Entrance free to olympos beach and the antique city.

Best beaches in Turkey: Olympos, Antalya

The beach at Olympos, on Turkey's Mediterranean Coast, is known as Olympos beach and is popular with backpackers drawn to its tree-house hostels.

What is there to do?

Olympos is still a secluded village, which is why the aforementioned tree-house hostels have become something akin to all-inclusive resorts for the budget travel crowd. Most visitors stay at their guesthouses for nightly entertainment of the DJ and drum-circle variety. By day, everyone goes to the beach. Kayaking is an option, and guesthouses offer adventure travel trips, including rock climbing, mountain biking, and even whitewater rafting at the nearby Köprülü Canyon. Anyone keen on peace and solitude might consider trekking a portion of the 300-mile Lycian Way.

Bars and bites

Every decent guesthouse in Olympos serves breakfast and dinner, so make sure you know what’s on offer at your tree house of choice before laying out any serious lira. As for drinking, if you don’t have a beer or two with a couple of new-found friends at your guesthouse’s bar, you will probably end up doing so at the place next door.

Getting there

Antalya has the closest international airport, although most travellers arrive in Olympos by bus, usually having bought one-way tickets from a guesthouse at their last destination. To find the beach itself, simply follow the stampede — there’s just one main path and, conveniently enough, it’s lined with Roman ruins.

Understand

Ancient Lycian ruins, an isolated beach, accommodation in treehouses and flames that mysteriously burn from the side of a mountain are some of the attractions of Olympos (Olimpos) in Turkey's Mediterranean south.

The modern "village" is named after the Lycian/Roman city that now lies in ruins just off the beach, which in turn is named after nearby Mt. Tahtalı, the highest mountain in the vicinity, which was called Olympos in Greek times. It must be noted that this is just one of 20-odd noticeably high mountains in that northeastern Mediterranean basin, which known as Olympos in antiquity. The Olympos mountain that was the abode of the Greek gods is a different mountain in northeastern Greece.

A hippie haven until recently, the completion of a surfaced road from the main highway in summer 2009 means that there are many more people (including families with children) heading there now compared to the past. In summer weekends when many day- (and night-) trippers pour in, Olympos is similar to many other resort towns. However, former habitués report that during autumn when everyone else quits the scene, Olympos can be just as beautiful as it used to be.