Cappadocia Has Cave Hotels, Hot Air Balloons, and Stunning Landscapes

Sometime last year, my 11-year-old son came home from school and announced that he had a bucket list of travel destinations. He began rattling them off—Chile’s Atacama Desert and China’s Guilin Mountains, Antelope Canyon in Arizona and Whitehaven Beach in Australia—then asked to use my computer. He opened up a browser and within moments had pulled up a series of landscapes: white cliffs, dazzling blue lakes, and arid deserts. The photographs were so startling that they looked otherworldly. 

A guest room at Argos in Cappadocia.

Kerem Uzel/Travel + Leisure

I could understand immediately why my son wanted to go to these places. It wasn’t anything as cerebral as learning about another culture, or visiting historical sites, and it certainly wasn’t about food or shopping or museums—all criteria that had previously come into play in the planning of our trips. I don’t even think it was the desire to be in nature, or to be in a beautiful place. The landscapes he had chosen were unearthly, portals to another reality. In these images, the possibilities of the world widened—not only what it looked like, but the very rules by which it seemed to operate. 

Argos in Cappadocia, a cave hotel in the town of Uçhisar.

Kerem Uzel/Travel + Leisure

Among the images was a craggy mountain landscape, near lunar in its aridity. Dozens of hot-air balloons floated overhead, in a sky vivid with color. I could see why he had chosen it. It looked like something out of Jules Verne, or possibly Star Wars. “Where is that?” I asked him. “Cappadocia, in central Turkey,” he replied. 

Rock formations, known as “fairy chimneys,” in the Göreme Valley.

Kerem Uzel/Travel + Leisure

Of the places he had shown me, that was the one that stuck, and some months later, when we began planning a family trip, I proposed Turkey. Even as suggestions flowed in—my husband has visited Istanbul multiple times, a friend recommended a “Blue Voyage” cruise along the Turkish Riviera—I remained fixated on Cappadocia. I wanted, as much as my son, to be in that landscape. 

Firing up a balloon for a flight over Cappadocia.

Kerem Uzel/Travel + Leisure

We weren’t the only ones. In recent years, tourism has transformed Cappadocia. The region has long been famous not only for those picturesque hot-air balloons but also for its millennia-old cave dwellings. Now, alongside those attractions, there are luxury hotels, spas, and restaurants (some of which occupy those caves).

Keeping in mind the interests of our son and eight-year-old daughter, my husband and I created an itinerary with the help of a member of T+L’s A-List, Engin Kadaster of Turkey at Its Best, a luxury travel company. We would start with a few days in Istanbul, before moving on to Cappadocia, and end with a couple of days in İzmir, on the Aegean Coast, our base while we visited the ruins of Ephesus and Pergamon. The trip would cross between the contemporary and the ancient, city and country, in a little more than a week. 

The Red Valley, as seen from a hot-air balloon.

Kerem Uzel/Travel + Leisure

We arrived in Istanbul just a little bleary-eyed from the overnight flight and were soon ushered into the cocoon-like serenity of the Four Seasons Hotel Istanbul at the Bosphorus. The property was situated on the banks of the strait, the waterway visible from our spacious room. Istanbul is famously the meeting place between Europe and Asia—but as I soon realized, it is one thing to know that intellectually and another to experience it. When we sat on the window seat and gazed across the water, we were looking from one continent to another. That geographic reality seemed almost as fantastical as the landscapes my son had shown me.

With only a handful of days in Istanbul, we wanted to do the greatest hits—the Topkapı Palace Museum, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (often referred to as the Blue Mosque), Hagia Sophia. Happily, those sights are all within a stone’s throw of one another, and we were able to visit them all, as well as the Grand Bazaar and the underground Basilica Cistern. Because we were visiting in November, they were quiet, without any long lines.

A ferry on the Bosporus strait.

Kerem Uzel/Travel + Leisure

Hagia Sophia was where I began to understand that the appropriate spatial metaphor for the city—and indeed the country—was less a meeting point between two cultures and more a historical palimpsest. The structure’s various uses reflect the history of Turkey, marked by the rise and fall of empires. Originally built as a church in the sixth century, Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque in 1453, after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire. More than a decade after the founding of the secular Republic of Turkey in 1923, Atatürk, its first president, decreed Hagia Sophia would become a museum. In 2020, the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, converted Hagia Sophia back into a mosque, with the upper level open to non-Muslims. Our guide pointed out a mosaic with four enormous seraphim, created during Hagia Sophia’s original life as a church. When the building was turned into a mosque, the faces of the seraphim were covered by gold stars; when the mosque became a museum, one of the stars was removed and a single seraphim face revealed. 

