How to visit ANZAC Cove (When you're not on a tour)

If your more of a video person you can learn how to visit ANZAC cove if you Click here for our full video explaining the day Skip to 2:15 for the ferry!

ANZAC Cove sits on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey and is visited in abundance on ANZAC Day (April 25th) Which marks the date when the cove became famous as the landing spot for The Australian and New zealand Army Corps in World War 1. If you are visiting around that time or even during peak travel periods for Turkey you won't have any trouble finding tours to take you along and see the sights. But what if your visiting when the tours are no longer running and other tourists are few and far between. Then this is the How to visit anzac cove guide for you.

Map of the Gallipoli peninsuela

Step one - Get down to Canakkale

In all our research and just by physically looking at the map above we deemed the best jumping off point to be the town of Canakkale on the other side of the dardanelles. This is a common place to begin the journey from as the town itself is built up enough to offer a lot of comfort but still local enough to feel like your melting into the culture! We flew into Istanbul and caught a bus down to Canakkale using a company called Kamel Koc that were the only bus company we felt comfortable booking online ($26 AUD per person). You just go to the Flixbus website and book as you normally would any bus through Europe. It's just, a kamel koc bus shows up! These busses have comfortable seats, TV's In the back of the headrests and serve you drinks and food through the journey. You can see what a Kamel Koc journey is like by watching our video here. You can reach the Istanbul bus terminal easily with the train system and when you arrive you will be dropped at a bus station a little bit our from the actual town of Canakkale (This is normal in Turkey) but there is a local bus just out the back of the bus terminal that will give you a ride right into town for $2 each.

Kamil Koc Bus

Step two - Canakkale to Ecaebat Ferry

If you've got the luxury to pick a good weather day, it's worth waiting for that. When you decide on the day all you need to do is head to the ferry port at Canakkale (It's right near the big Trojan horse) also, side note, try some of those oysters with rice they are selling around there, they are genuinely delicious even if you don't like seafood like me. There are ferry time listed at the terminal but the one you are looking for is the one to Ecaebat which runs almost every hour of the day. The Journey takes around 20 minutes, costs $2 per person and will plop you on the other side of the dardanelles. Where they are selling Simit's (Delicious circle bread) from carts that only cost $1. I apologise for all these food tangents, but there's so many good ones!

Ferry crossing to the Peninsula

Step three - Crossing the peninsula

There are two options for this part, both of which we had no idea about before we started the journey (There is very limited information online). When you land, turn right and walk for about 20 meters. There you should see a parked bus waiting with a Kabatepe sign. This is a bus who's only job is to meet ferry's and shuttle passengers from one port to another port on the other side of the peninsula. This was also $2 per person and takes about 10 minutes. This will drop you to Kabatepe pier, NOT Anzac Cove, so you'll have a bit of a walk after this if you manage to catch it! (About 1 hour ) HOWEVER when we arrived, the bus didn't fill up and the next ferry wasn't arriving for another hour, so we sought other options. Luckily right near the bus there was a vacant taxi, we asked a group of men sitting at a cafe if they knew where the driver was, one man stood up, finished his coffee and announced that he was! We asked how much a ride to Anzac Cove would be and he said that he doesn't work like that and it's all metered (That's what you want!) so we jumped in and were taken right to our drop off spot.

Step Four - The Return

Map of our walk

I won't go into details about ANZAC cove, i'm sure you've done your research and know what there is to see, but lets talk about how we got back because that taxi driver left us there on our own! The plan was to flag down another passing taxi but we quickly realised that we were at the Cove almost alone, the only other people we saw on the entire coast was someone on a private tour (This is also an option to see the cove but too expensive for us) So we had no way of flagging a taxi, LUCKILY we took down our drivers WhatsApp in case we couldn't figure out another way back. We decided to do the hour long walk down the coast to meet the returning shuttle at Kabatepe pier. This is PERFECTLY possible although it really doesn't seem like it when you start. We walked on the beach, on the side of the road and through forests but we got to see stretches of the coast that most don't (Like old war bunkers!) and it turned out to be lovely if a little bit toasty. In our YouTube video we don't recommend this option but upon reflection it worked really well for us. We arrived at the port asked around about the bus back to Eacebat and where shown where the bus was waiting (The very same one we decided not to take earlier) we jumped on and waited for about 10 minutes, a ferry arrived and the bus filled up and we were off.

Step Five - The Bonus tip

Getting back to Canakkale is super simple you just catch the same ferry back and right into port. But once your there, you need to turn right and head a little bit up the coast. On the main road there is a shop selling Tantuni called '33 Efsane Tantuni' which is like a Turkish Burrito. It's incredible and you need to try it. That is all. again. Sorry about all the food recs. (Not sorry, go eat them)

Our Turkish Burrito (Tantuni)

Thanks for reading!