Capadocia then where?
 

I'm planning to travel to Ankara and spend perhaps 1 night there followed by a drive straight to Capadocia the following day. I plan to spend 4 nights in Capadocia - is that enough? But my real dilema is where to go next. I fancied going to explore the beeches perhaps heading to Dalaman and stopping along the way for a few days to break up the journey. Any suggestions?

We drove from Istanbul to Capadocia, stopping in Ankara for one night. We stayed in Goreme, but only a couple of days in the region. We could have used more. We then headed for the Med. On the way, we hiked the Ilhara valley to see the cave churches, and also visited a small underground city. We stayed one night in Konya, then left for there to Antalya. Antalya was a bit too touristy and modern, in one sense. Lot of big hotels, private beaches,etc.. Couple of night there. There is an old town, but we did not explore too much. We visited friends and we went to the beach.

From there we went westward along Turkish Med, staying one night in Kas, one in Marmaris. And we visited Ephesus.

I really liked our drive along the Med, and Kas is the one place I like to recommend. Small fishing village, walk everywhere, boat tours of Lycean ruins, views, etc...

Marmaris was a bit busier and a place where a lot of tour packages seemed to use as a base.

If you can wake up early to take off from Ankara, and do not mind driving an extra 220 kilometers (good roads), you can visit Yazilikaya and Hattusas at Bogazkale, to the East of Ankara, on the route to Yozgat, and maybe even Alacahoyuk,(some 30 kilometers further North) before driving South to Cappadocia (probably through Yozgat)

Two full days will then be enough for Cappadocia.

You can easily do Aksaray-Silifke the first day after that, staying couple of nights and then Anamur for some more time. Both are lovely old Turkey locations with mostly local tourists with a great deal of natural and antique sites, most of which rather unknown among frequent posters on Trip Advisor except for me and David01. The two times we traversed this route, we loved it.

I agree with Michel that Kas is terrific. But if you just want the simple life with kayaking and swimming over antique ruins, you can also stay at the tiny village of Ucagiz at Kekova, or the grand beach at Patara.

My advice is but a shadow compared to OC's :)

In Ankara we enjoyed visiting Ataturk's tomb. We stayed near the embassy area, which was nice. Do NOT take any pictures of the embassies (my adventure).

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