Skiing in Turkey and the Eastern Express: Uludağ, Erciyes, Palandöken and the Train to Kars

In Turkey you can ski from December to roughly the end of March, and for longer on the high slopes of the east. The three best-known resorts are Uludağ above Bursa, the closest to Istanbul; Erciyes near Kayseri, with the highest lifts; and Palandöken on the edge of Erzurum. There is no official ranking of resorts, so choose by the journey, the altitude and the way the ski pass works. The Eastern Express (Doğu Ekspresi) is a train from Ankara to Kars that runs through Kayseri and Erzurum, so a winter trip can be built around it. The prices and timetables below come from the pages of the resort operators, the ministries and the GoTürkiye tourism portal as of 7 November 2026; where there is no official figure, the article says so.

Where to ski in Turkey

GoTürkiye, the portal of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, lists ski centres from the Sea of Marmara to the Armenian border. Besides the three main ones, they are:

• Kartalkaya in Bolu province, in the Köroğlu Mountains, about 38 km from the town of Bolu: runs at 1,850 to 2,200 m, 38 pistes totalling about 50 km, and two snow parks.
• Sarıkamış in Kars province, on Mount Çamurlu among pine forests: skiing at 2,100–2,634 m on seven runs; the portal calls the snow here the best in the country.
• Kartepe south-east of İzmit and Davraz in Isparta province (a mountain 2,635 m high): smaller centres for which the portal gives few details.

Nobody officially decides which resort is best: neither the ministry nor the operators publish a ranking. In gezdir.me's assessment, the choice usually comes down to three questions. If being close to Istanbul matters and you would rather not fly, that leaves Uludağ. If you need altitude and snow early in the season, look at Erciyes. If you want to combine skiing with the train and the east of the country, Palandöken and Sarıkamış are more convenient.

Uludağ: the resort above Bursa and getting there from Istanbul

Uludağ is a mountain 2,543 m high, 36 km south of Bursa, a national park and the country's oldest ski area. The skiing is in the hotel zone (Oteller): according to the resort information site uludaginfo.com, a single ski pass is valid on every lift on the mountain, and it is sold at ticket offices, vending machines and the resort's online shop.

From Istanbul you first get to Bursa: İDO and BUDO fast ferries run from Yenikapı to Mudanya, and there are intercity buses too; check the carriers for timetables. From Bursa there are two ways up the mountain:

1. The cable car from the lower station at Teferrüç via Kadıyayla and Sarıalan to the hotel zone: 8.8 km and about 32 minutes up, according to uludaginfo.com. The operator Bursa Teleferik gives opening hours of 10:00–18:00 and a return fare of 500 TL, but uludaginfo.com points out that the published prices are for Turkish citizens; no fare for foreigners could be found as of 7 November 2026. The cable car is not included in the standard ski pass, and the Sarıalan–hotels section is sometimes closed: check its status on the resort's website before you go.
2. The road from central Bursa to the hotel zone is about 36 km. The last petrol station, according to uludaginfo.com, is at the exit from the Çekirge district, and from November to March gendarmerie checkpoints turn back cars without chains, so winter tyres and chains are a must.

Erciyes: the volcano near Kayseri, and what it offers beginners

Erciyes is an extinct volcano 3,916 m high above the city of Kayseri. The resort is run by the company Kayseri Erciyes A.Ş., and tickets are sold by Kayseri Metropolitan Municipality. The resort's website lists 41 pistes and 19 lifts; the lowest skiing point is at 2,088 m, and the top stations rise to 3,346 m. There are four gates to the slopes: Tekir, Hacılar, Develi and Hisarcık. The company says the resort is a 20-minute drive from central Kayseri on a dual carriageway. In season a city bus runs there at weekends, and daily during the school holidays, from the Kale Önü stop, and on board you can pay by bank card. Kayseri airport is also used by travellers heading to Cappadocia: flights from Istanbul are covered in gezdir.me's article on getting there.

Beginners have somewhere to learn here, although intermediate and difficult runs outnumber the easy ones. The operator divides the pistes like this: 36% blue (easy, gradient up to 25°), 42% red and 22% black. A training piste, 11a, 640 m long, is marked separately; the T-bar lift at the Hisarcık gate was free "for training" in the 2025/26 season, and the resort's website has a children's ski school. Choose an instructor yourself: gezdir.me makes no recommendations.

Palandöken and Sarıkamış: the east of the country

Palandöken starts almost in town: according to GoTürkiye, the lower lift station is 4 km from Erzurum. The portal lists 22 pistes totalling about 28 km, a top point at 3,176 m and a longest run of 12 km with a drop of 1,100 m; the pistes are floodlit, so you can ski after sunset as well. The Ejder 3200 ski centre on Palandöken, as the ministry describes it, suits beginners and professionals alike. No price page of the operator's own could be found.

Sarıkamış lies 55 km south-west of Kars. According to GoTürkiye, the resort is about 40 minutes by bus from Kars airport and about an hour and a half from Erzurum airport. So in the east you can combine two resorts with Kars, and travel between Erzurum and Kars by train.

Ski pass prices

There is no single price in Turkey: each resort sells its own passes, and they work in different ways. At Erciyes you pay per ride rather than per day. As of 7 November 2026 the new 2026/27 price list had not yet appeared on the resort's website; the current one is for the 2025/26 season, VAT included:

• 1 ride: 120 TL (children under 12: 100);
• 7 rides: 800 TL, 14: 1,500 TL, 30: 3,000 TL;
• packs of 50, 100 and 200 rides: 4,000, 7,500 and 14,000 TL;
• plastic card on first purchase: 50 TL.

