Çumra Go-Kart

In Çumra, south of Konya, this open-air circuit offers karting in a leisure area of the Anatolian plain. The outdoor layout is driven in the open air, and people gather as a family or with friends to string together timed laps. It is a venue appreciated in this farming town, where karting brings a little speed and fresh air in the green setting of a municipal recreation ground.

Karting stays open to all, with no licence or experience: a briefing, a helmet, and everyone heads off to post their best time. The short format suits beginners as much as regulars working on their lines, and groups happily set up short heats to sort out the drivers. As the activity takes place outdoors in a region with hot summers and cold winters, it is best to check opening times by season before coming. People rarely leave after a single run.

Çumra is a farming town on the Konya plain, one of Turkey's great grain stores. Close by lies one of the country's most precious sites: Çatalhöyük, one of the oldest towns in the world, settled almost nine thousand years ago and UNESCO-listed, where you discover the remains of one of the world's earliest farming settlements. Konya, with the mausoleum of Mevlana and its Seljuk monuments, is half an hour away by road. The town is easy to reach by road from Konya, in a part of central Anatolia rich in ancient history.