Turkey beyond Istanbul and the beach resorts

Cappadocia on foot, not only from a balloon

Most people picture Cappadocia through dawn balloons. They are genuinely striking, but flights always depend on the wind and are sometimes cancelled, and the region's real riches are its valleys, best seen on foot. Trails between Göreme and Uçhisar lead past tuff cones, dovecotes and rock-cut churches with frescoes, while to the south the Ihlara Valley follows a river between high walls still pierced by hundreds of caves and chapels.

Give Cappadocia at least three nights: enough for an underground city and a slow morning on a cave-hotel terrace. Spring and autumn, when the valleys turn gold, are usually best for walking; winter can be cold and snowy, beautiful, but some trails turn muddy.

The Aegean, slowly: islands and olive-grove towns

The northern Aegean is the Turkey many Turks choose for their own holidays. Bozcaada is a small wine island of white houses and windmills, reached by ferry. Assos is a stone village below an ancient Temple of Athena, looking across the strait to Lesbos. Ayvalık and the nearby island of Cunda are known for olive oil, old stone houses and fish restaurants by the water, and further south Alaçatı has stone lanes and a wind much loved by windsurfers.

The route starts naturally at Çanakkale and Troy and ends in İzmir, handy for Ephesus. It suits couples and anyone who measures a trip in dinners, markets and evening walks. In high summer the most popular towns, Alaçatı especially, get busy, so late spring and September often feel more pleasant.

The Lycian coast, on foot and under sail

Between Fethiye and Antalya the coast rises in steep, pine-covered mountains straight out of a turquoise sea. This is the route of the Lycian Way, a long coastal walking trail linking villages, ancient cities and coves. You needn't walk it all: the finest sections, around Faralya and Kabak or between Patara and Kalkan for instance, make a wonderful few days on foot, with luggage moved between overnight stops.

The other way to know this coast is a few days on a gulet, moving between coves and past the sunken ruins at Kekova. The dunes of Patara, the ruins of Xanthos and Kaş's lanes at dusk all show that the Turkish coast can be far more than a beach. Walking is best in spring and autumn; summer is often very hot.

Deep Anatolia, where history begins

South-eastern Turkey is for travellers drawn by history and food rather than the sea. Gaziantep is one of the country's great food cities, known for pistachios, baklava and Roman mosaics. Near Şanlıurfa stands Göbekli Tepe, stone circles that archaeologists date to around eleven thousand years ago, far older than Stonehenge. On the summit of Mount Nemrut, colossal stone heads in the sunrise make one of Turkey's most memorable sights.

Mardin, a honey-coloured stone town on a hillside, looks out over the broad Mesopotamian plain, and around nearby Midyat ancient Syriac Christian monasteries are still in use. This is a slower, less visited Turkey, usually reached by domestic flight, and one where a good guide makes a real difference.

How to combine them

Because the flight from Lithuania is short and in summer there's no time difference at all, Turkey works for a week as well as for two. A few combinations that tend to work:

• A week: Istanbul and Cappadocia, or Istanbul and the Aegean.
• Ten days: the Aegean from Troy to İzmir, slowly and without flights; or sections of the Lycian Way with a few nights by the sea.
• Two weeks: Istanbul, Cappadocia, Ephesus and the Lycian coast, linked by domestic flights.
• A second trip: Deep Anatolia, from Gaziantep to Mardin.

In Turkey, the reward lies in going deeper rather than further.

Spring and autumn are usually the most pleasant for most of these directions: warm rather than hot, with quieter trails and ancient sites. Tell us what draws you most – valleys, sea, food or history – and how much time you have. First, we listen. Then, we explore what's possible.