Lara Beach

What Lara Beach actually is

Lara is the resort strip immediately east of Antalya city, laid out along one coast road between the cliffs where the Lower Düden waterfall drops into the sea and the flat farmland of the Aksu plain. It is not a village, not a town and not a resort in the older Mediterranean sense of a place with a centre and a promenade. It is roughly ten kilometres of dark-gold sand with very large hotels lined up behind it, most of them built between 2000 and 2015, several of them deliberately designed as replicas of something else: a palace facade, a Kremlin silhouette, a canal district with boats punted through a chlorinated channel.

That is a description, not a complaint. The themed mega-resort is a genuine Turkish speciality and Lara does it at a scale nowhere else on this coast matches. A single property here can hold 800 to 1,500 rooms, eight or nine à la carte restaurants, an aquapark with a dozen slides, a spa the size of a small leisure centre, a nightly theatre show and a private beach section with waiter service on the sunbeds. If your idea of a holiday is a self-contained world where everything is paid for in advance and nothing needs organising, Lara delivers exactly that.

The trade-off is just as clear. Outside the hotel gates there is a dual carriageway, a scattering of shops selling leather and jewellery, and the next hotel gate. You will not stroll to a harbour restaurant. You will not find a Turkish street market at the end of the road. Guests who choose Lara and then complain that there is nothing to do outside are describing the product accurately; they simply bought the wrong one.

The strip, section by section

The city end (Lara district proper)

The western end, around the Düden cliffs and the Lara sea park, is part of Antalya city rather than the resort belt. Here you get apartment blocks, tea gardens on the cliff edge, a few mid-size hotels, and residents walking dogs at sunset. There is no beach at the cliff section itself; you swim from platforms or drive east. This end is a reasonable choice if you want a city base with a sea view and do not need all-inclusive.

The sand and the resort belt

East of the cliffs the land drops to sea level and the sand begins. This is where the recognisable Lara strip starts: wide, dark-gold sand that shelves gently, with the hotels set back behind their own gardens. Most beach sections are private to a hotel and equipped with sunbeds, parasols, towels and a beach bar. Public access points exist but are limited compared with Konyaaltı on the other side of the city.

The Kundu border

Further east the strip runs into Kundu, which is administratively separate and covered on its own page. From the beach you cannot see where one ends and the other starts. In practice Lara addresses sit slightly closer to the city and the airport, Kundu addresses slightly further out and slightly quieter.

Hotel stock: what actually exists here

Lara is overwhelmingly five-star and overwhelmingly all-inclusive. Four-star properties exist, mostly a street or two back from the sand, and a handful of city-style hotels sit at the western end, but the strip was built for one product: the large, board-inclusive family and couples resort.

The board level you will see quoted most often is described as ultra all-inclusive. There is no legal definition of that phrase in Turkey, which is why we check it line by line for every quote we send. In good Lara hotels it genuinely means imported spirits, minibar restocked daily, at least a few à la carte restaurants without a supplement, ice cream and snacks through the afternoon, and late-night food service. In weaker hotels it means the same buffet with a different sign on the door. The difference between those two, at the same headline price, is the single biggest thing worth asking about before you commit.

What a budget realistically buys

Our indicative anchor for Lara is around 85 EUR per person per night, and that is a shoulder-season number for a mainstream five-star on all-inclusive board with two adults sharing. Read the ranges rather than the anchor:

• Roughly 55-70 EUR per person per night: an older five-star or a strong four-star, often on the inland side of the road, all-inclusive but with a shorter restaurant list.
• Roughly 85-110 EUR: the mainstream large-brand resorts, beachfront, full aquapark, several à la carte options included.
• Roughly 150 EUR and above: the themed flagships, suite categories, adults-only wings, private beach sections with butler service.

July and August push every one of those bands up by 30-50 per cent. Late April, May, the first half of June, late September and October pull them down.

Getting there

Antalya Airport is 20 minutes away by road, which is the shortest resort transfer on this coast and one of the strongest practical arguments for Lara. A family arriving at two in the morning on a delayed charter is in the room before three.

Airport transfers in Turkey are the one part of this page we operate ourselves. We have run our own vehicles and drivers out of Antalya Airport since 2016: a driver meets you inside the terminal with a name board, the vehicle is private rather than shared, and the price is per vehicle rather than per person, so a family of four does not pay four times. Accommodation is different — we do not own hotel inventory and take no payment on this site. A consultant prices your stay with a partner agency and sends it to you to consider.

When to go

April is pleasant on land, around 22-24 degrees, but the sea is still near 19 and most aquaparks have not opened. May is the first properly good month: high twenties, sea about 21-22, everything running. June is reliable and hot. July and August are 34-40 degrees with high humidity, the sea at 28-29, every sunbed taken by nine in the morning and the highest prices of the year; families tied to school holidays cope with it by treating the afternoon as pool-and-shade time. September is the month experienced repeat visitors book — still 32 degrees, sea at its warmest, crowds thinning after the first week. October is the quiet favourite: high twenties, sea about 25, prices down sharply. November onwards the aquaparks close, some resorts shut entirely, and the strip becomes a strange, empty place.

Food, drink and getting out

Inside a Lara resort the food is buffet-heavy with international sections, a Turkish corner and themed evenings. À la carte restaurants normally need booking on the day you arrive; the good slots go fast.

Getting out is possible and worth doing at least twice. Kaleiçi, the walled old town, is a 20-25 minute taxi ride and is the best evening in the region: Ottoman lanes, the Roman harbour, fish restaurants that are not a buffet. The Antalya Museum and the aquarium are on the Konyaaltı side, roughly 30-35 minutes. Perge and Aspendos, two of the better-preserved Roman sites in Turkey, are 20 and 45 minutes east. Düden waterfall is ten minutes away and takes an hour to see.

Families, couples and teenagers

Lara is very strong for families with children between four and fourteen: the aquaparks, kids clubs and shallow pools are the reason the strip exists. It is decent for teenagers, who get slides, sports and a disco without needing to leave. It works for couples who want scale and service rather than intimacy. It is weak for couples who want a small hotel, a village and a walk after dinner — that is what Kaleiçi and Kaş are for.

Who should skip Lara

Skip it if you want to walk somewhere in the evening, if you dislike buffets, if you find themed architecture off-putting, if you are travelling on a tight budget (Alanya and Manavgat are considerably cheaper), or if you want a quiet, small hotel where staff know your name. Skip it in August if you cannot tolerate heat and crowds together. And skip the cheapest all-inclusive rate you are offered here without checking what is behind it.

How to get a price

Send us your dates, the number of adults and children with their ages, and the board level you want. A consultant checks live availability with our partner agencies and comes back with options and honest notes about each, normally within one working day. The quote is free, there is no payment on this website, and you are under no obligation to proceed.