The Manhattan escapist’s case for chartering a yacht on Turkey’s Turquoise Coast

If you live in Manhattan and you travel well, you probably have a default setting. The Hamptons in summer, Aspen in winter, Turks and Caicos or St. Barths when you need a beach. Europe means Amalfi or the south of France. These are fine choices. They are also, at this point, predictable in ways that sometimes defeat the purpose of leaving the city.

Last September I did something different. A friend who had sailed Turkey’s coast twice insisted I try it, and after enough persistence I booked a week through Blue More Yachting, a charter operator managing over 240 crewed vessels along what the Turks call the Turquoise Coast. I flew JFK to Istanbul, connected to Dalaman, and by late afternoon I was on a 30-metre wooden sailing vessel in Gocek harbour with a crew of four and no itinerary beyond ‘head south and see what happens.’

What happened was the best travel week I’ve had in years. Here is why.

Gocek: the anti-resort

Gocek is a small marina town between Dalaman airport and Fethiye. It has good restaurants, a functional marina, and not much else. That is the point. It is a departure point, not a destination, and within an hour of leaving the harbour you are among twelve islands sitting in a loose cluster offshore, creating a basin of calm water with dozens of anchorages.

A luxury yacht charter from Gocek from Gocek typically spends the first few days weaving through these islands. The distances are short, the water is protected, and each anchorage has a different character. One morning I swam off a rocky islet with nobody else in sight. That afternoon we anchored in a sandy cove where a sea turtle surfaced ten metres from the hull. By the third day I had stopped checking my phone. By the fourth I had stopped thinking about checking my phone.

The coast and the ruins

Turkey’s southwestern coast is where three civilisations left their mark in the rock: Lycian, Greek, and Roman. Tombs are carved into cliff faces above the waterline. Amphitheatres sit on hillsides overlooking bays. Sarcophagi emerge at the water’s edge. All of this is visible from the deck as you sail past, and accessible by tender when you want a closer look.

For a New Yorker accustomed to planned cultural experiences, museum reservations, guided tours with timed entry, the casualness of encountering a fourth-century tomb while swimming before breakfast takes some getting used to. But it recalibrates your sense of what travel can be. History here is not curated. It is just there, alongside the swimming and the food and the long afternoons reading on deck.

A yacht charter in Turkey along this stretch covers more coastline than the Gocek islands, moving through Fethiye, Oludeniz, Kas, and possibly as far as Kekova, where a sunken city is visible through the water. Seven days felt right. Any shorter and you’d be rushing. Any longer and you might not come home.

The food situation

I eat well in New York. I have opinions about restaurants. The food on this trip was, without exaggeration, among the best I’ve eaten anywhere, and it was prepared in a galley the size of my apartment kitchen by a man who had been shopping since 4 AM.

Turkish cuisine is built for this format. The breakfast spread is a meal in itself: white cheese, olives, tomatoes, honey from local apiaries, eggs, fresh bread. Lunch was grilled fish, meze, salads with Aegean olive oil. Dinners were multi-course, regional, and increasingly ambitious as the chef figured out what we liked. One evening he made a lamb dish with a yogurt sauce that three of us independently called the best thing we’d eaten all year.

The ingredients are local in the real sense, not the marketing sense. The fish was caught that day. The vegetables came from the morning market. The olive oil came from a specific village. You taste the difference.

The crew and the kitchen

Our crew consisted of a captain, a chef, and a deckhand. The captain had been sailing this coast for over twenty years. He chose anchorages based on wind, time of day, and his sense of what we would enjoy. He was right consistently enough that by mid-week we stopped asking where we were going and simply trusted the process.

The chef was the quiet star of the week. He shopped at the Gocek market before dawn each morning. Breakfast was a full Turkish spread that took 45 minutes to eat properly. Lunch was grilled fish, meze, salads dressed with local olive oil. Dinners were multi-course affairs with regional dishes I had never encountered in any Turkish restaurant in Manhattan.

One evening he prepared a lamb dish slow-cooked with vegetables and a yogurt sauce that three of us independently described as the best meal we had eaten that year. The ingredients were local in the real sense: the fish was caught that day, the vegetables were from the morning market, the honey was from an apiary on a hillside the chef could point to from the deck.

Practical notes for New Yorkers

Turkish Airlines flies JFK to Istanbul direct in about ten hours. The connection to Dalaman is another hour. You can be on the vessel by late afternoon on arrival day. The time difference is seven hours ahead, which means jet lag is manageable heading east and barely noticeable heading home.

Blue More Yachting handles all logistics from initial enquiry through disembarkation. Their team matches vessel and crew to the group, builds a flexible itinerary, and coordinates provisioning, transfers, and any shore excursions. The charter season runs April through November, with September and October being ideal for New Yorkers: warm water, uncrowded anchorages, and the kind of golden light that makes the coast look like it was painted for a gallery.

One week. That’s all it takes to understand why the people who know this coast keep coming back. I’m already looking at dates for next fall. The Hamptons can wait.