Pamukkale → Alanya Transfer

Pamukkale to Alanya private transfer

Coming back down, this is the longest of the three returns, and it is booked by two quite different groups. One has just spent a night in the village or at Karahayıt and is going home to an Alanya hotel or a rented flat, with nearly five hours to do in one sitting. The other is not on holiday in the usual sense: people moving in for a season, arriving from Denizli or finishing a longer circuit, with cases that are awkward on a coach. In both cases the same calculation decides it — nobody wants to repeat this distance on a bus.

Eastbound it is the same 370 km and the same 4 hours 50 minutes, but the order puts the hard part last. The plateau comes first, while it is still cool: Denizli, the Acıgöl pans, Burdur, and then the long fall from Bucak that reaches the coast around the third hour. From Antalya the D400 turns east and the rest is resort after resort — Belek, Side, Manavgat, Okurcalar, the İncekum headlands, Avsallar, Konaklı — with the sea dark on your left. Alanya announces itself late: the rock and its walls come up lit from below while the hotel strip is still working.

• Leaving Pamukkale in the late morning gets you into Alanya in time for dinner; setting off after lunch means the last two hours of coast road in the dark.
• On the three inland hours the road is emptier, so give that part to sleeping and keep the looking for the coast.
• The pinch point on this leg is Antalya: crossing the city between five and seven lengthens an already long journey, and the departure time is chosen with that in mind.
• If you are flying out of Gazipaşa, say so when you book: that airport is not before Alanya but 40 km beyond the town.