What should I avoid in Antalya?

Antalya Airport is where most first-day money goes missing. Men in the arrivals hall will quote a flat fare to Kaleiçi in euros, and it tends to run well above what the meter in a yellow taxi shows for the same 13 km: say "taksimetre" and watch the driver switch it on. Better still, follow the Antray signs. The T1 tram runs from the airport to İsmetpaşa in roughly 40 minutes, and İsmetpaşa is a 5-minute walk from Hadrian's Gate. You pay by tapping a contactless bank card at the turnstile, so you can skip the AntalyaKart queue. Skip the exchange desks beside baggage reclaim too. The Frankfurter rate on 13 October 2026 was 49.37 lira to 1 US dollar, and airport counters usually pay several lira less. When an ATM in Antalya offers to bill you in your home currency, press decline and take the withdrawal in lira.

Kaleiçi is the right place to stay and the wrong place to eat on autopilot. The terrace restaurants above the Roman harbour sell sea bass by the kilo, and the price is often missing from the menu, so ask for the weight and the total in lira before the fish goes on the charcoal. The men who call "boat trip, my friend" along the marina are selling a ride to Lower Düden Waterfalls that takes about 45 minutes each way on a deck that smells of diesel, but you can see the same 40-metre drop for free from the clifftop at Düden Park in Lara. For dinner, walk 10 minutes north of the arch to Kazım Özalp Caddesi and order piyaz with şiş köfte. Antalya's piyaz isn't the onion salad served in Istanbul. It's warm white beans under a thick, nutty tahini sauce sharpened with vinegar.

Refuse the Pamukkale day trip flat out. Pamukkale sits about 240 km from Antalya, which likely means 7 hours in a minibus for 3 hours on the terraces. The cheaper Perge and Aspendos coach tours tend to pad the day with a leather or jewellery showroom stop: the doors close behind you for 40 minutes of cold air conditioning and a hard sell. Perge is 17 km east of Kaleiçi, and the T1 tram to Aksu leaves you roughly 2 km from the gate. Termessus needs a different warning. The ruins lie at about 1,000 metres in Güllük Dağı National Park, the path up is loose rock, and nobody sells water at the top. Go before 10am with 1.5 litres each, or hire a driver in Kaleiçi who will wait in the car park.

Two booking mistakes are hard to undo once you land. The big all-inclusive hotels at Kundu in Lara are about 20 km east of Kaleiçi, so every dinner in town costs a long taxi ride each way. Konyaaltı Beach is the easier swim from the centre, but it is pebble, not sand, and the stones are hot and hard on bare feet by noon in July. Pack water shoes. July and August afternoons in Antalya often pass 35°C, so plan Perge or the Antalya Museum for the morning. Autumn brings the opposite problem: Open-Meteo logged 20.1°C, 91% humidity and light showers at 8pm on 13 October 2026, and the polished limestone lanes between Hıdırlık Tower and the marina turn slick as soap in the rain. Wear rubber soles after dark in Kaleiçi from October to March.