Rides can be used on any day of the season, but not back to back: five minutes must pass between two trips through the gate. Unused rides do not carry over to the next season.

On Uludağ, as of 7 November 2026, only season passes for 2026/27 have been announced: child 12,500 TL; adult 22,500 TL on first purchase and 19,500 TL on renewal; adult with the cable car from Bursa 29,500 TL. The website promises to announce day-pass prices later. For Palandöken no official price list could be found, so no figures are given.

When the ski season starts

There is no guaranteed opening date: the slopes open once the snow has settled, and planned dates can shift either way. This is what the resorts and the ministry give as of 7 November 2026:

• Uludağ: the 2026/27 season is announced from 18 December to 31 March (uludaginfo.com).
• Erciyes: last season opened on 18 December 2025, the Anadolu agency reported; under its own rules, Kayseri Erciyes A.Ş. sets the closing date according to snow conditions.
• Palandöken: as the ministry describes it, the snow lasts from early December to late April.
• Sarıkamış: 20 December to 20 March; Kartalkaya: December to the end of March (GoTürkiye).

How the weather in Turkey changes month by month is covered in a separate gezdir.me article on when to visit the country.

The Eastern Express: the regular train and the touristic one

Two different trains of the state operator TCDD Taşımacılık run under the name Doğu Ekspresi. The regular train, according to GoTürkiye, runs daily in both directions between Ankara and Kars: 1,310 km in about 25 hours, leaving Ankara at 17:55 and Kars at 08:00. The stops along the way are Kayseri, Sivas, Erzincan and Erzurum. The train has seated carriages (pulman), couchette cars with four-berth compartments where the seats fold out into bunks and bedding is provided, and a dining car. The portal's page is undated, so check the departure time in the operator's timetable.

The touristic Doğu Ekspresi is a separate train with sleeping cars that runs only in winter. On 11 October 2026 the Ministry of Transport announced the timetable for the 2026/27 season:

• Ankara to Kars: from 21 December 2026 to 10 March 2027, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with sightseeing stops in Erzincan and Erzurum;
• Kars to Ankara: from 23 December 2026 to 12 March 2027, on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, with stops in İliç, Divriği and Sivas;
• 70 journeys in all, 35 in each direction; each sleeping car has 10 two-berth compartments, and there is a dining car.

The ministry did not say how long the touristic train takes. GoTürkiye writes of "about 24 hours", which is less than the regular train, even though the touristic one makes stops for walks; these figures conflict, so check the arrival time on your ticket.

How to buy Eastern Express tickets

Tickets for both trains are sold by the operator TCDD Taşımacılık through its sales channels, including online. Sales for the 2026/27 touristic train opened to individual passengers on 26 October 2026, the ministry said. GoTürkiye warns that its tickets sell out fast, so it is worth booking as soon as you have settled on a date.

Fares are not given here. The TCDD Taşımacılık website would not open on 7 November 2026, the ministry's announcement names no price, and the amounts printed in the Turkish press could not be checked with the operator. The booking system shows the final price of a compartment or a couchette berth when you choose a date.

What to see in Kars and ancient Ani

In Kars, a Seljuk fortress, an Armenian church and Russian-era buildings follow one another within a few blocks. This is what GoTürkiye singles out:

• Kars Castle on a hill, built in 1153 on the orders of a Saltukid ruler; of the 3.5 km of city walls, seven bastions survive.
• The Kümbet Mosque south of the castle: the Armenian Church of the Twelve Apostles, built in 932–937 and later turned into a mosque.
• The Russian-era quarters: from 1878 to 1918 Kars was part of the Russian Empire, and the Yusufpaşa, Ortakapı and Cumhuriyet districts are laid out on a grid; the Fethiye Mosque was built by the Russians in the late 19th century and became a mosque in 1985.
• The Taşköprü stone bridge of dressed basalt, built in 1579 and restored around 1725, and the Kars Museum, founded in 1959.

The ruins of Ani lie 42 km from Kars, on a volcanic plateau west of the Arpaçay river. The Ministry of Culture calls Ani the largest archaeological site in Eastern Anatolia: the city was a hub on the Silk Road, flourished in the 10th–13th centuries and was deserted by the 17th. The best-known buildings are the cathedral, begun in 990 and completed in 1010, and the Ebu'l Menuçehr Mosque from the reign of Sultan Malik-Shah. In 2016 Ani was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. A ticket for foreign visitors, according to Türkiye Müzeleri, costs €8 (entry is free for children under 8); in winter, from 1 October to 1 April, the site is open from 8 a.m. until 17:00, and the ticket office closes an hour earlier. No regular bus from Kars could be found on official websites, which leaves a taxi, your own car or a tour.

In its description of the touristic train, GoTürkiye names two more winter trips from Kars: to Lake Çıldır, which freezes over in winter, and to the cheese museum in the village of Boğatepe. In the Allahuekber Mountains near Sarıkamış there is also a monument to the 60 thousand soldiers who died in December 1914 in the battle for Kars.

Photo: Oyuncubaba · CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Do%C4%9Fu_ekspresi.jpg)