This coast has thus become a very popular holiday resort and is genuinely attractive with its long sandy beaches, clear blue sea, ancient ruins to visit, and its own microclimate, benefitting from hundreds of days of sun a year and warm winters, allowing residents to enjoy the famous beaches and water sports even in January. Perhaps the most attractive bays are the smaller quieter ones further from the centre, such as Haydar, along a dirt road around the shore of Akbuk (white bay).
As Didim is so well-situated in the 1980s people from large cities around Turkey, especially Ankara, began to buy holiday homes, apartments, and villas in the area. Most of these were built as cooperative housing projects with private beaches. The attraction of the area is proved by the number of Ankara families that have now been going to Didim for two or more generations, and even today you will see many cars with Ankara (06) number plates in Didim in summertime. Property values are now rising dramatically and the building boom continues as foreign buyers, especially the families of Turks living and working in Europe, follow their lead. The growth of Didim in the 1980s was enhanced with the building of hotels to accommodate visitors, originally from Britain but now from Turkey itself, on cheap package holidays. Since about 2001 British people have begun to buy holiday homes in Didim, establishing themselves as a visible community of many thousands, to the extent that utility bills in the district are now printed in English as well as Turkish. [1] You will see the Union Jack and other British flags all around Didim, especially in the bars.
Didim town has hotels, a weekly market, a water park and the antique temple of Apollo nearby. Didim is also close to a number of other ancient towns and natural wonders: Lake Bafa national park is nearby, along with the Buyuk Menderes River and historic sites such as Miletus and Priene.
In the evenings, visitors try to find somewhere quiet to sit by the sea and look at the lights of other towns across the water, but for those of a more energetic nature, Didim has a number of discotheques, smaller bars and clubs, some with live music, mostly Turku (Turkish folk music). However, Didim is mostly a quiet, family resort with a great coastline, and visitors looking for nightlife would be better off in Bodrum. Summers in Didim can involve sitting on the balcony drinking raki, playing volleyball, sitting on the beach, or wandering along the seafront while eating sunflower seeds. The local station, Didim TV, is in fact an amateur project by a television repair shop owner and neighborhood councilor (muhtar), and is mostly advertisements for local shops and hotels.
The construction of the new fifty million dollar Didim D Marina is expected to encourage further tourism and rising property prices in the area. Development of the third beach area in Altinkum has already begun with an expected completion date of 2009.
Car hire services in Bodrum, Turkey
Car hire Didim
Airport transfer services
Bodrum Airport transfers to Didim
For more information about Didim we recommend the following sources:
Wikipedia, Didim
DMOZ, Links over Didim
