Step one: the pickup at your hotel
The day starts outside your hotel, not at the base. The round-trip transfer is part of every fare and runs for guests staying in Side, Kumköy, Evrenseki, Çolaklı, Titreyengöl, Sorgun, Kızılağaç, Gündoğdu and Kızılot; if your hotel is anywhere else, ask on WhatsApp before you book.
What the booking page cannot tell you in advance is your exact pickup time — it depends on your hotel, your pickup area and the route the transfer drives that day. The three departures a day in season, 08:00, 11:00 and 13:00, are the times the activity is scheduled to start, so your pickup is always earlier and is confirmed with your booking.
Transfer, arrival and registration with ID
From the coast the transfer heads inland to a private off-road course. At the base you will find the changing cabins and showers for afterwards, and the point where goggles and a bandana are sold — optional extras against the dust, not part of the fare; bring your own if you like.
Registration is where drivers show ID, and the base checks one thing on it: age. Drivers are 16 or older, and the document proves that, nothing more: no driving licence is required — the safari runs on a private off-road course, not on public roads. Passengers register too, and everyone gets a helmet, included and worn for the whole safari.
The information briefing: what you are about to do
Before anyone touches a vehicle, the guide gathers the whole group for the information briefing. It is the overview: what the buggy or quad is and how it is controlled, where the route goes, how the group is organised on the track, the rules of the activity, the basic driving procedures and what to expect over the hours ahead.
The terrain is part of it — forest tracks, dirt roads, uneven ground, dust, small stream crossings and the water-splash stops — with the honest note that conditions differ from day to day and none of them is promised.
The safety briefing: the rules you drive by
The safety briefing follows straight after, and it is the part to listen to hardest. Every driver and every passenger hears it, first-timers and people who have driven a quad before alike, because it is about this course, this group and this day. It covers:
Nothing in it is complicated; the point is that everyone has the same rules in their head before the practice drive, so the guide can watch how people drive rather than repeat what should already be clear.
- Following the guide — the guide leads, the group follows, nobody goes off on their own
- Safe distance to the vehicle in front, and the rules on overtaking
- When and how to stop — and what the guide's signals mean
- Appropriate speed for the ground under you
- What to do in an emergency, and how the group is organised if one happens
- Protective equipment — the helmet stays on for the whole safari
Vehicle briefing, practice drive and the guide's assessment
Now it becomes hands-on. At your own vehicle the guide goes through the controls with your hands on them — the buggy is automatic, a wheel and pedals; the quad has handlebars and a thumb throttle. Then comes the practice drive: supervised, on the practice track, and every driver takes it on every departure, whatever their experience.
This is where the guide assesses each driver — starting and stopping smoothly, keeping distance, adjusting speed, reacting to signals — and has the final say on who drives the main safari. If the answer for someone is no, their day is not over: they ride the same route as a passenger at the adult fare, in the same helmet.
Then, and only then, the convoy leaves on the 18 km off-road route. All of the above fits inside the approximately 4–4.5 hours door to door — not padding, but the reason first-timers and regulars end up in the same convoy.