Bodrum Beach – Turkey

Bottom Bay Beach – Barbados

Burj Al Arab – Dubai

Cabo San Lucas – Meksika

Introduction
Somewhere in the middle of Gumbet is a small, entirely hidden original village that has been swamped by the modern resort. From the 1970s onwards, this satellite grew up along the nearest sandy beach to Bodrum town, but has now become a fully-fledged resort in its own right; a sea of neon and waves of lager crash upon the shores. People come here for gentle, hungover watersports by day and to party by night, with a bit of sunbathing and souvenir shopping in between.
Who goes there?
While the beach used to be ideal for families, the intense all-night partying in high season has taken over and, these days, this is much more a resort for those who are young and on the prowl. Out of season, it calms down.
Where in the world?
Gumbet lies on the southwest coast of Turkey, 5km (3 miles) west of Bodrum on the southern shore of the Bodrum Peninsula. Effectively a suburb of Bodrum, the resort is built around a horseshoe bay of sand, overlooking the Aegean Sea and backed by hills.
Beach
The beach is the reason for Gumbet’s existence, a curving kilometre or so of sand that is lined the whole way with hotels, bars and restaurants, all of whom put out sunbeds and umbrellas that are free to use as long as you keep drinking. Waiters run up and down the beach to serve you while a little further out, grown men in lobster pink are falling off banana boats and ringos. The more adventurous can try windsurfing, jet skiing and paragliding. There is an official topless beach a short distance out of town (not something normally permitted in Turkey).
Beyond the beach
There really isn’t anything much beyond the beach apart from a few shops and of course, huge numbers of bars and discos. The windmills up on the hill above the town offer a great view but the insalubrious debris and scattering of drunks makes them less appealing. Head into Bodrum to the magnificent Crusader Castle of St Peter, now home to a fascinating Museum of Underwater Archaeology with a ship dating back to the 14th century BC amongst the carefully preserved wrecks. One of the best ways to spend a day is to take a Blue Cruise, a day trip on a gulet, meandering around the local islands, swimming and snorkelling in deserted coves, and visiting little-known archaeological sites.
Family fun
The beach here is very family friendly with its softly sloping sand, choice of not-too-energetic watersports and camel rides (on Kargi Beach), plenty of shade, drinks and toilets. Aquapark Dedeman is a huge water park with masses of slides and flumes at Ortakent; take a taxi or the free bus in high season.
Retail therapy
The shops in Gumbet are plentiful but not necessarily of terribly high quality. If you are after Turkish delights, belly dancing costumes and fake watches, this is the place to come, with shops staying open as long as people are awake and spending (which is most of the night). If you want to go home with a really beautiful rug or a designer leather jacket, you will probably do better going into Bodrum, which is a seriously excellent centre for upmarket shopping. The carpet town of Milas is within easy daytrip distance if you would like to see where they are made and you can also buy straight off the loom in some of the local villages. The local market sells crafts on Tuesdays and fruit and veg on Fridays, and there is a big daily market in nearby Turgutreïs.
A night on the town
When they say night out, they mean it here, with only the feeblest staggering home before the dawn chorus. As the sun sets, the whole town centre lights up as a mini-Vegas Strip of pulsating neon, thudding to a hundred clashing drum beats from competing bars and clubs along the seafront and side streets. The party usually lasts until at least 0430, when it is traditional to have a bowl of soup to see in the dawn and damp down the tequila before sleeping on the beach for the morning. Some of the best dance spots are the Samba Disco (at the Club M Hotel, on the windmills headland) and the open-air Hemera After Hours Club (off Mali Leather Sokak).
Eating out
Most of the restaurants and cafés in Gumbet are aimed at the mass market and offer a range of pizzas and other international standards alongside the Turkish staples of mezze, kebabs and fish. There are even fast food joints here. Amongst the better options are Shirley Valentine’s (Gerence Sokak) where you can eat roast beef and jam roly poly and Planet Yucca (Adnan Menderes Bulvari), which serves Mexican, Italian, Indian, Chinese, Dutch and English and Turkish food. For anything above the ordinary, head into Bodrum.
Getting around
Gumbet itself is relatively small and you can get around the resort itself on foot. If you want to go further afield, there are plenty of taxis, dolmus (share taxis) and some local buses, although these are probably harder to negotiate if you don’t speak Turkish.
Exploring further afield
It will be a long day but take a trip north along the coast to Ephesus and Selçuk, the magnificently preserved Roman city where St Paul preached to the Ephesians and where, supposedly, the Virgin Mary lived out her days. Also in the area are the ruined cities of Priene and Miletus, the imposing temple of Apollo at Didyma. Inland are yet more ruined cities, Aphrodisias and Hierapolis which stands next to the extraordinary ‘frozen falls’ of Pamukkale, where limestone has coated the side of the hill in fairytale cascade of pools. Or take your passport and a ferry over to the Greek island of Kos.
Splashing out
There really is nowhere in Gumbet worth splashing out on a meal, so head down the road into Bodrum if you want to celebrate. At the Secret Garden (Eskiçesme Mah) in a side street near the marina, an English chef serves classic French cuisine in a dreamily romantic setting. If you’d prefer the country, try Denizhan Turgut Reis Yolu, about 2.5km (1.5 miles) out of Bodrum, where the chefs lay on a dazzling performance with flaming kebabs in their glassed-in kitchen. But for the finest view, the place to be is the poolside restaurant at the Antique Theatre Hotel, where the food is matched by a panorama of twinkling city lights and moonlight dancing on the waves of Bodrum Bay behind the floodlit castle.
Flying in
Bodrum-Mugla Airport (BJV)

Kalkan, a harbour town with colourful restaurants and terraced bars overlooking the not particularly attractive marina.
It has it’s own small shingle beach and is more sophisticated than most Turkish resorts.
2.5 hrs from Dalaman Airport.

