Güler Köstem spent 17 years restoring the world's oldest known olive oil processing site. A retired biology teacher, she followed her fascination with Anatolian olive oil and its place in the Mediterranean diet to the outskirts of Urla, where she transformed the site into Köstem Olive Oil Museum, a vivid record of how olive oil was produced in the region from 1000 BC forward. Authentic presses, careful reconstructions, and related artifacts trace how the oil became a form of gold that remade the local economy. With the support of her doctor husband and his patients, dozens of olive varieties were donated and planted in the adjoining garden.
Köstem is one of several women along Türkiye's riviera who have turned second acts into acts of preservation, and together they make a strong argument for a different kind of girls' getaway.
The phrase usually conjures spa days at five-star beach resorts or boutique stays near posh towns full of chic cafes. The Aegean Coast can deliver that version: Alaçatı, Urla, and Bodrum will not disappoint travelers building a trip around high-end leisure. But for groups who equate self-care with cultural immersion and real conversation with locals, the region's women-owned businesses dedicated to historic and culinary preservation are the main event, with luxury lodging and elevated dining waiting at the end of each day of exploring.
Getting Started
The Go Türkiye website is an excellent starting point for advisors and travelers assembling the right itinerary. The site lets users explore the country by theme, from regional cuisines and cultural heritage sites to natural wonders, accommodations, and transportation. It is also one of the most followed official tourism accounts on social media, with a combined 20.8 million followers across eight major platforms.
Turkish Airlines flies to Izmir and Bodrum, which bookend the region, in about 90 minutes from Istanbul.
The Women Remaking the Region
Köstem is not alone in trading a first career for olive oil. Emine Colin built a practice in endodontics in the United States before returning to explore her home country with her husband, where she found olive orchards and a production facility worth saving. The result, Oro Di Milas, produces an award-winning oil from the rare Memecik varietal that visitors can sample or purchase in its restaurant.
Bilge Bengisu Öğünlü made a similar return, coming back to Türkiye after a 16-year career in the United States as an architect to pursue a deep interest in viticulture. She launched Urlice Vineyards in 2006 and went on to help develop and promote the Urla Wine Route, as well as Slow Food Urla and Doğal Sofra Urla.
In Urla proper, Handan Kaygusuzlar drew international attention with Beğendik Abi (Tatar Cami Sokak No:12, Urla, Izmir, 35430), an exquisite Victorian-style cafe. Her revival of century-old family recipes, crafted with Urla's local herbs, has earned Michelin Bib Gourmand and Green Star recognition along with Gault & Millau accolades. The menu runs through the region's many artichoke dishes — artichokes are a local cottage industry — but her Hünkar Beğendi, güveç beef over a bed of pureed eggplant, is the hands-down best seller.
Closer to Bodrum, Irem Turnaoğlu Öcal left a career in risk analysis to become a pastry chef after surviving cancer. She now leads a Mediterranean olive oil cooking experience, held at spots such as the Maride Cafe & Patisserie in residential Muğla, where her acclaimed desserts are also for sale. Participants learn to prepare classics like dolma and capia pepper rolls using Öcal's family recipes and techniques. Reach her via Instagram, @ireminpastafabrikasi.
Ruins, oracles, and a restored village
The region rewards travelers who want to spend their time in antiquity as much as in cafes. The UNESCO-designated Ephesus Archaeological Site is a must, even with its year-round crowds, and sits about an hour from the resorts at the region's southern end.
Closer in, the Temple of Apollo at Didyma is the nearest major site to Anda Barut Collection, a 15-minute drive away. The sanctuary's origins reach back to roughly the 8th century BC, with its massive two-tiered colonnade rising about a century later; in its prime, the open-air sanctuary was recognized as an oracle second only to Delphi in Greece. The Miletus Museum and Archaeological Site, 17 miles from the resort, is packed with Hellenistic, Roman, Eastern Roman, and Turkish ruins.
A little further afield, Old Doğanbey Village sits 45 minutes from the resort, the only settlement inside Dilek Peninsula National Park. Known as Domatia when its Greek community lived there, the village changed hands in the 1923 population exchange that followed the Treaty of Lausanne, when its Greek residents departed and Turkish families from Greece took their place. Those families later left in the 1980s for life closer to the coast, and the village sat largely abandoned until academics, artists, and architects began restoring its traditional stone houses — a blend of Greek and Ottoman influences — with their own resources in the decades since.
Around Bodrum, the 15th-century Bodrum Castle, also called the Castle of St. Peter, is a cohesive pastiche of architectural influences from the multinational Knights of St. John — French, Italian, Spanish, and English — and the Ottoman Empire, which later converted the original chapel to a mosque. Stones from the nearby Halicarnassus Mausoleum, dating to ancient Greece and Rome, were repurposed for the original walls and for later repairs after centuries of conflict. The castle is a sprawling outdoor museum, and the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology housed inside it covers underwater excavations and recovered artifacts from the Bronze Age through the Middle Ages.
Where to stay
Two properties make ideal base camps, both well-equipped for wellness and shopping but just as useful for groups pushing deeper into history and food. Each will connect advisors with the right contact to help plan local activities.
Anda Barut Collection, on the Delice Peninsula in Aydın Province, is a sprawling all-inclusive resort with 547 rooms and 13 luxury villas. Its "Adult Zone" is cleverly shielded from the "Community" and "Family" zones through architecture and landscaping, with highlights including a private beach, a scenic pool and patio, and ground-level rooms with private pool access. The signature restaurant, Mansions, shifts from buffet to à la carte at dinner, with standout mezze fusing traditional Turkish and modern Mediterranean cooking: Peach and Pistachio with Lor Cheese (a fresh spin on the familiar burrata starter), Octopus Caesar Salad, Seafood Black Spaghetti, and Stuffed Onion with Sea Bass.
The Cape Bodrum, an adults-only property hugging the road into Gündoğan about 30 minutes outside Bodrum, has 53 modern but classically inspired rooms. Designed by Greece-based Liakos Architecture with interiors by Arc-set, it follows traditional Turkish architectural guidelines and leans into its natural setting; the 29 swim-up rooms are the ones to covet, and the public spaces stay bright and airy, framing the sea, yachts, and rolling hills. Most of the food and beverage outlets sit on or beside Escape Beach & Lounge, anchored at one end by the infinity pool and at the other by the Michelin-listed Anda Restaurant, whose small dinner menu keeps its elevated Mediterranean fare — especially the lamb and fish — precisely executed. Breakfast leans away from the buffet and toward fresh produce and the Mediterranean diet, with a made-to-order menu of omelets, scrambles, and eggs benedict built around locally sourced ingredients.
What unites these women isn't a business model but a conviction: that the region's history, its recipes, and its olive groves are worth the second act it takes to save them. Spend a few days among them, and the spa starts to feel beside the point.
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