İncekum

What İncekum actually is, and how it relates to Avsallar

İncekum means "fine sand" in Turkish, and the name is a description rather than marketing. It is a low sandy cape on the western edge of Avsallar, roughly twenty-five kilometres west of Alanya's castle. Behind the sand a pine forest comes right down to the shore, and in front of it the seabed slopes so gently that a grown adult can walk out a long way and still be standing in water at hip height.

The relationship with Avsallar confuses a lot of people at the booking stage, so here it is plainly. Avsallar is the town: the main street, the mosque, the pharmacies, the supermarkets, the dolmuş stop, the weekly street market and several thousand residents. İncekum is the beach and the pine park at the western end of that same town, together with the hotel belt built around it. Administratively they are one place. Commercially they are two names, and the same hotel is often listed as "Avsallar" on one booking site and "İncekum" on another. If a description mentions both, it is not a mistake.

What that means for you is simple: when you compare two hotels here, do not compare the names, compare the position on the map and the distance to the water. A hotel described as being in İncekum can still be eight hundred metres inland, and a hotel described as being in Avsallar can be directly on the sand.

The bay, and why the shallow water is the whole point

Almost every family destination on this coast claims to be good for children. İncekum is one of the few where the claim is physically true rather than promotional. The sand here is genuinely fine, pale and soft, and the gradient is unusually flat. In calm weather a small child can be twenty or thirty metres from the shore and still be standing. There are no sudden drops in the main swimming area and very little in the way of pebble or rock underfoot.

This is exactly why Turkish families have used the bay for decades, long before the charter hotels arrived, and why you will hear as much Turkish as German on the public beach in July. It is also the honest reason to pick İncekum over Konaklı, twelve kilometres east, where the seabed drops away within a few metres.

The trade-off, and every destination has one, is that the shallow shelf warms up quickly and the water is not deep enough for a serious swim without walking a long way out. Strong swimmers occasionally find it dull. Afternoon wind from the west puts a light chop across the shallows, which is harmless and stirs the sand, so the water is sometimes less crystalline than on a deep pebble beach.

The pine park behind the beach

The pine forest behind İncekum is a protected nature park with picnic areas, day-use tables, a small entry charge for vehicles and a lot of shade. This matters more than it sounds. On most of the Antalya coast the only shade at midday is a hotel parasol, and here you can walk fifty metres off the sand into standing pine and sit down under a tree. Turkish families come out with a picnic and a samovar and stay all day.

It also cools the air noticeably, and it is the reason the strip smells of pine resin in July rather than of hot concrete. If you have a child who cannot take direct sun for long, this is a real practical advantage over a bare beach.

Where to stay

The beachfront belt at İncekum

The core of the destination. Four-star all-inclusive hotels of a few hundred rooms each, with their own beach section, several pools, slides, a kids' club and an animation team. Some sit directly on the sand; others are separated from it by a short road or a footpath. This is what most guests mean when they say İncekum.

Avsallar town side

Closer to the shops, the market, the pharmacies and the restaurants, and generally slightly cheaper. You are five to fifteen minutes' walk from the water depending on the property. Better if you want to leave the hotel in the evening and see something that is not a hotel.

Inland of the coastal road

A third line of hotels sits above the highway on the slope, usually the cheapest option in the area, often with wide sea views and a shuttle to a beach club. The view is a genuine bonus; the walk back uphill in August is not. Ask specifically how the shuttle runs and how often.

Okurcalar, west along the coast

Twenty minutes further towards Antalya, a quieter belt with a similar family character and a slightly less busy beach. Worth asking about if İncekum is sold out on your dates.

Payallar and Türkler, east towards Konaklı

The strip between İncekum and Konaklı. More large complexes, a mix of sand and pebble on the shoreline, closer to Alanya and a little cheaper.

Hotel stock and what a budget really buys

İncekum is mid-range family all-inclusive territory. Four-star is the volume category by a wide margin, and the hotels are built around what families with young children actually use: shallow kids' pools, slides, buffets with plain food alongside the Turkish dishes, high chairs, cots, evening mini-disco and a kids' club with staff who speak German and Russian. There are a small number of five-star properties in the belt, and some three-star and apart hotels used mainly by Turkish holidaymakers and independent travellers.

The indicative anchor is around 45 EUR per person per night. Read it as a shoulder-season figure for two adults sharing a standard room on all-inclusive board in a decent four-star. Children usually cost far less than adults and under a certain age often nothing at all, which is why a family of four here can come out cheaper per head than a couple. In July and August expect roughly double the anchor, with the best-known family hotels going higher; from mid-October the same room falls below it.

What you give up relative to Belek is polish. The gardens are smaller, the buffet is more repetitive over a fortnight, the à la carte options are limited and the rooms are more functional. What you gain is the beach itself, a shorter transfer than Alanya, and a price that Belek cannot approach.

