Advice on walking the Lycian Way

This section is intended for anyone thinking about walking the Lycian Way.  We walked the Lycian in May and June 2015; from Ovacik to Geyikbayiri.  In the places where there was a choice of coastal or inland route, we took the inland route.  We did not do the side trip to Trysa. Fiona took a dolmus (local bus) on those sections where the guidebook suggested taking a dolmus (e.g. from Finike to Karaoz).  I walked every ****** step ;-)


What was good?

• Great scenery

• Lots of interesting historic sites

• Plenty of wildlife (if you keep your eyes open)

• Great people.  This was the big surprise for us.  The locals that we meet along the way were fantastic.

• And it was unpredictable enough to still be an adventure

How hard was it?

I don't know how to answer that, as I don't really have anything to compare it with.  I walked the Annapurna Circuit many years ago, and I don't remember that being as hard as the Lycian Way; but I was a lot younger then.  Some indication of how hard the Lycian is might be gained from the fact that we both finished the walk weighing about 8% less than when we started.

But, we walked the whole thing, and most people don't.  One of the good things about the Lycian Way is that it varies greatly, and there are sections suitable for almost every level of fitness.


What is the path like?

The route tends to stay off roads, and instead take rural or forest paths.  In places the paths are clear, in places the paths are overgrown.  In places the paths are wide, in places narrow.  In places steep, in places flat.  The only thing that is largely consistent is the stones.  Anatolia is the stoniest place that I've ever been, and the stones are very tough on both feet and footware.

How easy is it to follow the path?

The answer to that is complicated.  The short version is that it is very easy to follow the path in the sections that are popular, but there are a few sections that are almost unmarked, and there is everything in between.  There is a full explanation in another post on this blog.

How much do you need to carry?

That depends on your approach.  If you want to walk the entire 500+ kilometres - there are a few sections of the route where there is no accommodation.  For these you need to either carry a tent and sleeping gear etc, or you need to be confident that you can cover 35km (gaining and losing 1800m) in one day.  We took the tent approach.  That left us dividing 23kg, excluding food and water, between two people.  The amount of food / water that we carried varied greatly.  On the stretches with a long way between water sources, we carried 6 litres of water between us.  Add another 2kg of food, and on a bad day we would be carrying 31kg between two people.

If you don't want to walk the entire 500+ kilometres - there are almost endless ways that you can divide the Lycian Way up into a series of day walks carrying only a day pack.  If I wanted to do it this way, then I would:
1) Identify a series of places that I wanted to stay along the route, at towns/villages that were dolmus (local bus) transport hubs.
2) Then stay in one place for 4 to 6 days, each morning catching a dolmus to the start of the next section that I wanted to walk, and then catching a dolmus home in the afternoon.
3) Then relocate my accommodation to the next place that I wanted to stay, once I had completed all of the sections that were accessible by dolmus from the current accommodation.
I suspect that it would be possible to do over 75% of the route this way.

Are there any miss-able sections?

There are a few places were the creators of the Lycian Way struggled to find a good way to connect the interesting bits of the route together.  Anywhere in the guidebook where you see a comment along the lines of "or you could take a dolmus", is a strong hint that there is nothing to be seen on this section and you really should take a dolmus.  I thought the following were (easily) the least interesting sections of the Lycian Way:
- Pydnai to Kinik
- the stretch through Demre (stop at Andriake; then start again at the base of the mountain section, a couple of km west of Demre)
- Finike to Karaoz (the final 8km into Karaoz is OK, but the rest has little to recommend it).

That removes the most unrewarding 2.5 days from the route; unless you are a big fan of tomato hothouses, in which case you should make sure that you walk all of the above.

Beware of everything that you read / are told.  I had several walkers tell me that they were not going to walk the section immediately east of Kalkan because they had read that it went along the side of a motorway and was dangerous.  This turned out to be untrue.  The marked route crossed the motorway on a footbridge, then followed a path up into the hills.



How many other walkers are there on the route?

