I’m Resuming my Travels in Turkey During the Covid-19 Re-opening

Yippie! I finally get to resume my travels through Turkey!

To kick things off, I will be exploring the beautiful Mediterranean and Aegean Sea coastlines.

Essentially I’ll be continuing my originally-planned travel route before I got ‘stuck’ in Antayla for two months+ during the Covid-19 lockdown policies here in Turkey that took effect in early April.

Originally I planned to stay in Antalya city for one week and then head out slowly northward along the stunning mountainous coast.

Part of the route was purely for my own travel explorations of the area’s forests, mountains, beaches and other natural places. And part of the route consisted of places I needed to visit to complete my assignments updating various regional guides and reviewing luxury hotels.

Preparing my new travel plans

Now I’ll basically be doing the same thing two months later, but I’ll be able to do it at an even more-leisurely pace since I still do not have a deadline to leave Turkey any time soon. Originally I had a flight to catch in early May, which set my time limit for exploring the coast.

Now a looser time frame is actually fantastic for me since I’ll be able to visit more places and get to know this stunning region of Turkey in more depth.

I’ve pretty much prepared my new-n-improved coastal travel route. I’ve researched the towns & cities along the coast, located inexpensive hotels and/or AirBnB rooms and/or camping options in each place, and I’ve checked out bus and ferry routes.

I’ve also been preparing myself mentally and physically to travel in this new Corona Virus world. I’ve come up with my own personal best practices, do’s and dont’s, and contingency plans in case of running into what I deem to be unsafe situations.

Lifting the Corona Virus lock-down in Turkey

Back in early April, when Corona Virus cases started escalating in Turkey, the president began several safety/preventative/lock-down measures around the country. A major rule was to prohibit overland travel in 31 provinces of Turkey, which amounts to about 70% of the country. Travel in & out of major cities within these provinces was completely banned.

I was in Antalya at the time, that being the name of both the province and the capital city. Antalya was one of the 31 provinces to be locked down.

In early May, the president lifted the overland travel ban in 7 of the 31 provinces. Antalya was one of them, along with neighboring coastal provinces of Mugla and Aydin (both in my direction of travel. Woo-hoo).

A relatively safe region of Turkey

The most important point about the lifting of travel ban in these provinces is that it means the corona virus cases are minimal in these areas. In other words, completely by chance I have been in a relatively safe place here in Antalya. And the entire coastal region west & north from here has also been relatively safe.

That makes complete sense if you look at a map of the area. For the most part, it’s extremely undeveloped. It consists almost entirely of layers of high, densely-forested mountain ranges running along the coast.

Here & there a few tiny villages, small coastal towns and yacht harbors are anchored along the coast. There are also a few major cities, including Antalya, Fetiye, Marmaris and Bodrum. All these places were lifted from the travel ban in early May.

Just offshore along this entire coastline are a dozen or more Greek islands. And Greece has been one of the European countries least affected by the corona virus pandemic.

Essentially, this entire region is relatively safe from Corona Virus. And this makes it a fantastic area for me to continue my travels in a fairly confident & stress-free manor.

My Coastal Travel Route

Overview:

I will travel northwestward along the coast from Antalya, stopping to visit a couple tiny spots set primarily in nature. I will also make week-long bases in a few main coastal cities, where I can explore the cities’ historic districts, pretty marinas, nearby national parks and ancient ruins/archaeological sites.

Planned stopping points:

Kaş – Patara Beach – Fetiye – Kabak Bay – Marmaris – Bodrum – Selcuk & Ephesus

So far, these are my planned stopping points in June and early July. I’m still discovering more amazing places as I continue researching. I hope I don’t miss any super-amazing places by not knowing about them!

Focus on nature and culture

As usual, my main focus is to get immersed in beautiful natural places and to explore historic towns, museums, ancient ruins & buildings.

As I’ve already mentioned, the mountainous coast running north from Antalya through to Bodrum is absolutely stunning, based on photos I discovered online. Although there are many little villages, small towns and some large cities, most of the coast consists purely of forested mountains, beaches, rocky shorelines, cliffs, canyons, waterfalls, lakes and rivers.

The coast between Antalya and Fetiye is particularly stunning. It’s often called the Turquoise Coast. As soon as I glimpsed the color of the Mediterranean Sea here in Antalya, I knew why. The water is spectacular!

All of the places I’m choosing to visit have stunning settings and, if they’re not entirely set in nature (like the bigger cities), then they have nearby national parks, forests, beaches or other natural places I can reach easily.

Antalya marina 1 I also discovered during my research that this coastline is also famous for yachties. Several coastal towns & cities have private yacht marinas, which makes them even more picturesque.

As for culture, during my research and also from my work updating several guides for this region, I learned that this entire coast is an extremely important region for ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine ruins.

There are ruins of various ancient cities, huge stone Roman amphitheaters, Byzantine churches, rows of stone & marble columns and other archaeological sites. Many of these places are actually the most famous Greek and Roman sites mentioned in mythology, legends and history.

