Kaş

VillagesMediterranean,Türkiye

A whitewashed harbour town on the Turkish Mediterranean built over Lycian Antiphellos, with sarcophagi at street corners and water deep enough for record freedives.

September·Peaking now

Sep–Oct

The sea stays warm while the crowds thin — the town's best stretch for being in the water rather than beside it.

Year-round The deep water, the Lycian sarcophagi at the street corners and the sea-facing theatre are here every day of the year.

Kaş is a whitewashed harbour town on the Mediterranean coast of Türkiye, in Antalya province, built straight over the Lycian city of Antiphellos, with sarcophagi standing at its street corners and a Greek island twenty minutes off its harbour, and its water drops away so fast that a few hundred metres off the town beach the bottom is beyond sight, which is why the world's freedivers set their lines here. The town grew over Antiphellos, and in the middle of Uzun Çarşı, the old bazaar street, stands the King's Tomb, a Lycian sarcophagus of the fourth century BC with a high pointed lid and lion heads carved in the stone, while a small Hellenistic theatre of 26 rows sits a few minutes west of the square with no stage building, its seats simply looking out over the water; the sea is swum off the rocks at Küçük Çakıl and Büyük Çakıl, the small and big pebble coves a short walk from the harbour, warmest in August. In Turkish the name means eyebrow, and the arc of the Çukurbağ peninsula is read as an eyebrow over an eye, the island of Meis on the water beyond. The diving is the town's trade. A C-47 Dakota retired from the Turkish army was sunk deliberately in 2009 and lies intact on the seabed with its twin engines in place, shallow enough for ordinary certified divers, beside a replica of the Bronze Age wreck of Uluburun, found on the cape nearby, and in October 2022 the freediving world championship was held here, when the plankton thins and the water reaches its clearest. The ferry crosses to Meis in twenty minutes, landing in a pastel Greek harbour town where the day is spent swimming off the rocks and eating slowly, and the Lycian Way runs along the coast on either side. Kaş is a town on top of a Lycian port, and the deep water at its door is the reason for the lines.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Mornings are the flat window — the sea stays glassy until the afternoon breeze comes up, so dive and freedive boats leave early and are usually back at the quay by mid-afternoon.
Don't come for the monk seal — a few live along this protected coast but almost nobody sees one. Groupers, octopus and the odd loggerhead turtle are the realistic company on a dive.
Save the ancient theatre for the last hour of light — climb to the top row, where the stage is the open bay and the seats empty out as the sun drops.
Bring your passport if you fancy Greece for lunch — the Meis ferry leaves from the same quay as the dive boats, and passport control happens after you land on the island.
August fills the lanes, not the sea — the harbour and bazaar are packed with Turkish holidaymakers, while the boats spread across dozens of dive sites and rarely feel crowded.

Things to do

1
Follow the breath-hold line down into the blue
Swim a few hundred metres out from the town beach and the bottom is already far beyond sight, which is exactly why the lines are set here. A first descent on a rope feels weightless and very quiet, the surface shrinking overhead. Beginners take a breath-hold course in the same water where the records are set; the deep lines belong to athletes who train here for months.
2
Dive the sunken Dakota and the Bronze Age replica
A C-47 Dakota, retired from the Turkish army and deliberately sunk in 2009, lies intact on the seabed with its twin engines still in place — shallow enough for ordinary certified divers. Nearby, a replica of the Uluburun wreck, laid out with copper ingots and stone anchors, stands in for the real one, which is far too deep to visit. Walls, canyons and caves fill out the rest of the sites.
3
Swim off the rocks at Büyük and Küçük Çakıl
Küçük Çakıl and Büyük Çakıl — "small pebble" and "big pebble" — are the two coves a short walk from the harbour, with low rocks that children and grown-ups jump from all summer. There is no sand: you climb down a ladder and the water is deep within a few strokes, cool and clean even in the crowded weeks of August. Across the bay at Limanağzı, roped lanes keep the gulets clear of swimmers.
4
Walk past a Lycian king's tomb in the bazaar
In the middle of Uzun Çarşı, the old bazaar street, stands the King's Tomb: a 4th-century-BC Lycian sarcophagus with a high pointed lid and lion heads carved into the stone. Café tables and shopfronts press right up to its base. Nobody knows whether a king was ever inside; the name comes from the lions, and it is the largest of the tombs that keep surfacing between the houses.
5
Climb the theatre whose seats face open sea
A small Hellenistic theatre of twenty-six stone rows sits a few minutes west of the main square, and it never had a stage building — unusually for Anatolia, the seats simply look out over the water. Climb to the top row and the stage is the bay itself, with the Greek island of Meis low on the horizon.
6
Ferry across to Meis for the day
The crossing from the harbour to Meis takes about twenty minutes and lands you in a pastel Greek harbour town, where the day is spent swimming off the rocks and eating slowly. Going and coming back gives you the odd pleasure of standing in two countries in one day, with Kaş still in sight across the water.

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Nearby

17 km