The short list
A day on the Köprüçay needs less luggage than most guests pack. What you actually need fits in a small rucksack, and much of it you are wearing anyway. Here is the list; the reasoning for each item follows.
- Swimwear, already on under your clothes when you leave the hotel
- Shoes that stay on your feet and can get wet — no flip-flops
- A towel and a full change of dry clothes
- Sunscreen
- Money for the tour and the extras — you pay on the day
- Your phone, charged, for the confirmation of your pickup time
- On combo tours: a scarf or bandana for the dusty track
For the morning pickup
The day starts in your hotel lobby. Pickup runs approximately between 08:00 and 08:30; your own time depends on your hotel and the route and is confirmed to you personally after booking. Be downstairs ten minutes before that time — bag in hand, swimwear under your clothes, river shoes on or in the rucksack.
That is why the phone goes in the bag charged: the confirmation of your pickup time arrives by WhatsApp or email, and if anything is unclear in the morning, that is how we reach you. On the river it stays in the secure storage at the base.
Money: what you pay on the day
Nothing is charged when you book rafting from Side, and this site never asks for card details. You pay the tour price — €18 per person, €12 for children aged 4 to 11 — on the day, in cash or by card. So the money for that has to be in the bag.
Then there are the extras that are not in the price: all drinks at lunch and through the day, water shoes to rent or buy, a wetsuit to hire at the base if you want one, professional photos and video, and on the combo tours the bandana. Their prices are set by the operator at the base, which is why we do not print them. None of it is compulsory — but some cash for a drink with lunch is a good idea.
For the river itself
You take nothing onto the water except what you are wearing. Helmet, life jacket and paddle are fitted at the base; sunscreen goes on face, neck, shoulders and knees beforehand. Anything loose — sunglasses without a strap, a necklace, a watch, a phone without a waterproof case — is lost property waiting to happen.
If you want pictures from the river, you do not have to risk the phone: there are professional photos and video of the run, at extra cost. Everything else waits in the secure storage at the base until you are back.
For lunch and the afternoon
After the run there is a lunch at the restaurant on the riverbank, included in the price. The drinks with it are not, at lunch or at any point in the day. This is when the towel and dry clothes earn their place: the base has showers and a changing area, and whoever sits down to lunch dry has the better afternoon.
Depending on your package there may be another activity after lunch, with waiting time in between. A book or a charged phone for the time in the shade does no harm. You are back at the hotel approximately between 16:30 and 18:30, so plan the day as a whole day, not a morning.
What is better left in the hotel
Jewellery, expensive watches, the big camera, passports and more cash than you need belong in the hotel safe. The storage at the base is secure, but anything you do not need does not have to travel. Alcohol stays in the hotel too: nobody who has been drinking goes on the river, and the guides enforce it.
For children, pack one extra change of clothes and their own water shoes. And if you have booked a package with a quad, buggy or zipline stage, look at the Side rafting packages page first — it says what each combination adds. For plain rafting from Side, the short list above is enough.