Places to visit in Cappadocia, Turkey

After wrapping up our stay Istanbul, Cappadocia was next on the list. Cappadocia is truly a unique place and looks unreal! It honestly feels like you’re on a different planet with its incredible landscape. Here are some things I recommend during your stay in Cappadocia:

Getting to Cappadocia

Flying is the fast way to get from Istanbul to Cappadocia (and from other airports). The closest airport to Cappadocia is in Nevşehir. We then took a car from the airport to our hotel in Cappadocia. The ride was about 1.5 hours and a shuttle was provided by our hotel. Note: most hotels in the region offer a shuttle service to/from the airport.

Where to stay in Cappadocia

There is no shortage of hotels in Cappadocia. We stayed at the Traveller's Cave Hotel but there’s an abundance of options to choose from. Most of the hotels in Cappadocia are designed to look like a cave. - definitely staying on theme with the landscape. Our hotels (similar to others) offered free Turkish breakfast in the mornings and the staff was SO helpful. The hotel was also situated on a hill and gave us some pretty incredible views.

Hot air balloon

Maybe the very first thing you see when you Google Cappadocia is the famous hot air balloon ride. Like many others, we also did the hot air balloon ride - bright and early! There are several agencies that offer hot air ballooning and we ended up choosing Butterfly Tours. We got picked up early in the AM and shuttled over to an office area to sign paperwork. We also got a breakfast and coffee which was included in the ticket. After breakfast, we hopped into the balloon basket and the flight was off! The views were absolutely incredible and this ended up being one of the highlights of the entire trip. Since it was early December, it was just starting to snow. The top layers of the pink mountains in Cappadocia were covered in bright white snow. The entire flight is about an hour but time flies (ha!) when you’re up there. It was an amazing experience and seeing the sunrise over the pink mountains was beautiful!

Hike around Rose Valley

Rose Valley is the heart of Cappadocia and formulated by rocky ridges which form a mountain like a view. The true highlight is the color of the formulations though - which offer a subtle pink hue. We walked around Rose Valley for a few hours and explored its natural beauty. Definitely wear comfortable walking shoes as it’s a dusty path. The hiking trails offer panoramic views of the valley. There are a few trail options available and we chose an easy-ish trail from AllTrails.

Hike Pigeon Valley

The start of the trail was not situated far from our hotel. We walked over from our hotel and took an off beat path to get to the trail. The hike took us about 2.5 hours and was pretty easy. Along the hike, you can still see paintings on the ancient caves. We also came across a church! There are some pretty spectacular views but my favorite was the one at the end. The hike finishes at a high viewpoint and we made it just in time for sunset.