Aperlai
A Lycian harbour town half in the water, reached on foot across the Sıcak peninsula or by boat. Walls, cisterns and a sunken quay. Almost nobody is here.
Fethiye → Antalya
The Lycian Way
Turkey’s first long-distance path runs 500-odd kilometres along this coast, and about forty of them belong to us: Aperlai, Üçağız, Kaleköy, Gökkaya, and the harbour at Çayağzı we sail from every morning. This is the part we can tell you about first-hand.
- Distance
- ≈540 km
- Total ascent
- 20–25 000 m
- Stages
- 26–29
- Full walk
- 25–30 days
Published figures differ — some guides say 500 km, others 540; some count 26 stages, others 29. Fire, landslip and re-waymarking keep moving the line, so treat any single number as approximate and check the current route before you set out.
What it is
The Lycian Way was researched, waymarked and published by Kate Clow in 1999, stitching together ancient Lycian roads, Roman paving, goat tracks and forestry roads into one continuous path from Fethiye to the outskirts of Antalya. It is marked with red-and-white flashes on rocks and trees. It is not a wilderness trail: it threads through villages, past pensions and tea houses, and along beaches — which is exactly why it can be walked in sections rather than all at once.
The four stretches
Most people walk one of these rather than the whole line.
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Fethiye to Patara
Ölüdeniz, the Butterfly Valley rim, Faralya, Kabak and the long descent to the Patara dunes. The most photographed and the most crowded.
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Kalkan to Üçağız
Cliff paths above Kaş, rock-cut tombs, the ruined harbour at Aperlai and the Kekova channel. The coastal heart of the walk.
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Demre to Olympos
Myra’s necropolis, the long shingle of Karaöz, Cape Gelidonya’s lighthouse and the eternal flames at Yanartaş.
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Olympos to Antalya
The hardest quarter: the Beydağları range, Tahtalı at 2 366 m, high yayla pastures and thin water.
The stretch that passes our harbour
Between Üçağız and Demre the path follows the shore, while the road takes an inland mountain line to reach the same villages. This is where we live and work, so what follows is what we actually see, not what a guidebook says. The waymarks along this stretch are in place.
Üçağız (Teimiussa)
The village the coastal stage starts from. Rock tombs stand at the water’s edge behind the last houses. A fountain, a shop, pensions and boats, and one bus a day out to Antalya.
Kaleköy (Simena)
No road reaches it. A Crusader-era castle above the roofs, a Lycian sarcophagus standing in the shallows, and the smallest theatre in Lycia cut into the rock.
Gökkaya Bay
The sheltered anchorage east of the channel. This is where a boat can put walkers ashore for the coastal path to Çayağzı.
Çayağzı (Andriake)
Myra’s ancient port and our harbour. Hadrian’s granary still stands, and the Museum of Lycian Civilisations is beside it. A fountain, a shop, shade and a road back into Demre.
Myra, Demre
Rock tombs stacked into the cliff, a Roman theatre, and the church of St Nicholas in the town below. The natural end of a walking day.
The trail on the map
Walking it with the boat
There is a road to Üçağız, but it does not follow the Lycian Way: the path keeps to the shore while the road loops inland through the mountains. From Demre that is 35 km of mountain road, with a single daily bus that leaves at eight in the morning and comes back in the evening — times that sit either side of a walking day rather than inside it, and a route that cannot meet you halfway along the coast. That makes a boat genuinely useful rather than a luxury. The established way to do this day is to sail from Üçağız over the Sunken City, stop at Kaleköy, and be put ashore at Gökkaya to walk the coast into Çayağzı: a day guidebooks put at roughly 14 km in total, with little climbing, and the only way to see this section from both the water and the path. It works in the other direction too: we collect walkers at Kaleköy or Üçağız and bring them in to Çayağzı.
- Boat leg
- Üçağız → Sunken City → Kaleköy → Gökkaya
- Walk
- Gökkaya → Çayağzı along the coast, waymarked
- Or the reverse
- We collect walkers at Kaleköy or Üçağız
We run this as a private charter, so the drop-off point and the hour are yours to set. Message us with your dates and how many you are.
Ask about a walker drop-off ToursIf it is your first time
Six things worth knowing before the first morning. None of them are secrets; all of them are what people wish they had taken seriously.
- Start early. The path is mostly open and the middle of the day in summer is not walking weather. Most people who struggle are people who set off at ten.
- Carry your own water. There is no reliable spring along much of the coast, and what is marked on a map may be dry by August. Three litres a person on a full day is not excessive.
- Closed shoes, not sandals. The rock is limestone, and it is slippery with dew for the first hour of the day.
- Spring and autumn. April–May and September–October are the walking seasons. July and August are for the sea.
- Expect to hunt for the path at the start of a stage. The waymarks are there and they are maintained, but they are sparsest exactly where you are least sure.
- Read the transport before the route. Several stages end where no bus goes, and working that out at four in the afternoon is worse than working it out at home.
When to walk
Spring and autumn, and it is not close. February to May the hills are green and the wildflowers are out; September to November the sea is still warm enough to swim after a day’s walking. July and August are punishing on this coast — long waterless stretches at 35 °C and above. Winter is walkable at sea level but the high eastern sections hold snow.
