Kumköy

What Kumköy actually is

Kumköy is the beach and hotel strip that runs west from Side's ancient peninsula. On a map it is a straight three kilometres of sand, a service road behind it, a row of mostly four-star all-inclusive hotels behind that, and then the flat agricultural plain of Manavgat. It belongs to Side in every practical sense, and it is what most tour operators mean when they sell "Side" without meaning the ruins.

That distinction is the single most useful thing to understand before choosing a hotel here. A large number of visitors book Side expecting to walk out of the lobby into a Roman colonnaded street, and then discover they are four kilometres west of it on a wide modern beach with a supermarket, two jewellers and a row of bars across the road. That is not a worse holiday. For most people who come for sun, a swimming pool and a buffet it is the better one, because Kumköy has more sand, more space and cheaper rooms than the old town does. But it is a different holiday, and it should be chosen deliberately rather than discovered on arrival.

Kumköy suits people who want a straightforward beach week with the option of a real historic site nearby rather than the obligation of it. It works well for families, for couples who like a walkable strip of shops and bars without the volume of Alanya, and for anyone comparing Side against Belek and finding Belek both expensive and enclosed.

Kumköy, Side, Evrenseki, Çolaklı and Sorgun: telling them apart

These names appear on hotel listings almost interchangeably, and the differences are real.

Side old town is the peninsula itself: pensions and small hotels, ancient streets, restaurants, no proper resort beach on the doorstep.

Kumköy is the strip immediately west of the peninsula. Widest sand, densest hotel row, a commercial street behind it, the ruins walkable from its eastern end.

Evrenseki continues west from Kumköy. Similar beach, slightly thinner development, a little cheaper, further from the ruins.

Çolaklı is further west again, quieter and more residential in feel, with a longer dolmuş ride to anywhere.

Sorgun and Titreyengöl lie east of the peninsula, backed by pine forest, with newer and generally larger hotels and a calmer atmosphere.

If you want the shortest possible walk between a wide beach and the ancient site, the eastern end of Kumköy is the answer. If you want quiet pines, you want the east side instead.

The beach

The sand at Kumköy is mid-golden, fine at the top of the beach and slightly coarser at the waterline, and it is genuinely wide, between roughly thirty and sixty metres in most sections. Entry is sandy and shelves gently, which is why the strip fills with families rather than snorkellers. There is nothing to snorkel over here: it is sand all the way out.

Two honest points. First, every beach in Turkey is public by law. Hotels manage sections of the sand with their own loungers and staff, but you can walk the whole length of the strip and nobody will stop you, and there are municipal sections with paid sunbeds if your hotel is on the inland side of the road. Second, the afternoon sea breeze is a fixture. Mornings are usually glassy; from roughly one o'clock onwards a small shore break sets in, enough to entertain children with an inflatable and enough to annoy anybody who wanted a mirror-flat swim. It drops again before sunset.

The strip faces south-west, so it gets the full afternoon sun and the sun goes down over the water. That is the main scenic advantage Kumköy has over the eastern beaches.

Where to stay along the strip

The eastern end, towards Side

The most useful position. From here the ancient theatre and the colonnaded street are a twenty to twenty-five minute walk east along the shore and the promenade, which means you can go for an evening in the old town without a dolmuş or a taxi. Hotels at this end are a little more expensive for exactly that reason.

The middle of the strip

The commercial heart: the biggest hotels, the shops, the pharmacies, the supermarkets, the bar row. Everything you need is across the road. If your priority is a large hotel with a full animation programme, a children's club and a slide, this is where the stock is. Walking to the ruins from here is possible but takes closer to forty minutes, so most people take the dolmuş.

The western end, towards Evrenseki

Quieter, cheaper, more space on the sand and less to do on foot. Fine if you intend to stay inside the hotel most days. Not the place to book if you imagined strolling into the ancient city.

Inland of the road

Some hotels sit on the far side of the coastal road with a beach club opposite, reached on foot or by a short shuttle. These are consistently cheaper and often perfectly good, but check the arrangement before you commit: crossing a road with a pushchair, towels and a toddler four times a day is a real cost.

Hotel stock and what a budget actually buys

The dominant category here is four-star all-inclusive. A good share of the row was built in the late 1990s and the 2000s and has been refurbished at least once since; there are several five-star properties, mostly larger and newer, and a thin scattering of apart-hotels and small pensions on the back streets for people who do not want board included.

The anchor figure on this page starts around 50 EUR per person per night. Read that as a shoulder-season price for two adults sharing a standard room in a solid four-star on all-inclusive board, in May or October. In June and September the same room typically moves up by a quarter to a half. In July and August it can double, and the good properties sell out months ahead because German and Russian charter demand lands on this strip in volume.

