Where to Stay in Cappadocia, Towns and Cave Hotels Explained

The short answer

There is no single right answer to where to stay in Cappadocia, because the region is not one town. It is a handful of small towns and villages a short drive apart, and each suits a different kind of trip. Choose Göreme if you want to walk to the valleys from your door. Choose Uçhisar if you would trade bustle for height and quiet. Ürgüp feels more like an ordinary Turkish town, Avanos sits on a river and is known for pottery, and Ortahisar is the village option for travelers who want very little going on around them.

Whichever you choose, a sunrise balloon flight depends on the weather that morning and not on your address. Our flight status page follows the outlook day by day, and the coming mornings are shown below.

A note on where we stand. This guide names no hotels and ranks none, and nobody has paid to appear in it. We sell balloon flights and tours. We do not sell hotel-only bookings.

Göreme

Göreme is the town in the middle. It sits among the valleys that most visitors come to see, inside the area listed by UNESCO in 1985 as Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia. Several valley trails start at the edge of town, so you can be walking between rock formations within minutes of leaving your room. Our guide to hiking in Göreme National Park describes the main routes.

It is also the busiest of the five. The center is given over to visitors, with places to stay, places to eat and tour offices side by side, and in high season the streets are lively from early morning. That suits a first visit or a short one, and it suits travelers without a car. If you want silence in the evening, look at the edges of town or at one of the smaller places below.

Uçhisar

Uçhisar is built around a rock citadel on the highest ground in the region, and the houses step down the slope beneath it. The appeal is the view: wide, open and facing the valleys that run toward Göreme. The village is smaller and quieter than Göreme and evenings are calm.

The same slope that gives the view also means walking uphill and downhill on stone lanes. The choice between Göreme and Uçhisar usually comes down to this. Göreme puts you among the trails and the activity. Uçhisar puts you above them, with more quiet and a short ride whenever you want to be in the middle of things.

Ürgüp

Ürgüp is a larger town with a life of its own beyond tourism. It has a proper center with shops and everyday services, and the countryside around it is known for vineyards. Visitors who choose it often want a town to stroll in the evening as well as rock scenery by day.

Between Göreme and Ürgüp the trade is simple. In Göreme the valleys are at the end of the street. In Ürgüp they are a short drive away, and in return you get more of a town. Travelers with a rental car, or those staying several nights, tend to find that an easy exchange.

Avanos

Avanos lies to the north on the Kızılırmak, the Red River, and the water gives it a different feel from the rock towns. It is known for pottery made from the river’s red clay, and workshops are part of the town’s character. The riverside is where people walk in the evening.

Avanos is a working town first and a visitor base second, which is exactly why some travelers like it. The valleys are a drive away, not a walk, so it suits travelers who have a car or are happy to move around by taxi and tour pickup.

Ortahisar

Ortahisar is a village gathered around a tall rock castle, with old stone houses and daily life that goes on much as it would without visitors. It is the quietest of the five places in this guide. There is less choice of everything, and for the people who pick it that is the point.

It works well for a slower stay or a second visit, when you have seen the main sights and want somewhere that feels lived in. As with Avanos, plan on a car or taxis for getting around.

Distances between towns

The towns are close together, so your choice is about atmosphere far more than travel time. The approximate road distances below come from Turkey Travel Planner (turkeytravelplanner.com) and Go Türkiye (goturkiye.com), the national tourism portal.

If you are still getting your bearings, where Cappadocia is and how its towns fit together is covered in a separate guide.

What a cave hotel is

A cave hotel is a hotel whose rooms are cut into Cappadocia’s soft volcanic rock, called tuff. People here carved homes, storerooms and churches into the same stone for centuries, and some hotels occupy those historic dwellings. Others are newer buildings made of stone and styled to look like caves. Both are sold under the same name, and many properties mix cave rooms with ordinary stone rooms.

So what a cave hotel really is varies from one room to the next. A room cut into rock may have a small window or none, and the way in may be up or down a flight of stone steps. Expect uneven paths and stairs between the rooms, the terrace and the street, in any of the towns. None of this is a fault. It is simply what building into a hillside involves, and it is worth knowing before you book, above all if anyone in your group finds stairs difficult.

• Is this particular room carved into the rock, or is it a stone-built room?
• Does it have a window, and what does the window face?
• How is the room heated in winter?
• How many steps are there between the street, reception and the room, and is there help with luggage?

Balloon views from your hotel

Many travelers choose a place to stay for its terrace, hoping to watch the balloons at sunrise. It can be a wonderful sight, and it can also not happen. Balloons launch from the valleys around Göreme and then drift with the wind, so their path changes from one morning to the next. On some days they pass close to a given terrace, on others they float off in another direction, and on mornings without flight permission there are none at all.

That is why no terrace view can be promised for a given morning, in any town, whatever the photos show. Treat a view as a bonus, not a reason to pay more. If watching from the ground matters to you, the public viewpoints give you more freedom to follow the balloons, and our guide to photography spots in Cappadocia explains where to stand.

Balloon pickup wherever you stay

You do not need to choose a town for the sake of the balloon. Pickup and drop-off are included from Göreme and nearby areas, such as Ürgüp, Uçhisar, Nevşehir and others. Your pickup time is confirmed the evening before the flight, and the vehicle collects you from your hotel before dawn and brings you back after landing.

When you book a Cappadocia hot air balloon flight, tell us where you are staying, and if you have not chosen yet, update us once you have. If your accommodation is some way outside the main towns, ask us before you book so we can confirm the pickup.

A Göreme cave-hotel stay inside our Istanbul packages

If you are starting from Istanbul and would like the stay arranged with the rest of the trip, our Cappadocia packages from Istanbul include a cave hotel in Göreme together with flights, transfers and a balloon flight.