Marmaris is the lively, all-action heart of Turkey's south-west coast — a big resort town wrapped around a horseshoe bay, ringed by pine-covered mountains, with a long palm-lined promenade, a marina full of gulets and one of the most famous bar streets in the country. It is the busiest, most sociable of the Dalaman-coast resorts, and that is exactly the appeal: a proper seaside town with a beach that runs for miles, a buzzing centre and quieter satellite resorts — İçmeler, Turunç and Içmeler's coves — within a short boat or dolmuş ride when you want to dial the pace down. You fly into Dalaman Airport, around 90 minutes away, and land somewhere that knows how to do a holiday.
Every Marmaris package we sell carries full ATOL financial protection under licence #11211, and your ATOL Certificate lands the moment you book — you can read how your ATOL financial protection works before you commit a penny. Each hotel on this page has been hand-picked and inspected in person against our 22-point criteria, not lifted from a brochure, so you are booking somewhere a member of our team has actually walked through, eaten in and checked against the view it promises.
"Marmaris gets a bit of a reputation as the party resort, and yes, the bar street is what it is — but step a little out of the centre and it's a beautiful, green bay with some lovely grown-up hotels," says Raşit Eti, our Turkey Destination Specialist, who has spent more than thirty years in Turkish tourism — from senior management at Sunrise Queen and Mylome Luxury to director roles at Air Tours — and still travels the coast every season, re-checking the hotels on this page in person. "I send families and couples to İçmeler and Turunç, where the water is clear and the evenings are calm, and the livelier crowd into the heart of Marmaris. There's room for everyone here." If you want the bigger picture before you choose, his overview of holidays along the Dalaman coast sets Marmaris next to Fethiye and Sarıgerme, and his guide to where to stay in Turkey helps you place it against the rest of the country. Meet Raşit Eti, our Turkey specialist.
