How do I get around Antalya?

The AntRay tram is your default. It runs a single line from the Fatih stop near the Antalya Museum (founded 1922, worth a full morning) east through the city center to the Expo terminal, roughly 15 km end to end. Frequency is every 8-12 minutes from 6 AM to midnight. Buy an AntalyaKart from the machines at any stop for a 30 TRY deposit, then load credit. Each tap costs around 17-20 TRY, which at 46 TRY to the dollar means you are paying about $0.40 per ride. The card also works on all municipal buses. Do not bother with single-use tokens. The tram is air-conditioned, clean, and the announcements come in Turkish and English. One catch. The line is flat, coastal, east-west only. It won't take you uphill to Kaleiçi's northern neighborhoods or south to Lara Beach.

For anything off the tram spine, dolmuş minibuses fill the network. These white vans run fixed routes but stop wherever you wave them down along the road. Pay the driver in cash, typically 25-35 TRY depending on distance. The Konyaaltı beach run departs from near the Müze (Museum) tram stop and drops you at the pebble shore in 10 minutes. For Lara Beach and the big resort strip, catch one from the Sarısu terminal heading east on the D400. They run until about 11 PM in summer. The seats are vinyl, the AC is aggressive, and the driver will likely have Turkish pop radio at full volume. That said, dolmuş are faster than the municipal bus for beach trips because they skip the city-center loop.

BiTaksi is the only ride-hail app that works here. Uber sold its Turkish operations in 2019, so delete it from your home screen before you confuse a driver. Open BiTaksi, set your pickup, and the fare appears upfront. A ride from Kaleiçi to Antalya Museum runs about 200 TRY (under $5), and the airport to Kaleiçi runs 700-900 TRY ($15-20) depending on traffic. Taxis at the airport queue will quote similar if you insist on the meter, but the negotiation hassle after a long flight is not worth the 50 TRY you might save. Download BiTaksi before you land.

Kaleiçi, the old walled quarter behind Hadrian's Gate, is a 4-by-6 block grid of narrow Ottoman-era lanes paved in uneven stone. Walk it. The streets smell like jasmine and grilled corn in the evenings, the cobbles are slick after rain, and no vehicle wider than a motorcycle fits through most passages. From Hadrian's Gate to the old harbor is a 7-minute downhill walk. From the harbor back up to the tram stop at İsmetpaşa takes 12 minutes if you take the stepped shortcut past the Kesik Minare. The nostalgic tram, a single restored 1950s-era car, rattles along Cumhuriyet Caddesi from the clock tower to the Antalya Museum for a flat 5 TRY, but it runs infrequently and you'll likely walk the same distance waiting for it. Mind you, outside Kaleiçi the city is a standard Turkish car-sprawl. Sidewalks vanish without warning, and crossing the D400 highway on foot feels like a negotiation with fate.