Bodrum is the Aegean with more gloss, and packing it like a Greek island undershoots the evening by a wide margin. The days are gulet days, which means a swimsuit you can wear for eight hours, a hat that stays put on the water, and a flat sandal for whitewashed lanes that are steeper than they look in photographs. Then the sun goes down and the beach clubs turn genuinely dressed up. This is the one destination in this series where sparkle is not overdressing, and where a metallic sandal and a crystal earring are the correct answer rather than a lot. Early September is hot and stays hot late, so nothing heavy needs to come. Keep the day flat and cheap, put the money into the evening accessories, and repeat one glossy kit rather than packing three medium outfits. Everything below is in stock now. There is one more reason to think about the evening first. Bodrum's beach clubs run late and they are the part of the trip people photograph, so the pieces that earn their place are the ones that hold up after dark rather than the ones that look good in a duffel.

A printed linen dress is the right daytime shape for Bodrum, because it handles lunch, the marina and an afternoon that goes sideways, and linen is the only fabric that behaves in that heat. Under it, a black bikini with asymmetric cut-outs that looks deliberate at a beach club rather than functional. The hat is the one place we would spend on a daytime piece, since a raffia sun hat that comes in four sizes is a different object on a boat than a one size straw that lifts off. Everything else stays inexpensive: a small dark raffia shoulder bag for a hot walk into town, a barely there flat sandal at a steep discount, a tasselled pareo that goes from a gulet deck straight into a club, and a washed canvas tote for the transfer. Boats mean salt, so choose raffia and canvas over anything pale and delicate. On sizing, printed linen dresses here tend to run short in the body, so check the length sitting down before you decide, and the flat sandals run true.

The Versace mini is the correct dress for Bodrum at night and it costs more than the rest of the night edit combined. If you are not buying it, the substitute is simple and works: black satin, ruched or draped, plus the crystal hoops and the metallic flat sandals, and nobody at the table will be doing arithmetic. Those two accessories are where the value is, and both come in under a hundred and thirty dollars. What we would not do is bring a heel. Bodrum's lanes are steep and uneven and the walk from a taxi to a table is longer than you expect, and a metallic flat carries the same shine with none of the risk. If you take one thing away, buy the earrings. A crystal hoop is what makes a plain black dress look like it belongs on that coast. One more warning: the discounted sandals and the crystal hoops were both showing very low stock when we checked, so the cheap half of this edit is the half that disappears first.