The baskets lift at dawn. Everything else waits for the light.
Which balloon company still flies when the wind is marginal. What the Red Tour covers that the Green one does not. How early the Ihlara minibus leaves. Reviews of every tour you can book in Göreme and the valleys around it.
The flight, the north loop, the long day west, one hour on a quad.
Four bookings carry a first trip to Göreme. What each one costs, how long it takes, and what the travellers who went say about it.
01The 4.30am alarmCappadocia: Goreme Hot Air Balloon Flight at SunriseBaskets inflate in the dark and lift as the valleys turn pink. Book it for your first clear morning rather than your last, so a windy cancellation still has a day to fall back on.
02The north loopRed (North) Tour Cappadocia (small group) with lunch and ticketsDevrent, Pasabag, the Open Air Museum and a pottery stop in Avanos, back by mid afternoon. The half of Cappadocia you can see between two meals.
03The long day westGreen (South) Tour Cappadocia (small group) with lunch and ticketDerinkuyu underground, the Ihlara canyon on foot, the Selime rock monastery, lunch by the stream. Seven hours out, and the one day that leaves the chimneys behind.
04The last of the lightCappadocia Sunset ATV TourQuads down the Rose and Love valleys as the sun drops behind Uchisar. Cheap, dusty, and the reason nobody here sleeps early.
Cappadocia sells one sunrise, and it comes at three prices.
Roughly a hundred baskets go up over Göreme on a flyable morning. You can be in one, watch them from a ridge with breakfast, or hang under a wing off the Uchisar cliff instead. The three cost nothing like each other.
Every Göreme agency sells three coloured days. This is what the colours mean.
Compare all three routes →The names are local shorthand rather than brands, and every operator runs the same three routes at a different price. Learn them once and the whole town becomes bookable.
The Red Tour
North of Göreme, and the shorter day.
Devrent, Pasabag, the Göreme Open Air Museum, Uchisar castle, a pottery workshop in Avanos.
- 1Full Day Cappadocia Tour( Red Tour + Underground City )from $18
- 2Cappadocia: Guided Red Tour with Lunch and Ticketfrom $49
The Green Tour
South and west, seven hours and more.
Derinkuyu underground city, the Ihlara valley walk, Selime monastery, Pigeon Valley on the way home.
- 1Cappadocia: Guided Green Tour with Lunch and Ticketsfrom $51
- 2Cappadocia: Guided Green Tour Incl. Lunch and Entry Ticketsfrom $34
The Blue Tour
The quiet third day, once the other two are done.
Mustafapasa, the Soganli valleys, Keslik monastery and the southern villages.
- 1Cappadocia: Blue Tour with Entry Fees and Lunchfrom $24
- 2Cappadocia: Semi Private Blue Tour with Lunch – pickup hotelfrom $82
Sunset in the valleys belongs to quads, horses and old jeeps.
The floor of the Rose, Love and Sword valleys is soft volcanic dust, and nobody walks it at six in the evening. Göreme puts you on something with wheels or hooves and sends you down between the chimneys while the light goes orange.
What a day in Cappadocia actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The gap between an hour on a quad and an hour in a basket is the widest in Turkish tourism, and both are worth doing.
Pottery wheels in Avanos, quad runs at sunset, coffee brewed in hot sand, a seat on the shared Red Tour minibus.
A private guide for the day, the Green Tour with Ihlara on foot, cave dinners, and the cheaper balloon baskets.
Sunrise flights with the long-standing operators, private cars with a driver, and the small-basket upgrades.
Three things Cappadocia has that nowhere else does.
Balloons fly over plenty of places. Cities carved eighteen storeys into the rock, churches painted inside soft stone, and a river valley of potters working the same red clay for three thousand years do not travel.
The Underground Cities
Derinkuyu drops eighteen storeys into the tuff and held perhaps twenty thousand people with their animals, wine presses and ventilation shafts. Kaymakli is wider and shallower. Both were refuges rather than homes, cut deeper each time an army came through Cappadocia, and the round stone doors that sealed each level are still sitting on their tracks.
