Every trekking enthusiast will definitely love the Lycian Way in Turkey. The Lycian Way is a 500km coastal route along Southern Turkey stretching from Fethiye all the way to Antalya. It’ll take around a month to complete the entire trek.

But not many of us have the luxury of time to do such a long trek and the good thing is that you can choose to do a sample of it just like what we did. We trekked from Oludeniz to Patara beach in 3 days.

Day 1: Oludeniz to Kabak Beach

We started our trek around 10.30am, feeling all revved up and excited for the journey ahead!

The Lycian Way is a marked route and you will see these red and white stripes along the way. Although sometimes some of these markings have faded away and you must be careful not to miss it. There are different markings along the way, so don’t get mixed up!

Tip: Follow the red/white stripes for the Lycian Way route. Don’t get confused by the other coloured markings!

And the trek begins…look at how gorgeous the view is! Most of the time you won’t even realise that you’re tired as you’ll be too distracted by the amazing views!

There are several water points along the way and we met some trekkers who refilled their water using these water points. But our stomachs are too used to boiled water and we didn’t dare risk it. Hence we each carried 3 litres of water and our bags were sooo heavy. Not the best option, but no choice as we needed water for cooking at night too.

Tip: Save on some baggage weight if your stomach can handle spring water. 

See the long row of white boxes in the photo below? They’re actually beehives! They were much larger in real life and I obviously did not dare to go any closer to them as I absolutely hate bees!

This part got a little tricky, we were so distracted by the beehives and kept on walking down the path and didn’t realise that we were supposed to turn left! See the small faded sign that I was pointing to in the photo below? That was the sign that was supposed to tell us that we had to turn left.

Tip: Watch out for the small faded sign that’s suppose to guide you to turn left when you’re on your way to Kabak Beach!

Finally, we reached Kabak Beach at about 5.30pm and decided to camp on the beach itself. There were guest lodges around but we kinda enjoy camping outdoors and we brought our tent and sleeping bags along too. So yeah, thankfully it was off peak as usually travellers are not allowed to camp on the beach!

Budget Tip: Choose to camp on Kabak beach for free if you’re trekking the Lycian Way during off peak season!

Day 2: Kabak Beach to Alinca Village

Despite our aching muscles, we woke up bright and early feeling very excited for the amazing views ahead! True enough, we were rewarded with breathtaking scenery as we hiked the Lycian Way.

Tip: There were hardly any shops opened along the route from Kabak Beach to Alinca Village. So better stock up on your food and water supplies for Day 2! (Could also be due to us trekking during off peak season)

Another fun part of the Lycian way is its varying terrains. We had to cross 2 rivers at the beginning and encountered this really rocky slope on our way to Alinca Village. It was much steeper than it looked in the photo. You have to trek with extreme caution as one mistake can cause you your ankle!

Stopping to have our lunch when a cow walked past. It looked stunned to see us and froze in its tracks. Haha.

There were some ruins along the way and this was one of them . It was an ancient underground storage area for water which was no longer in use anymore.

Finally after a long day of trekking, we saw signs for this GE shop and we were so grateful to be able to stock up on our food and water! We were running out of supplies already by then!

Tip: There are hardly any shops opened along the Lycian Way (or maybe cos we were there during off peak season). But you can pick up all the supplies that you need from the GE shop at Alinca Village!

We were pleasantly surprised when we found out that it was free to camp at their premises! We could either choose to camp in their garden together with their sheep and dogs or at the second floor of their shop. We chose the second floor, but it was really super windy though! Felt like our tent was going to get blown away anytime!

Budget Tip: Camp for free at the premises of the GE shop at Alinca Village! 

Day 3: Alinca Village to Patara Beach

For the last day, we chose the road route a the beginning over the forest route as we were pretty much exhausted by then and the forest route was a really undulating one!

Tip: To save on your energy for the rest of the trek, opt for the road route instead of the forest trek! It’s less undulating and tiring. 

The last part was a downhill journey, a really steep one. We only descended for about 500m but it was still very challenging especially when you’re carrying a heavy load, after awhile we could feel the impact on our knees and ankles.

Finally, we reached Patara Beach! We were actually quite surprised, we thought it was much farther.

Guess what we spotted along the way! From afar it looked like shadows. But upon closer examination, we realised that they were actually tadpoles! And there were sooooo many of them! The entire roadside was filled with tadpoles!

According to our guesthouse owner, he told us that the route we were taking will usually around 5-8 days to complete! We were a little stunned when we heard that, but decided to just go for it and see how it goes. Well, we were proud to say that we completed it in 3 days! Overall we had a really great time trekking the Lycian Way and we highly recommend this trek to all hiking enthusiasts if you’re heading to Turkey!

Essential Information

How we got to start of the Lycian Way

We took a dolmus from the bus stop behind the mosque at Fethiye (about 25 mins walk from the harbour) to Oludeniz and lighted at the start of the Lycian Way. Cost us around 3.5TL and the bus ride was only about 25mins. Fethiye is a very small city, ask around for the bus stop to Oludeniz and tell the bus driver that you want to go to Lycian Way. He will let you know when to alight.

How did we get off the Lycian Way

Our last stop was at Patara Beach. There’s a small dolmus station at Patara Beach. Walk along the road instead of on the beach, after about 20 minutes of walking, you will see a small bus station. We took the bus direct back to Fethiye at 3pm and the bus ride took about 2 hours.

Where we stayed at during the trek

We chose to camp and brought along our tent and sleeping bag. But actually there are plenty of guesthouses along the way and they aren’t too expensive too. We camped for free at Kabak Beach on the first night and the second floor of the GE shop at Alinca Village on the second night.

What to bring

Bring at least enough water to last you through the day. If your stomach can take it, there is natural spring water along the way where you can refill your bottles. But we weren’t daring enough as the last thing you want during a trek is an upset stomach.

Bring enough food as well. For our route, we didn’t see any shop opened at all till we arrived at Alinca Village on the second day where we restocked our supplies at the GE shop.

If you need any further information about trekking the Lycian Way, drop us a comment below and we will try our best to help you if we can!