Antalya Airport to Manavgat by taxi

Many visitors first meet Manavgat as the name on a boat-trip leaflet. In fact it is the district centre for this whole stretch of coast — Side, Sorgun, Titreyengöl and Kumköy all fall within it — and a busy place in its own right, with schools, a bus station, government offices, banks and a long riverside lined with cafés. The D400 runs straight through it and crosses the Manavgat river on its way east.

It also has a large population of residents from abroad. Some live here year-round in apartments and villas, others spend the winter months, and many more rent a flat for a fortnight because it is cheaper than a beach hotel and closer to Turkish life. People in town shop at the Monday market, one of the biggest in the region, swap rumours about which bakery is best and fly in and out of Antalya several times a year.

Hotels have a name every driver knows. Apartments do not. Manavgat’s residential streets look alike at night, many buildings are inside gated complexes — a “site” in Turkish — and the street name in the address is not always on a sign. A few simple steps make the arrival easy:

1. 1Send a location pinDrop a pin of the building’s entrance into our WhatsApp chat when you book. It is far more useful to the driver than the written address alone.
2. 2Name the building or complexMost blocks have a name on the gate. Add the block letter and flat number if the complex has several buildings.
3. 3Arrange the keysIf an owner or agent is handing over keys, let them know the approximate landing time. We follow your flight, so we can give them an updated arrival time on the way.
4. 4ArriveThe driver stops at the gate or the building door, helps take the cases in and waits until you are inside if anything is unclear.

Residents use us in a few typical ways: a ride to the airport and back for their own trips, and, more often, a pickup for family or friends coming to visit. You can book on behalf of someone else. Give us their flight number and the name they will look for on the sign, and your own number as the contact; we let you know when they are in the car.

• Cash in euros, pounds or Turkish lira, or a card, paid to the driver at the end
• Child seats for visiting grandchildren, fitted before the car leaves for the airport, at no charge
• Wheelchairs, walking frames and extra luggage carried free, if the vehicle has room
• Free cancellation if the visit is postponed, however late you tell us

Coming from the airport, the drive is the D400 all the way: Aksu, the Belek turn, Serik, the Aspendos junction, the resort strips west of Side and finally the town itself, about 65 minutes in normal traffic. On Monday mornings the streets round the market are slow, and summer Saturdays add around twenty minutes on the main road. Neither changes the €50 fare.

For the trip home, aim to leave Manavgat about three to three and a half hours before an international flight — the longer figure on Saturdays or if your building is on the far side of town from the D400. Antalya Airport screens passengers at the terminal doors before check-in, and in high season that queue alone can take a while.

Staying in town puts you close to its best-known sights. Along the riverside, boats leave for trips downstream to the river mouth, where fresh water meets the sea. About four kilometres north of the centre is the Manavgat waterfall: not tall, but wide, with the river spilling over a long, low step, and restaurants and tea gardens on the bank. It is a cool place to spend an hour on a hot afternoon.

Further upriver lies the Green Lake, the reservoir above the Oymapınar dam, and to the north-west is Köprülü Canyon, popular for rafting. Side’s old town is only a few kilometres away on the coast. We drive any of these as a day trip or a simple drop-off, with the price agreed before you go.