Eco-Friendly Hotels in Demre — Your 2026 Guide to Sustainable Stays

Myra — Lycian Tombs, Roman Theatre and St. Nicholas

The Rock Tombs and Theatre

The ancient city of Myra lies on the northern edge of modern Demre. Its most arresting sight is the cliff face of the necropolis, honeycombed with Lycian rock-cut tombs — the most elaborate, the 'Tomb of the Painted Lions', dates to around 380 BC and still shows traces of its original paintwork. Below the cliff, the Roman theatre of Myra is one of the largest in Lycia, its 35 tiers of seating carved partly into the hillside and decorated with theatre masks. The site opens daily and is the reason most visitors come; arrive at opening time in summer, before tour groups fill the terraces.

The Church of St. Nicholas

St. Nicholas served as bishop of Myra in the 4th century, and the church built over his tomb became one of the most important pilgrimage churches of the Byzantine world. The present building, largely 11th-century, is a working museum: worn frescoes of the saint's life, reused marble columns, and a floor of opus sectile. His relics were removed to Bari, Italy, in 1087, which is why the town of Demre still celebrates a St. Nicholas festival each December. The church is a short walk from the theatre site and is the emotional heart of any visit.

Andriake, the Ancient Port

Five kilometres south-west, the ruins of Andriake served as Myra's port on the Mediterranean. The site includes a granary (horrea) built under the Emperor Hadrian that now houses a museum of Lycian culture, plus the foundations of warehouses, baths and a synagogue. It is quieter than Myra proper and easy to combine with the coast road.

Kekova, the Sunken City and the Coast Road

The flooded ruins of the ancient Lycian city on Kekova Island are the region's most atmospheric site: earthquake-shattered walls, staircases and stone quays lie beneath metres of clear turquoise water, and the standard way to see them is by boat from Üçağız or Kaleköy (Simena). Glass-bottomed tours run daily in season; swimming and diving are restricted in the protected area, but the boat trip alone is worth it. Above the water, the castle and Lycian sarcophagi of Kaleköy — reachable by boat or on foot from Üçağız — are among the best-preserved on the Turkish coast.

Demre also works as a base for the D400 coast road in both directions: the beaches and resort towns of Kaş (45 km west) and Kalkan (70 km west) for diving and boat trips, and the ruins of Phaselis and the beaches of Kemer and Antalya (120 km east). Inland, the mountain road over the Taurus foothills to the high plateaus of Elmali passes cedar forest and nomadic summer pastures. A car is the most practical way to see all of it, though minibuses (dolmuş) run along the coast between the main towns.

Demre itself is a genuine working town — greenhouses growing tomatoes and peppers, orange groves, and a small harbour at the coast. Local restaurants serve meze-heavy Turkish home cooking at prices well below the Riviera resorts. IMPT gift credits work for any stay here, with no blackout dates.

How IMPT Makes Your Demre Stay Carbon-Negative

Here's the maths. An average hotel night produces roughly 35 kg of CO₂ — from air conditioning, laundry, lighting, and food service. When you book any Demre hotel through IMPT, we retire 1,000 kg of UN-verified carbon removal credits. That's 28 times what your stay produces. Not carbon-neutral — carbon-negative.

The cost to you? Zero. IMPT funds the removal from its booking commission. You pay the standard nightly rate — in fact, IMPT offers the same rate as Booking.com on the same room, with carbon removal built in. The carbon credits are tokenised on Ethereum, retired against a named project, with a public retire code anyone can verify. No double-counting. No greenwashing. Just verified carbon removal, every night.

• €5 free credit when you sign up — applied to your first Demre booking
• 5% back on every stay — 3% funds carbon projects, 2% as travel credit
• 8M+ hotels worldwide, 195 countries — Demre is just the start
• Free cancellation on most rates, typically up to 48 hours before check-in

Beyond Hotels — More Ways IMPT Works in Demre

Shop through IMPT's 25,000+ retail partners for cashback on every purchase that also offsets carbon. Send someone a trip credit gift to visit Demre — IMPT plants trees with named farmers, GPS-tagged and photo-verified.

For business travel, IMPT's B2B Corporate Travel platform gives you exclusive rates, automatic ESG reporting, and a single dashboard tracking every booking's carbon impact. Companies with CSRD compliance needs get automated sustainability reporting out of the box.

If flights are part of your Demre trip, IMPT Flights adds carbon offsetting at checkout, and Platinum Goodness members save 2% on fares. Log your sustainable travel habits on IMPT Goodness to unlock up to 25% off hotels. For deeper climate action, IMPT ESG carbon projects let you retire credits against verified, publicly audited projects — and the IMPT AI portal can plan and book your whole trip in one conversation.

Interested in running IMPT in Turkey? Country Ownership offers 50% revenue share on every transaction from Turkey-registered users, with 8% APY staking yield. Book a call →