Side, Turkey: Complete Travel Guide
| Country | Turkey |
| Region | Antalya |
| Type | Town |
| Best months | April, May, June, September, October |
| Crowd level | High |
| Budget | Mid-range |
| Flight (LON) | 4h 15m |
Side pulls off something genuinely rare: it drops a working Roman theatre and a temple standing in the sea into a package holiday resort and somehow doesn’t feel entirely ridiculous. The Temple of Apollo, with its columns rising straight out of the beach at the peninsula’s tip, is legitimately one of the most dramatic ancient sites in Turkey. Come at sunset and you’ll understand why people keep coming back. The theatre seats 15,000 and still hosts concerts, and wandering its tiers early morning before the heat builds is worth every early alarm.
That said, be clear-eyed about what Side actually is. The old town inside the walls is charming, compact, and genuinely walkable, but it’s encircled by a resort belt of hotels, all-inclusives, and touts selling boat trips. The main beach roads get loud and tatty. The magic is entirely inside that peninsula, where the scale remains human, the streets are stone-paved, and a decent fish dinner at a harbour-side table is still possible without being fleeced — if you choose carefully and avoid anything with a laminated picture menu facing the street.
The old town itself is the obvious base. It’s small enough to navigate without a map, and staying inside the walls means the ruins are your morning walk rather than a day trip. The western beach is quieter and cleaner; the eastern beach wider but more developed. Both are sandy and genuinely good. Spend a half-day at Manavgat waterfall — it’s only twelve kilometres away, more impressive than postcards suggest, and almost nobody bothers going, which tells you everything about resort tourism’s priorities.
That’s the thing most visitors miss entirely: Side is a credible base for exploring the wider coast. Aspendos, one of the best-preserved Roman theatres on earth, is forty minutes away. Perge, Termessos, the Köprülü Canyon — all reachable in a day. Tourists who park themselves on the beach for a week and do one Apollo selfie are genuinely leaving the best parts untouched.
Side suits travellers who want history with beach access rather than beach holidays with history as an afterthought. It works brilliantly for couples who want both. Families manage fine outside of peak July and August, when it becomes genuinely crowded and expensive. Come in May or October and you’ll get warm water, reasonable prices, and space to actually think.
Plan Your Trip
- Hotels: Search accommodation in Side on Booking.com
- Tours & Activities: Browse Side experiences on GetYourGuide
- Day Trips: Find Side tours on Viator