Where to stay in Antalya: the 5 neighborhoods to know in 2026
In Antalya, everything depends on the kind of sea you want. The city offers four of them, inside the same municipality and at four different prices: the cliff of the old town, where you go down to a cove by a lift cut into the rock; the pebbles of Konyaaltı, seven kilometres of public beach at the foot of a mountain two thousand five hundred metres high; the sand of Lara, to the east, taken up over ten kilometres by the all-inclusives; and the private lagoons of Kundu and Belek, where you no longer leave the hotel. What the map does not say is that these four shorelines do not call for the same trip: you sleep in Kaleiçi to walk around an Ottoman old town, in Konyaaltı to live among the residents, in Lara to do nothing at all, in Belek to play golf. This guide lines them up from west to east, starting at the ramparts.
Two members have written about Antalya, both of them enthusiastic, and one of them gives the measure of the place: the city has kept a human scale because the big complexes went elsewhere. On budget, the gap between neighborhoods is the widest in this series: a pension room in the lanes asks $29* and rarely more than $51*, $74 to $119* for a restored Ottoman house with a pool in its courtyard, $113 to $192* for a seafront hotel in town, and $230 to $570* a night full board in a resort at Lara or Belek. Sixteen addresses follow, six inside the walls, two on the cliff, three to the west, three to the east, two out in the golf courses.
A Turkish city focused on beach tourism... That doesn't necessarily sound appealing, but it is done intelligently. There are no concrete high-rises to pack in thousands of travelers in the summer, so the city remains human-scale and relatively authentic. A great destination to enjoy the sun and the sea!
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At a glance: our picks by traveller type
Pick the profile that suits you to head straight to the recommended neighborhood.
The neighborhood map in Antalya
Get your bearings on the neighborhoods and must-see sights before choosing where to drop your bags. Click a name to jump to its description.
- 1Kaleiçi: the old town inside the walls and the Roman harbour
- 2The modern centre: the cliff, Işıklar and Atatürk boulevard
- 3Konyaaltı and the west: the pebbles, the museums and the mountain
- 4Lara, Güzeloba and the airport road: the sand and the all-inclusives
- 5Kundu, the golf courses and Belek: the resorts, Perga and Aspendos
Kaleiçi: the old town inside the walls and the Roman harbour Hadrian's Gate and the ramparts, the Hıdırlık tower above the sea, the fluted minaret and the broken minaret, the Roman harbour and the old town marina, Republic square and its monument, the bazaar, the Iskele mosque and the Tekeli Mehmet Paşa mosque, the Kaleiçi museum, Karaalioğlu park and its cliffs
to walk, the Ottoman houses, the harbour terraces, a first visit
Kaleiçi fits inside its ramparts: three hundred metres by five hundred, cobbled lanes too narrow for a car, Ottoman houses with jutting wooden upper floors and, at the bottom, a horseshoe Roman harbour where the pleasure boats leave all day long. You come in through Hadrian's Gate, three marble arches from the year 130, and you come out through Karaalioğlu park, which sets the Hıdırlık tower above forty metres of cliff. In between, the fluted minaret, the broken minaret, a bazaar, and above all courtyards: almost every hotel in the quarter is a restored house around a pool, a fig tree and four rooms. The sea is reached by the harbour lift or by the small Mermerli beach. You sleep here so as not to take a car again for the whole stay. The downside: the old town bars play late, and several addresses pay for it in their reviews.
There are many tea houses and restaurants in the shade of the trees in the old town. You can also enjoy a hammam and the best doners in the country. For activities, traditional boat trips are available.
Where to stay in this neighborhood
Puding Hotel Luxury
Six historic houses gathered into a single hotel in the heart of the walls, with an outdoor pool and its bar. It is the best-rated address in the quarter on a large volume: 9.0 on more than nine hundred reviews, location 9.7, cleanliness and comfort 9.2. Reviews talk about the quiet, which in Kaleiçi is not granted to everyone.
Tuvana Hotel Luxury
Four hundred and fifty metres from Hadrian's Gate, on Karanlık street: outdoor pool, three restaurants, airport shuttle, and a service that reviews name before the rooms. Location scored 9.5, comfort 8.8, for an overall 8.6 on more than three hundred reviews. One of the few hotels inside the walls with a real restaurant and not just a breakfast.
White Garden Hotel Mid-range
Hesapçı street, adults only: nine rooms around a walled garden and a small pool, and a breakfast reviews describe as served restaurant-style. The figures are the highest in this guide, 9.5 on more than one thousand two hundred reviews, with staff and location at 9.9. For two people, this is the address to aim for first.
