Our pick of things to do in Marmaris

Marmaris is probably the oldest tourist resort in Turkey. Set in the Aegean sea, Marmaris is a large resort that really does have something for everyone. Here’s our take on the best things to do in Marmaris.

Jet Ski

On Marmaris Long Beach there are many water sports companies at staggered intervals. Most of these offer Jet Ski hire and are pretty generous with what’s allowed. I paid £20 in 2018 for a 20-minute ride. Rules? There aren’t many. If you have never ridden a Jet Ski before they will tell you the main controls (left, right and throttle). Next, they hook you up to the kill switch in case you fall off. Finally, you are told to coast out beyond the beach safe zone before letting rip. They tell you not to go near any other boats, but that’s kind of obvious right?

After that, you are left to your own devices. They do like you to spend a few minutes messing about near their camera boat, as they will want to flog you some photos afterwards. Aside from that, you can go and do what you like pretty much. No problem with doing doughnuts, going flat out and launching over waves, or even circling a tour boat at a safe distance.

Some companies have better Jet Skis than others. Having rented a Jet Ski a few times, I much prefer the Sea-Doos over the Yamahas!
Bottom line – massive fun for a bargain price. Trust me, 55mph on a Jet Ski is exhilarating, to say the least!

Day Boat Trip

In Marmaris old town and marina there are loads of boat trips offered for sale. Some boats are better than others in terms of how they look and the kind of trip that they offer. There are all-inclusive party boats, quieter tour boats and even pirate boats suited to kids!

After many visits to Marmaris, our go-to day boat trip is on a boat called the White Whale. It’s a full day sailing around the bay with lots of swimming stops and a chance to get off the boat too. Lunch is provided, and it costs a bargain £10 each.

The top deck is full of sun loungers, whilst the lower deck offers shade and is where you eat lunch. They will tell you that a day at sea is worth 3 days on the beach in terms of sun tanning, so take plenty of sunscreen!

A day on the beach

Long Beach in Marmaris is long. Some of the nicer hotels have their own bit of private beach, but the rest of the beach is fair game to all.

Along Long Beach, there is a myriad of bars and restaurants. These establishments put out their own sun loungers and offer them free to anyone who wants them. The condition is that you then purchase food and drinks from them. This is a real bargain, as the prices are low in Turkey as you may have gathered. The bars don’t charge a premium either for the sun lounger use, as they know you’re almost certainly going to want to be waited on with a nice cold beer in the heat of the day.

On our last visit, we used the sun loungers provided by a bar called Maymi. This was close to the Grand Azur and Marbella hotels. Their sun loungers were well spread out, and their service was brilliant.

The best part was on that part of the beach we saw several turtles popping up and down in the sea. Don’t forget your snorkel!

Fishing trip

You may be noticing a theme here. We love water! There are a few fishing trips offered by smaller boats in the marina. The one we did a couple of times was imaginatively called Finding Nemo. This was a small boat that could hold about 12 people and offered full or half day trips. We did a half day, and prices varied depending on how busy the boat was. On our last trip, we were the only guests so paid a little more (around £20 each I think for the half day). Drinks are extra on the boat, but fishing equipment and bait are included.

Finding Nemo sails around the bay of Marmaris and uses sonar to find larger schools of fish. The captain will teach you to bait the line and off you go. Annoyingly, Amy always caught more than me, which was hard to take! I tried to blame it on the side of the boat that I was sitting, but got laughed at for the remainder of the holiday!

Being a smaller boat, it can be a little bit bobby if you know what I mean. The sea around Marmaris is very calm, but even so, I thought I’d better mention it! You won’t catch massive fish, but you will catch some!

Speedboat Rental

On a couple of occasions, we’ve hired a speedboat from one of the water sports companies on the beach. Each time it was a fairly simple speedboat with a large outboard motor and was very fast. A bit like the Jet Ski rental, the rules are pretty simple. Don’t crash it, and use it beyond the beach safe zone. Other than those rules, you can go where you like.

For us, that meant we actually raced around the coast to other resorts several miles away. We rented the speedboat for an hour and haggled down to a price of £50. It did help that we had booked other water sports with the same company though. It was brilliant driving all around the bay and coastline at full chat, and we got loads of waves and cheers when we sailed past and around the slower day trip boats.

Again, like the Jet Ski, no license is needed to rent the speedboat. Just make sure you keep your eyes open. Once we very nearly hit a swimmer who was miles away from the safe swim zones by the beach. Quite scary actually.

Walk to İçmeler

We took a lovely morning walk along the beach promenade at Marmaris all the way to İçmeler. From our starting point, it was just over a 3-mile walk. As we walked further away from Marmaris it got a lot less busy. We set off at 10am, and it was already 39C so we made sure to take a couple of large bottles of water with us.

Walking right by the beach and the sea gave us some stunning views. By the time we arrived at İçmeler, it was time for a brunch as we had worked up an appetite. Actually, we were famished, so after juice, coffee, and a couple of English breakfasts we were ready for the return journey!

Instead of walking back, we took a water taxi from the beach all the way to Marmaris old town. Any excuse for a boat trip! We paid 15TL (£1.35) each for the trip, which took around 20 minutes.

We’d never really been to the old town during the daytime so we thought it would be good to have a wander around. Almost all of the tour boats were missing from their moorings, and it was a lot quieter as I guess most people were at the beach. We went into the Grand Bazaar and found our favourite Turkish delight shop and stocked up. After this, we caught a Dolmus back to our hotel and had a relaxing afternoon by the pool. Dolmus prices were 4TL (36p) for the short 2-mile trip. Another bargain!

Jeep Safari

We booked this tour from one of the many “travel agents” in Marmaris. On the morning of the trip, we met other passengers at a small bar in one of the backstreets. Once everyone had arrived, we boarded our jeep and met a few other full jeeps for the Safari. The trip goes to a number of places with stops along the way, and yes lunch is included.

Drinks are extra at the stops but are reasonable. The trip goes on normal roads, off-road, through mountainous areas, forests and small rivers. Be prepared to get a bit wet.

We stopped at a waterfall for a swim stop, and also went to Jesus beach. Towards the end of the day, we went to see Turkish rugs being made before heading back down into İçmeler and then on to Marmaris. Some of the jeeps are actually old Land Rovers and are quite rickety.

The scenery was stunning, but it was quite a tiring day as there was a lot of hanging on as the jeep raced over rough terrain. We were back at our hotel by the end of the afternoon, so another full-day trip for reasonable money!

Day trip to Rhodes

On one of the visits to Marmaris, we booked a day trip to Rhodes. This goes by catamaran and is a full day trip, including the journey.

This takes just under an hour, each way, but there is a bit of pain to go through with checking in and customs etc (don’t forget your passport!). The catamaran was pretty quick, with seats for all booked. Drinks served on board but can be a bit choppy given the speed of the boat.

At Rhodes Old Town you are free to roam and explore yourselves, and it’s a short walk from the port. Just remember to take some euros! One thing that will be immediately apparent is the price differences in Rhodes. It’s not that Rhodes is expensive, more that Marmaris is so cheap!

We wandered around and saw the Temple of Aphrodite, the Old Town itself and the Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes. We got back to Marmaris by 6pm, and then it was a quick Dolmus back to our hotel.

Honourable mentions go to the usual beach water sport activities. These include banana float, parasailing, water skiing and pedal boats. Marmaris really does have everything you could ask for to keep you busy! Check out my other posts about Marmaris!