Places to Visit in Kaş: The Complete List

Kaş is small enough to walk across in twenty minutes and sits at the centre of a stretch of coast with more ancient cities, coves and sunken towns than you can reasonably fit into one holiday. This page is the index: everything worth going to see, grouped by how far you have to travel and what sort of day it makes, with the distance from Luna Kaş against each one.

Where we have written a full guide, it is linked. Distances are by road unless stated otherwise.

Within Walking Distance

You can do all of this in a morning without getting into a car, which is one of the better arguments for Kaş over anywhere else on this coast.

• The Antiphellos theatre, 1.1 km west. A Hellenistic theatre cut into the slope above the sea, still used for the odd summer concert. Free, unfenced, and best in the last hour of light.
• The Lion Tomb, 200 m. A Lycian sarcophagus standing in the middle of a residential street, which tells you most of what you need to know about how Kaş carries its history.
• Uzun Çarşı and the old town. Narrow lanes of white plaster and bougainvillea running down to the harbour. Rock-cut Lycian tombs sit in the hillside directly above them.
• Küçük Çakıl, 300 m, and Büyük Çakıl, 1.2 km. The two town beaches. Pebbles, platforms, clear water and no sand to carry home.

Beaches and Coves

• Kaputaş, 20 km west. The turquoise one from the postcards, at the foot of a long staircase off the coast road. Go between eleven and two, when the sun is high enough to light the water.
• Patara, 35 km. Eighteen kilometres of sand backed by dunes and an ancient city. A protected turtle nesting beach, so it closes in the evening through the season.
• Limanağzı, 5 km on foot or ten minutes by water taxi from the harbour. Three small coves with a couple of restaurants and no road.
• The full beach guide covers all of these properly, along with Hidayet’s Cove, İnceboğaz, Akçagerme and the rest.

Ancient Cities

Kaş was Antiphellos, a Lycian port. Everything below was part of the same world, and most of it is within an hour and a half.

• Xanthos, 46 km. The Lycian capital, and a UNESCO site along with Letoon just down the road. Give it a whole morning and go early; there is almost no shade.
• Patara, 35 km. The world’s oldest known lighthouse, the Lycian League parliament building, and a theatre, all behind that beach.
• Myra at Demre, 45 km. Rock tombs stacked into a cliff face above a Roman theatre, and the best-preserved theatre masks in Lycia.
• The Church of St Nicholas, also at Demre. The real Saint Nicholas was bishop here in the fourth century.
• Tlos, 82 km. Built up a rock outcrop with an Ottoman fortress on top, tombs cut below it, and a view down the whole valley.
• Phellos, about 10 km above the town. Antiphellos means “opposite Phellos”, and this is the older settlement it faced. Reached on foot from Çukurbağ; a proper walk rather than a stop.

Days on the Water

• Kekova, Üçağız and Kaleköy, 32 km to Üçağız by road, then by boat. A Lycian town half underwater after an earthquake, a Crusader castle above a village with no road, and a swimming stop at Tersane. The classic full day out of Kaş.
• Meis, or Kastellorizo, 8 km across the water and technically Greece. A twenty-minute ferry from Kaş harbour, so bring your passport and check the sailing days.
• Diving. Kaş is one of the better dive destinations in the Mediterranean, with walls, a sunken aircraft and reliable visibility.
• Sea kayaking, usually over the Kekova ruins, where you can see the walls through the water beneath you.

Inland and Further Out

• Kalkan, 27 km. A white village stacked above a small harbour, with Kaputaş on the way. An easy evening rather than a whole day.
• Gömbe, 66 km north and 1,200 m up. Cedar forest, a karst lake that stays at 12 degrees, and a seasonal waterfall. Eight degrees cooler than the coast, which in August is the point.
• Kayaköy, 117 km. Five hundred roofless stone houses, emptied by the 1923 population exchange. A full day, best paired with Ölüdeniz.
• The Çukurbağ peninsula, 4 km. Far enough from the street lights for real stars, and the only place near town where the sun sets into open sea.

And the Things That Are Not Places

• Eating. The town punches well above its size, and the Friday market is worth an hour on its own.
• Getting up early. The sun rises behind the hills, so the sea is lit long before the town is. Nobody else is out.
• Photographing it properly, which mostly means knowing what time to be where.
• Horse riding in the hills behind the town, out of the heat.