Alp Pasa Hotel Mid-range
An eighteenth-century konak in the middle of the quarter, two pools, a garden, and breakfast included. Location scored 9.5 for an overall 8.0 on more than four hundred and fifty reviews: guests like the spacious rooms and warn that the nightlife is right below. Take it for that, or avoid it for that.
Konak Hotel Kaleiçi Mid-range
Hıdırlık street, an old house with high ceilings two minutes from the tower: staff scored 9.5, location 9.5, wifi 9.7, for an 8.3 on more than three hundred reviews. The same reviews flag bathrooms due for a refresh and the noise from the bars: that is the price of the position.
Kont Pension Budget
Kandiller passage, the cheapest address in this guide: a family-run pension, modest rooms, a simple breakfast, and reviews that thank the welcome before anything else. Location scored 9.7, staff 9.5, value for money 8.7, for an 8.2 on more than three hundred reviews.
Pros
- Everything on foot: the ramparts, the harbour, the bazaar, the cliff terraces
- Six addresses from $29 to $169*, from a pension bed to an Ottoman house
Cons
- The bars play until midnight and the lanes carry the sound
- No real beach: a cove, a lift, or ten minutes on the tram
The modern centre: the cliff, Işıklar and Atatürk boulevard Atatürk boulevard and its shops, the Atatürk house museum, the Hasim Iscan cultural centre, the municipal theatre, the opera and dance house, the Murat Paşa mosque, the tram lines and the cliff promenade
for a room with a sea view, the tram, the local restaurants
Just north and east of the ramparts, the modern centre is the city where the people of Antalya live: Atatürk boulevard and its shopfronts, the streets of Işıklar and Muratpaşa, the old nostalgia tram running along the cliff, and a seafront promenade that goes for kilometres above the water, with cafés every hundred metres. Nothing monumental, except the house where Atatürk stayed, now a museum, and a Seljuk mosque; in exchange, restaurant prices drop back to local level and the hotels have high rooms with an open view. You sleep here for the view and for independence: Kaleiçi is ten minutes on foot, Konyaaltı beach ten minutes on the tram. The downside: you have to get down to the sea, and only two addresses hold the standard.
Where to stay in this neighborhood
Akra Antalya Luxury
On the cliff, east of the centre: three pools including an infinity one above the sea, a hammam, a gym, several restaurants and direct access to the water. Facilities and comfort scored 9.2, location 9.2, for an 8.9 on more than four thousand reviews, the largest volume in this guide. Reviews name the breakfast and the view in the same sentence.
Ramada Plaza Antalya Mid-range
Also on the cliff edge, a quarter of an hour's walk from the ramparts: pool, sea access, renovated rooms with a view. Location scored 9.1, cleanliness and comfort 8.4, for an 8.1 on more than two thousand four hundred reviews, and a value-for-money score of 7.9 that several guests find harsh. This is the view-plus-city compromise of this guide.
Pros
- High rooms with a view over the bay and the Taurus range opposite
- Kaleiçi on foot, Konyaaltı by tram, and neighborhood restaurant prices
Cons
- The sea is at the bottom of a cliff: stairs, lift or a paying beach club
- Only two addresses, and none below $113*
Konyaaltı and the west: the pebbles, the museums and the mountain The pebble beach of Konyaaltı and its park, the Antalya archaeological museum, the aquarium and its tunnel, Minicity and the Dolphin Park, the glass pyramid and its congress centre, Akdeniz university, the open-air theatre on the seafront, Yavuz Özcan park, the Migros and Ozdilek Park malls
for the public beach, families, the museum, the start of the hikes
West of the centre, Konyaaltı lines up seven kilometres of pebble beach at the foot of the Taurus, which drops into the sea two thousand five hundred metres high directly opposite: it is the most spectacular view in the city, and it is free. The beach is public, edged by a park, cafés and paying beach clubs, with a blue flag and water that stays cold until May. Behind it, a real residential quarter: apartment blocks, schools, the university, two malls, and the archaeological museum, one of the most important in Turkey for sarcophagi and the statues from Perga, which takes an hour and a half. The aquarium, Minicity and the Dolphin Park fill a whole day with children. You sleep here to swim without paying and to live among the residents; it is also from here that the Lycian Way hikes set out. The downside: the pebbles, and ten minutes on the tram to the old town.
