Istanbul is the first three days. Then the country opens up.
Which Bosphorus boat serves a real dinner. What a balloon over Goreme costs at sunrise. Whether Ephesus works as a day trip or needs a night in Selcuk. Reviews of every tour you can book in Turkey.
Istanbul from the water, Goreme before dawn, the travertines, one day in a cove.
Four days that most first trips get built around. Prices, timings, and the verdict from the travellers who took them.
01The first nightBosphorus Dinner Cruise & Show with Private TableDinner and a show while both shores slide past the window. More travellers book this than anything else in the country.
02Before first lightGoreme Hot Air Balloon Flight at SunriseLift off in the dark and watch the valley fill with balloons at sunrise. Wind grounds the fleet without notice, so take your first Cappadocia morning, never your last.
03The white terracesPamukkale Hierapolis and Cleopatra’s Pool Tour with lunch from AntalyaHierapolis on the ridge, then the warm pools below it. A long day from the coast, and the only way most people see it.
04The day in a coveSuluada Island Small-Group Boat Tour w/ LunchOut of Kemer to an island with no jetty and water you can read the bottom of. Lunch is cooked on board.
The days out more travellers book than any other in Turkey.
Every Turkish tour we have reviewed →Boats, baskets and skip-the-line tickets, in the order the country actually books them.
1
Bosphorus Dinner Cruise & Show with Private Table
Cruise the Bosphorus aboard a mega yacht with dinner, Turkish music, folk dancing, city views, and optional hotel pickup in Istanbul.
From · $34
Read our review →
2
Daytime or Sunset Sightseeing Cruise & Audio Guide
from $8
3
Bosphorus Dinner Cruise with Turkish Night Show
from $34
4
Best of Istanbul 1, 2 or 3-Day Private Guided Istanbul Tour
from $100
5
Skip The Lines PRIVATE EPHESUS TOUR &On Time Return
from $39
6
Basilica Cistern Fast-Track Entry and Audio Guide
from $44
7
Ephesus, Mary’s House WITH TICKETS+LUNCH
from $29
8
Cappadocia Hot Air Balloon Ride / Royal Balloon
from $133
Istanbul: get the tickets right and the rest is walking.
Everything in Istanbul →
Three buildings inside ten minutes of each other carry the queues: the old basilica, the mosque with the blue tiles and the cistern under the road between them. Sort the entry first, then give the evening to the water.
Hagia Sophia, and when not to go
Visitors now use the upper gallery on a timed ticket, and the doors close to sightseers around the five daily prayers. Early slots move fastest and the light through the gallery windows is better anyway.
The cistern, which is also the cool hour
A forest of columns holding up a Roman water tank, two Medusa heads used as plinths at the far end, and about fifteen degrees off the street temperature. The obvious move on a forty degree afternoon.
Two hours between two continents
Palaces, wooden waterfront houses and both bridges lighting up, for less than a taxi across town. The dinner sailings add a table and a show; the plain ones add nothing and cost almost nothing.
A Bosphorus evening and a day in a Lycian cove are not the same trip.
Istanbul sails at dusk, two hours between Europe and Asia, dinner optional. The south coast sails all day, out of Kemer, Marmaris and Bodrum, and you go off the back of the boat between stops.
Six Turkish bases, and the day out that justifies each one.
A city on two continents, a valley carved out of ash, three resort coasts with different tempers, and the Aegean shore where the ruins start. Pick where you sleep and the days follow.
A valley carved out of volcanic ash, best seen from about a thousand feet up.
Goreme sits in soft tuff that the weather has cut into pinnacles and the locals cut into churches and store rooms. The balloons go up at dawn. The rest of the day splits into the two routes every operator runs, red to the north and green to the south, plus quads through the valleys at sunset.
South of Bodrum the road gives up and the boats take over.
Wooden gulets out of Marmaris and Fethiye, the Suluada run from Kemer, sea caves under the Alanya castle rock and a lagoon at Oludeniz that a paraglider drops into all afternoon. This coast is measured in swimming stops.
Ephesus is a whole Roman city, and the marble street still runs downhill.
The Library of Celsus, a theatre that held twenty five thousand, and the terrace houses with their mosaics still in place under a roof. An hour from Kusadasi, ninety minutes from Izmir, and a very long day from anywhere else. Selcuk next door has the last column of the Temple of Artemis.
- 1Skip The Lines PRIVATE EPHESUS TOUR &On Time Returnfrom $39
- 2Ephesus, Mary’s House WITH TICKETS+LUNCHfrom $29
- 3ALL INCLUDED: Ephesus Ruins, Mary’s House Tour incl ENTRY TICKETSfrom $59
What a day out in Turkey actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Turkey is the rare country where the cheap end is not the disappointing end.
