Renting a car and exploring

[Bez]

Hey all,

Coming over in late September and want to rent a car.  Is it better to do it from Dalaman or in Kalkan?

Also, we have been and seen all the main attractions around Kalkan (Trout farms, ruins, gorge, Meis etc).
What is there to visit further afield?  We were hoping to drive for a bit and find some more things to see/do.

Thanks all!

Linkback: https://www.enjoykalkan.com/forum/index.php?topic=11856.0

[DRBD]

Depending on how long you are here for & whether you want a car all of your stay, it might be a good idea to check any offers from the likes of Brave Tours, Central cars etc.  As for places to see, well you have an open book, Elmali, Green Lake, mountain drives, Demre, too many to mention, what sort of things are you interested in?   

[Charlie]

Personally I always rent locally.  If something was to go wrong with the car it can be sorted in a short space of time.  I always use Brave Tours, can't recommend them highly enough. They have an office at Dalaman airport, you can pick up your car from the airport or have it delivered to your place in  Kalkan. They also offer a driver service, so you will be collected from your flight and driven to Kalkan.  Very handy if you are arriving late at night.  I mostly use this service. Brand new cars and very, considerate, pleasant, safe drivers.

[clashgour]

Hi Bez,

As DRBD says, there's a lot to see both quite close to Kalkan and a bit further afield but still doable in a day.

If you look on KTLN on the lefthand menu you will see an entry for my travel blogs (Alan's Travel Blog).  There are a mixture of walks and sights.  You might like to visit the "City of Spankers"!!!

As Charlie says, the Kalkan rental companies are good - we've used Volume Travel and Central - and they all will bring the car to Dalaman saving you transfer taxi costs.

Enjoy exploring Turkey, it's a vast and fascinating country.

Alan

[Chris_S]

I'll concur with the previous posts, plus I would add that we've found Adda to be reliable to!

On travelling around, I would recommend that you take your own Satnav (if you have one), as you will be familiar with how it works; ensure that it's updated (probably worth buying the appropriate map for Turkey if you plan to or come here regularly, if it's not on your device anyway - TomTom Europe does); and finally, do some research at home on destinations and routes so that you can add the co-ordinates to the device before you go - most devices will take the Google co-ordinates from their maps - so that you can get where you want to go, remember, the postcodes won't work in Turkey!

(When you're on Google Maps, it depends which version of maps you're using to determine the co-ordinates.

On the old version, right click on the location, and select "What's here".  The resulting co-ordinates are in the form '36.264921, 29.409909', which translates as 'N36.264921, E29.409909' if required.  If the numbers are negative then the N becomes S, and the E becomes W.

On the latest version of maps, left click on the location, and you get the co-ordinates popping up in the top left hand corner, with the road name (if there is one).  The location is similar to that for the old version.

Remember, that depending on your satnav, the lesser roads may not be on the mapping, but the co-ords will get you as close as it can (but not always the obvious closest point!); but, if you do get lost, and find yourself "off-road", most will give you some idea of which way to go to get to the obscure places.

Incidentally, the co-ords are for the roundabout by the taxi rank.

[kalkan4eva]

We've always hired our cars from Enes and found them very reliable - we use them for transfers so always get a good deal on car hire. We are ad hoc users as opposed to hiring a car for our whole stay - we tend to stay close to town so don't need a car to get around the village and have used the local bus services to go to Kas or Fethiye - these can be an experience
If you are off on your travels, I would recommend Kayakoy, Tlos, Arycanda and Myra for ancient sites

[Pompeyalbie]

K4E thank you for that smashing post it's given me lots of food for thought. We always hire our car from Dalaman Cars at the airport and have never been disappointed but on a suggestion above May just give Brave Tours a try, I remember following one of their cars last year from the airport most of the way through to Kalkan. All of our ancient site visiting has been to the west, Patara, Xanthos etc but your suggestions of Myra and Arycanda had me searching the web for more info and both look amazing as to what is left standing. How far is it to Arycanda as on Google Earth it looks a fair distance. Mind you there is the bonus of driving the scenic coast road from Kalkan to Kas which means the temptation of a pit stop at Adam's for breakfast.

[DRBD]

Arycanda is breath taking as are so many other places, this country certainly has lots of offer in different ways .   

[turkeyfan]

Just to add, we always hire from Enes. 

One day we got a puncture while our car was left overnight in the car park.  We phoned our contact and the tyre was repaired while we sat in Ada having Turkish breakfast. 

You may get slightly cheaper car hire from a Dalaman company but you wont get the same service as a Kalkan company if things go wrong.

[Pompeyalbie]

Funnily enough when I compared prices between Dalaman Cars & Brave Tours, Brave came out £8 cheaper so that's 4 bottles of Efes 

[Cosetta]

Our guests usually rent a car to explore the area.  In past, we have recommended Dalaman Cars because they have a bigger selection to choose from.  However, last summer one of our guest families had a problem with the car and DC charged a regular airport transfer fee to come to Kalkan and fix the very minor thing that went wrong.  That is a lesson, from now on we will only recommend local car hire companies.

[headroom]

DC charged a regular airport transfer fee to come to Kalkan and fix the very minor thing that went wrong.  That is a lesson, from now on we will only recommend local car hire companies.

   That is outrageous! One of THEIR cars was defective and your guest was let down by it? How could they possibly justify a charge to come out to it?

   We personally have rented from Central cars in Kalkan for the past eight or so visits and found them to be excellent. I used to hire via Economy Car rentals, brokers who source from local companies near airports, however following a dispute over a parking ticket, which is too long a story to go into, but suffice to say I had money wrongly taken from my credit card, I will always use a local company with whom I can do "face to face" business with in future.

 With regard as what to do/see Bez, there are way too many things to list within a couple of hours of Kalkan, if you are staying in a villa or apartment I'm sure the owners will provide lots of information regarding places to visit in their information packs.

 Enjoy the exploration, we still do after quite a few visits.