A car with a driver for the day

02

What a day with a driver actually looks like

You agree the pick-up time when you book, and the driver is outside your hotel at that hour. Take what you would take to the beach, plus shoes you can walk in and something with sleeves for a museum or a mosque. The first leg is usually the longest single stretch of the day, because the distance from the coast to whatever you came to see is simply the distance. It is also the part of the day where you tell the driver what you really want out of it.

At each stop the car parks and waits. You go in, you come out when you are ready, and the driver is where he said he would be. Lunch works the same way: you eat, he waits. That is the whole mechanism, and it is why people who try it once tend to book it again. There is no coach to be back at, no group to count heads for, and no penalty for spending forty minutes longer somewhere than you had planned.

Afternoons go one of two ways. Either you have done what you set out to do and the drive home is quiet, or somebody says the word shopping and you add a stop. Both are fine, as long as the total still fits inside the hours you booked. If it does not, say so at two in the afternoon rather than at eight in the evening, because the driver’s day has an end as well. You are dropped back at your hotel door.

03

Turning what you want to see into hours

Start from the distance, because the hours are what you are actually buying. Antalya city centre is 13 km from the airport and the Düden waterfall 18 km, which puts both of them at the far end of the same coast road your transfer used rather than out on an expedition of their own. A day built around the city is therefore mostly time out of the car: half a day covers it, and a full one leaves room for a shopping stop on the way back, since the large centres sit on the airport side of town and cost almost nothing in extra driving.

Work inland and the arithmetic changes. Aspendos is 40 km from the airport, the Manavgat waterfall 71 km and Köprülü canyon 85 km, and the last of those sits on a road that narrows and climbs, so it does not travel at the speed the kilometres suggest. Put all three into one outing and you have booked a full day rather than a morning. Which of them deserves your particular day is a question for our day-trips guide; what this page can tell you is how many hours to put on the booking.

Then there is the category where the driving is the day. Pamukkale is the obvious one, and it is worth being exact about what carries a number here and what does not. The transfer itself — one way, from Antalya, Side or Alanya — is priced like any other route on this site, because a distance is a distance. A day with the car and the driver waiting at the far end is quoted instead, since that is bought in hours: two days over the same ground are different jobs if one runs four hours and the other ten. Either shape means an early start and a return after dark, so ask us for the real driving time from your own hotel before you decide.

• Half a day: Antalya old town and the Düden waterfall, 16 km and 18 km from the airport, with a shopping stop if you want one.
• A full day: Aspendos at 40 km from the airport, the Manavgat waterfall at 71 km and Köprülü canyon at 85 km, worked inland in that order.
• A very long day: Pamukkale. An early start, most of the hours spent in the car, and home after dark.
• Entrance fees, any guide and lunch are yours to pay on the spot at each place.
• Opening hours and ticket arrangements change with the season, so check the sites you care about in the week before you travel.

04

Your driver is a driver, not a guide

This is the one line we will not blur. The person driving you is a professional driver who knows the roads, the parking and where it is worth stopping for ten minutes. He is not a licensed tour guide, and in Turkey guiding inside archaeological sites and museums is a licensed profession. He will take you to the entrance, tell you exactly where he will be waiting, and collect you again. He will not walk you round the theatre explaining the stonework.

So everything a guided tour bundles together is separate here, and separate in your wallet too. Site and museum entrance fees you pay at the gate. A licensed guide, if you want one, is arranged at the site or in advance. Lunch is yours. What you are paying us for is the vehicle, the driver and the hours. If a guide or a particular language in the car matters to your day, ask when you book and you will get an honest answer about what is possible on your date.

05

Which vehicle for how many people

Group size decides the vehicle, and on a long day the vehicle decides how the day feels. A couple or a small family fits comfortably in an economy car. From five people upwards, or when a pushchair and a cool box are travelling as well, you want the van instead. Nobody has ever regretted the extra space on the way back from a canyon at seven in the evening. And whatever you carry or buy along the way stays in the car between stops, which on a hot afternoon is not a small thing.

The capacities below are the real ones rather than optimistic ones, and the second number is luggage, which on a day out means bags, camera kit and whatever you buy along the way. First Class covers the same sort of group as the standard van in a higher-specification vehicle, and the two minibuses exist so that a group of twelve or sixteen travels together instead of splitting across two cars. If your group sits on the line between two sizes, tell us the ages and the number of bags and we will say which vehicle we would send.

• Economy: 4 passengers, 4 bags. Couples and small families.
• Standard van: 7 passengers, 7 bags. The usual choice for a family day out.
• First Class: 6 passengers, 6 bags. A higher-specification vehicle for the same kind of group.
• Minibus 12: 12 passengers, 12 bags. Minibus 16: 16 passengers, 16 bags.
• Travelling with small children? Ask about a child seat when you book, not at the kerb.

06

What is decided in advance, and what can change on the day

Four things are settled before you set off, because the price depends on them: the pick-up time, roughly where you want to go, how many hours you want the car for, and which vehicle you need. That is enough for us to quote one fixed figure and enough for the driver to plan fuel, parking and the order of the stops. Vague is perfectly fine at the enquiry stage. Antalya and the waterfall, out for about eight hours, is a workable brief. Where the day finishes belongs on that list too: usually your hotel, sometimes the airport on the last day, and it is easier to plan from the start than to improvise at five in the afternoon.

Almost everything else is movable. The order of the stops, how long you spend at each one, where you eat, whether you swap a second ruin for a market, whether you skip the last stop because everybody has had enough. Tell the driver as it happens rather than at the end. The one thing that is not elastic is the total length of the day: if you want considerably more hours than you booked, that is a new figure, and it is much easier to agree in the afternoon than at nightfall.

• Agreed at booking: pick-up time, the shape of the route, the number of hours, the vehicle and the price.
• Changeable during the day: the order of the stops, how long each lasts, lunch, adding or dropping a stop in the same area.
• Needs a new agreement: a much longer day, or a destination well outside the one you described.
• Anything you are unsure about, such as a language, a child seat or a start before dawn, ask when you book.

07

How the price is worked out

By the shape of the day, not by a meter. Two things move the figure: how many hours you want the car and driver for, and how much ground the day covers, because a morning in Antalya and a full day to Pamukkale are not the same job. The vehicle is the third element, and it behaves exactly as it does on our transfer prices, where the van, the First Class car and the minibuses each sit a fixed step above the economy figure rather than being priced from scratch.

We do not publish an hourly rate, because the honest answer depends on the day you describe, and a rate advertised without a route behind it is how people end up arguing at the kerb at six in the evening. Send us the date, your hotel, the size of the group and what you would like to see, and you get one number in euro for the whole day, for the vehicle. It is agreed before you set off and it is not adjusted afterwards.

Per-route transfer prices live on our prices page; a day with a driver is quoted individually on WhatsApp. If a practical detail matters to you, such as how you pay, a seat for a child or an unusually early start, put it in the same message and you will get a straight answer while you are still deciding. If your plan is still loose, send what you have. We can price two versions of the day and let you pick the one that suits you.