One thing worth verifying before you commit: whether the hotel's own beach section is on the shallow İncekum sand or further east where the shoreline coarsens. The difference of six hundred metres genuinely changes what your two-year-old can do.

Getting there

İncekum is served by Antalya Airport (AYT). The transfer takes roughly one hour and forty minutes on the coastal D400, which makes it noticeably shorter than the run to Alanya city and one of the practical reasons to look here rather than further east. The motorway ends before Manavgat and the last section is a coastal road, scenic and slower in August.

Gazipaşa-Alanya Airport (GZP) exists on the other side of Alanya, but from İncekum it is well over an hour away and its route network is a fraction of Antalya's, so it rarely makes sense for this particular stretch.

Transfers inside Turkey we operate ourselves, with our own vehicles and our own drivers, and have done since 2016. On a family arrival this is the part of the day that goes wrong most often, so it is worth saying what we actually do: the price is agreed per vehicle rather than per person, the driver waits inside the arrivals hall with a name board, your flight number is tracked so a delay does not lose you the car, child seats can be requested in advance, and there is a comfort stop roughly halfway if you want one.

Getting around

Dolmuş minibuses run along the D400 all day and cost very little. Alanya centre is around twenty-five minutes east, Konaklı fifteen, Manavgat and Side about forty-five minutes west. You flag the minibus down at the roadside and tell the driver where to stop.

Within Avsallar itself everything is walkable: the supermarkets, the pharmacies, the bakeries and the weekly market are all in a compact area. Ask reception which day the Avsallar market falls on, because it is the cheapest food shopping for a hundred kilometres and worth planning around.

A hire car is unnecessary for a beach week. It becomes useful if you want Alara Castle and the Alarahan caravanserai up the valley, the Green Canyon above Manavgat, or the mountain villages, all on your own schedule.

When to go

April. Around 22 to 24 degrees, sea near 19. Good for the pine park and for walking, marginal for swimming, and the shallow water is cool rather than warm. Prices at their lowest.

May. Upper twenties, sea comfortable from mid-month, forest still green from the winter rain. One of the two best months for value.

June. Low thirties, warm shallow water, hotels filling. The single best month if you have small children.

July and August. Mid to high thirties with humidity, the beach busy from mid-morning, the pine park full of Turkish families at weekends and the coast road slow. The shallow water gets genuinely warm, which small children love and adults sometimes find too warm.

September. Around thirty degrees, the sea at its warmest of the year, the crowd thinning steadily. The best all-round month here.

October. High twenties into mid-month, still swimmable, prices dropping hard. Towards the end of the month some hotels begin to close.

November to March. Most of the all-inclusive stock shuts. Avsallar keeps functioning as a town, but there is no holiday season to speak of and the beach is empty. Not a winter destination.

Food, evenings and what there is to do

Inside the hotels it is buffet all-inclusive, and in a good four-star that means a wide enough spread, a grill and usually one or two reservable à la carte restaurants. Avsallar town has a reasonable number of restaurants, bakeries, tea gardens and a few bars, along the main street and near the beach. It is not Alanya, and it does not pretend to be: the evening here ends early.

For excursions, everything on the central Alanya coast is in reach. Alanya itself gives you the Seljuk fortress, the Red Tower, the cable car, the Damlataş cave and boat trips around the peninsula. Westwards, Manavgat has its waterfall and its river boats, Side has the temple of Apollo and the ancient theatre, and the Green Canyon reservoir sits above the dam. Inland from Avsallar, Alara Castle and the Alarahan caravanserai sit in a river valley that is far cooler than the coast in August.

Families, couples and groups

This is a family destination first and everything else second. If you are travelling with a child under six, İncekum is one of the two or three best answers on the entire Turkish Mediterranean, and the reason is the gradient of the seabed rather than anything a hotel has built.

For a couple, it works if you want quiet, sun and a short transfer, and it does not work if you want atmosphere, choice or a night out. You will be taking the minibus into Alanya.

For a group of friends after nightlife, this is the wrong place entirely. Stay in Alanya city.

Who should skip İncekum

Skip it if you are a strong swimmer who wants deep, clear water off the beach, and look at Konaklı, Kaleiçi in Alanya or the Kemer side instead. Skip it if you want restaurants, bars and shops in every direction when you step out of the hotel. Skip it if you want luxury, golf, spa culture or fine dining, all of which live in Belek. And skip it if you are here for two weeks and hate eating in the same buffet twice, because the independent food scene is thin.

Choose it if you have small children, want a beach they can actually use unsupervised at knee depth, want shade behind the sand, and want a transfer that is under two hours rather than well over.

Getting a price

Send us your dates, the number of adults and children with their ages, the board basis you want and roughly what you plan to spend. A consultant prices it with our partner agencies, who issue the booking and the voucher, and comes back with two or three options that genuinely fit, including where each hotel's beach section actually sits on the bay. The quote is free, no payment is taken on this website, and we normally reply within one working day.