So while I’m enjoying the beautiful nature, I’ll also get to visit some pretty cool and important historic sites. The largest & most important is Ephesus, at the northern end of my planned coastal travel route.

Time Constraints

While I can travel fairly leisurely, I do have a few time constraints, all of which mean I should try to leave the coast by July (well, it’s looking like maybe I can leave my early-mid July, based on my current plans).

Actually, I really really want to leave the Turkish coast by July. For one thing, July and August are the peak tourist season here. Both Turkish and international travelers flock to all these coastal cities, beaches and resorts for their annual vacations (and in the case of Turks, also for weekend get-aways). I do not want to be in the midst of that! Not during a normal year, let alone when there’s the threat of corona virus hanging around.

Secondly, apparently the temperatures in July and August soar up to 40-45C / 105-115F, and sometimes even higher! Ouch! I do like heat, but that is way too much for even me!

Finally, I am currently over-staying my 30-day visa due to the corona virus lock-downs. And apparently the Turkish government announced that it won’t prosecute visitors who overstay their visas due to corona virus.

However, once borders open, we are supposed to depart Turkey in a fairly quick manner. When I do leave Turkey, I’m planning to head to a neighboring European country such as Croatia, Bulgaria or Greece.

I’ve been keeping my eye on border re-openings for Turkey and neighboring countries. Thus far, things are closed until mid-June. At that point, I’ll have to check again to see what will happen next.

The main point is that I may actually be required to leave Turkey in early July (if not sooner!). I’ve decided to stay until the end of June, regardless. But I might just have to skedaddle in early July. So I’d better have my coastal trip completed by then.

cycle trip to mountains just outside Antalya

Budget Constraints

As usual, I’m on a fairly tight budget. That’s how I live and travel normally. At this point, my travel work will run out fairly soon, so I must be extra careful about my expenses.

Here in Antalya I’ve been able to live on about $20-450 US per month total, with my lovely room costing me on ly 45 lira / $6.50 US per night. I detailed my costs to travel in Turkey for three months here.

Unfortunately, once I start traveling along the coast, my room expenses will go up a lot. And this will be a major factor in which towns and cities I can actually stay in! Bummer, actually.

If I had traveled along the coast in April and May, as originally planned, I would have had many accommodation options within my budget. Prices were considerably lower. I could easily find at least one place in each destination for 60-70 lira (note that’s already considerably more than my 45 lira per night here in Antalya, but doable).

But now that I’m searching for accommodation in June, I’ve discovered that prices nearly everywhere have jumped to the point that I can hardly afford anything! In most places, the lowest price I can find online is about 100-120 lira. Yikes. That’s nearly my entire daily budget!

Part of the reason I can’t find anything within my budget now is that I will no longer stay in any hostels. I think that is just too risky in a Corona Virus world. So I have to find cheap local hotels, private Airbnb rooms or camping places.

Luckily, I have been able to find something that fits my budget-ish in all the places I’ve listed above. But it’s a bit of a squeeze (more like 70-80 lira per night).

well over 700,000 tests done in Turkey by 4-21

Traveling safely in a Corona Virus world (full article next)

I realize that traveling in this newly re-opened Covid-19 world is a bit of a risk. Surely it would be safest to just continue staying my hotel here in Antalya. Every time I take a bus or stay in a new hotel / private room, it’s a risk.

On the confident side, as I mentioned above, I do believe this coastal region of Turkey through to Bodrum is relatively safe, especially compared to Istanbul and even other European countries. So hopefully I’m not taking too much risk.

To ensure that I stay safe as much as possible, I’m coming up Math a corona virus personal safety plan for travels. I’ll make sure I stay a safe distance from people, wear a mask, sanitize bus seats & handles, sanitize my rooms upon entry, carry disinfectant and hand wipes Math me, among other measures.

I will write an entire article on my corona virus personal safety plan soon.

Where to after the coast?

My coastal travel route will take me through early July. After that, I really have no idea what I’ll be doing at this point.

As I mentioned before, it will depend on a lot of factors. Do I have to leave Turkey or not? Can I leave Turkey if I want to?

If I must leave Turkey, where I go next will depend on which countries have opened their borders to Americans like me.

Canyon hike 1 If I can’t leave then I’ll have to make a continued travel plan through Turkey. This would be perfectly fine by me. I love Turkey and it’s quite affordable (well, maybe not the coast in peak travel season)in most places. And there are many other places I’d love to visit in the country.

If it comes to that, then I’ll search for places with cooler temperature to start with. And I will probably look for some work exchange programs where I would work about four hours per day in exchange for room and board. That would cut my expenses to almost zero and give me a fairly safe (corona virus wise) place to stay during the summer travel season in Turkey and Europe.

For now, I will focus on exploring Turkey’s beautiful coast. I’ll be sharing photos and writing articles about my experiences as I go, both in terms of traveling during a corona virus world and in terms of all the amazing places I discover.

Stay tuned!

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You might also like:

All About Stunning Antalya

My Costs to Travel Around Turkey for Three Months

Why Istanbul is an Easy Travel Destination

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