When people talk about trekking in Turkey, most people immediately think of the Lycian trail. This is the most famous hiking route in the country, which is visited annually by a huge number of tourists from all over the world.
However, Turkey is not limited only to the Mediterranean coast.
Hakkari Hike
In the very east of the country there is a completely different world — high mountains, glaciers, waterfalls, alpine meadows and vast spaces where you can spend the whole day and not meet a single tourist. It was there that I went at the end of May 2026 as part of a five-day camping trip in Hakkari province.
Eastern Turkey remains one of the most obscure tourist regions of the country. Even among the Turks themselves, few people come here, and foreign tourists can be found here much less often than on popular routes in the western part of Turkey.
If we talk about mountain tourism in the east of the country, travelers most often choose three areas: mountain plateaus and valleys in the vicinity of Trabzon, the region of Lake Van and Mount Ararat, as well as the most remote and wild corner of the country — Hakkari province, located near the borders of Iran and Iraq.
