Routes AKDENİZ

Antalya – Muğla Likya Kıyı Yolu (D400 sahil güzergâhı)

Kaş to Fethiye: two full days of the Likya coast

DISTANCE: 430 km
DRIVING TIME: 6 h 30 min

Motorcycle
Car

A coast road that shadows the Likya Yolu, stringing beaches, a gorge and hidden valleys onto a single drive.

The most photographed coast road in Türkiye: the D400 swings from bend to bend where the Toroslar drop into the sea — the turquoise of Kaputaş below it, Lycian rock tombs beside it, and ancient cities such as Patara, Xanthos, Myra and the sunken town of Kekova along it. The same line is the spine of the Likya Yolu, the waymarked long-distance path from Fethiye Hisarönü to Antalya Geyikbayırı (~520 km on the classic route, 760 km with the newer stages). Kaş has 18 dive centres, more than anywhere else in the country, and Ölüdeniz-Babadağ is the home of Turkish paragliding.

What to eat

Fethiye Balık Hali
the town fish market: a ring of fishmongers around a courtyard of small restaurants
Fethiye; pick your fish at a stall, then pay the restaurant next door a separate cooking fee to grill it — the ritual every local follows
Arapaşı çorbası ve keşkek
arapaşı is a soupy Fethiye dish — shredded chicken over thin dough squares under a garlicky sauce; keşkek is wheat pounded with meat into a thick, savoury porridge
Fethiye’s own cooking, served in the plain workers’ restaurants (esnaf lokantası) around Paspatur
Orfoz, lahoz ve balık çorbası
orfoz and lahoz are two prized Mediterranean groupers, usually grilled whole; the soup is made from the same fish
Kaş; Mercan Restaurant on the harbour has been in the same family since 1956
Tahinli Antalya piyazı
not a side salad: small local beans under a tahini dressing, with egg and olives, eaten as a meal in its own right
At the Antalya end of the route; made with the small Çandır/Sıra bean and a protected geographical indication since 2017
Kuzugöbeği ve yabani mantar
kuzugöbeği is the morel — the honeycombed spring mushroom, cooked here in butter
Yeşilüzümlü (Fethiye), which holds its Dastar and Morel Festival every April

What to buy

El dokuması halı-kilim, deri ürünler ve takı
hand-knotted carpets (halı) and flat-woven kilims, alongside leather and silver
Kaş Uzun Çarşı, the old bazaar lane above the harbour
Muğla çam balı
pine honey: dark, resinous and barely sweet — bees make it from the honeydew of pine forests rather than from flowers
Fethiye sits inside the protected origin area; the village market (Köy Pazarı) on Fridays is the best address
Üzümlü dastarı
dastar: a plain hand-loomed cloth of cotton and silk, worn as a scarf, tied as a bundle or laid on a table
Woven on hand looms in Yeşilüzümlü (Fethiye); a registered geographical indication
Demre sivri biberi (Demre Sivrisi) ve kışın coğrafi işaretli Finike portakalı
a long, thin, mild pepper from the greenhouses around Demre — and, in winter, the thin-skinned Finike orange
From the growers’ stalls at the roadside
Gömbe yaylasının Golden ve Dalda Bir elmaları
mountain apples from the Gömbe plateau: the familiar Golden and the local Dalda Bir variety, grown at 1,200 m
Harvested in autumn; Gömbe is 65 km from Kaş

Road notes

Kaş to Fethiye is ~105 km of bends: allow 1.5-2 hours and drive it in daylight — several cliff sections have no barrier.
Kaputaş sits right on the edge of the D400 and has no car park of its own; come between 08:30 and 10:00 or late in the afternoon, and count on 187 steps down to the beach.
In summer Kaputaş is run by the Kaş municipality and charges admission; sunbeds and umbrellas cost extra.
Fill up in Fethiye, Kalkan or Kaş; do not start a plateau detour like Gömbe (1,220 m) on half a tank.
A plaque at the Kaputaş entrance names the four workers who died building the road in 1962-63; the best pull-ins are on the Kalkan-Kaputaş stretch.
At Patara the beach is closed from 20:00 to 08:00 during the turtle nesting season (15 May to September), and the penalty for ignoring it is heavy.
Saklıkent Kanyonu (~46 km from Fethiye) is shut from November to March; the season is April to October and the water is freezing even in midsummer.
For walking the Likya Yolu itself, February-May and September-November are ideal; in high summer the low sections are unbearable.

Along the way

Kaş
a small harbour town of Ottoman-Greek houses built over the Lycian city of Antiphellos, with a rock tomb standing in the middle of a shopping street
Fethiye
the bay town at the western end of the route, with Lycian tombs cut into the cliff above the market
Saklıkent Kanyonu
a gorge some 300 m deep and in places narrow enough to touch both walls, waded on wooden walkways through icy meltwater
Kelebekler Vadisi
Butterfly Valley: a cove under 350 m cliffs, reachable only by boat, named for the Jersey tiger moths that breed there

Itinerary

The route passes through 12 named stops. The line between them is the routed road geometry the map draws — and the distance was measured off that line.

Antalya (Konyaaltı çıkışı)
Kemer
Kumluca
Demre (Kale)
Kaş
Kalkan
Kınık (Xanthos)
Eşen (Seydikemer)
Fethiye
Göcek
Köyceğiz
Muğla (Menteşe)

Directions in Google Maps

This route and Kaş – Kalkan Sahil Yolu (D400)

Inside this road lies a shorter section that is worth driving on its own: Kaş – Kalkan Sahil Yolu (D400) (28 km, 36 min). The two stand apart on the shelf, because a Sunday afternoon out and a two-day journey are not the same thing.

Sources

8 SOURCES

This record is the counterpart of the route card on İz's Explore screen. The whole shelf, and how it was compiled, is on the route shelf. İz is not open to everyone yet; it lives inside the OtoTasdik vehicle wallet app.