After finishing school in June 2012, I decided to go hiking on the Lycian Way for a bit. This was my very first multi-day hiking trip, therefore I was lacking proper equipment and carrying more than I needed of course, I also realized how exhausting hiking could be.

The season was everything but perfect to go hiking in southern Turkey, but I didn't have time later in the year and I get less problems with heat than the usual middle-european hiker anyway, so I didn't have a lot of problems with that. I just had to get accostumed to waiting out the hot midday hours somewhere in the shadow and to carrying liters and liters of water with me at all times.

I originally had planned to either find at least one other hiker so I wouldn't have to go alone, but I wasn't successful and went alone nevertheless after all. In the end it proved to be a good decision, turning me into a way more independent and self-conscious person and letting me sort of "find myself" on the journey.

Concerning the path and the conditions, I couldn't say much at the end of my trip - I had covered roughly 200km of the 500km long trail and had no experience whatsoever, so nothing to compare the quality of the path to. Now while I write this in Spring 2016, sort of translating from the German version I wrote directly after finishing the holiday but also changing and especially shortening different passages, I can draw some better conclusions:

The hiking is generally really enjoyable, not only due to the fantastic landscape and nice selection of paths, but also due to the immense hospitality of the Turkish population. The openness of the locals, be it campsite owners, supermarket workers or farmers living far away from modern technology, I always felt very welcome and accepted. I was often offered to join for a meal or a barbecue or to put up my tent near somebody's house even though I didn't ask, people were always happy to talk with me as far as their English and my Turkish knowledge allowed.

Most of the path is really nice to walk and seems well used, except for some overgrown passages - in June/July really not nice to walk, for there are crazy amounts of spiderwebs spanned directly over the trail and the maquis plants growing in from both sides are dried out and really scratchy. So either long pants or slightly bloody legs - which is sometimes not such an easy choice in about 40°C...

During the whole hike, I basically didn't meet any other hikers. The only exception were two Turkish guys doing their first day of a weekend trip (they were sweating their souls out, just like me) between Olympos and Adrasan and a middle-aged German couple who did a throughhike several years back already and were just repeating some nice legs as daytours, using Gelemis and Kas as basecamps.

Anyway, I don't want to write that much here - just go through the subpages and enjoy the pictures! Sorry for the bad quality, buying a tent had a higher priority than a camera...