After fortifying ourselves with a simple lunch-counter meal of kebabs, soup, and an unreasonably delicious platter of rice and beans, we headed in the direction of the Basilica Cistern. The largest of Istanbul’s system of underground cisterns, which provided water to the city for hundreds of years, was built in the sixth century by Byzantine emperor Justinian I. Today, the cavernous space has walkways installed above the thin layer of water that covers the floor. We examined the hundreds of columns, many salvaged from Roman ruins and marked with extravagant carvings in a startling array of styles. (Most startling of all? The blank stares of two giant Medusa heads haphazardly repurposed as column bases, one resting upside down and the other sideways.) It was another architectural marvel, defined by layers of time.

A resident cat at the archaeological site in Ephesus.

Kerem Uzel/Travel + Leisure

We carried the lessons of Hagia Sophia—of the layers of history, and the friction created where they meet—with us as we reluctantly packed our bags for Cappadocia. We flew in to the city of Kayseri, and if the barren landscape around the airport wasn’t immediately inspiring, it transformed around us as we drove toward Cappadocia: dramatic gorges and valleys appeared; rock formations jutted up toward the sky. 

The spectacular landscape is the effect of erosion on the different layers of rock. Tuff, which is soft and porous and formed out of volcanic ash, is topped by basalt, which is harder and less permeable. The tuff gives way to erosion more quickly, the basalt more slowly—and the juxtaposition of the two creates an otherworldly landscape of spindly towers topped by mushroom-shaped caps. The softness of the tuff made it possible for early inhabitants of the region to carve entire settlements, or cave cities, into and beneath the rock faces.

The terrace of the Taşkonaklar Hotel Cappadocia.

Kerem Uzel/Travel + Leisure

Today visitors can stay at a cave hotel, the latest use of these millennia-old dwellings. Cappadocia is filled with such hotels, some rudimentary and others downright luxurious. We arrived at the Taşkonaklar Hotel Cappadocia, in the tiny town of Uçhisar, on the edge of Göreme National Park, and were greeted with tea, cookies, and a clowder of friendly cats. We were shown to our suite, which had been carved into rock and faced a spectacular gorge. 

The moment they saw the room, our kids begged for a “relax day,” i.e., a day without museums or historic sites. We relented, in part because the hotel itself felt like an attraction—and also because, once the kids discovered the hot tub on the balcony, it was clear we wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. Instead, we spent the afternoon soaking in the warm water and staring out at the ridges of Cappadocia.

Four Seasons Hotel Istanbul at the Bosphorus.

Kerem Uzel/Travel + Leisure

The next morning, we rose before dawn to take a sunrise hot-air balloon ride—the photogenic adventure that had prompted our trip. Fortified by cups of strong coffee, we piled in to an SUV and drove out into the landscape to where our balloon was waiting. I had never been in or near a hot-air balloon before, so I was startled by how large it was, how dramatic the process of slowly inflating the balloon was. 

As the sun inched up over the horizon, releasing bands of color across the sky, we were slowly lifted off the ground and then drifted up some thousands of feet.

By the time we clambered into the basket—which, to my relief, was chest-high on me and came up to the kids’ chins—adrenaline was coursing through us. As the sun inched up over the horizon, releasing bands of color across the sky, we were slowly lifted off the ground and then drifted up some thousands of feet. I was struck by how silent it was. There was no wind, no bird or animal sound. A hush fell upon us, punctuated only by occasional blasts from the burner, as we were piloted over the ghostly landscape and then gently back to ground.

Travelers at a viewing platform near the Three Beauties rock formations in Cappadocia.

Kerem Uzel/Travel + Leisure

We could have no idea that this adventure would be only the second or third most spectacular event of the day. We had just enough time at the hotel to have breakfast—a delicious spread of vegetables, cheeses, breads and pastries, with eggs cooked to order, plus thick slices of cake that the kids surreptitiously wrapped in their napkins “for later”—before we were picked up and taken to Kaymaklı, one of the best preserved underground cities in Cappadocia. 

“Underground city” fails to communicate the scale or wonderment of Kaymaklı, a feat of engineering that dates back to the late Bronze Age and was enlarged between the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. by the Phrygians, one of the major Iron Age civilizations. The complex grew some eight stories deep, a warren of rooms built with extraordinary sophistication, equipped with ventilation, kitchen and sleeping quarters, even spaces for crushing grapes and making wine. 

The terrace at Argos in Cappadocia.

