Cappadocia, Türkiye
A hundred hot-air balloons over fairy chimneys at sunrise, cave hotels, and underground cities.
Best time to visit
Weather by month
Cost
Serves travellers at Backpacker→Premium level. Typically around $100 a day on the ground.
Ranges are typical costs, not quotes. Check the real price before you book.
What's on
Cappadox July
Music and art in the valleys
Worth knowing
Cards are fine in the towns; keep cash for village stalls and some tour and balloon bookings.
money · editorial
Balloon flights are cancelled on wind and the call comes at dawn. If the flight is why you came, build in spare mornings.
know before · editorial
Winter wind and fog ground the balloons for days at a stretch. Midsummer is very hot for the valley walks.
when not to go · editorial
Göreme is the centre of gravity, nearest the balloon field and the open-air museum. Üçhisar is higher and quieter with the best view back over the valleys. Ürgüp is a working town with more restaurants and fewer coaches.
where to stay · editorial
Göreme, Üçhisar and Ürgüp are small and walkable, and the valleys connect them on foot. A car or scooter helps for the further sites; day loops cover the same ground.
getting around · editorial
Kayseri or Nevşehir, both within an hour of Göreme by road, with flights from Istanbul. Overnight buses from Istanbul run too and take most of the night.
getting there · editorial
Quests
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Göreme open-air museum
Rock-cut churches with Byzantine frescoes carved into soft stone.
Uçhisar Castle
The highest point in the region, a block of tuff hollowed out from the inside.
Love Valley
Tuff columns with basalt caps. The name is a euphemism.
Paşabağ
The three-headed fairy chimneys, with a chapel cut into one of them.
Devrent
No churches and no houses: only rock in absurd shapes. Find the camel.
Kaymaklı underground city
Eight floors down, with stables, cellars and rolling stone doors.
See
Walk the Valley of the Roses, do not quad-bike it
Eat
Eat testi kebabı, the stew served in a pot broken open at the table
Testi kebab
Cooked inside a clay pot that is broken open in front of you.
Mantı
Tiny ravioli with garlic yoghurt and paprika butter.
Pekmez
Grape molasses, eaten at breakfast with tahini.
Moment
Go up in a balloon at dawn
The balloons at dawn
One to two hundred at once, and the silence between the burners.
Sleep in a room cut into the rock
Constant temperature all year, with no window or just the one.
Trail
Red Valley and Rose Valley on foot
Ten kilometres between brick-coloured walls, with churches hidden along the way.