This is a quick summary of various groups that are available in Antalya
Antalya is traditionally associated with the tourism and that’s about what everyone knows or reads online. However, over the past couple of years Antalya has started to become a place to be if you are the digital nomad. Since there are far too many articles that have covered the beautiful points of why it is great to live in Antalya I will focus more on the groups and the activities that are happening around the city, so the newcomers would be able to identify the group that they want to associate themselves with.
Although there are many different regions and areas, main places for most of the expats to hang around is either Old Town (Kaleici), Lara or Liman due to its proximity to various logistical structures, easy access to bars and restaurants. Although Turkish people are conservative, they do not mind many of the bars and the nightlife is very active especially in the old town.
Antalya Digital Nomads
First and foremost would be the Antalya Digital Nomads, couple of years ago, Yilas (French dude living in Cyprus) has travelled over to Antalya to check it out. He loved the place so much that has made a move of living between Antalya and Cyprus. Mainly its a digital community that meets every Wednesday at one of the cafes in the beach park. The details of the whats app group. The reason why I am starting with this group it mainly consists of the global nomads that have decided to make Antalya their new home. They do provide help an advice in the group on various topics, and this was the reason why I started pursuing my interested in writing up my own blog too.
Lara Expats group in Antalya
Then there are two groups that are within the couple of kilometers in their proximity. Lara expats group that consists also of the expats that have made their new home in Antalya, and Kaleici (old town) expats group. The Lara expats group is basically made to bring the expats together that live in Lara, however, they always welcome for people from other parts of the city to join them. The group is definitely different from the digital nomads as the conversations are mainly made around food, theaters, hikes etc. The link to the group in whats app can be found here.
Antalya Chat Group
In total there are about 50 groups on whats app relevant or related to the lifestyle in Antalya, anyone who has found themselves a bit out of the other groups for various reasons have decided to create their own. Just one of the examples of the Antalya chat group, it was created by the person that was banned due to misunderstanding by other groups and have just created his own. This group has no reason to exist and mainly set up to have a friendly banter hence not many people have paid much attention to it.
If you are into drinking and meeting new people then check out Foreigners and Expats in Antalya
If you are into drinking and partying then the recommendation would be to join Foreigners & Expats in Antalya telegram group. The admin of the group has been around for over a decade in Antalya. The main point of the group is just to get drunk together and have fun. Typically they will be meeting at Dos Bros Irish bar in Liman and after that hitting the Q which can be considered as one of the “hot clubs” in Liman. As it is the only night club that is available in Liman. Although they have recently started to run the gatherings on the weekend to go and discover new cities. They do not offer transfers and highly recommend to come via your own vehicle.
Facebook Groups for Antalya Expats
Lastly, ofcourse there are a dozen of the groups on Facebook that are focusing on general conversational side. I would recommend to be careful on Facebook as there are far too many people that may be providing a service that will scam you away. The more activity you will show on that page the more you will get private messages and getting added on to various groups. Hence, try to keep the transactional conversations at the minimum. So, Antalya Expats has about 4.4k members on it, but looking from the activity and the questions asked possible only 3-5% that are actually active. The Foreigners & Expats in Antalya have also go their Facebook page with over 10k members. Antalya foreigners, expats live study work and invest in Turkey is mainly set up for the ads for various local offerings, if you are into checking something to buy or sell may be this is a Facebook page for you
The city of Antalya can offer you a group to any of your interests or tastes
There are plenty of groups and activities around the city of Antalya, as described briefly around each of the groups have their interests and suggestions. Anyone can find a group to their own taste, I have not gone to the 50 chat rooms as the digital nomads with Lara expats is more than enough for me. With some of the group members we have travelled around Antalya (Phalesis, Olympus) together and learnt something new.
Co-working Database around Turkey
Have recently come across a list of a lot more spaces that are available around Turkey (not just Antalya) for the co-working spaces, looking briefly into it, it looks like a half job done as whoever has started this database does not keep the information updated in the same structure as most of the entered data, but still could probably save a heap of time from googling around.