Turkey's Mediterranean coastline stretches for more than 1,700 kilometers, from the Greek border in the west to the edges of Hatay province near Syria in the east. Most international visitors concentrate their time in Bodrum, Antalya, or Marmaris, all deservedly popular but now firmly part of the mass tourism circuit. The coast beyond those centers, however, holds a quieter and in many ways more rewarding set of destinations, where the combination of ancient history, clear water, and low visitor numbers creates a different kind of experience entirely.
The Datca Peninsula, which juts westward between the Aegean and the Mediterranean, is one of the least developed stretches of Turkish coastline. Reaching it requires either a ferry from Bodrum or a long drive along a winding single-lane road, and that relative inaccessibility has preserved its character. The town of Datca itself is small and low-key, with a handful of good restaurants and a harbor where wooden gulets, the traditional Turkish sailing vessels, anchor alongside fishing boats. The surrounding villages, including Mesudiye, known locally as Old Datca, are largely unchanged stone settlements where almond and olive groves cover the hills.
At the far tip of the peninsula lie the ruins of Knidos, an ancient Greek city built on two harbors at the point where the Aegean meets the Mediterranean. The site is rarely crowded. Visitors can walk through the remains of temples, a theater, and a circular structure believed to have housed the famous statue of Aphrodite by Praxiteles, considered in antiquity one of the great works of art in the world. The setting, on a narrow headland with sea on both sides and an uninterrupted view toward the Greek islands, is genuinely spectacular.
Further east along the coast, the Turquoise Coast between Fethiye and Kas offers conditions for sailing (Affiliate link) that are hard to match anywhere in the eastern Mediterranean. The water is warm and protected by a string of islands and bays, the winds are reliable without being difficult, and there is no shortage of isolated anchorages where a boat can sit overnight with no other vessel in sight. The Bozukkale anchorage, in the ruins of the ancient harbor of Loryma, is particularly striking: a deep bay surrounded by hills, with the remains of a Byzantine fortress visible above the shoreline.
Kas itself is small enough to retain a genuinely local atmosphere, despite growing interest from visitors. The town sits at the foot of cliffs covered in ancient Lycian rock tombs, and just offshore lies the sunken city of Kekova, where the ruins of a Byzantine settlement that was partially submerged by an earthquake in the second century can be seen through the clear water from a kayak or a glass-bottomed boat. Diving in this area is tightly regulated to protect the archaeological remains, but the underwater landscape includes ancient amphorae, wall sections, and stairways that have been beneath the sea for nearly two thousand years.
The stretch of coast around Olimpos and Cirali, south of Antalya, is protected by national park status, which has kept large hotel development out. Cirali in particular is a village of small family-run pensions and wooden bungalows set behind a long beach where loggerhead sea turtles nest in summer. Above the beach, a twenty-minute walk through the ruins of ancient Olympos leads to the Chimaera, a cluster of natural gas vents in the hillside that have burned continuously since antiquity and were described by ancient Greek and Roman writers as the lair of a fire-breathing monster.
For those interested in the less visited Roman remains of the coast, Selge, in the mountains above the Koprulu Canyon north of Antalya, and the ancient harbor city of Phaselis, surrounded by pine forest just south of Kemer, are both worth the detour. Phaselis in particular is unusual in that its three harbors are still clearly visible, one of them suitable for swimming, and the city's main colonnaded street runs directly to the sea.
The easternmost section of the Turkish Mediterranean coast, around Mersin and the plains of Cilicia, sees almost no international tourism and yet contains sites of considerable significance. Kizkalesi, or Maiden's Castle, is a medieval fortress that sits on a small island just offshore, reachable by rowboat from the beach. The town of Tarsus, birthplace of Saint Paul, lies inland from Mersin and contains Roman-era remains and a modest but interesting museum. The whole area has a different climate and character from the western coast, more humid and lush, and the relative absence of visitors gives it an unperformed quality that is increasingly rare on the Turkish coast as a whole.