Farzan and I visited Turkey, or Türkiye as it’s now called, in June 2022. This post will cover our recommendations for Cappadocia, and I have a post on Istanbul and Antalya up as well. Cappadocia has become such a tourist attraction in the last five or six years that we wanted to see what the hype was all about. Overall, I do recommend making a visit to Cappadocia if you’re traveling all the way to Türkiye anyways. That said, I think two days is more than enough time in Cappadocia. You want at least two mornings there to make sure that you can do the hot air balloon ride, which is basically the main attraction of the town. In case there is rain or wind on one of the mornings and your ride gets cancelled, it is a good idea to have a second morning in town. Besides the hot air balloons though, I felt like there wasn’t a WHOLE lot else to see, so I don’t recommend planning for more than two days.
Hotel Thoughts
We stayed at the Mithra Cave Hotel and we liked it, but I have some thoughts. First, being in a cave hotel is cooler in theory than in reality, IMO. A cave room is going to be sort of dark (unless you spring for one of the most luxurious suites, in which case you might have a larger window than we did) and also a little dusty. Our bathroom was covered in a layer of dust when we arrived, and when we asked about it, they said that was normal because the walls of the cave constantly shed a little dust. For some reason, it was only the bathroom that got super dusty (maybe because of the humidity?) but we had to wear sandals while showering or using the bathroom. It was cool and I’m glad we did the whole cave experience, but we were ready to leave after our 2.5 days there.
But now for some positivity – the courtyards are gorgeous and the views from the cave hotel patios are beautiful. The Mithra Cave Hotel and Sultan Cave Suites (right next door) both had lovely patios to hang out on, and most of these cave hotels are all right next to one another. You can wander into any of the patios to hang out and no one will stop you or ask if you are staying there or anything. This means that in theory, you could stay at a slightly cheaper cave hotel than Mithra (any of the cave hotels in the area are probably very similar in terms of amenities and room style) and then just go to any patio or terrace that looks nice to hang out or take photos.
That brings me to my next point – you can book a private terrace for a photoshoot when the balloons go up at sunrise (this is what we did) or you can go to the public terrace at your hotel and take photos. There will be many people there, so everyone has to kind of take turns, but you’ll get your photos. Part of the reason we booked with Mithra was because their private terrace had a great view. In retrospect, we probably could have booked with any other hotel and then just contacted Mithra in advance and booked their terrace for a photoshoot even if we weren’t guests with them.
Restaurants
Seki is hands down the best restaurant in Cappadocia and you need a reservation to get a table. It is absolutely worth going there for both the food and the view. The food was good (we got the pottery kebab and some other steak dish) but the baklava and ice cream were just so incredible. I will be thinking about that baklava and goat milk ice cream for the rest of my life (and this is coming from someone who just spent two weeks in Türkiye and has tried a LOT of baklava). I hate hyping things up, so I’m going to stop here, but just go to Seki and get the baklava and ice cream if you do.
Seten is the second best restaurant IMO, and it also has a nice view and good food. The pottery kebab here was the best one we tried in Cappadocia (we tried three, so maybe that’s not saying much). The starters such as the mezze platter were good, and the desserts are also good. We ate here twice because it was so close to us and we were happy both times.
Dibek was probably the third best restaurant we ate at. The pottery kebab was great, but we didn’t love any of the starters. We ordered a mezze platter to try multiple things but I feel like we barely ended up eating any of it. We didn’t try the desserts, but I’m sure they are good. The ambiance at Dibek is a little more traditional, where you sit on the floor (on cushions, it’s comfortable) and whatnot, which is a really nice touch.
Finally, Turkish Ravioli, was the first restaurant we ate at the night we arrived because we couldn’t find a table anywhere else. It was meh, I don’t recommend it.
Things to Do
The main attraction is the hot air balloons, and that was hands down the highlight of our trip. People generally recommend booking in advance, but we booked it through our hotel concierge at 9 PM the night before. The hot air balloon company people come pick you up around 4 AM the morning of your flight, so 9 PM the night before was sort of cutting it close, but it didn’t seem to be a problem. I’m sure you can get a better deal if you book in advance, however. I think we paid around $300 for both of us, and we were in a large balloon with 20-25 other people. You can book a balloon for just yourself (and the pilot, of course) for a higher rate, but it somehow felt safer with more people. The flight itself was so calm and not scary at all. There’s no turbulence or anything, and you move so gently through the air. Watching the sunrise and all the other balloons around you makes it really magical and beautiful. You’ll be done with the whole thing by 7 AM and the company drops you back to your hotel.
The second main activity that I’ve seen people talk about are the underground cities. There are two main ones that tourists visit, and they go five or eight floors underground. They were built to protect inhabitants from persecution and allowed them to live in secrecy. If you like history, this is probably a cool site to visit. However, keep in mind that however far you climb down, you have to climb back up. Generally that’s not an issue, but a lot of the stairwells are very narrow with low ceilings, so you have to crouch while climbing up and down both. For that reason, I’m not sure I would recommend this attraction to any older people. Alternatively, any older folks could go down just one flight and see what it looked like and then come back up. All of the floors look very similar, so you wouldn’t be missing much by not going all the way down.
Besides the hot air balloon rides and the underground cities, the rest of the activities that you will see marketed are tourist traps, IMO. There are horseback rides, camel rides, ATV rentals, etc – the types of things that a lot of touristy places have (Dubai, beach towns, etc). If you stay in town longer than two days, I think you would have to do some of those activities to occupy yourself. There are also hiking tours and one of those might be a nice way to see the town, but we didn’t do any.
Finally, I’m not sure if this would count as an activity, but all of the hotel complexes have a few cats and dogs that seem to live there and they constantly wander around and play with the guests. It’s not an official activity, but if you hang out on any of the terraces, you can definitely play with the dogs. For someone like me who doesn’t have any pets but likes animals, I spent quite a bit of time doing that.
Concluding Thoughts
Overall, I don’t think we will be going back to Cappadocia in our lifetime, just because there are so many other places (in Türkiye and outside) to see. I do think we might do a hot air balloon experience again in a different city, however. A couple people have asked me if I think Cappadocia is worth the hype, and I think overall, it’s worth going if you are already making a trip to Türkiye anyways. The hot air balloon experience really is beautiful and photos barely do it justice. If you’re going to Istanbul or another city, it will be a flight to get to Cappadocia (which is kind of a hassle), but if you have a few days to spare, I think it’s worth going.
