My guide, Uraz Nehir, has one piece of advice when hiking the Lycian Way: Don’t fall. As we dodged mole holes and the churned mud pits of wild boars on this nearly 435-mile trail hugging Türkiye’s southern coast, I thought that his reminder made sense.
But those two simple words rang clear in my ears as I stood on the crumbling stones of an ancient aqueduct slicing through the hills, the rising sun glittering across a topaz Mediterranean bay below. The stones beneath my sneakers were loose and irregular—remnants of a Roman engineering system that once carried water to the port city of Patara.
Indeed, I nearly tweaked my ankle shortly after clambering off the ruins to head to the ancient birthplace of St. Nicholas.
The Lycian Way is a trail that follows ancient trade, military, and pilgrimage routes used by the Lycians, a maritime civilization that predates the Romans and resided in Asia Minor from roughly the 15th century B.C.E. until the 6th century C.E. The path runs from the outskirts of the seaside port city of Fethiye to the edge of the historic resort city Antalya, traversing pine-covered mountains, coastal cliffs, and valleys of olive trees before dropping repeatedly toward the Mediterranean’s luminous bays. Along the way, hikers pass through thousands of years of history in this open-air museum: sarcophagus-filled necropolises, cities under active excavation, and ancient theaters still echoing with drama.
Guides often create routes that link aqueducts like Delikkemer Bridge with ancient harbors, combining inland archaeology with coastal walking.
Photo by Denis Moskvinov/Shutterstock
Despite its length, the Lycian Way is not some remote backcountry trek. It is a village-to-village hike that threads through living communities as much as ancient ones. Operators arrange for your luggage to be transported for you while you walk, and most days end in small coastal towns or mountain villages where hikers often stay in family-run pensions. I went with Cicerone Adventure, based in the city of Antalya, which guided me along the trail’s central section over several days.
“There are so many opportunities for staying in hotels,” says Fatih Koç of Overland Travel & Adventures, who leads tours of the trail. “I’m choosing to stay in guest houses or local places for my clients—not only for comfort, but also to integrate with local people. It’s also a great chance to try the local food.”
The woman who found the lost path
The Lycian Way as it exists today is largely thanks to Kate Clow. A British expatriate who settled in Türkiye in the early 1990s, Clow began walking the region’s mountains and coastlines on weekends. She hiked from settlement to settlement, wayfinding based on local knowledge.
“I learned enough Turkish just to ask the way to the next village,” she said. Over time, she saw patterns and logic embedded in the landscape—old roads linking ancient cities and paths that still made sense centuries after they were built. “They never built them across an area that would flood in winter,” she says.
Clow stitched these paths together into a continuous long-distance trail and documented the route in her 2005 guidebook The Lycian Way, sparking international interest.
The Gelidonya Lighthouse along the Cape Gelidonya peninsula is a popular site for many hikers.
Photo by Soloviova Liudmyla/Shutterstock (L); photo by frantic00/Shutterstock (R)
How many days and which section to hike
Hiking the entire route end to end takes roughly a month—about 30 to 35 days, depending on pace and season. The high seasons are spring (March to May) and autumn (September to November); trekking in July and August is strongly discouraged due to high heat and lack of water on the trail.
But the trail is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Most travelers experience it in shorter sections. Some people tackle the eastern, central, or western portions over the course of a week or 10 days. There are also three- to five-day routes that allow hikers to focus on the most scenic stretches. The shorter option also lets you pair the walk with time on the coast or in nearby hubs like Fethiye, Kaş, or Antalya.
For a three-day introduction to the eastern section of the trail, my guide Nehir recommends basing yourself in Cirali, a low-key beach village backed by the Taurus Mountains.
From here, hikers can tackle classic sections that combine forested paths, ruins, and frequent swims. Standout routes here include the descent along Maden Bay from the seaside city of Kemer to the village of Cirali, the walk from the ruins of Olympos to the beach neighborhood Adrasan, and the spectacular coastal stretch from Adrasan to the Gelidonia Lighthouse, one of the trail’s most iconic viewpoints.
Well-placed accommodations make these short itineraries especially appealing. Olympos Lodge offers acres of gardens and private beach access in Cirali, while Olympos Mountain Lodge in nearby Beycik welcomes you with a curated art collection and foraged gastronomy in a high-altitude cedar forest.
The entire stretch (including the ancient ruins of Xanthos) is voluntarily maintained by the Culture Routes Society, established in 2012 by trail documentarian Kate Clow.
Photo by Debu55y/Shutterstock
With five days, Nehir creates a route similar to my path: following the Delikkemer aqueduct toward the ruins and beach of Patar, which descends from mountain villages to the coast near Kaş. (I, for one, am still dreaming of the sizzling mezzes and rich wine at Kaş’ Salkım Ocakbaşı Meyhane.)
Some itineraries end with a night aboard a boat in the Kekova region, where ruins continue underwater in the Sunken City of Kekova, aboard the likes of Haydi. Yacht Classic Hotel on Ece Marina in Fethiye, a 10-minute walk from the city center, is a natural starting or ending point; meanwhile, Villa Hotel Tamara, near Kaş, and the remote Yediburunlar Lighthouse Boutique Hotel offer dramatic coastal views that feel especially earned after a day on foot.
Or you could try a botanical hike. Vira Natura, led by botanists Chris and Başak Gardner, offers treks centered on seasonal blooms (like wild tulips, orchids, cyclamen in spring). Walks unfold slowly, with frequent stops at necropolises or fallen columns where natural history and archaeology overlap.
These different ways of moving through the Lycian Way underscore how the trail allows travelers to freely enter and exit history. As Clow says, “I don’t know any other trail where you’re constantly passing through ancient graves or ancient cities or past bits of monuments,”—or, I’ll add, with so much sea access.
