One of the most popular places to visit in Türkiye is the Cappadocia region. You’ve probably seen the amazing photos of hot air balloons over the most incredible landscapes, which are taken here. One of the best places to see the balloons from is Göreme, in the Nevşehir District. A small town of a little over 2,000 people, Göreme is famous for its fairy chimney rock formations. It also sits in the Göreme National Park which has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1985.

The town itself has an incredible charm to it with some great shops and restaurants to explore. It really is an amazing city to visit whether or not the hot air balloons fly. We visited in February 2025 for two nights so thought we’d share our recommendations for 24 Hours in Göreme, Cappadocia. We’ve got great accommodations to stay at, restaurants to eat at and things to do for the day.

1. How to get to Göreme
2. Hot air balloons
3. Fairy chimneys
4. The best itinerary for 24 Hours in Göreme, Cappadocia

There are a couple of options for all budget and comfort levels. Firstly, the quickest way is to fly to either Nevşehir Airport or Kayseri Airport. A couple of airlines fly to them from many major cities around the country. From there, you can take a taxi to Göreme but as it’s between 40-70 minutes, a transfer with a company or your hotel is probably easier. Of course this is the most expensive option so we only recommend if you’re really in a rush.

Another option is by train, which is pretty quick and actually reasonably priced. There are high speed trains, mainline trains and local trains around the country. The high speed ones go from Istanbul and the closest stations to Göreme are Ankara, Konya and Sivas. From there you can get a mainline train to Kayseri and then a transfer or a bus into Göreme.

You can book the trains on this website. From our experience, this website doesn’t work well outside of Türkiye. As soon as we were in the country, it worked perfectly, but unfortunately all the trains we wanted were sold out. This might have just been a coincidence but don’t be surprised if it doesn’t work overseas for you either.

The last and easiest but also longest way to get to Göreme is by bus. Now there are heaps of bus companies in Türkiye that go to Göreme. If we’re honest though, when we were researching which one to use it became very overwhelming. As well as that, a lot of the bus websites either couldn’t be translated to English or were very hard to use. Because of this, we just ended up booking through Flixbus which uses the company Kamil Koç.

Their buses are clean, comfortable and reasonably on time. They have bus attendants who hand out water and snacks and make stops for the bathroom and food. The driving felt safe however the drivers did smoke while driving and sometimes went on their phones. From Istanbul (where we left from) there are around 6 buses a day that take anywhere between 10-13 hours. It’s a long journey but with trips costing only €32 each, it was worth it for us!

Of course one of the main reasons people head to Göreme and Cappadocia is for the hot air balloons. The sight of them flying over the fairy chimney rock formations at sunrise is truly something you will never forget. Even better is to get up in one and see it all from the sky.

The balloons fly on average 280-300 days every year, with the most flights happening between May and November. The most cancellations happen in winter due to high winds, rain, snow or fog. For reference, in the summer months the balloons will fly more than 20 days each month, but in winter its only 10-12 days.

We would recommend staying at least two nights to give yourself two chances to see them, but obviously that won’t always be possible. In summer it’s unlikely that the flights will be cancelled two mornings in a row, however in winter it can happen. We went in early February, and the balloons flew both mornings. If winter is the only time you can visit, don’t be discouraged as it can work out! You also have the added bonus of sunrise being much later, meaning you can get more of a sleep in.

The way to check if they’re flying is to check this website at around sunrise. For us in February that was 7:10am but it will change each month. If the flags are green, they’re flying and if they’re red, they’re not. Once they have made a decision, it can not be reversed. If they’re cancelled, you’re safe to go back to sleep. However if they do go ahead, get up quickly as the second those flags turn green, they start going up. We booked a hotel with a balcony that had a great view over the city to see the balloons (read ahead to find out which hotel we booked).

If the view from your hotel isn’t great, head up to a viewpoint overlooking the city. There are a couple of them around the town. We headed to our closest one so we didn’t miss too much of the balloons. It was about a 15 minute walk from the city center. You can find it on Google Maps here. It cost 30TL to get up there which is only about $1.30 AUD so really not much. Once up there you’ll have an incredible view over the city and the fairy chimneys and be able to see all the incredible balloons.

Of course you can also go up in a balloon to see it all from even higher! We chose not to do this experience as it is quite expensive, but you can easily find companies online or in the town, or often you can book through your hotel.