What extra money buys here, in order of how much difference it makes: a refurbished room block rather than an original one, a beachfront position rather than an inland one, a quieter hotel with fewer animation loudspeakers, and finally à la carte restaurants that are actually included rather than chargeable. Tell a consultant which of those matters and the shortlist changes completely.

Getting there

Kumköy is served by Antalya Airport (AYT), roughly seventy minutes away on the D400 heading east. That is about five minutes less than Side old town, because you reach Kumköy first, and roughly half an hour more than Belek. The road is dual carriageway nearly the whole way and the final approach turns off south towards the coast before Manavgat.

Airport transfers inside Turkey we operate ourselves, with our own vehicles and our own drivers, and have done since 2016. The driver waits inside the arrivals hall with a name board, the price is per vehicle rather than per person, and we watch the flight so a delay does not leave anybody standing outside at two in the morning. Accommodation is a different arrangement: we quote it, a partner agency issues it, and nothing is paid on this website.

When to go

April. Air around 21 to 23 degrees, sea near 18. Pleasant for walking Side, too cold for most people to swim. Many hotels are only just opening.

May. The first genuinely good month. Upper twenties, sea climbing through 21 and swimmable by the end of the month, the strip busy but not packed.

June. Low thirties, sea around 25, long evenings. This is the last comfortable month before the heat becomes work.

July and August. Mid to high thirties with humidity, sea at 28 or above. The beach in front of the large hotels is shoulder to shoulder, the buffet queues are real, and the strip is at its loudest. Come if the school calendar has decided for you, and pick a hotel with shade and a big pool.

September. The best month overall. Still around thirty degrees, sea at its warmest, crowds thinning noticeably after the third week.

October. High twenties, sea near 24 and still fine to swim, prices down sharply. The ancient site is comfortable to walk again in the middle of the day.

November to March. Most of the strip closes. A handful of properties stay open, but the beach is empty, the shops are shuttered and it rains properly. Winter is for Side old town or Antalya city, not for Kumköy.

Days out from the strip

Side's ancient street, theatre and museum are the obvious half-day, and worth doing early or late rather than at noon. Manavgat is ten kilometres inland: its waterfall is a wide, low sheet of water with tea gardens around it rather than a dramatic cascade, and its weekly market is one of the biggest in the region — ask at reception which day it falls on, since the market rotates around the district and Side, Çolaklı and Evrenseki each have their own.

Boats run up the Manavgat river towards the Oymapınar dam and the reservoir sold as the Green Canyon, a half day that is mostly about the water and the lunch. Aspendos, which has the best-preserved Roman theatre in the country, is about forty minutes west. Rafting on the Köprülü canyon rivers is roughly an hour and a quarter away and runs as a full day. The large theme park near Belek is around forty minutes and is a full day with children.

Eating, shopping and evenings

Most people here are on all-inclusive board and eat in the hotel, so the restaurant scene on the strip is thinner and more tourist-facing than in Side old town. It is perfectly serviceable — grills, pide, pizza, a few fish places — but the good eating is a dolmuş ride away in Side or Manavgat, and both are cheap to reach.

The shops opposite the hotels sell leather, jewellery, textiles and counterfeit brands, and the sales approach is energetic. A friendly no works. Prices are negotiable and the first number is not the real one. Evenings on the strip mean hotel animation, a bar row with live music and a lot of families walking off dinner. It is not nightlife in the Alanya sense, and people who want that should be looking elsewhere.

Families and couples

For families this is one of the easier choices on the coast: sandy entry, shallow water, big pools, children's clubs in almost every hotel, and a pharmacy and supermarket across the road. The seventy-minute transfer is the only real friction with very young children.

For couples it depends on temperament. If you want quiet dinners and no loudspeakers, the eastern end near Side or the pine-backed hotels east of the peninsula suit better. If you like a busy beach and a stroll past bars in the evening, the middle of Kumköy is fine.

Who should skip Kumköy

Anybody whose main reason for coming is the archaeology should stay in the old town itself. Golfers belong in Belek. Anyone who wants a private, hotel-owned beach with no public access will not find it here, because that arrangement does not exist on this stretch. People who dislike commercial tourist strips, touting and animation microphones should look at Sorgun or Titreyengöl instead. And anyone travelling in winter should choose somewhere that is actually open.

Getting a price

Send your dates, how many adults and children and their ages, whether you want all-inclusive or something looser, and roughly what you want to spend. A consultant prices it with our partner agencies, who issue the booking and the voucher, and comes back with a short list of properties that genuinely fit, including which ones are beachfront and which are across the road. The quote is free and non-binding, no payment is taken on this website, and we normally reply within one working day.