A Quiet Escape to Kalkan, Turkey April 13 – 20, 2025
After browsing through countless listings and doing a bit of research, we stumbled upon a gem of a find in the Antalya region—a beautiful two-bedroom Airbnb in the small coastal town of Kalkan. Perched on a hillside with stunning ocean views and priced at just $308 for the week, it was too good to pass up. We quickly booked it and began our journey from Pamukkale.
Our travel day turned out to be longer than expected. We took a public minibus from Pamukkale to Denizli, hoping to find a direct connection to Kalkan. No such luck. Instead, we had to take a four-hour bus to Fethiye and then hop on another bus to Kalkan. By the time we arrived, it was a full day of travel—but worth every minute.
Kalkan turned out to be nothing short of picture perfect. It’s a charming resort town built into the steep hillside around a small bay, with white-washed, red-roofed houses cascading down like an amphitheater. Nearly every home, including ours, had panoramic views of the sea. Our Airbnb was bright, modern, and spacious, with floor-to-ceiling windows and two lovely balconies furnished with tables for dining al fresco. Best of all, there was a small grocery store right beneath our apartment—super convenient for picking up supplies.
On our first full day, we wandered down the steep hill toward the bay. The 20-minute walk took us past rows of tourist cafés and restaurants, but the prices were a bit much—$15 per person for a meal, and $8 for a smoothie at a seaside café? No thanks. We kept walking and eventually found a rocky beach with calm, crystal-clear blue water. We sat there for a while, soaking in the sun and admiring the peaceful view.
We continued past the beach to the marina, where we walked along a quiet street lined with boats up on dry dock for maintenance. The marina led us to a scenic path along the breakwater. After all that walking, we weren’t about to hike back up the steep hill, so we paid 200TL for a three-minute taxi ride back to our apartment—worth every lira.
We didn’t do much while in Kalkan, and honestly, we didn’t need to. The view from our apartment was so beautiful that we were perfectly content to stay in and relax. There was little appeal in going to pricey restaurants when we had our own private sea view. We cooked most of our meals at home with groceries from the local store. Turkish food is delicious—similar to Egyptian cuisine with doners, kebabs, shawarma, and mezzes—but in Turkey, it costs two or three times as much as it did back in Egypt, so we skipped dining out.
One day, we took a local bus to a nearby sandy beach nestled in a small cove beneath steep cliffs. Entry was just 50TL, and the beach was as scenic as it was peaceful. The water, partially rocky, was incredibly clear. The weather was a bit cool, so we didn’t swim that day, but Holly braved the water on a different day at our local rocky beach near the apartment.
We used our quiet days in Kalkan to catch up on homeschooling and do a bit of travel planning. Typically, we don’t plan far ahead—sometimes not even knowing where we’ll sleep the next night—but it was nice to take a breath and look a few days ahead.
Our next destination was Greece. We were surprised to find that a short one-hour flight from Turkey to Greece would cost around $200 per person. But digging a little deeper, we discovered a more affordable and scenic alternative: a two-hour ferry from Fethiye to the Greek island of Rhodes for just $50 each. From there, a domestic flight to Athens would cost less than $100 per person. Not only would we save money, but we’d also get to explore a bonus Greek island along the way.
Sometimes, it pays to slow down and look around—and our quiet week in Kalkan was a perfect reminder of that.
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