We had an interesting time organizing and getting to and from our flights. What follows may save you some pain and money.

Booking with Thomas Cook. At the time of writing (May 2006), the Thomas Cook website is buggy. Often it will tell you there are no flights available for the dates you want, but we found that if you clicked on "earlier dates" and then "later dates", flights would magically appear. Booking them is pretty straightforward once you've decided what you want. It's no problem (and no more expensive) to buy an outward flight to Dalaman and a return flight from Antalya, if you're doing a large chunk of the route.

If you know for sure what dates you want to fly out and back, then of course it makes sense to buy both flights before you go to Turkey. Our situation was different: we planned to walk the whole route (ha!) and weren't sure exactly how long it would take. I noticed that the Thomas Cook site promises you can alter your flights, subject to availability, for £15 per person plus any difference in fares. This sounded pretty good, so we booked a return flight too.

When we tried to change our return flight, however, we found there was a catch. The flight we wanted was advertised on the web for about £35, but when we tried to change our existing return flight to it, we found it was suddenly costing £175. So it turned out to be cheaper just to buy the flight from scratch at £35, and write off the one we already had.

But we did manage to claw a little of it back. We bought flights without meals included, but got served meals in both directions anyway (we didn't even have to lie, they were just handed to us with no questions).

Getting to and from the airports.

Gatwick. We flew out from Gatwick. To get there from London, you can take the Gatwick Express, but a less-advertised alternative is the train (between Bedford and Brighton) that goes direct from King's Cross Thameslink to Gatwick. If you're coming into London from the North, it means you can avoid taking your rucksack on the tube. Also, you can use a Network Card on the Thameslink service.

We flew out from Gatwick at about 6 am, so booked a hotel room there for the night before. This was the Premier Travel Inn (Central). Good value for money as these things go. Getting to it was interesting, though. We arrived by train at Gatwick South Terminal and were told by the woman at the hotel information desk that our hotel was visible from the North Terminal but that it was completely impossible to walk to it from there because there was a huge dual carriageway blocking the route. We ignored her, took the transit to the North Terminal, asked again, and reached it after an easy five minute walk involving no dual carriageway. Moral: don't listen to advice on walking from people who clearly never walk when they can avoid it.

Dalaman. When we arrived at Dalaman we first got some cash out of a machine (there are several there) but then found there were no public buses and the only way to get away was by taxi. We eventually agreed on a ride to Dalaman Otogar (too far -- about 15km -- and too horrible a route, to walk) for YTL 30 -- over the odds, we suspect, but anyway we resisted the heavy pressure to take the taxi all the way to Fethiye. Once we reached the Otogar it was straightforward -- a dolmus for YTL 5 to Fethiye Otogar. From there, we walked to Kaya (see elsewhere on this site).

Antalya. You can either get a taxi to the airport (about YTL 30) or take the Turkish Airlines bus (YTL 8.50 per person, though we think it may be free if you're catching one of their flights). We did the latter, but were unimpressed with it.

The bus goes from the Turkish Airlines office (GPS: N36 53.162 E30 41.956), some way to the west of the old town on Kenan Evren Bul (where the tram goes). It's on the right hand side of the road, but has been relocated (further along) from where the Lonely Planet book says it is. Bus times are shown in the office window, but are also available from tourist information and travel agents.

Our bus (signed "Havas" on the front) was nearly ten minutes late; we were the only passengers. The driver asked us which airport terminal we wanted; we didn't know, but we said we were flying with Thomas Cook, so he phoned his office and they told him Terminal Two. He dropped us off there (after stopping and leaving the bus for no apparent reason for five minutes in the middle of the trip -- good job we weren't in a hurry) and drove away. We then found we were at the wrong terminal: Thomas Cook flies from Terminal One.

We asked how to get to Terminal One, and were told (by the Turkish cousin of the woman at Gatwick, we think) that it was completely impossible to walk, so we set off, back down the long straight road we had come in on, and reached it in about 20 minutes easy walking along the pavement by the road, after passing the domestic terminal building on the left.

A money-saving tip: food and drink prices in Antalya and Dalaman airports are sky-high, e.g. YTL 8 for a medium-sized coke, so take your provisions with you.

And a final thought: did you know that the word "travel" comes from the same Latin root as "travail"? The root is "trepalium", an instrument of torture consisting of three stakes. Enjoy your trip.