Gazipaşa Airport → Kumköy Transfer

Gazipaşa Airport to Kumköy transfer

Kumköy takes its name from the sand, and that is fair: a single unbroken beach running west from Side, hotel after hotel set back behind it, and a road between them carrying bakeries, minimarkets and the shops that open when the season does. Nothing about it is old or quiet; it is a strip built to be walked between a pool and the sea. Side's old town lies east along the same sand, close enough that walking there is the standard evening out — everything else takes a car.

From Gazipaşa this is the last address of the coast: 112 km and about 95 minutes, the furthest west the airport reaches. It is one road almost the whole way, and the strip is entered from the Side end, so a hotel at the far western end of it adds several minutes to a leg that is already long. Those last minutes are spent on the beach road itself, crossed every hundred metres by a hotel entrance; it is here, and not on the highway, that a driver loses time looking for the right gate.

• At 112 km this is the furthest point Gazipaşa serves to the west, so build the transfer into the day rather than squeezing it between two other things.
• Side's old town is a walk along the sand from the eastern end of the strip and a drive from the western end, which is worth knowing before you pick a room.
• Keep water and anything the children need within reach, because on a leg this long the boot stays shut from the airport to the hotel.
• The whole strip runs on the season: in April or November the road is quieter and half the shops behind it are closed, so allow for that when planning the week.