Discover Kas

Kaş beaches & the coast

Be honest with yourself about beaches before you book, because Kaş is not a long-golden-sand destination. In and around the town, swimming is mostly from pebble beaches and timber platforms built out over deep, clear water, with ladders straight into the sea and a bar or café behind. Küçük Çakıl and Büyük Çakıl are the little pebble coves within walking distance; both are lovely for a grown-up swim-and-lunch day, less so for toddlers building sandcastles. It is a place where the water, not the sand, is the point — and the water here is extraordinary.

The star sand nearby, a short drive west on the road to Kalkan, is Kaputaş — a postcard cove of pale shingle and electric-turquoise water at the mouth of a gorge, reached down a long flight of steps. Beyond it, towards Fethiye, lies Patara, one of the longest beaches in the Mediterranean, eighteen kilometres of protected white sand backing onto Lycian ruins and a loggerhead-turtle nesting site.

The most Kaş way to reach a beach, though, is by boat. Day-trip gulets leave the harbour each morning for a lazy loop of coves and swim-stops you can't drive to — Blue Cave, Liman Ağzı, the bays around the peninsula — with lunch cooked on board and the water impossibly clear beneath you. If beaches are the whole point of your holiday, base at Fethiye or the Antalya coast and treat Kaş, Kaputaş and Patara as spectacular days out; if the sea itself is the draw, Kaş is a joy.

Things to do around Kaş

Kaş is, quite simply, the diving capital of the Turkish coast. The water off the town is famous for its clarity — often thirty to forty metres of visibility — and dive schools around the harbour run trips to reefs, walls, caves and scattered ancient amphorae for everyone from first-timers to seasoned divers. Just as memorable is the sea-kayaking at Kekova, where you paddle in still, glass-clear water over the submerged staircases and foundations of a sunken Lycian city, a guide pointing out the ruins beneath your hull.

Above the sea, the ancient world is everywhere. The 4th-century-BC Lycian rock tombs and the sea-facing Antiphellos theatre are a short stroll from the square, and walkers can pick up stretches of the waymarked Lycian Way, one of the world's classic long-distance coastal trails, for an hour or a whole day. And on a clear morning you can hop the little ferry across to the Greek island of Meis (Kastellorizo) for lunch — a genuine day in another country, twenty minutes from the harbour.

Kaş makes a natural launchpad for the wider Lycian coast, too. The cooling water of the Saklıkent Gorge, the ruined cities of Xanthos and Letoon inland, and the island bays around Kekova all sit within a day's reach. If you like your holidays active and curious rather than horizontal, Kaş and Kalkan together give you weeks of things to do — one reason divers and walkers return season after season.

Kaş harbour, the old town & evenings

Kaş's evenings are, quietly, the reason people fall for it. As the heat drops, the town gathers on the old-town square and the lanes running off it, where the plane trees shade tables set out for dinner and the fishing boats rock in the harbour just beyond. The little streets fill with the smell of grilled fish and the low hum of conversation; craft shops selling lamps, kilims and jewellery stay open into the night; and the whole thing stays warm and low-key rather than flashy — a place to linger over meze and a glass of something cold.

Take a slow first evening to walk the harbourfront and find the square, then let the week settle into its rhythm — a dive or a boat in the morning, a siesta through the fierce midday sun, and the long, easy evening that is the town's real speciality. Kaş takes its food and its fish seriously, and the standard around the square is high. It is bohemian, relaxed and genuinely restorative, which is exactly what its returning regulars come back for.

Day trips: Kalkan, Kekova & the Lycian coast

Half the pleasure of Kaş is how much sits within an easy drive or boat ride. West, half an hour away, is Kalkan, with its rooftop restaurants, hillside villas and the turquoise cove at Kaputaş on the way. East and offshore lies Kekova, with its sunken city, the castle village of Kaleköy and the fishing hamlet of Üçağız. Further west, towards Fethiye, are Patara's ruins and endless sand, the blue lagoon at Ölüdeniz, and the ghost village of Kayaköy.

A word on driving: the coast road is scenic and in good condition, but it winds, so allow more time than the map suggests and don't rush the hairpins. For Kekova and the offshore bays, most visitors take a boat trip from the harbour rather than driving; for the longer archaeological days many prefer an organised trip with a driver-guide, which your GoToBeach team can help arrange alongside your stay. However you do it, Kaş's position means you never run out of somewhere new to see — it is a base for exploring as much as a place to switch off.