One of the things that attracted us to the Lycian was that we wanted to avoid crowds of walkers, and we were not disappointed.  On a busy day we would encounter about 10 other walkers, but there were a lot of days when we saw no other walkers.

Crowds on the Lycian

What is the weather like?

When we were doing the walk (May and June) the hottest part of the day tended to be in the mid twenties to low thirties.   Thankfully we finished before it got any hotter.  The days when it was overcast were very welcome.

The nights were hot in the coastal areas and cold in the mountains.

We had several people tell us that it would not rain after mid-May, but that was untrue.   It rained about one day in ten after mid-May, although for only a few hours on those days.

Eating inside the tent because it was raining outside
(in mid June).

Are there any dangerous animals?

There is a bit of chatter on the internet about dogs, snakes and scorpions on the Lycian.

Dogs - The Turkish shepherd dogs are huge and look intimidating, but we had no significant problems with them in rural areas.  As working dogs, they are generally disciplined and well trained. The places that we had trouble with dogs were on the outer edge of towns/villages.  Here we encountered a mix of poorly disciplined domestic dogs and "junk yard" dogs. By the end of the walk I'd had enough bad dog experiences on the edge of towns/villages, that I would pick up a handful of stones before entering these areas.   Turkish dogs are smart.  I would just show them my handful of stones and they would back off.

Nice doggie... nice doggie...

Snakes - we saw a dozen, and I suspect that there were a lot more that we didn't see.  I have no idea whether the snakes that we saw were dangerous or not, but a local told me that the snakes were "mostly harmless".

In general snakes do not hang around for photos

but there are exceptions to every rule.

Scorpions - We saw no scorpions.  We were told that they were around, but despite (carefully) lifting up hundreds of rocks (to clear space for the tent) we did not encounter any.


Things that I would do differently next time

• I would take tougher footware.  I was wearing North Face Havoc boots, and Fiona was wearing Keen Targee shoes.  Both choices were too light for the Lycian Way.  Our feet took a pummeling, and I estimate that by the time we finished the walk my boots had about two days life left in them.  If I had my time again I'd take boots with a full leather upper (as recommended in the Lycian Way guidebook) and a very solid shank.  I did see a few people doing day walks on the Lycian in sports sandals, and they all looked miserable.

• We started on 7 May, but if I had my time again I would try to start two weeks earlier.  The weather would be a little bit cooler, but it should still be late enough in the year for the snow to have melted in the mountains.

• I'd camp out more.  The freedom camping in Anatolia is excellent.

Things that we got right 

• The main thing that we got right was having no specific time constraint.   We didn't have a lot of fitness at the start of the walk, but having no time constraint allowed us to finish the whole walk, and enjoy (most of) it.

• Taking multiple navigation aids, including two smartphones with GPS and high resolution offline maps.

• Taking an ultralight tent and camping gear.

• Taking bottles to carry up to 6 litres of water.  We usually started each day with only three litres, but there were times when we needed to carry the full six.

• Taking Oral Re-hydration Salts.  Note that you can buy these in the major towns in Turkey, but the packets that we brought from home tasted much better.

My salt; not where it should be.

What was the most disappointing thing about the Lycian Way?

The finish was a bit of an anti-climax; it was just a dusty road in a dusty town.  In an ideal world the Lycian would finish somewhere that was more of an event in itself.  Maybe finish on top of Mt Olympus (the highest point on the route) and then take the cable car down?


What did it cost?

Accommodation and food etc cost us approximately 155 Turkish Lira (USD55) a day; but we camped about 1/3rd of the time which saved us some money.

There is no fee to walk the Lycian Way, but we made a donation to the Cultural Routes Society. They use donations to maintain and improve the route.


Anything else?

I would hesitate to recommend doing the entire Lycian Way to anyone that was afraid of heights, as there are a few places where there is a steep drop-off on one side of the path.   However, in most of these places there was an alternative road that avoided the exciting bits.

The path is almost a metre wide at this point,
but it is a long way down.

And the Lycian Way should be renamed "The Goat Way".  Sure, there are a lot of Lycian ruins, but there are a heck of a lot more goats.