Where to stay in Tartus: the seafront, the old town or the southern beaches

For most visitors the answer to where to stay in Tartus is short: the seafront. Hotels cluster in a band running parallel to the sea. The jetty for the Arwad boats, the old town inside the castle walls and the cathedral are all within walking distance. The strip of public chalets to the south sits right on the beach but needs a car to reach the centre. This page names no hotels: the site recommends no place that serves alcohol, and for some large resorts that cannot be checked.

The seafront band, where the hotels are

Of the 39 accommodation entries OpenStreetMap lists for Tartus, most of the hotels sit in a north–south band close to two and a half kilometres long, parallel to the seafront promenade. The town’s tourist life is here too: the 2026 tourist season opened on 7 June at Festivals Square on this promenade. The promenade is long and without shade, and it fills up in the late afternoon.

In the middle of the band is the jetty for boats to Arwad. In October 2025 the Tartus municipality and the port company cleaned up this temporary jetty (the marina) on the seafront. If you want to catch an early boat and see the island in the cool hours, staying on the seafront is the simplest choice: you walk from your door to the boats. The island and its boats are covered on the Arwad Island page.

The old town inside the castle

The old town of Tartus lies inside a Crusader castle and people still live there, with houses built into the walls and between the towers. The cathedral and the lanes inside the castle are at the northern end of the seafront band, so they are a walk from the seafront hotels. Staying on the seafront, you can walk over twice, in the morning light and again late in the afternoon, when the stone catches the light from the west. For a set walk through the old town there is a half-day walking route.

The southern strip: public chalets and Karnak

Three to six kilometres south of the centre, public chalets (known locally as “shaabiyye”) and a cove resort line the shore. You sleep right by the sea; the trade-off is that every trip to the centre, the bus garage or the Arwad jetty needs a car. At Karnak beach on this strip, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent graduated the first class of its sea rescue course in June 2026, and watchtowers are going up on public beaches. Dress rules and high-wave swimming bans are on the beach rules page.

What changes in season

Summer is humid and crowded; the easier months in Tartus are April to June and September to October. Once the season opens, the promenade is full in the evenings. A sharp rise in rents in Tartus made the news in 2025, but with no current price data this page gives no figures. Rooms are booked by phone or message, and payment is in cash. When booking, ask which hours the generator runs and which currency the price is in. Registration and the power supply are covered on the accommodation in Syria page.

The bus garage and arriving

Intercity buses arrive at the new garage (Al-Karaj al-Jadid). It lies south-east of the centre, close to three kilometres in a straight line from the old town, so for anyone staying on the seafront, arrival and departure each mean a taxi ride. Which road to take to Tartus is on the how to get to Tartus page, and the city itself on the Tartus page.