Belek Beyond the Golf Course: What Else to Do

By Raşit Eti · Turkey Destination Specialist · Last updated: August 2026

Belek has a reputation problem, and it is a strange one: the place is so good at golf that most visitors assume there is nothing else. I have worked with these hotels for twenty-five years and I have watched thousands of guests spend a week inside the gates without realising that one of the best-preserved Roman theatres on earth is twenty-five kilometres up the road, or that the sand they are lying on is one of the most important turtle nesting beaches in the Mediterranean.

First, the golf — and then we move on

Let me deal with it properly so we can leave it alone. Belek holds more than a dozen championship courses, several of them among the best in Europe: Carya, the Montgomerie course at Maxx Royal, and the Gloria courses are the names British golfers ask about most. The maintenance standards are consistently high all year, the mild winters make this one of Europe's genuine off-season golf destinations, and Belek is one of very few places in the world with floodlit courses, so you can play after sunset. Most resorts sit twenty to thirty-five minutes from Antalya airport and many are directly on or beside a course, which is why the stay-and-play model works so well here.

That is the case for Belek as a golf destination, and it is a strong one. It is also, for a great many guests, entirely beside the point. Roughly half the people I book into Belek do not play. This is what the other half of the holiday looks like.

1. The beach under your sunbed is a turtle nursery

This is the thing almost nobody knows, and it is remarkable. The Belek coastline is one of the most significant loggerhead turtle nesting sites in the entire Mediterranean — by most assessments the second largest breeding ground in the region after Zakynthos, and accounting for a substantial share of Turkey's most important nesting beaches.

Between roughly May and October, female loggerheads come ashore at night to lay. The nesting stretches are protected, sections of beach are closed after dark, and volunteers monitor the nests through the season. If you are staying in Belek in high summer, you are sleeping a few hundred metres from that, and most guests never find out.

What this means practically: respect the night-time beach closures, keep beach lights off if your room overlooks the sand, and do not move or dig near marked nests. Some hotels will tell you when a hatching is expected. It is not a spectacle laid on for tourists, which is precisely why it is worth knowing about.

2. Aspendos — the theatre that still works

Twenty-five kilometres from Belek, and the single most impressive thing within easy reach. The Roman theatre at Aspendos was built in the second century AD, seats around 15,000, and survives in a state of preservation that is genuinely rare — not a ruin you have to imagine your way into, but a working building with its stage wall still standing.

The acoustics are the part people remember. Stand on the stage floor and speak at conversational volume, and you can be heard in the top tier. It is not a trick; it is the geometry, and it has been doing it for eighteen centuries.

Go early or late — the stone holds heat and the middle of a July day is punishing. Allow around two hours including the drive each way, and if you can only do one excursion from Belek, make it this one.

3. Perge — the ancient city most visitors skip

About thirty kilometres from Belek, and consistently overshadowed by Aspendos. Perge is a different proposition: not one great building but an entire city laid out in front of you — a colonnaded main street, the stadium, the baths, the agora and the Hellenistic gate towers.

Where Aspendos gives you one overwhelming moment, Perge gives you an hour of walking through a place where you can read the street plan. For anyone who found Aspendos interesting rather than merely impressive, this is the follow-up. The two are close enough that most excursions combine them, which is the sensible way to do it.

4. Kurşunlu Waterfall — the easy half-day

Roughly thirty-five kilometres from Belek, north of Perge, and the excursion I recommend for mixed groups where somebody has had enough of ruins. Kurşunlu is a waterfall in a wooded canyon with walkways, shade and a great deal of birdlife, and it takes about as much effort as you want to give it.

It combines naturally with Perge and Aspendos into one full day — a common tour route — but it also works on its own as a gentle morning out with children who would not last twenty minutes in a Roman stadium.

5. Köprülü Canyon — the day that gets you inland

Sixty kilometres from Belek, and worth the drive. The canyon is around fourteen kilometres long and a hundred metres deep, cut through a national park of cedar forest, and it is where the rafting trips run. The water comes down cold from the mountains, which after a fortnight of Mediterranean bath temperatures is a shock worth experiencing.

Rafting here is not white-knuckle in high summer — the flow is manageable and families with older children do it routinely — but it is a genuine river, and the scenery on the way in through the cedars is as good as the activity. There is also a Roman bridge in the canyon, which is a fair indication of how long people have been using this route.

This is a full day rather than a half-day. Take a change of clothes and accept that you will be back late.

6. Land of Legends — the theme park on the doorstep

In Kadriye, immediately next to Belek, and close enough to several resorts that guests walk. Bellis Deluxe Hotel is one of the properties within a couple of kilometres, and a number of Belek hotels run shuttles.

