Antalya Airport to Side Beach transfer
Side Beach is two beaches under one name, divided by the peninsula and its ruins. West of the headland the sand runs for kilometres towards Kumköy: shallow at the edge, backed by hotels, sunbed rows and beach bars, and busy from mid-morning onwards. East of the temple columns it widens and empties out, thinning towards Sorgun, with scrub and pine behind it instead of buildings. Both sides are fine pale sand with a gentle walk into the water. Most people asking for a car to Side Beach are heading for one side or the other, not for the ruins between them.
If you are staying in Side, Kumköy or Evrenseki this is simply your beach, and a car mainly helps you cross from one side of the peninsula to the other. The real day trip comes from Belek and Kadriye, 25 to 30 km west and about 35 minutes, usually a morning among the ruins and an afternoon on the emptier eastern sand. From Antalya or Lara allow a little over an hour each way; from Alanya it is a full day; from Kemer it makes no sense. A private car gets you there before the coaches and lets you leave when the light softens.
Straight from the airport the run is 65 km and about 60 minutes, east on the D400 to the Side junction. That works when Side is where you are staying. As a stop on the way to a hotel further east it rarely does, because the old town is closed to cars in season and you would be walking in with luggage. Beach clothes in the cabin bag are the one thing that makes it viable.
Visiting Side Beach
A visit here is usually one side of the peninsula plus the walk through the middle. From the western sand it is ten minutes on foot to the temple columns at the point, and ten more down the far side to where the eastern sand starts, so seeing both is half an hour of walking plus however long the old town keeps you. The crowd works by hour rather than by place: the west fills from mid-morning, the east stays thin all day because it is a long walk from anywhere with a gate. Half a day covers a swim and the columns without hurrying either of them.
The ground changes twice in ten minutes: fine sand, then the worn paving and marble thresholds of the lanes, polished enough to be slick under wet feet, then sand again on the other side. Flip-flops deal with all three and bare feet with none of them. Neither beach has shade of its own, since the scrub and pine behind the eastern stretch stand well back from the water and on the western side the buildings begin where the loungers end, so cover in the middle of a summer afternoon means the lanes rather than the shore.
Cars stop at the edge of the old town in season, which means the drop and the collection happen at the same barrier whichever sand you chose. For half a day that argues for keeping the driver instead of naming an hour, because the walk back from the eastern sand takes longer than anyone allows for and the lanes are slow when they are full. If the day wants a second half, Manavgat and its river are inland and the pines east of the headland begin a few kilometres along. All of it on foot at this end, though: the peninsula is walked, not driven.
- Ten minutes on foot separates the two sands and the columns at the point stand halfway between them, so the crossing is itself the sightseeing.
- Wet feet on worn marble are slippery, and that is the one problem a pair of flip-flops actually solves here.
- The eastern sand stays emptier all day for one reason only, which is that it is a longer walk from every gate.
- With one hour, take the columns at the point and the water beside them and leave the second beach alone.