Kerem Uzel/Travel + Leisure

Much like Hagia Sophia, Kaymaklı physically demonstrates the layers of history through the stories of its inhabitants. Like many cave settlements, it was used as a safe haven, a place to hide from hostile forces. As we walked through the caves, down narrow pathways and through dozens of rooms, we were shown large storage areas for food, stables for livestock, and a boulder that could be rolled into place to secure an entryway. After the Phrygians, it was occupied by early Christians during the Arab-Byzantine wars, again during the Mongolian incursions of the 14th century, and then again during the Ottoman Empire. 

The legacy of those Christian inhabitants is even more in evidence in nearby Göreme National Park, whose impressive monasteries and churches are carved into the rock and decorated with dazzling Byzantine frescoes. We visited Göreme the following day, the children this time marveling at the footholds leading to entryways high up on the rock face and the long tables and benches carved out of stone. The valley is crowded with tiny churches, many featuring frescoes from the eighth century. The walls are festooned with vivid red crosses that sit alongside later, middle-Byzantine frescoes of mesmerizing representational and technical skill.

From left: Frescoes at the Buckle Church, in the Göreme Valley; the remains of the Library of Celsus, a Roman-era building in the city of Ephesus.

Kerem Uzel/Travel + Leisure

That afternoon, we moved to Argos in Cappadocia, another cave hotel a stone’s throw from the Taşkonaklar. With its elegant, minimalist aesthetic, the Argos meets every possible standard for luxury, while remaining entirely distinct: in addition to the expected amenities (two excellent restaurants, an extensive wine cellar, and a top-notch gym), the property has an underground tunnel and a cave chapel. In some of the rooms, the walls still have marks from where the caves were carved out by hand.

The Argos also has a spa where my daughter and I decided to warm up with a traditional Turkish hammam while my son and husband scrambled up to the top of Uçhisar Castle. If the snow made their trek just a little perilous for them, it made our spa experience all the cozier. We were thoroughly scrubbed, and copious amounts of hot water were flung over and around us, after which we drank green juices and stared out at the snowcapped valley. When we gathered for dinner, we were all exhilarated, if for different reasons. 

From left: The breakfast spread at the Taşkonaklar Hotel Cappadocia; the pool at the Four Seasons Hotel Istanbul at the Bosphorus.

Kerem Uzel/Travel + Leisure

We had only a couple more days in Turkey, and these were allocated to two ancient sites in the west of the country. The children were reluctant to leave Cappadocia, no matter how many times we tried to persuade them that it would be exciting to visit Pergamon, where parchment was reportedly invented. They were more enchanted by the idea of visiting the city’s Asklepion Sanctuary, the ancient Roman healing center with plunge pools of hot and cold water, mud baths, and a dedicated space for dream interpretation. As we read descriptions of the treatments, an entire way of life and belief system was made visible to us—one that, with its almost New Age sensibility and drama (there was even a theater for the entertainment of the patients) felt remarkably accessible.

We were thus primed for Ephesus, in all its staggering beauty. One of the best preserved ancient cities, its evocation of Greek and Roman life is startlingly immediate—from the grand public spaces to the more intimate (but frankly still grand) terrace houses that belonged to wealthy Roman families. They were filled with opulent mosaics and frescoes. The children giggled over the public toilets, ignoring our lectures about the wonders of Roman engineering, chased after the many stray cats patrolling the ruins, and remained in high spirits even as it began to rain, at which point we made our way to the Library of Celsus, with its awe-inducing façade and statues.

From left: Byzantine mosaics in Hagia Sophia; the Hagia Sophia prayer hall.

Kerem Uzel/Travel + Leisure

As our trip came to its end, I asked the children what their favorite things from Turkey had been. My daughter said the cats, and the breakfast at the Taşkonaklar, and the view onto the Bosporus from the hotel in Istanbul, and also the underground city. My son began his own list: Ephesus and Kaymaklı for sure, and the underground cistern in Istanbul. The Taşkonaklar breakfast had to be on there, too, and the walk through the Göreme Valley, and the vast amounts of pide, the stuffed bread we had eaten just about everywhere.

As they added ever more items to their lists, it occurred to me that they had yet to the mention the balloon ride in Cappadocia, the subject of the image that had captivated us so much that we made the decision to travel to Turkey. Perhaps it wasn’t surprising that reality had surpassed a single image on a screen, however vivid, but it remained something of a comfort—that travel still can change our understanding of what we know, and what we’re looking for in the first place. 

A version of this story first appeared in the December 2025/January 2026 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline “Up and Away.”