It is a large theme park with rides, a water park and a shopping and show complex attached, and it is the single strongest reason a family with children between roughly six and sixteen would choose Belek over Lara. If the theme park is central to your plans rather than incidental, my guide to the best hotels near Land of Legends covers which properties are genuinely close.

7. Kadriye and the Tuesday bazaar

Belek is a resort district rather than a town, but Kadriye next door is a real place with shops, restaurants and a weekly market. The bazaar runs on Tuesdays and most hotels put on a shuttle for it.

Go with realistic expectations. This is not a hidden local market — it knows exactly who its customers are, and the front rows are textiles, bags and sunglasses. Walk further in and it becomes a proper produce market, and that part is genuinely worth seeing. It is also the easiest way to spend two hours off the resort without organising anything.

8. The Manavgat river and waterfall

Forty to fifty kilometres east, and usually sold as a boat trip rather than a drive. The Manavgat waterfall is wide rather than tall — a broad shelf of river dropping a few metres — and the appeal is the setting and the riverside restaurants rather than the drama of the fall itself.

The river cruise version of this trip runs down towards the sea and is a pleasant, undemanding day. It pairs well with the Manavgat bazaar. If you want a spectacular waterfall, Kurşunlu is the better call; if you want a slow day on the water with lunch, this one.

9. Side — a Roman town you can walk around

East along the coast, and the best evening out within reach of Belek. Side is a genuine ancient city on a peninsula: the Temple of Apollo on the headland at sunset, a Roman amphitheatre in the middle of the old quarter, and a colonnaded street with restaurants and bars along it.

What makes it work as an excursion from Belek is that it is not a site you visit and leave. You walk around it, eat in it, and watch the sun go down behind the temple columns. Our Side beach hotels page will show you the resort itself if you decide you would rather have based yourself there — several guests do, after a day trip.

10. Antalya old town — the proper evening

West, and about an hour by road. Kaleiçi is the walled old quarter of Antalya wrapped around a Roman harbour: Ottoman houses, narrow lanes, Hadrian's Gate, and a clifftop promenade with the Taurus mountains across the bay. The Antalya Museum, a short distance away, holds one of the strongest archaeological collections in the country — much of it excavated at Perge and Aspendos, which makes it the natural third stop after those two.

From Belek this is a planned excursion rather than a casual evening, and that is the honest trade-off of staying here rather than on the Lara strip closer to the city. Do it once, properly, with dinner in the old town.

Where to base yourself if excursions matter

One practical point before you book: not every Belek property is equally easy to leave. The resort district runs several kilometres along the coast, and the difference between a hotel at the Kadriye end and one at the far eastern edge is fifteen minutes and a meaningfully larger taxi fare on every trip.

If the theme park is part of the plan, stay at the Kadriye end — Bellis Deluxe in Kadriye and its neighbours put Land of Legends within a short walk or a two-minute drive. If your excursions run east towards Aspendos, Manavgat and Side, the eastern Belek properties save you the whole width of the district each time.

The larger estates are the ones where guests most often decide not to bother going anywhere, which is worth being honest about. At Maxx Royal Belek Golf Resort or Cullinan Belek Hotel the pull of the property itself is considerable, and a week disappears easily. If you know you want to see the region, that is an argument for a resort you like rather than one you never want to leave — Susesi Luxury Resort and the mid-tier Belek properties strike that balance well.

The alternative worth considering, if excursions are genuinely the priority, is to split the week: a few nights in Antalya city centre at the start or end of a Belek stay. The museum, Kaleiçi and the waterfalls all become casual evenings rather than planned days out, and you still get the resort week you came for. My guide to where to stay in Turkey sets out how the two bases compare.

How to fit it into a week

Practical notes

Getting there. Hotel excursion desks sell all of the above, and for Köprülü Canyon or a combined Perge–Aspendos–Kurşunlu day that is genuinely the easiest route. For Aspendos alone, or Side in the evening, a taxi is straightforward and gives you control over the timing. A hire car makes sense if you plan three or more trips; for one or two it will sit on the forecourt.

When to go. Ruins in July and August need an early start — Aspendos and Perge are open stone with almost no shade, and the middle of the day is genuinely uncomfortable. Kurşunlu and Köprülü are wooded and cooler. In May, June, September and October all of it is pleasant at any hour.

What to take. Water, a hat and proper shoes for the ancient sites — the footing at Perge is uneven. For rafting, clothes you do not mind soaking and something dry for the drive back.

Modesty. Nothing on this list requires particular dress, but if your day includes a mosque, shoulders and knees covered is the norm and headscarves are usually available at the door.

Frequently asked questions

Official guidance and sources

Related reading from our specialists

• My hand-picked fifteen all-inclusive hotels in Antalya
• Antalya beyond the resorts — the quieter coast
• Browse every hand-picked Belek hotel