Antalya is an absolutely charming city on the southern coast of Turkey. I went there because it is the starting point for the Lycian Way trek. I was also doing some volunteering to mark hiking trails in the area. I took the opportunity to see this elegant seaside city.
Where to stay in this neighborhood
Rixos Downtown Antalya Luxury
Three hundred metres from the beach, all inclusive: two pools, tennis, sports pitches, bicycles, airport shuttle, and included meals that reviews list line by line. Location and staff scored 9.3, cleanliness and comfort 9.1, for an 8.9 on close to two thousand reviews. It is the all-inclusive closest to the centre, which means the one you can leave on foot.
Hotel SU & Aqualand Luxury
The big white building on the beach, with a deliberately minimalist interior, five restaurants, two pools, a spa and a private beach. Location scored 9.2, cleanliness and comfort 8.8, for an 8.6 on more than one thousand four hundred reviews. Reviews name the pool and the number of restaurants in front of the hotel, which sums up the quarter.
Sealife Family Resort Hotel Mid-range
Facing the beach, linked to it by a tunnel, and built for families: two pools, entertainment, kids' club, beach service. Location scored 9.6, comfort 9.3, value for money 9.1, for a 9.2 on more than five thousand reviews: the largest number of voices in this guide, and the best score by volume in the city.
Pros
- Seven kilometres of public beach with the mountain opposite
- The archaeological museum, the aquarium and the children's parks in the same quarter
Cons
- Pebbles, not sand, and cold water before May
- Ten minutes by tram or taxi to have dinner in the old town
Lara, Güzeloba and the airport road: the sand and the all-inclusives The ten kilometres of sand at Lara beach, the Düden falls dropping straight into the sea, the Terra City, Laura, SheMall, Deepo and Antalium malls, the exhibition centre, BLM beach, Karnaval park, the airport thirteen kilometres from the centre
for sand, an all-inclusive resort, a family, an early flight
East of the centre the shoreline changes nature: pebble becomes sand, the cliff drops away, and Lara beach runs for ten kilometres as far as Kundu. This is where the big all-inclusives are, the ones Bruno says do not spoil the city: they are not in it, they are here, in a row, each with its park, its private beach and its six restaurants. Public beaches survive between them, and at the end of the seafront the Düden falls drop forty metres straight into the Mediterranean, the only free spectacle in the quarter. Behind the hotel line, Güzeloba and Şirinyalı are a residential quarter with five malls, and the airport is thirteen kilometres from the centre, twenty minutes by road. You sleep here for the sand and to stop deciding anything. The downside: everything is outside the hotel, and the city is twenty minutes away by taxi.
Where to stay in this neighborhood
Concorde De Luxe Resort Luxury
On Lara beach, upmarket full board: private beach, water park, spa, and a kitchen that reviews put above everything else. Staff scored 9.5, location 9.4, facilities, cleanliness and comfort 9.3, for a 9.2 on more than four thousand reviews. It is the best score at this size on the Antalya coast.
Delphin Imperial Lara Luxury
One of the largest ships on the beach, all inclusive from morning to night: slides, a theatre, a dozen eating points, a laid-out beach. Cleanliness, comfort and location scored around 9.0, for an 8.6 on close to five hundred reviews, and a value-for-money score of 8.2 that tells you the price level. You come here for a week without a car.
Titanic Deluxe Lara Luxury
Recognisable by its ocean liner architecture, at the east end of the beach: a kids' club reviews name explicitly, fast beach service, wifi scored 9.3, cleanliness 8.7, for an 8.4 on close to four hundred reviews. The same reviews warn that the à la carte restaurants cost extra, which is worth reading before booking.
Pros
- Ten kilometres of sand, private beaches and pools as far as you can see
- The Düden falls at the end of the promenade, and the airport twenty minutes away
Cons
- Twenty minutes by taxi to the old town, and nothing on foot
- No address below $230*: here, all-inclusive is the rule
Kundu, the golf courses and Belek: the resorts, Perga and Aspendos The resorts of Kundu, the golf courses of Belek and Kadriye, the theatre of Aspendos and its Roman tiers, the ruins of Perga, the Köprülü canyon and its rafting runs, the villages of Kadriye and Belek thirty-five kilometres out
for golf, a resort stay, Roman ruins within driving distance
Thirty kilometres east of Antalya another geography begins: pine woods, golf courses laid out by champions, and a dozen very large resorts around Belek and Kadriye. This is no longer the city, it is a resort strip, and you need to know it when booking: Belek is in the municipality of Serik, forty minutes by car from the ramparts. In exchange, you sleep twenty minutes from the theatre of Aspendos, the best preserved in the Roman world, which still seats seven thousand, and thirty-five from the site of Perga, its baths, its stadium and its colonnaded street. The Köprülü canyon, an hour to the north, supplies the rafting runs the whole coast sells. You sleep here to play golf all year round, or for a stay where the hotel is the destination. The downside: without a car, you do not move.
