Is the Side Jeep Tour Worth It? An Honest Look at €20
We sell this tour, so take our view with that in mind. What we can do is lay the fare out line by line and say plainly who the day suits and who it does not.
Short answer
For €20 per adult (€10 for children aged 2 to 10, under 2 free) you get about 8 hours in an open-top jeep with a professional driver, hotel pickup and return, a lakeside lunch near Green Canyon, and a guide all day. On top, only if you choose them: drinks, the optional boat hour at €5, the waterfall entrance, the tour team's pictures. It suits guests who want the inland hills; it does not suit anyone who wants a quiet day by the pool.
Line by line: inside the fare and outside it
| In the €20 fare | Extra, settled on the spot | |
|---|---|---|
| Transport | Pickup at your hotel gate and the drive back, anywhere in the Side belt | Nothing: no transfer surcharge |
| The jeep | The whole day in an open-top 4x4 with its own professional driver | Nothing |
| Food and drink | Lunch at the lakeside restaurant near Green Canyon | Drinks and personal spending |
| On the water | The swim stop at Oymapınar | The Green Lake boat, about an hour, €5 a head |
| Extras | A guide for the whole day | Waterfall entrance when the programme stops there; the team's photos and videos |
No booking fee, no deposit, nothing taken online. The prices page works through a family's total.
Where the value sits
The fare is mostly paying for access. It takes you from the hotel strip into the Taurus foothills, onto the tracks past the Roman bridge and through dry riverbeds, and it strings together the aqueducts, a lookout over Green Lake, the dam, the canyon view and a village mosque without you organising any of it. Lunch and the transfer are inside the price rather than added at the end.
Read the full day, stop by stop before deciding; if most of those stops interest you, the fare is easy to justify.
Who tends to come back pleased
- Families whose children are old enough to enjoy a bumpy ride and who treat the river crossings and summer water fights as the main event.
- Guests who have seen the beach and want to see what is behind it: orchards, fields, villages, the lake from above.
- Groups of friends who like a shared, loud, splashy day.
- Anyone who wants the lion-cub photograph and books the zoo route at the same fare.
Who would rather choose something else
If you want to drive something yourself, this is the wrong day: guests never take the wheel. If you want privacy, it is a shared jeep of eight to ten guests and no private version is sold here. If dust, sun and a shaking seat sound like a punishment, or a back or neck problem makes them one, a quieter day will serve you better. And if your heart is set on an evening out, the night safari at €35 is the one to look at, not the day tour.
