Everybody comes for the sunrise. Then they find the valleys.
Which balloon company actually gets you up at first light. What a Red Tour costs once lunch and the museum ticket are in. Whether the Green Tour is worth four hours in a minibus. Reviews of every tour you can book in Göreme and across Cappadocia.
Four mornings that decide a Cappadocia trip.
The flight, the two colour tours everyone argues about, the ridge you ride at sunset, and what to do instead if the wind is up.
01The sunrise flightCappadocia Hot Air Balloon Ride / Royal BalloonAn hour over Göreme in a basket of sixteen, back on the ground in a field before breakfast is served.
02The northern loopRed (North) Tour Cappadocia (small group) with lunch and ticketsThe Red Tour: Göreme Open Air Museum, Paşabağ and Devrent, with lunch and the entry tickets already in the price.
03The sunset rideCappadocia Sunset ATV TourQuad tracks through Love Valley and Rose Valley, timed so the tuff turns gold on the way back into town.
04If you would rather watchSunrise Balloon Watching Tour with PhotographerTea on a ridge while a hundred balloons come up in front of you, for a tenth of what a basket costs.
Every balloon over Göreme lifts off inside the same twenty minutes.
Flights are cleared at four in the morning and land before the wind gets up, so the decision is never the hour. It is which valley you launch over, how many people share the basket, and whether you want to be in the sky at all or on the ridge watching it fill.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Cappadocia Hot Air Balloon Ride / Royal Balloon
Sunrise flights over GöremeThe standard hour: fairy chimneys, Love Valley, a landing in a field.
Cat Valley launchesA quieter launch field west of town, the same hour of light.
Soğanlı flightsDeeper valleys further south, and usually the cheaper basket.
Watching from the groundTea on a viewpoint while the whole fleet comes up in front of you.
All 64 ways into the Cappadocia sky →
The valleys read differently from a saddle than from a minibus window.
Love Valley and Rose Valley start ten minutes out of Göreme and no coach goes into them. Quads take the dry riverbeds, horses take the pumice tracks, and both are timed for the last hour of light.
Cappadocia is sold in two colours, and most weeks need both.
The Red Tour stays north and close: the Open Air Museum, the monks’ valley at Paşabağ, the coloured badlands at Devrent. The Green Tour drives south to Derinkuyu and walks the Ihlara gorge, and gives you back at six. Doing them on consecutive days is the normal shape of a stay here.
- 1Green (South) Tour Cappadocia (small group) with lunch and ticketfrom $54
- 2Full Day Cappadocia Red and Green Combined Day Tourfrom $30
- 3Red (North) Tour Cappadocia (small group) with lunch and ticketsfrom $54
Derinkuyu drops eighteen floors, and Kaymaklı is not far behind.
Whole towns were cut down into the tuff: stables on the first level, kitchens and wine presses below, ventilation shafts the full depth and stone doors that roll shut from inside. Ihlara does the same trick sideways, with churches painted into a gorge wall.
Every underground and valley day →
What a day out in Cappadocia actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The balloon is the one line that will not come down. Almost everything else here costs less than dinner in Istanbul.
Valley rides, the underground cities, a pottery wheel in Avanos, a hamam, and most of the colour tours.
Full days with lunch and entry tickets, the cave dinners with the folk show, and the cheaper balloon baskets.
Premium balloon flights, a private car with a licensed guide, and the photo shoots that arrive with a drone.
Three things this valley has that nowhere else does.
Volcanic ash that set soft enough to dig and hard enough to live in, and about fifteen hundred years of people doing exactly that.
The Göreme cave churches
A monastic village hollowed out of one rock face, with chapels, refectories and a kitchen cut from the same tuff. The Dark Church kept its pigment because soot sealed it for centuries and it carries a separate ticket, which almost every guide will tell you to buy. Go at opening or in the last hour, when the tour buses are somewhere else.
- 1Small-Group Red Tour, Open Air Museum with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 862 reviews
- 2Full-Day Tour in Cappadocia with Open Air Museum★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 87 reviews
- 3Red Tour (All Included) With Göreme Museum★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 66 reviews
The underground cities
Derinkuyu and Kaymaklı were dug as refuges and lived in for weeks at a time, with wells, wineries, stables and air shafts running the full depth. The passages between levels are low and narrow enough to shuffle through, and the temperature sits in the low teens all summer.
- 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 Mevlevi ceremony
The sema is a religious rite, not a floor show: no applause, no photographs during the turning, and it runs about an hour in a hall that holds under a hundred. In Cappadocia it is usually staged in a caravanserai or a cave room, which is closer to the original setting than a theatre would be.
- 1Cappadocia Whirling Dervishes ceremony★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 276 reviews
- 2Whirling Dervishes Show in Historical Cave★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 169 reviews
- 3The Original Dervish Ritual in Konya or Cappadocia★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 54 reviews
Four Cappadocia bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of a week here can be arranged from a hotel terrace the night before. These four run on capped baskets, single sittings and a short season, and they do not care when your flight lands.
- 01Cappadocia Hot Air Balloon Ride / Royal BalloonThe number of baskets in the air each morning is capped, and the good mornings in season are gone a fortnight ahead.
- 02Turkish Night at Cave Restaurant with Dinner and Unlimited DrinksThe cave restaurants run one sitting a night, and the tables close to the floor go first.
- 03Cappadocia Whirling Dervishes ceremonyThe ceremony runs on set evenings only, in a hall that seats under a hundred people.
- 04Cappadocia Erciyes Ski Tour And Red Tour 2 daysErciyes only runs with snow on it, which is roughly December to March and never guaranteed.
One morning in three, the wind grounds every balloon in Cappadocia.
The civil aviation office clears the flights at about four in the morning and cancels outright when the wind is up, most often between November and April. Two things follow. Book the flight for the first morning of your stay so there is a second one to fall back on, and keep a ground-level plan for the day it happens.
By the kind of day it is
By what the morning is for
Göreme in three days: fly first, then north, then south.
The newest Cappadocia tour reviews.
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Full Day Erciyes Ski Tour Experience from Cappadocia – All-Inc
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Cappadocia Tour: Underground City, Caravanserai & Salt Lake
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Cappadocia Watching the Sunset With Wine in Red Valley
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