Where to stay in this neighborhood
Rixos Premium Belek Luxury
At Belek, thirty-five kilometres east: two pools, six restaurants, a spa, a sand beach and entry to the neighbouring theme park included in the price. Comfort scored 9.6, cleanliness, facilities and staff 9.5, for a 9.2 on more than eight hundred reviews. Reviews talk about the food before anything else.
Regnum Carya Luxury
Also at Belek, in the middle of its own golf course: indoor and outdoor pools, slides, spa, private sand beach. Facilities, cleanliness, comfort and location scored 9.4, for an 8.9 on more than four hundred reviews, with a value-for-money score of 8.3 and a few guests who find the resort shops overpriced.
Pros
- The big golf courses, playable from November to March
- Aspendos twenty minutes away, Perga thirty-five, the Köprülü canyon an hour
Cons
- Forty minutes by car from the Antalya ramparts, and nothing on foot
- Belek is in another municipality: you are not in the city at all
Our tips for booking the right place
- The nostalgia tram, the Antray and thirteen kilometres of airport: Antalya is crossed by tram, and there are two of them: the old red tramway that runs along the cliff from the archaeological museum to the centre, worth taking once for the pleasure of it, and the modern Antray, which links the airport to the centre and the university in about forty minutes for less than $1.20* with a transport card. The Ismetpaşa stop puts Kaleiçi five minutes' walk away. A taxi from the airport costs $17 to $29* to the old town, thirteen kilometres, twenty minutes outside the rush. Hotels in Lara and Belek send a shuttle, often included in full-board stays. City buses take the same card as the tram, which is topped up at the kiosks.
- What is worth visiting outside the city, and in what order: Antalya province has more ancient sites than beaches. To the east, Perga and the theatre of Aspendos fit into the same half-day, and the Kursunlu falls complete the loop. To the west and uphill, Termessos demands a real climb: the Pisidian city stands at a thousand metres, clinging to the forest, and it takes forty minutes' walk from the car park to reach the theatre, which is worth the effort. Closer in, the Karain caves, the Güver canyon and the zoo fill a morning. The Lycian Way, five hundred kilometres of marked trail, starts at Geyikbayırı, thirty kilometres west, and a day is enough to walk a piece of it.
- The water is cold before May, and warm until November: Antalya's swimming season does not follow the European school calendar: the sea warms slowly and stays cool until mid-May, then holds above twenty-five degrees from July to October, sometimes into early November. July and August give forty degrees in the shade and nights at thirty: the most comfortable month is September, and the best price-to-weather ratio falls in May, June and October. Winter is mild, fifteen degrees by day, with rain in December and January and snow forty minutes away by road, up on the Taurus: the Belek golf courses run precisely in that season.
- Döner, piyaz and the tea you do not refuse: Antalya eats Mediterranean and Anatolian at once: piyaz, the white bean salad with tahini that is the local dish par excellence, grilled fish by the harbour, smoked aubergine, and the döner one of our members holds to be the best in the country. Turkish breakfast is ordered for two and takes up the whole table. Count $5.70 to $14* for a dish in a city canteen, $23 to $46* for a fish dinner on the Kaleiçi harbour, half that in Işıklar. Tea arrives without being asked for in the carpet and jewellery shops: accepting it commits you to nothing, but leaving without buying takes practice.
- The Mediterra Art, despite a location scored 9.0: 7.3 on more than four hundred reviews, and the complaints repeat about music heard until midnight and a pool open only a few hours a day. In the same quarter and for the same price, two of the addresses named above are comfortably ahead.
- A room looking onto the bar lanes of Kaleiçi, around Hesapçı street and the harbour: the terraces play late and the stone throws the sound from one end of the lane to the other. Ask for a courtyard room, which almost all of these houses have.
- A Belek resort booked in the belief that you are sleeping in Antalya: thirty-five kilometres, forty minutes by car, and another municipality. For the city, you need to stay west of the airport.
- The airport and bus station district for a night in transit: the hotels there are of no interest and the old town is twenty minutes away by taxi. The Antray links the airport to the centre, so you might as well sleep in town.
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