Kaputas is a mountain gorge with a small shingle cove beach under a bridge crossing the gorge, with a steep set of steps up/down to the beach,and a steep drop off into the clear blue sea. It’s a 10 minute dolmus [bus] ride from the hill village of Kalkan, a harbour town with colourful restaurants and terraced bars overlooking the not particularly attractive marina.
2.5 hrs from Dalaman Airport.

Though big resort hotel complexes (including the Richmond) rise on its southern reaches, most of the beach is public.

At the very southern end, where the road begins the climb over the hills to Kusadasi, is the Aqua Fantasy water park.

The soft sand is a bit squishy underfoot and, as you can see from my photos, the beach is open to the Aegean Sea, which constantly sends waves onto it, churning the sand, clouding the water, and making the swimming experience an active one.

You can get drinks, meals and shade at a small hotel near the beach, but be advised that there is little shelter on the beach proper, so bring lots of sunblock.

Even more importantly, there is a Jandarma (police) post, but no lifeguards! The Jandarmas have no life-saving equipment or training, so you’re on your own.

The surf can be rough, so please be careful.

The coastal road from Selçuk and Ephesus to Kusadasi runs within a five-minute walk of the sea at Pamucak, so access is cheap, quick and convenient by means of the frequent (every 20 or 30 minutes) Selçuk – Kusadasi minibuses.

Kemer is a made-to-order resort carved from Turkey’s pristine pine-shaded Mediterranean coast 35km (22 miles) southwest of Antalya (map).

Though not as large or elaborate as Mexico’s Cancún, the principle at Kemer (keh-MEHR, pop. 25,000) is the same: pick a favorable seaside location with little habitation and build a modern resort town of white concrete buildings in it.

With virtually nothing to offer in the way of quaint old buildings, photogenic winding streets or archeological ruins, people come to Kemer for sun and sea.

The beaches are mostly of large pebbles and stones, although the ones near the yacht marina and Yörük Parki (an anthropological park with a Turkish nomad theme) are of sand.

Kemer can be a base for exploring nearby sites like Olimpos, Phaselis, Termessos, Perge and Aspendos, but Antalya is more centrally located and, overall, has more to offer.

Once known as Halicarnassus, the popular Aegean resort and yachting port of Bodrum boasts the ruins of the original Mausoleum, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, as well as the lofty Castle of St Peter, a Crusader fortress which now serves as the world’s foremost Museum of Underwater Archeology.

Two small picture-perfect bays frame the castle, making it particularly attractive to yachters . The beaches right in town are small and the water not particularly clean, but there are other beaches and towns nearby on the Bodrum peninsula.

To get away to a secluded hotel, or rental villa or cottage in Bodrum or one of the other towns on the Bodrum peninsula for a week or a fortnight is really a dream-come-true.

Bodrum is also known for its enthusiastic nightlife. If you like staying up late at loud discos and clubs, you’ll love Bodrum. If you go to bed early and sleep lightly, you may suffer. As the provincial governor once said, “If you want quiet, go somewhere else.”

That might be to Gümbet, the next bay to the west, although Gümbet may have noise problems of its own, depending upon where you stay.

One of my favorite hotels in all of Turkey is in Bodrum: the Su Otel. It’s a real refuge!

For other hotel reservations, car rentals, yacht charters, airport transfers, and ferry tickets from Bodrum, contact Neyzen Travel & Yachting which, besides being a yacht charter broker, is also a fully-authorized travel agency.

There’s plenty of bus traffic to Bodrum in the warm months, but no train service.

Milas-Bodrum Airport is 33 km (21 miles) north of the town with direct daily flights from Istanbul.

Greek island ferries take you to and from Kos and Rhodes

After all, loggerhead turtles (carretta carretta) discovered it eons ago.

But it’s so big and so distant from big cities that it never seems crowded.

If you want to get away from the madding crowds on the beach, just walk a few minutes farther west to your own little section of sand.

Minibuses and excursion boats run daily from Dalyan to the beach. I prefer the excursion boats (naturally).

I consider Iztuzu to be one of Turkey’s best beaches

Alanya was favored as a seaside resort by the Seljuk Turks 800 years ago, just as it is for the thousands of British and European visitors who pack its hundreds of hotels and villas today.

For the Seljuks, the attraction was the mild climate, the good harbor, and its relative closeness to Konya, the Seljuk capital (maps).

For today’s visitors it’s the l-o-n-g stretches of sand beach, the warm waters of Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, and the deep history of the town.

Alanya has grown incredibly during the past decade, and now boasts a population of more than 250,000, which must double during the summer tourist season.

Many visitors fly into Antalya airport on inexpensive package vacations, then bus to Alanya. Lots of new hotels have been built to cater to the package trade.

While you’re here, visit the vast Seljuk fortress which dominates the town from its promontory; the tall, octagonal Seljuk Kizilkule (Red Tower); and the Tersane (shipyard).

The dank atmosphere of Damlatas Cave, said to be beneficial to asthma sufferers, but with hordes of tourists exhaling hot carbon dio into the humid, already-stuffy atmosphere, I have my doubts….

But of course Alanya’s big attraction is its beaches, l-o-n-g swaths of sand to west (several kilometers) and east (many kilometers).