Colakli to Antalya Airport Transfer

The journey is about 55 km and takes between 51 and 65 minutes, but the order of it catches people out. The fast highway is the second half. The first half is the access road running inland from the coast up to the junction, single carriageway the whole way, moving at whatever speed the vehicle in front of you is moving.

In the morning that road carries the deliveries feeding the holiday villages, coaches loading at the complexes, and in season a fair amount of local traffic besides. It is a short piece of the route measured in kilometres and can be a long one measured in minutes. Before six it is more or less empty and the trip sits at the bottom of the range.

The junction back onto the highway is the same one you came off on the way in. Heading west it feeds straight into the long run towards Antalya, past the Serik and Belek exits, with the pine belt on the seaward side and open farmland inland. From roughly seven on a weekday that carriageway takes commuter traffic; in midsummer the middle of the day adds everyone else.

Which is why the number to plan against is a band, 51 to 65 minutes, rather than a single figure that would only be right on a quiet Tuesday. Tell us when the flight leaves and the collection is planned back from that.

Accommodation here is holiday villages and mid-size complexes spread along the coast rather than one unbroken hotel strip, and several of the larger properties have more than one way in: a main entrance off the access road and a service or beach-side gate that navigation software sometimes prefers. Name the complex in full when you book and, if you know it, say which gate you use. That is the one the vehicle comes to.

Reception is usually staffed overnight at properties of this type, which makes an early departure considerably easier than it is in a self-catering area. The desk can be told the pickup time the evening before, the cases can come down to the lobby, and the driver waits at the entrance rather than somewhere out on the road. If you are in one of the smaller apartment blocks off the access road instead, give the block name together with the nearest large complex - those addresses resolve badly on a map and a landmark is worth more than coordinates.

Resort desks can call a taxi for a four in the morning departure, and sometimes one comes quickly. What you cannot do at that hour is compare prices: a 55 km fare is a negotiation held at the door, half asleep, and the number agreed on the step is not always the number showing on the meter when you pull up at the terminal.

Then there is the boot. A family that arrived with four cases often leaves with five and a box, and a standard taxi carries what a standard taxi carries - the rest goes on laps or waits for a second car to be sent. Booking ahead means the vehicle is chosen against a written luggage list days beforehand.

The third thing is simply that nobody has to make a decision on the morning. The amount is fixed, the vehicle is allocated, and the pickup time was worked back from the flight you gave us when you booked.

A return is usually the tidier arrangement on this route: book the Antalya Airport to Colakli transfer alongside this one and both legs carry the same complex name, the same gate and the same fixed rate, so nothing has to be described twice. Either direction can also be booked entirely on its own if the other half is already covered.