Where you wait: the main entrance gate, outside
The meeting point is the main entrance gate of your hotel — the gate on the road that cars and shuttles use. Not the beach exit, not the lobby sofa, not a meeting point in Side centre. Stand outside where a driver arriving from the road can see you and your group in one glance.
It sounds like a small thing and it is not. The convoy works through a resort belt, collecting from several hotels in sequence, so a jeep pulls in, looks for guests standing at the gate and moves on. If half your group is still at the buffet and the rest are at the pool bar, the vehicle has nothing to look for. Be at the gate, together, packed, at the time you were given.
What time is pickup, and why you will not find a time on this page
We do not publish a pickup time, and there is a good reason for that. The time depends on which hotel you are in, where you fall in that morning's collection route, and how the programme is running that day — a number on a web page would be wrong for most readers most mornings, and a wrong time is worse than no time.
What we can tell you is the shape of the morning, and that part does not change. Collection is after breakfast time, so you eat at the hotel first. The full-day Side Jeep Safari then runs eight hours door to door, which puts you back at your hotel in the late afternoon with the evening still yours.
Your exact time is confirmed with you after booking, on the contact details you leave. That confirmed time is the only one that counts — not this page, and not the time a friend was given last season.
Which resorts we collect from
Four departure belts are verified against products we actually sell, and those are the ones we state plainly. The flagship Side Jeep Safari collects from Side and the surrounding resort areas. The rafting-and-jeep combo days run as their own departures from Evrenseki, Kumköy and Manavgat hotels, each with round-trip transfer built into the price.
For the smaller resort names along the same strip, pickup is arranged on request rather than promised as a scheduled departure. That is an honest distinction, not a brush-off: message us with your hotel name before you book and you will get a yes or a no, not a maybe.
- Side and the surrounding resort hotels — full-day jeep safari, 8 hours, EUR 20 per adult, EUR 10 per child aged 4-12, infants 0-3 free, lunch included
- Kumköy hotels — round-trip hotel transfer on the rafting and jeep combo, 9 hours, EUR 40 per adult and EUR 24 per child
- Evrenseki hotels — early-morning open-top jeep pickup on the rafting and jeep combo, 9 hours, EUR 40 per adult and EUR 24 per child
- Manavgat hotels — round-trip transfer on the rafting and jeep combo, 9 hours, EUR 40 per adult and EUR 24 per child
- Çolaklı, Gündoğdu, Sorgun, Titreyengöl and Kızılağaç — pickup arranged on request, so ask before you book
- Anywhere further along the coast — answered case by case on WhatsApp +90 536 603 75 84
Alanya is a separate day with its own pickup map
If you are staying east of Manavgat, the Side convoy is not your tour. The Alanya Jeep Safari to the Dim River is a different product with its own route and its own collection area: the whole Alanya strip from Kestel to Okurcalar. It runs eight hours, costs EUR 30 per adult and EUR 17 per child, and operates daily in season from April to November.
The day itself is built around the Dim valley rather than the Green Canyon: an open 4x4 convoy into the Taurus foothills, waterfall and turquoise Dim Dam photo stops, a village house and mosque visit, then a swim stop and lunch on a riverside platform. In summer, the water fights between jeeps happen there too. The optional Dim Cave visit carries a small entrance fee paid locally.
The transfer is included, and you pay nothing today
Hotel pickup and drop-off sit inside the tour price. There is no separate transfer charge, no fuel surcharge and no per-kilometre extra for staying at the far end of a resort belt: EUR 20 per adult on the flagship day covers the jeep, the driver, the guiding and the lunch at a lakeside restaurant by Green Canyon.
The reservation itself is free: no card online, no deposit, and you pay in euros on the day, with free cancellation up to 24 hours before departure. Bring a little cash for what is genuinely optional — the one-hour Green Lake boat trip after lunch at EUR 5 per person, which brings the day to EUR 25 per adult, plus drinks, the mini zoo tickets at the village break and the Manavgat Waterfall entrance if it is in that day's programme.
What actually pulls up at the gate
You are looking for an open-top 4x4 carrying eight to ten guests with a professional driver, travelling as part of a convoy rather than alone. It is a shared tour vehicle, so expect other guests already on board and more to be collected after you.
In summer the jeeps are open-topped, which is the point of the day and also the warning: sun, wind and dust on the tracks, plus water fights between vehicles that nobody sits out entirely. In winter the runs use covered jeeps and there are no water games. Guiding is available in English, German and Russian as well as Turkish. The tracks are bumpy, so if you have back or neck trouble, say so before you board.
Getting home, and the night safari that runs the other way round
Drop-off is at the same hotel you were collected from, in the late afternoon. On the way back there may be a stop at the Manavgat Waterfall, with the entrance paid on site — may, not will, because it depends on how the programme runs that day, and we would rather under-promise it than have you counting on it.
The Side Night Jeep Safari inverts the whole timetable. Pickup is in the late afternoon instead of the morning, the day lasts five hours, and it ends with dinner on board and a catamaran cruise with music. It costs EUR 35, is designed for guests aged 12 and over, and runs from early June to mid-November. As with the daytime tour, the exact hotel time is confirmed after booking, and it is not suitable for guests with mobility impairments.
A short checklist for pickup morning
Nothing here is complicated, but every item on this list has cost somebody part of their day at some point.
- Be at the main entrance gate, outside, at the confirmed time, with your whole group in one place
- Have breakfast first — collection is after breakfast time and lunch is hours away
- Bring euros in small notes for the optional boat trip, drinks and any entrance fees
- Sun protection, a hat and something you do not mind getting wet or dusty; the packing page covers the rest
- Swimwear and a towel for the swim stop at Oymapınar village
- Tell the driver about back or neck problems before you climb in
- Save our WhatsApp number in your phone before the morning, not during it
If your hotel is awkward to find, or your plans change
Some hotels sit on service roads, share an entrance with a neighbouring property or have a gate that is not where a map thinks it is. If yours is one of them, tell us when you book rather than hoping it works out. The same goes for changing hotel after booking: a new address can move you onto a different collection route, or out of the served belt altogether, and we cannot fix that from the gate at the last minute.
If you are standing at the gate and unsure, message WhatsApp +90 536 603 75 84 straight away rather than waiting quietly. We cannot promise a convoy will hold for a late guest — the other vehicles and hotels set the pace — but we can usually tell you where the jeep is. And if the day is not going to work, cancellation is free up to 24 hours before departure; nothing has been charged to you anyway.