Side

What Side actually is

Side is the one resort on this coast where the holiday and the archaeology occupy the same streets. The town sits on a short peninsula that has been settled since roughly the seventh century BC, and it spent the Roman period as one of the busiest ports in Pamphylia. Then it was abandoned for centuries, and in the late nineteenth century Turkish families resettled from Crete rebuilt a fishing village inside the ruins rather than beside them. That is why the old town looks the way it does: the main street is the ancient colonnaded street, restaurant terraces back onto column drums, and the Temple of Apollo stands on the tip of the headland with five re-erected columns pointing straight at the sunset.

The practical consequence is unusual. In most Turkish beach resorts, "going out" means the hotel bar or a strip of identical restaurants. In Side you can walk into a two-thousand-year-old town after dinner, past a Roman theatre that seated something in the order of fifteen thousand people, and be back at your hotel in half an hour. Much of the site is simply the street plan of the modern village, so you walk through it at no cost; the theatre and the museum are ticketed and both are worth the fee.

Side suits people who want an all-inclusive beach week but would be bored by a resort compound with nothing outside it. It suits couples in their thirties and forties, families with children old enough to walk a kilometre without complaint, and anybody who has done Belek once and found it airless.

Where to stay

The old town peninsula

The only part of the Antalya coast where small hotels and pensions are a genuine option rather than a curiosity. Rooms are simple, you walk everywhere, and dinner is à la carte in a real restaurant. The trade is noise: the pedestrianised centre is busy until late from June to September, and there is no proper resort beach on your doorstep, only the small strips at the edges of the peninsula.

West Beach and Kumköy

The long sand running west from the peninsula, backed by the densest hotel row in the area. Sunset side, wide beach, mostly four-star all-inclusive with a scattering of five-star, and generally the best value in Side. From the far end it is a twenty-minute dolmuş ride or a long walk into the old town.

East Beach and Sorgun

East of the peninsula the sand continues with a pine forest behind it. The hotels here are newer and larger on average, several are genuinely five-star, and the pine belt makes the whole area feel cooler and quieter than the west side. This is where to look if you want Belek-style hotel quality at Side prices, and you accept a shuttle or a taxi to reach the ruins.

Titreyengöl, Çolaklı and Evrenseki

Belts of family all-inclusive hotels set slightly back or further along the coast, around the pine-ringed Titreyengöl lagoon and towards Manavgat. Cheaper again, flat and shallow beaches that suit toddlers, and effectively no walking-distance nightlife.

Hotel stock and what a budget really buys

Side is not Belek. The dominant category is four-star all-inclusive rather than five-star, a good share of the West Beach stock was built in the 1990s and refurbished since, and the beaches are largely public rather than resort-private. Those three facts are most of the reason Side costs less.

Our anchor starts around 60 EUR per person per night. That is a shoulder-season figure for two sharing a standard room in a solid four-star on all-inclusive board. A five-star in Sorgun in the same weeks typically lands nearer 80 to 100. In July and August the four-star number often doubles, and the pension rooms in the old town, which run on a room-only or bed-and-breakfast basis, become the value option for couples who intend to eat out anyway.

Half-board still exists here in a way it does not in Belek, precisely because there are restaurants worth walking to. If you like eating out, say so: it can cut the accommodation cost significantly.

Getting there

Side is served by Antalya Airport (AYT), roughly 75 minutes away on the D400 east. That is about forty minutes more than Belek, and it is a real part of the price difference between the two. The road is dual carriageway most of the way and the last stretch runs through Manavgat.

Transfers within Turkey we run ourselves, with our own vehicles and drivers, and have done since 2016. The driver meets you inside arrivals with a name board, the price is per vehicle rather than per person, and we track the flight so a delay does not leave you stranded. Note that the old town centre is pedestrianised in season, so vehicles drop at the edge and hotels in the centre are a short walk with luggage.

When to go

April. Around 22 degrees, the sea near 18. The ruins are at their best in this month, quiet and green. Too cold for most people to swim.

May. Upper twenties, the sea turning swimmable towards the end of the month, hotels filling but not full.

June. Low thirties, warm sea, long evenings. The old town is busy but still pleasant.

July and August. Mid to high thirties with humidity. The pedestrian centre becomes genuinely crowded after eight in the evening, and the beach is shoulder to shoulder in front of the bigger hotels. Come if the school calendar decides for you.

September. The best all-round month. Warm sea, thirty degrees or a little over, the crowd thinning after the third week.

October. High twenties, sea still swimmable, sharply lower prices, and the archaeology comfortable to walk again.

November to March. Most hotels close. A handful of small places in the old town stay open, the site is empty and atmospheric, and it rains properly.

Food, beaches and days out

The sand at Side is fine and pale, the entry gentle, the water clean. West Beach takes the afternoon sun and the sunset; East Beach has shade from the pines and is a little calmer.

Manavgat is the town behind Side and the natural half-day: the waterfall is about ten minutes from the ruins, the weekly market is one of the largest in the region, and river boats run up the Manavgat towards the Oymapınar dam and the so-called Green Canyon. Further afield, Aspendos is around forty minutes west and the Köprülü Canyon rafting rivers about an hour and a quarter.

Eating in Side is a genuine pleasure rather than a duty. The harbour and the streets behind it have fish restaurants, meze places and Turkish home cooking at prices well below hotel à la carte. Expect to be invited in by waiters on the main street; a polite no works fine, and the quieter side lanes are usually better anyway.

Who should skip Side

Golfers should be in Belek, which has the courses and the hotels built around them. Anyone who wants a brand-new luxury resort with a private beach should look at Belek or Lara, with the Sorgun side of Side as the compromise. Travellers with a toddler who will not tolerate seventy-five minutes in a vehicle may prefer Lara, Kundu or Belek. And anyone who hates crowds in narrow pedestrian streets should avoid the old town in July and August entirely, or stay out at Sorgun and visit the ruins in the morning.

Getting a price

Send us your dates, the number of adults and children, 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 voucher, and comes back with two or three options that genuinely match. The quote is free, no payment is taken on this website, and we normally reply within one working day.