With only a few exceptions, on the Lycian Way you are never really all that far away from a community or major road where you can catch a dolmuş (mini-bus). You can take advantage of this system to greatly simplify the logistics of the Lycian Way by using certain places along the Lycian Way as your ‘base of operations’ while in that region.
For example, when starting the Lycian Way, you might use Fethiye as your ‘base’ for the early sections. Simply book into an affordable hotel / guesthouse for a few days, leave your main pack and heavy items in the guesthouse, take a day pack with you and then hike along the Lycian Way. When you are done for the day (such as at Faralya), catch a dolmuş back to Fethiye, sleep in comfort for the night, and then in the morning catch another dolmuş back to where you stopped the day before.
Do this until you are about halfway to Kaş, then switch your base to Kaş and take the dolmuş back as needed. And so on. You’ll carry much less on your back (a huge benefit during the extra-steep portions of the trail), enjoy the hike much more, and not have to worry about where you’ll sleep each night.
Using this approach, you can do just about the entire Lycian Way without carrying a full pack and without any camping.
Of course, it is easy to camp along the Lycian Way, it is obviously cheaper, and camping offers a different experience that has its own rewards that for some make the extra weight of all that camping gear worth the effort. Still, it is nice to have the no-camping option.
Note that you can also simply hitchhike back to your base of operations if dolmuş service isn’t convenient or available in the more remote villages. Rides are usually quite easy to obtain – indeed, a foreigner with backpack simply standing on the side of the road looking at on-coming traffic will likely get someone stopping to offer a lift. Likewise, people in remote locations tend to be very helpful in giving you a lift to at least the nearest major road (where there will likely be many more dolmuş going by).
For example, when starting the Lycian Way, you might use Fethiye as your ‘base’ for the early sections. Simply book into an affordable hotel / guesthouse for a few days, leave your main pack and heavy items in the guesthouse, take a day pack with you and then hike along the Lycian Way. When you are done for the day (such as at Faralya), catch a dolmuş back to Fethiye, sleep in comfort for the night, and then in the morning catch another dolmuş back to where you stopped the day before.
Do this until you are about halfway to Kaş, then switch your base to Kaş and take the dolmuş back as needed. And so on. You’ll carry much less on your back (a huge benefit during the extra-steep portions of the trail), enjoy the hike much more, and not have to worry about where you’ll sleep each night.
Using this approach, you can do just about the entire Lycian Way without carrying a full pack and without any camping.
Of course, it is easy to camp along the Lycian Way, it is obviously cheaper, and camping offers a different experience that has its own rewards that for some make the extra weight of all that camping gear worth the effort. Still, it is nice to have the no-camping option.
Note that you can also simply hitchhike back to your base of operations if dolmuş service isn’t convenient or available in the more remote villages. Rides are usually quite easy to obtain – indeed, a foreigner with backpack simply standing on the side of the road looking at on-coming traffic will likely get someone stopping to offer a lift. Likewise, people in remote locations tend to be very helpful in giving you a lift to at least the nearest major road (where there will likely be many more dolmuş going by).