Local drivers, one stretch of coast

We are a team of drivers based between Side and Manavgat, the two towns at the centre of this part of the Antalya coast. We live here, and our working day is spent on the roads that connect the airport, the hotel strips and the old town. The work itself is simple to describe: we drive people, privately, from one place to another, in a car that is theirs alone for the journey.

Most of our work is the airport run, collecting guests in the arrivals hall at Antalya and driving them east to Kumköy, Sorgun, Çolaklı, Titreyengöl and the rest of the Side coast, then bringing them back at the end of the holiday. Between those journeys we take guests to Manavgat market, the waterfall, the old town gate and back to their hotels after dinner.

What we offer is deliberately narrow. We are not trying to be everything to everyone along the Turkish Riviera. We would rather do one stretch of coast thoroughly, with drivers who know it, than spread thinly over places we only pass through.

Every booking passes through dispatch, which is reachable by WhatsApp and phone at any hour. Dispatch confirms the price and vehicle in writing, follows incoming flights, and makes sure the right car with the right child seats leaves at the right time. The driver goes to the arrivals hall with a printed name sign and waits there, however late the plane is.

We keep the process simple on purpose. No account, no app to download, no payment before the ride. A message with a flight number and a hotel name is enough to start, and the conversation stays open for changes, questions and the return trip.

A booking stays with the same dispatch team from the first message to the last kilometre. If something comes up, such as a late change of flight or a road closure near Serik, the people who confirmed your ride are the ones who sort it out, in the same WhatsApp conversation, and they keep you informed until you are at the hotel.

“A good transfer is one you barely remember: the sign was there, the car was cool, and an hour later you were at the pool.

• Licensed passenger vehicles with commercial registration and compulsory passenger insurance
• Drivers holding the professional certificates required by Turkish law, including the SRC
• Air conditioning in every vehicle, because July on this coast demands it
• No smoking in any vehicle, at any time
• Cars cleaned between rides
• Child seats and boosters fitted before pickup, free, whenever they are requested
• A confirmed price that is the price paid, without extras at the end

None of these is unusual on its own. What matters is that they hold for every ride, including the one at four in the morning on the busiest Saturday of August.

Our fares are fixed per vehicle, one way, and set when you book. We chose this because it is the fairest way to price a private car. The van costs the same to drive from Antalya to Side whether it carries one person or four, so the fare should be the same too. It also makes the price easy to understand: one number, written in the confirmation, paid to the driver at the end.

A meter would mean that the cost of a slow afternoon near Serik falls on the passenger. A per-seat price would make families and groups pay several times for the same journey. A fixed price per car avoids both, and it means nobody needs to negotiate on the pavement outside the terminal after a long flight.

The same thinking applies to everything else we include. Child seats, waiting for a late flight and cancelling a booking cost nothing, because charging for them would only punish travellers for things that are part of any trip.

Our home ground runs from Denizyaka and Çolaklı in the west, through Gündoğdu, Evrenseki and Kumköy to the old town of Side, then east through Sorgun's pine woods, Titreyengöl and Kızılağaç to Kızılot and Çenger on the way to Alanya. Inland it reaches Manavgat town, the river jetties, the waterfall and the roads up towards the Green Lake and Köprülü Canyon.

Knowing an area this well shows in small ways: which hotel shares an entrance with its neighbour, where a minibus can turn, which road to take when the D400 backs up through Manavgat in August. From here we also drive the full length of the Antalya coast, from Kemer to Alanya and beyond, but Side and Manavgat are where we live and where we know every turning.