The sky fills at five in the morning. Be in a basket when it does.
Which balloon company flies the smaller baskets. Whether the Red tour or the Green tour earns your one free day. What a sunset quad ride through Rose Valley really costs. Every tour you can book from Göreme, reviewed.
Three baskets, three prices
Two valley days, a quad at dusk and a horse through Love Valley.
What fills the hours around the balloon flight. The four bookings most first visits to Cappadocia are built on, priced, with what the people who took them say.
01Day one, the northRed (North) Tour Cappadocia (small group) with lunch and ticketsThe frescoed rock churches at the open-air museum, Monks Valley and the Uçhisar lookout, with lunch in Avanos.
02Day two, the southGreen (South) Tour Cappadocia (small group) with lunch and ticketDown into an underground city, then a riverside walk through Ihlara Valley and the cliff monastery at Selime.
03The last hour of lightCappadocia Sunset ATV TourQuads through the dust to a ridge above Rose Valley, timed for the moment the tuff turns pink.
04Slower, in the saddleSunset or Daytime Horse Riding TourA guided ride along the valley floor between the chimneys, where the tour minibuses cannot follow.
Fly in a basket, watch from a ridge, or pose under the balloons.
A hundred or more balloons can lift off the valleys on a calm morning. Four ways to be part of it, and what each one costs to book.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Cappadocia Hot Air Balloon Ride / Royal Balloon
The flightAbout an hour aloft, landing with a toast in a field.
From the ridgeA lookout at first light, the whole launch laid out below.
Other dawn tripsQuads, horses and jeeps among the balloons as they rise.
The photo shootA long dress, a rooftop, a sky full of envelopes.
All 136 balloon flights, compared →
Cappadocia balloons only fly when the morning wind allows it.
Before every launch Turkey’s civil aviation authority reads the wind and decides whether the baskets may go up at all. Cancellations are common in winter and happen in every season. Book the flight for your first morning, so a grounded dawn can move to the next, and keep a ground plan for the hours you would have spent in the air.
Cappadocia’s two classic day tours, and which one to take if you only have time for one.
The Red tour stays close to Göreme: painted rock churches, Monks Valley, the Uçhisar castle rock. The Green tour drives south to an underground city and a riverside walk in Ihlara Valley. Both include lunch and the entry tickets.
Six villages in the tuff, and what each one does best.
Göreme is where the balloons land and the cave hotels cluster. Ürgüp has the wineries, Avanos the potters, Uçhisar the highest rock in the region. Çavuşin and Ortahisar are quieter and a short walk from the valleys.
The tours Göreme books more than any other.
All of Cappadocia, side by side →Mostly balloon flights, which tells you something. The rest are the valley days and dusk rides that fill the hours either side.
1
Cappadocia Hot Air Balloon Ride / Royal Balloon
Royal Balloon takes you from your Cappadocia hotel to an early-morning launch for a flight over Göreme’s valleys, carved-rock homes and fairy chimneys. Choose a Queen flight or a King flight, with listed durations of about one hour or 75 minutes. Expect a light breakfast, pilot commentary, hotel transfers and a medal after landing.
From · $133
Read our review →
2
Goreme Hot Air Balloon Flight at Sunrise
from $142
3
Cappadocia Hot Air Balloon Ride/ Turquaz Balloons
from $175
4
Cappadocia Sunset ATV Tour
from $18
5
Cappadocia Sunrise Hot Air Balloon Flight / Discovery Balloons
from $119
6
Goreme Hot Air Balloon Flight Over Fairychimneys
from $159
7
Green (South) Tour Cappadocia (small group) with lunch and ticket
from $54
8
Cappadocia Hot Air Balloons or Kelebek Flight
from $181
Cappadocia’s valleys are best crossed on something with legs or wheels.
The tracks between Göreme, Çavuşin and Rose Valley are too rough for coaches and too long for a stroll. Quads, horses, open jeeps and the odd vintage convertible cover them in an hour or two, most of them timed for sunset.
What a day out of Göreme costs, from a quad ride to a basket.
Everything on the site sorted into three price bands. The balloon is the one big spend; nearly everything else in the valleys costs less than dinner in a cave restaurant.
Sunset quads, horse rides, pottery wheels, a hamam, and the shared airport shuttles.
The guided Red and Green tours, cave dinner shows, and the cheaper balloon baskets.
Premium balloon flights with smaller baskets, private guides with a car, and the Istanbul packages.
Three Cappadocia things you will not find anywhere else in Turkey.
Balloons fly elsewhere. Cities dug downwards into soft rock, a Mevlevi ceremony in a Seljuk caravanserai, and pots thrown from the clay of the Red River do not.
The Underground Cities
The tuff is soft enough to carve with hand tools and hardens in the air, so the villages of this plateau dug down as well as up. Derinkuyu and Kaymaklı go level after level into the rock, with ventilation shafts, stables, wineries and rolling stone doors, deep enough to hide whole communities with their animals. Tall visitors should expect to stoop.
- 1Full Day Cappadocia Tour( Red Tour + Underground City )★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,862 reviews
- 2Green Cappadocia Underground City and Valleys Tour. Lunch incl.★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,103 reviews
- 3Green Tour – Ihlara Valley & Underground City★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 378 reviews
The Sema Ceremony
The Mevlevi Sema is a religious ceremony, not a show, and it is performed here in the stone hall of a thirteenth-century caravanserai on the old road near Avanos. The dervishes turn with one palm raised and one lowered. Nobody applauds, and photographs wait until the ceremony has ended.
- 1Cappadocia Whirling Dervishes ceremony★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 276 reviews
- 2Whirling Dervishes Show in Historical Cave★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 169 reviews
- 3Whirling Dervishes Ceremony & Optional Transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 107 reviews
Pottery in Avanos
The Kızılırmak runs red with the clay that Avanos has thrown since the Hittites, and the workshops along it still use kick wheels turned by foot. A session usually ends with you at the wheel making something lopsided, and a master showing how it should have gone.
- 1Historical Pottery Making in Cappadocia★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 261 reviews
- 2Pottery Workshop with Clay Making Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 233 reviews
- 3Cappadocia Pottery Workshop Class★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 191 reviews
Four Cappadocia bookings that will not wait for you to arrive.
Most of the valleys can be arranged over breakfast. These four run on fixed seats, dawn slots and limited numbers that are gone by the time you land.
- 01Cappadocia Hot Air Balloon Ride / Royal BalloonEvery company launches at dawn with a set number of baskets. In spring and autumn the good mornings are sold weeks out.
- 02Cappadocia Whirling Dervishes ceremonyThe ceremony hall seats a limited audience, and in high season it fills before the evening arrives.
- 03Sunrise, Day Tour & Sunset Classic Car TourOnly a handful of old convertibles work the valleys, and the sunrise slot among the balloons is the one everybody asks for.
- 042 Day All Inclusive Cappadocia Tour from Istanbul with Optional Balloon FlightThe packages from Istanbul include the domestic flights, and those seats are bought when you book.
By valley and sight
By how you want to spend the day
Three days in Cappadocia: dawn in the air, then the valleys at ground level.
Quads at dusk
The SemaFreshly reviewed around Göreme.
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