Antalya → Fethiye Transfer

Antalya to Fethiye private transfer

A Fethiye transfer out of Antalya is nearly always the seam between two halves of a holiday. The first week went to the Antalya side — Lara, Konyaaltı, the old town inside the walls — and the second is booked on the bay at Fethiye, so the cases go in the boot after a morning checkout and a different reception is reached in the early afternoon. Boats explain most of the rest: gulet charters and cabin cruises leave from Fethiye harbour, and a crew expects its guests aboard at a set hour. Add villa guests west of the town, visitors bound for the ruined village at Kayaköy, and passengers whose flight home turns out to leave from Dalaman.

The drive does not follow the sea. It leaves Antalya on the D350 towards Korkuteli, climbing out of the coastal basin for the first half hour, then spends the better part of two hours crossing the Elmalı plateau: apple orchards, cedar and pine, a road topping out near 1,100 metres, and air noticeably colder than the beach you left. Past Seydikemer the road drops into the Eşen valley and runs in flat to Fethiye — 195 km, about 2 hours 35 minutes. The coastal D400 — Kumluca, Finike, Demre, then Kaş and Kalkan — covers 295 km in well over four hours; that is an excursion, not a transfer. Winter fog or snow up on the plateau is the one real variable.

• If a gulet or a cabin cruise is the reason for the journey, give the boarding time rather than the harbour name — two and a half hours of mountain road is easier to plan backwards from the hour the crew expects you.
• Fethiye's weekly market falls on a Tuesday and pulls traffic towards the centre, so an arrival on that day is worth a little extra room in the plan.
• The plateau stays cool even in August, so keep a layer in the cabin rather than in the boot if you expect to get out at a stop.
• The Lycian rock tombs are cut into the cliff directly above the town and Kayaköy lies a few kilometres inland, so say at the booking if the car should finish at one of those instead of at a hotel door.