff in cash.
Antalya's visitor crime is low, but the airport rank produces the city's classic overcharge — a flat fare quoted instead of the meter. Yellow taxis are metered by law; BiTaksi and Uber both hail the same licensed cabs with the price on screen.
The 112 number reaches police, fire and ambulance from any phone, and Antalya's hospitals — the training and research hospital and Akdeniz University hospital — handle tourist cases daily. Türkiye has no reciprocal deal for most visitors, so travel insurance is not optional.
July and August afternoons pass 35°C and the ruins have almost no shade — walk Perge and Aspendos early, carry water, and swim through the midday hours instead. Heat illness catches out more visitors here than anything else.
A few Kaleiçi harbour-front bars quote one price and bill another — agree the cost of drinks before ordering, and keep the menu on the table. At the beach, swim inside the buoyed areas at Konyaaltı and Lara, where currents strengthen after storms.
If you liked Antalya, try these next:
Ride the AntRay tram T1A from Terminal 1 — ₺42 with an AntalyaKart, about 45 minutes to İsmetpaşa, five minutes from Hadrian's Gate. Terminal 2 arrivals shuttle to Terminal 1 first, or take a HAVAŞ coach or a metered taxi at about ₺850 to ₺900.
Most visitors do not — US, UK, EU, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand ordinary passports enter visa-free for up to 90 days in any 180. Everyone else should use the official e-Visa portal, evisa.gov.tr, and only that site.
No. The museum closed in July 2025 and its building was demolished; a new museum is under construction on the same site, targeted for late 2026 with no firm date. Go to the ruins themselves — Perge above all — meanwhile.
Two days cover Kaleiçi, the harbour and Konyaaltı beach without rushing. A third buys one big day out — Perge and Aspendos, Pamukkale or the Suluada boat — and four lets you take the coast at local pace.
May and June, then September and October: a warm sea, walkable ruins and thinner crowds. July and August are the peak — liveliest, hottest and priciest — so book boats, beds and the cable car ahead.
The Turkish lira (TRY). Cards work almost everywhere; keep cash for HAVAŞ coaches, taxis and bazaar stalls. Hotels add the accommodation tax — 1% of the room rate through 2026 — on top of the quoted price.
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Airport transport via Fraport TAV Antalya Airport and October 2026 transfer guides: AntRay tram ₺42 with an AntalyaKart and ₺50 by contactless card, the card itself ₺100, trams from Terminal 1 only; HAVAŞ coach about ₺230 to the bus station and Konyaaltı; metered taxis about ₺850 to ₺900 to Kaleiçi. Accommodation tax from Türkiye's Revenue Administration guidance: 2% by law, temporarily 1% from 1 May to 31 December 2026 under Presidential Decision No. 11263. Entry rules from the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs: US ordinary passports exempt for 90 days in 180, with the same exemption for UK, EU, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand passports; e-Visa only via evisa.gov.tr. Antalya Museum closure from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism — closed 16 July 2025, building demolished, new museum targeted for late 2026 with no firm date. Tour products opened and read on GetYourGuide, October 2026: Perge, Aspendos, Side and Manavgat (4.8, 1,673 reviews), Pamukkale and Hierapolis (4.2, 594 reviews), Suluada boat trip (4.2, 1,018 reviews). Hotel details from the properties' own pages and their Expedia listings. Last verified October 2026.
Affiliate disclosure: hotel names, transfers, experiences, and products linked in this guide may earn After You Land a commission at no extra cost to you. Prices and times were checked in Oct 2026 and change often — confirm before you book.
