Places · Türkiye (Turkey)

Natural Wonders of Türkiye (Turkey): The 5 Most Beautiful Places to Visit

5 places in the atlas

Türkiye straddles two continents and an active tectonic zone, and its interior bears the marks of a fiery past. In Cappadocia, ancient eruptions laid down soft volcanic rock that wind and water carved into thousands of 'fairy chimneys', which people hollowed into cave homes and whole underground cities. To the southwest, mineral-rich thermal springs at Pamukkale have built a gleaming white hillside of travertine terraces beside the ruins of an ancient spa city. Mountains, coasts, and more thermal country stretch across the rest of the land. Below are the 5 natural wonders of Türkiye (Turkey) in the atlas — the most beautiful places to build a trip around, each with what makes it remarkable, when to go, and how to reach it. Best overall time: Spring (April–June) and autumn (September–October) for mild weather and reliable balloon flights over Cappadocia; comfortable across most of Anatolia.

Cappadocia

Central Anatolia, Turkey

A dreamlike landscape of 'fairy chimneys' — tapering cones and pinnacles of soft volcanic rock carved by erosion, honeycombed with ancient cave homes and churches, and famous for its dawn balloon flights.

Rock formation Middle East

Mount Ararat

Iğdır Province, Eastern Anatolia, Turkey

Turkey's highest peak — a snow-capped dormant volcano of two joined cones rising in near-perfect isolation above the plains of the Armenian highlands, its ice cap visible a hundred kilometres away.

Volcano Middle East

Ölüdeniz

Fethiye, Muğla Province, southwest Turkey

A sheltered turquoise lagoon sealed off from the open Aegean by a slender sand spit, backed by the pine-clad wall of Babadağ — one of the world's premier paragliding launches — and the cliff-ringed cove of Butterfly Valley nearby.

Beach & coast Middle East

Pamukkale

Denizli Province, southwestern Turkey

The 'Cotton Castle' — a dazzling white hillside of terraced travertine pools formed by mineral-rich hot springs, where warm turquoise water spills over blindingly white stone terraces.

Hot spring Middle East

Saklıkent Gorge

Muğla Province, near Fethiye, southwest Turkey

A hidden slot canyon of the Taurus Mountains — a chasm up to 300 m deep and around 18 km long, so narrow in places you can touch both walls, cut by the icy Esen River behind the beaches of the Turquoise Coast.

Canyon Middle East