Trabzon Travel Guide: Green Highlands, Uzungol and Getting Around

Trabzon sits on Turkey’s northeast Black Sea coast and is the gateway to the eastern highlands. Unlike Turkey’s hot southern beaches, this is a green, misty, mountainous region of forests, tea plantations and highland pastures known as yaylas.

The big draws are just outside the city: the Uzungol lake ringed by forested peaks, the cliffside Sumela Monastery, and the Ayder highlands. The cool summer climate, around 26 C, is the main reason visitors come between June and September.

Trabzon is set up for family tourism, with Arabic signage in Uzungol, plenty of halal food and highland resorts. It is a relaxed nature destination rather than a nightlife city.

Trabzon has its own airport with seasonal direct flights, and frequent one-stop connections through Istanbul all year. Renting a car is the easiest way to reach Uzungol, Sumela and the highlands, as public transport is limited.

The sweet spot is June to September, when the highlands are green and daytime temperatures sit around a mild 26 C. This is peak season, when the mist, the mountains and the lakes are at their best.

Trabzon is one of the rainier parts of Turkey, so expect showers even in summer and pack a light jacket. July and August are the busiest, especially in Uzungol, so book accommodation ahead.

Most of the highlights are day trips out of the city into the mountains. These are the ones worth planning around.

There are two approaches. Base yourself in Trabzon city center, near Meydan square, for restaurants, shops and easy airport access, and day-trip into the mountains.

Or stay up in the highlands, especially Uzungol, in a lakeside hotel or wooden bungalow to wake up to the view. Families often rent a villa or apartment in the highlands for more space.

Turkey is a majority-Muslim country, so halal is the default: nearly all meat in restaurants and shops is halal, and pork is rare. You do not need to search for halal food here.

Mosques are everywhere, with the call to prayer five times a day, and there is a mosque right by the Uzungol lake. Prayer rooms are standard at the airport, malls and larger hotels.

Turkey is outside the EU roaming zone, so an EU, UK or Gulf SIM roams here at full international rates. In the eastern mountains coverage is patchier, and Turkcell has the widest reach in the highlands around Uzungol.

Turkey also enforces a phone registration rule: a device used with a local Turkish SIM is blocked after 120 days unless you pay a steep registration fee that tourists generally cannot use. A travel eSIM sidesteps this, because it does not register your phone as a local subscriber.

Important: install and set up your travel eSIM before you fly. Turkey has blocked many eSIM store websites from inside the country, so buying one after you land can be difficult. Install it at home and you land already connected, with no SIM queue and no roaming bill.