Göreme is famous for its amazing fairy chimneys. These formations are found all across the Cappadocia region, but how were they formed? After a volcanic eruption covered the area with ash, it then hardened into a soft rock called tuff. Eventually, a layer of basalt settled on top of the tuff. Over time, the areas of softer tuff wore away, leaving behind the harder sections, creating the chimney shapes. You’ll also see a lot of the hills have a little cap on top, which is the basalt that wears away even slower.

Another thing youll notice is there are caves carved into a lot of the chimneys. Not only are there caves, but there are full underground cities. These cities were used the most during the Byzantine period. During this time up to 20,000 persecuted Byzantine Christians were sheltering here. Since then, it’s been used by lots of other people up until 1923 when most people moved out. Fourty years later, tourists swarmed the region and in 1985 it was turned into a UNESCO world heritage site.

Today you can visit some of these caves, and even stay in them at many hotels in and near Göreme. There’s also lots of great hiking around them such as through Meskendir Valley, Red Valley, Love Valley and Rose Valleys. It’s an amazing place to visit if you’re a hiker! Unfortunately, hiking is not our hobby of choice, so if you’d like more information on them, there are some other amazing blogs out there with detailed instructions on hikes in Göreme.

Now you know how to get there and all about the balloons and fairy chimneys, let’s go through how you should spend 24 Hours in Göreme, Cappadocia. Of course if you’ve got access to a car or would like to head out of the city for hikes or to see more of the landscape, that’s a great way to spend a day. However as we were travelling on a budget, we’re just going to be recommending things within walking distance of the centre of Göreme.

If the hot air balloons are on, head out to your hotel balcony or up to the viewpoint mentioned before to see them. We stayed in the incredible Paradise Cappadocia hotel. Our hotel had breakfast included as many others do, so after the balloons we had some breakfast and relaxed.

After breakfast we headed to the Göreme Open Air Museum which costs €20 each. It’s a 30 minute walk from the city center and is up a bit of a hill. The Göreme Open Air Museum obviously isn’t the most budget friendly activity, but we thought it was worth it as it was a super unique experience! There are around 15-20 different caves, some you can go into and some to look at from the outside. Most of the caves were used as churches, some with the remains of amazing frescoes. The church with the best preserved frescoes is the Dark Church which is inside the museum but costs an additional €6 to enter.

Remember you can’t take photos or videos inside the churches to help preserve the frescoes. Just take your time and enjoy them!

As well as the churches, there’s a couple of caves that were thought to be kitchens and dining areas. These caves have black roofs from the smoke and tables and chairs cut into the rock. It’s so cool to see, and there is a two storey cave as well. Near the gate there is also a monastery which is shut to the public but is cool to look at. Before you leave, there’s a bathroom, a cafe and a gift shop just at the entrance that you can visit.

The whole museum will take between 1-2 hours to look around depending on how busy it is. A lot of the caves are quite small so try and go early in the morning or in the afternoon to avoid the big crowds. Also, the museum is fully outside so make sure you’re prepared for the weather!

After visiting the museum, head back into town for some lunch. We decided to eat at a restaurant called Mozaik where we tried Manti. It’s a traditional small Turkish dumpling/pasta with meat inside that’s very tasty. While each region cooks it differently, in Göreme they put it with a yoghurt and tomato sauce. We shared a portion of them as well as some chips and the restaurant gave us some delicious free Turkish bread too. There’s also lots of yummy food on their menu too so we’d recommend Mozaik for lunch!

After that, wander around the town and have a look through all the wonderful souvenir shops. We walked around for an hour or two before going back to our hotel to relax before dinner and really appreciate the town from above. We would definitely recommend staying in a hotel on the southern side of the main road, as you’ll get a better view across the town.

For dinner, we would highly recommend Anatolian Kitchen in the middle of town. We stumbled upon it our first night in Göreme and went back the night after because we enjoyed it so much. We tried both the tavuk sis and the kuzu sis, which was chicken and lamb with rice, veggies, potatoes and pita bread. They were both delicious and reasonably priced, the restaurant was cute and the staff were lovely. There’s are of course lots of other amazing restaurants and places to find delicious food so let us know if you try anywhere else we should know about!

That’s everything we got up to in Göreme and we absolutely loved our time there. The fairy chimneys make for some of the most unique landscape you’ll ever see. Then if you’re lucky enough to see the hot air balloons flying over them, it’s even more incredible. Then you’ve got hikes, the open air museum, the beautiful town to explore and lots of delicious restaurants to try. It’s the perfect place to stay for a couple of days and whatever you get up to, we hope you have an amazing time visiting such an amazing part of Türkiye.

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