Cistern and mosque tickets, a hammam session, city walks, and most of the boat days on the south coast.
Private guiding in Istanbul, the long runs to Pamukkale and Ephesus, and the coast days that feed you.
A balloon basket at sunrise, a chartered yacht on the strait, and the two day trips into Anatolia.
Three things Turkey does that nowhere else does the same way.
Ruins and beaches are everywhere on this sea. A marble slab in a four hundred year old bath house, a turning ceremony that is a form of prayer, and two hundred baskets rising out of one valley are not.
The Hammam
The routine has not changed much since the Ottoman baths were built beside the mosques: heat on the gobektasi, the raised marble slab in the middle, then the kese, a coarse mitt that takes off more skin than you expect. Foam, cold water, tea. Istanbul has houses working since the fifteen hundreds; the resort coast has newer rooms at half the price and the same sequence.
- 1Private Turkish Bath, Massage, and Spa in Old City★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 3,225 reviews
- 2Private Turkish Bath, Sauna, and Massage★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,306 reviews
- 3Istanbul Gedikpasa Historical Turkish Bath with Privacy Option★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,285 reviews
The Sema Ceremony
The turning is a Mevlevi rite, not a floor show, and the halls that host it ask for quiet and no flash. One arm turns up to receive, one turns down to give, and the felt hat stands for a headstone. Konya keeps the order house where Rumi is buried; Istanbul and Cappadocia hold the ceremonies most travellers see.
- 1Whirling Dervishes Ceremony and Mevlevi Sema★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 1,694 reviews
- 2Whirling Dervish Ceremony next to Hagia Sophia★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 906 reviews
- 3Istanbul Traditional Turkish Dinner and Dervish Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 490 reviews
Dawn over the valleys
Cappadocia flies more balloons than anywhere on earth, and on a clear morning the whole fleet lifts together out of Goreme while the tuff pinnacles are still grey. Baskets are allocated at the field, take off is around forty minutes before sunrise, and the flight is called off for wind more often than anyone books for.
- 1Cappadocia Hot Air Balloon Ride / Royal Balloon★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 6,829 reviews
- 2Goreme Hot Air Balloon Flight at Sunrise★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,924 reviews
- 3Cappadocia Hot Air Balloon Ride/ Turquaz Balloons★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,330 reviews
Four Turkish bookings that will not wait for you to arrive.
Most of this country can be sorted from a hotel desk the night before. These four run on weather windows, timed entry and one departure a day, none of which care when you land.
- 01Cappadocia Hot Air Balloon Ride / Royal BalloonBaskets are capped and the fleet is grounded whenever the wind is wrong, so the queue rolls into the next clear morning. High season sells out weeks ahead.
- 02Bosphorus Dinner Cruise & Show with Private TableThe night boats sail once and the tables are allocated when you book. Turning up at the pier in July gets you the pier.
- 03Hagia Sophia Skip-the-Line Ticket & Museum OptionVisitor entry is a timed ticket and the building closes to sightseers around the daily prayers, which moves the usable hours every few weeks.
- 04Skip The Lines PRIVATE EPHESUS TOUR &On Time ReturnThe cruise-day tours are timed to the ship rather than the site, so the return is fixed before you leave the dock and the good slots go with the sailing.
Turkish summer has one answer: get underground, or get in the water.
From July the Mediterranean coast holds the high thirties past sunset and the Aegean ruins have no shade at all. The country has been solving this for centuries. Roman cisterns, carved rock rooms, canyon lakes fed by dam water at fifteen degrees, and a bath house on every second corner.
The hammam is not a spa, and Turkey would like you to know it.
You sweat on a heated marble slab until the attendant decides you are ready, get scrubbed with a coarse mitt, get covered in foam, then get a bucket of cold water without warning. Historic baths in Istanbul run four hundred years old; the coast resorts run cheaper and newer.
Every bath and hammam →
By place, city to coast
Istanbulfrom $7
Cappadociafrom $4
Antalyafrom $8
Kusadasifrom $7
Alanyafrom $8
Sidefrom $12
Marmarisfrom $22
Bodrumfrom $24- Every place in Turkey →
By kind of day: water, ruin, basket or bath
Istanbul, Cappadocia, Pamukkale, Ephesus, then the coast.
Pamukkale
FethiyeThe newest Turkish tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Cleopatra Island Boat Trip with Lunch and Transfer
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Aqua Dream Waterpark Entry Ticket & Hotel Transfer
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All-Inclusive Pirate Boat Trip with Pickup Option
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Manavgat River Cruise With Waterfall & Bazaar Tour
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Manavgat River Boat Tour and Free Time at the Market
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Manavgat Cruise & Grand Bazaar w/Lunch and Unlimited Drinks
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Less Walking Private Ephesus, Virgin Mary, Temple Skip Lines
Read our review →