5 Nights / 6 Days
Eastern Anatolia & Ancient Kingdoms
5 Nights | 3 Mardin · 1 Van · 1 Kars — honey-colored limestone, Akdamar Island and the haunting ruins of Ani.
Turkey / City
Van
At the eastern edge of Anatolia, Van opens onto one of Türkiye's largest lakes, ringed by mountains and dotted with the ruins of a civilization that shaped this land 2,500 years ago.
At the eastern edge of Anatolia, Van opens onto one of Türkiye's largest lakes, ringed by mountains and dotted with the ruins of a civilization that shaped this land 2,500 years ago. The city has a quiet, lived-in quality — a university town with tea gardens overlooking the water, where the pace is slower than the western coast and the landscape feels vast and unhurried.
Lake Van and Akdamar Island
The lake itself is saline and alkaline, its turquoise surface shifting with the light and the season. On clear mornings the reflection of Mount Erek on the far shore turns the water into a mirror. A short boat ride brings you to Akdamar Island, where the Armenian Church of the Holy Cross stands close to the water's edge. The exterior carvings are among the most complete figurative reliefs to survive from medieval Armenian architecture — grapevines, animals, and biblical scenes worn smooth by centuries of wind from the lake. Inside, faint frescoes show fragments of processions and holy figures.
The City and Its Layers
Van sits on a hill above the plain, its old castle mound — linked to the Urartian period — watching over the streets below. The city grew in the Ottoman era and again in the twentieth century, absorbing waves of migration and conflict. You walk past sturdy stone buildings, past tea shops where men play backgammon, past market stalls piled with produce from the surrounding plateau. The bazaar has the feel of a trading city: dried legumes, sacks of spices, bundles of herbs tied with string. In autumn, women sell wild mountain herbs from wooden crates on the pavement.
Food, Landscape and the Way North
Van is known for its cheese, particularly otlu peynir — a sharp, herbaceous cheese mixed with wild spinach or gentian root. At breakfast it arrives at the table in thick slabs, alongside kurut — dried, salted yoghurt balls that are chewy and intensely sour. The landscape around the city is high plateau: rolling steppe, sudden river valleys, and the snow-dusted peaks of the Taurus range to the south. Heading north, the terrain climbs toward the borders with Armenia and Iran, where the road winds through mountain passes and small roadside villages that have been stopping points for travellers for centuries.
On the map
Find it on the map
- Van City
Also around here
Tours that visit Van
8 Nights / 9 Days
From Mesopotamia to the Caucasus
8 Nights | 1 Gaziantep · 1 Şanlıurfa · 1 Diyarbakır · 3 Mardin · 1 Van · 1 Kars — Göbeklitepe, Mardin and the haunting ruins of Ani.
11 Nights / 12 Days
The Ultimate Eastern Turkey Expedition
11 Nights | 3 Cappadocia · 1 Gaziantep · 1 Şanlıurfa · 1 Diyarbakır · 3 Mardin · 1 Van · 1 Kars — fairy chimneys, Mount Nemrut, Mardin and the haunting ruins of Ani.
14 Nights / 15 Days
The Ultimate Journey Across Turkey
3 Nights Istanbul | 3 Nights Cappadocia | 1 Night Gaziantep | 1 Night Sanliurfa | 1 Night Diyarbakir | 3 Nights Mardin | 1 Night Van | 1 Night Kars
Good to know
Before you book you should know
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Is this trip right for you?
Our groups are capped at eight travellers, which is about a third of what the industry calls a small group. Eight people share one vehicle, one table at dinner and one guide's attention, and the day can change on the road without anybody being left behind. If you are looking for a coach, a fixed script and a microphone, this is not that.
Most days involve real walking, often on ground that was laid two thousand years before walking shoes: marble worn smooth, cobbles, uneven steps and long site paths with little shade. Bring shoes you can spend a morning in.
Some days move between regions and are largely a drive, with stops along the way. Summers are hot — well over 35°C inland — and winters are colder than most people expect, so layers, a hat and sunscreen earn their place in the bag whatever the month.
How demanding a particular trip is, is written on the trip itself: the physical rating in the header, and the day-by-day itinerary above.
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Rooms, and travelling on your own
Trip prices are per person, sharing a twin room. Each traveller picks their own room while booking, so a party can mix the three:
- Twin share — two single beds, shared with someone you are travelling with or with a traveller of the same gender.
- Travelling as a couple — one double room.
- Individual room — a room of your own, for a single supplement on top of the trip price. Availability is limited, and the supplement for a given date is shown next to the option when you book.
Solo travellers are welcome on every departure, and most of our groups have one or two aboard.
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Accommodation
The hotels named in an itinerary are a guideline rather than a guarantee. Where one is full, or has dropped below the standard we booked it for, we substitute a property of a similar standard in the same area — we would rather change the hotel than the trip.
Check-in is usually mid-afternoon. If you arrive early we will ask for the room, but no hotel can promise one before its own check-in time; luggage can normally be left at reception in the meantime. If you want the room from the night before, ask us and we will add the extra night to your booking.
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Passports, visas and insurance
Entry requirements depend on your nationality and change without much notice, so the only reliable source is the official one: the government of the country you are travelling to, and your own foreign ministry's travel advice. Check both before you book a flight.
Many countries ask for a passport valid for at least six months beyond your travel dates, and for blank pages. It is worth looking at yours now rather than at the airport.
We ask every traveller to carry travel insurance covering medical treatment and repatriation, and we would strongly encourage cover for cancellation and for your luggage as well.
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Your departure is guaranteed — the day can change
Once a departure is on the calendar it runs. We do not cancel a trip for want of a minimum number of bookings, so a booked date is one you can plan flights and leave around.
What can move is the shape of a day. Museums and archaeological sites change their hours, roads close, weather turns, a local holiday lands in the middle of the week. Where that happens your guide reorders the day, or swaps a stop for one of the same weight, and tells you why. Changes to a booked itinerary are covered by our Booking Terms & Conditions.