- 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
- 3Cappadocia: Green Tour – Ihlara Valley & Underground City★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎ 4.6 · 378 reviews
The Göreme Rock Churches
A monastic valley of chapels hollowed out of the cones, with eleventh century frescoes still bright on the ceilings because the rock kept them dark and dry. The Dark Church is a separate ticket at the gate and it is the one worth paying for. Photography is restricted inside, which is why so few people know what is up there.
- 1Cappadocia: Small-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 with open air Museum★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎ 5.0 · 63 reviews
The Avanos Wheels
Avanos sits on the Kizilirmak, the red river that gives the town its clay, and pots have been thrown here since the Hittites. The kick wheel is driven with one foot while both hands stay on the pot. Half an hour at one and you will understand why the demonstration looks so easy.
- 1Historical Pottery Making in Cappadocia★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎ 5.0 · 261 reviews
- 2Avanos: Pottery Workshop with Clay Making Experience★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎ 4.8 · 233 reviews
- 3Cappadocia Pottery Workshop Class★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎★︎ 5.0 · 191 reviews
Four Göreme bookings that will not wait for you to land.
Most of this valley can be arranged over breakfast the day before. These four run on flight permits, seat counts and a single morning departure, and in April, May, September and October they go first.
- 01Cappadocia Hot Air Balloon Ride / Royal BalloonBaskets are capped and so is the number of flights allowed each morning. On a clear autumn dawn the established operators are full a week out, and one grounded day pushes everybody into the next.
- 02Cappadocia: Green Tour – Ihlara Valley & Underground CityThe Ihlara and Selime day leaves once, early, and gets back after dark. Miss the minibus and there is no second departure to catch.
- 03Turkish Night at Cave Restaurant with Dinner and Unlimited DrinksCave restaurants seat a fixed number, and a dervish ceremony is not a nightly fixture at every venue. Weekend tables go first.
- 04Full Day Cappadocia Tour( Red Tour + Underground City )Derinkuyu and Kaymakli move timed groups through narrow tunnels, and the afternoon slots fill with Green Tour coaches. Morning entry is the comfortable one.
Roughly one Göreme morning in four never leaves the ground.
Balloons need calm air, and Cappadocia sits at a thousand metres on an open plateau. Flights are grounded at dawn by wind, fog or winter snow, and the call is made at the launch field with your pickup already done. Keep the day usable. Everything below happens under a roof or under the ground, and none of it cares what the wind does.
Göreme eats late, underground, and usually with a saz playing.
Dinner here happens in a carved hall with a low ceiling and a long table. Some nights that means folk dancing and unlimited local wine, others a dervish ceremony where clapping is not the done thing. Both are a short walk from the otogar.
The Göreme days more travellers book than any other.
Every Cappadocia tour we have reviewed →Traveller demand across the whole valley, from the flights people plan a trip around to the eighteen dollar quad run nobody expected to love.
1
Cappadocia Hot Air Balloon Ride / Royal Balloon
Royal Balloon lifts you over Cappadocia’s fairy chimneys at sunrise, with hotel pickup, breakfast, expert pilots, and a postflight toast.
From · $133
Read our review →
2
Cappadocia: Goreme Hot Air Balloon Flight at Sunrise
from $142
3
Cappadocia Hot Air Balloon Ride/ Turquaz Balloons
from $175
4
Cappadocia Sunset ATV Tour
from $18
5
Cappadocia: Goreme Hot Air Balloon Flight Over Fairychimneys
from $159
6
Green (South) Tour Cappadocia (small group) with lunch and ticket
from $54
7
Cappadocia Hot Air Balloons or Kelebek Flight
from $181
8
Full Day Cappadocia Red and Green Combined Day Tour
from $30
By place, valley by valley
By kind of day: air, ground or underground
The order most people end up doing it in, and why it works.
Day 1, dawn
Day 1, sunset
Day 2, all day
Day 2, nightThe newest Cappadocia tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Cappadocia: Full Day Tour to see Best Highlights in 1 Day
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Private Cappadocia Tour w/Chimneys and Goreme Open Air Museum
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Cappadocia Dreamscapes: Tailored Shoots by Zerders Photography
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Southeast Anatolia Tour (Nemrut, Gobeklitepe, Zeugma)
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Full Day Cappadocia Private Guide And Car
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Private Photo Shoot in Cappadocia With Transportation
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Cappadocia: PhotoShoot with Balloons. Flying Dress included.
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