Weather →How many days
End to end takes most people 25 to 30 days. Very few do that. The usual pattern is a section of three to five days, based in one town, walking point to point and returning by dolmuş — and the Kaş–Kekova–Demre stretch is one of the most popular precisely because it is beautiful, coastal and easy to break up.
What to carry
This is not an alpine trail, but it is rockier and hotter than people expect, and the descents are long. Ankle support and real grip matter more than anything else in the pack.
- Boots with grip — the limestone is sharp and polished in places
- Two to three litres of water capacity per person
- A filter or chlorine tablets for spring water
- Sun hat, high-factor sun cream, sunglasses
- Offline map — phone signal drops in the valleys
- Poles for the descents, if your knees ask for them
- A light windproof layer: the deck and the ridges cool fast after sunset
- Cash — village shops and pensions rarely take cards
Water, food and camping
Nearly every village has a fountain fed from the municipal supply, and those are safe to drink. Springs marked in older guidebooks are less reliable than they were — fire and shifting groundwater have dried some of them — so carry a filter and fill at villages when you can rather than counting on the next spring. On our stretch both ends are covered: Üçağız and Çayağzı each have a fountain and a shop, so nobody needs to set out carrying a whole day of water.
Larger towns have supermarkets; villages have a bakkal with bread, eggs, cheese, olives and water. Pensions will usually cook dinner if you ask in the morning. Plan on carrying a day’s food where the path runs long between settlements.
Wild camping is widely tolerated if you are discreet: away from houses, orchards and archaeological sites, no fire, and everything carried out. Many pensions also let you pitch in the garden and use the shower for a small fee, which solves water at the same time. At this end of the walk there is Andriake Camping at Çayağzı harbour itself, and Demre has bungalows and self-catering aparts a few minutes inland.
Walking alone, and safety
Plenty of people walk the Lycian Way solo, including a great many women, and serious crime against walkers is rare. The real risks here are ordinary ones: heat, dehydration, a twisted ankle a long way from a road, and losing the waymarks on a hot afternoon.
For women walking alone
The honest picture from those who have done it: villages are hospitable and the trail itself is calm, but you will be visible and you will be asked about your husband. Practical habits do most of the work — tell your pension where you are heading next, camp out of sight of the road rather than beside it, keep your phone charged with an offline map, and prefer village pensions to isolated wild camps if you would rather not be alone at night. Dressing to the village standard away from the beach saves attention you did not want.
- Start early — the danger on this coast is the afternoon sun, not the dark
- Tell someone your day’s plan; much of the path has no signal
- Village dogs are guarding, not hunting — stop, do not run, keep walking wide
- Turn back if the waymarks stop; do not improvise a line across the maquis
Getting here and away
- Antalya
- Buses to Demre through the day, a bit over 3 hours along the coast road. ₺410 on the 2026 tariff.
- Fethiye and Kaş
- Dolmuş from Kaş to Demre every 30–60 minutes, about 45 minutes, ₺140 in 2026.
- Demre to Çayağzı
- 5 km. In summer the town dolmuş leaves the bus station at 09:00, 13:45 and 16:00, reaches the harbour about half an hour later and turns straight round. A taxi is inexpensive.
- Demre to Üçağız
- 35 km of mountain road. Batı Antalya runs one bus a day: 08:00 from Üçağız, 14:30 from Antalya. Confirm the times before relying on them.
One departure a day, timed for Antalya rather than for a day on foot, is why walkers on this section still end up asking around the harbour for a lift by sea. Fares and departure times here are the 2026 tariff; they are re-issued each spring, so confirm before you travel.
What grows here
The path spends most of its time in maquis — kermes oak, myrtle, strawberry tree, mastic and wild olive, all of it aromatic and all of it scratchy at knee height. Higher up it gives way to red pine and, on the eastern mountains, cedar and juniper. Spring brings orchids, cyclamen and anemones; by June the hillsides are thyme, sage and oregano, and you can smell where you are walking. Carob and old olive terraces near the villages are usually the sign of a settlement that has been there a very long time.
Frequently asked questions
Can I walk just the Kekova section?
Yes, and most people do. Kaş to Demre by way of Aperlai, Üçağız and Kaleköy is three to five days, all of it coastal, with pensions at each end of the day.
Do I need a guide?
No. The route is waymarked in red and white and there are villages throughout. A guide is worth it if you want the archaeology explained or you are walking outside the usual season.
Is there a bus to Üçağız?
One a day each way, run by Batı Antalya: it leaves Üçağız around 08:00 for Antalya, roughly four hours, and comes back out of Antalya about 14:30, staying the night in the village. Good for arriving and leaving, awkward in the middle of a walking day — and published timetables vary, so confirm before you count on it.
Can you drop us on the coast path?
Yes — we run private charters, so we can put you ashore at Gökkaya for the walk into Çayağzı, or collect you at the other end. Tell us your date and group size.
Is the water safe to drink?
Village fountains fed from the municipal supply are fine. Springs are less dependable than the older guidebooks suggest, so carry a filter or tablets and top up in villages.