Friends With Cave Hotels

Having traveled to Cappadocia for over two decades, we have long-standing relationships with Turkish colleagues and friends who started adventure travel here like Haydar Haykir, the now 55-year old proprietor of Elkep Evi, our go-to boutique cave hotel. Haydar resides here, overseeing his small, personal hotel operation and reading philosophy from his cliff top, two-story cave dwelling. One night when the group went into town Anne and I stayed behind to have a quiet meal and catch up with him since the last time we visited. Twenty-three years ago Haydar’s was one of only three boutique cave hotels in Cappadocia—today there are over 300.

“Everyone keeps trying to dig bigger and build better cave hotels with indoor pools, flat screen TVs and all the electronic gadgetry. I’m not going there…this is a cave after all,” Haydar insists. And that’s what we really like about him and using Elkep Evi for our itineraries. He’s created an elegant boutique cave hotel of only 33 rooms high up on a cliff overlooking the quaint town of Urgup designed with just the right balance of spacious comforts, colorful authentic décor, nooks and crannies for lounging, private terraces, stocked with cold drinks, and an al fresco dining area with a view.  As owners of Wildland Adventures, proprietors of accommodations we use like to offer us the best room in the house, so when we were offered the suite with a built-in private hamam we offered it to Debbie and David who are celebrating their 30^th anniversary. The fact is, you can’t go wrong at Elkep Evi in any of their cave dwellings.