Activities & Sports A lot of people arrive on holiday braced for the damage and leave feeling they lost ground. In Kaş that worry is mostly misplaced, and not because of willpower. The town is built on a hill, everything is within a fifteen-minute walk, the sea is cold enough to be genuinely bracing, and the local cooking is vegetables, olive oil and grilled fish before it is anything else. You have to work fairly hard here to be sedentary.
What follows is practical rather than prescriptive. It is not a diet, and nothing here is medical advice; if you have a condition or you are training for something, take your own guidance with you.
The Town Does Most of the Work
Kaş has no flat route to anywhere. The old town runs downhill to the harbour and back uphill to everywhere you sleep, and the standing local joke is that dinner is easy and the walk home is the exercise. Most guests here clock a great deal more walking than they would at a resort, without once deciding to go for a walk.
Add the beaches. Küçük Çakıl is 300 metres from us and Büyük Çakıl is 1.2 km along the shore, both on foot, both with steps. The Antiphellos theatre is fifteen minutes west and uphill. None of that is training. It simply adds up.
Swimming, and Why It Is Different Here
Swimming is the obvious answer and the good one: it works most of the body and it does not feel like effort when the water is this clear. What is particular to Kaş is the temperature. Cold fresh groundwater comes up through the limestone seabed, so even in August you swim through patches several degrees colder than the surrounding sea.
Two consequences. It is far more pleasant to swim properly here in high summer than on a coast where the sea is like a bath, so people who intend a paddle end up doing lengths. And the cold patches are genuinely sudden, so ease into open water rather than diving in from a platform on a hot afternoon.
Things to Do That Do Not Feel Like Exercise
All of these are ordinary holiday activities here. That they are also hard work is a side effect.
Sea kayaking
Usually over the Kekova ruins, which means several hours of paddling while looking at a sunken city. You will feel your shoulders the next day and you will not have noticed at the time.
Diving
Less aerobic than it looks, but a full day on a boat with two dives is not a day on a sunbed. Kaş has sites from a first try-dive upwards.
The Lycian Way
The long-distance path runs right past the town. You do not have to walk it all: a section above Kaş in the early morning is two hours, and the smell of oregano is worth it on its own.
Walking to the beach
Küçük Çakıl 300 m, Büyük Çakıl 1.2 km, Hidayet's Cove and Limanağzı further along the coastal path. There is a water taxi. Take it one way.
Ancient cities on foot
Xanthos, Patara and Tlos all involve a couple of hours over uneven ground in the sun. Go early, and treat them as walks that happen to have ruins.
Stand-up paddling
Best at first light when the bay is glass. Quietly demanding on the core and the least strenuous-looking thing you will do all week.
Heat and Water
This is the part that actually matters, and it is the part most people get wrong. July and August here are hot, and the danger is not your waistline, it is doing a two-hour walk at midday with one small bottle of water.
Carry more water than you think you need, particularly for the ancient sites, where there is often no shade and nowhere to buy anything. Drink before you are thirsty. Do the walking early or late and give the middle of the day to the sea or to somewhere with a roof. If you want something other than water, the unsweetened options are everywhere: ayran, fresh lemonade, soda, and tea, which the town runs on regardless of temperature.
One correction to something you may have read: drinking more water does not make you sweat less. Sweating is how you shed heat, and staying hydrated is what lets you keep doing it. If you have stopped sweating in this heat, that is a reason to get into the shade, not a sign that things are going well.
Eating Here Is Not the Problem
The default meal in Kaş is a table of meze, most of them vegetables cooked in olive oil, followed by grilled fish or lamb with herbs off the hillside behind the town. Breakfast is tomatoes, cucumber, olives, cheese, egg and bread. This is the food people fly to the Mediterranean to eat on purpose.
We are not going to hand you a list of forbidden foods, and you should be suspicious of any holiday article that does. Eat the pide. What tends to go wrong on holiday is not a meal, it is the unstructured hours: continuous snacking through a hot afternoon, four courses at eleven at night because dinner started at nine.
If any of that matters to you, the practical lever is to keep meals roughly where they normally sit and let the town do the rest. Our guide to where to eat in Kaş covers the good places, and the Friday market is where you go if your room has a kitchen and you would rather assemble your own breakfast.
A Day That Takes Care of Itself
Nobody needs to plan this. It is roughly what happens anyway.
07:00 Swim before breakfast
09:00 Breakfast, properly
10:00 Walk or a boat
13:00 The middle of the day belongs to the sea
18:00 The uphill walk
20:00 Dinner, unhurried
In July and August, move everything an hour earlier. The heat, not the hills, is what will actually stop you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a gym in Kaş?
There are small gyms in town, though most people never look for one. The hills, the walking and the swimming cover it, and if you run, the coastal road out towards the Çukurbağ peninsula is the obvious route, done early.
Can you swim in Kaş outside summer?
Yes, well into autumn. The sea holds its warmth after the air has cooled, so September and October are among the best swimming months here. In winter the water is cold, though people still swim.
How much water should I carry on a walk?
More than you expect, and more than one small bottle. There is often no shade and nowhere to buy anything at the ancient sites. Drink before you are thirsty, and keep the long walks to early morning or late afternoon in July and August.
Is the food in Kaş heavy?
Not by default. The standard table is meze built on vegetables and olive oil, then grilled fish or lamb, and breakfast is largely vegetables too. It is the Mediterranean cooking people travel for, rather than something to survive.
What is the best exercise on a Kaş holiday?
Swimming, because the water is clear and cold enough that you keep going, and walking, because the town gives you no choice. Sea kayaking over Kekova is the one that surprises people the following morning.
Why is the sea so cold in places?
Fresh groundwater surfaces through the limestone seabed, so you swim through patches several degrees colder than the surrounding water, even in August. Enter gradually rather than jumping in on a hot afternoon.
THE HILL IS THE WORKOUT
Swim before breakfast, walk everywhere because there is no alternative, and eat the meze.
Luna Kaş is at the top of one of those hills.