Ankara
Turkey
The capital Atatürk built on the steppe: the museum that holds Anatolia’s whole prehistory, his mausoleum above the city, and a castle with a village inside it
Photo by Francesca Minto on Unsplash
Photos by Felix Munyika, engin akyurt, Thomas George and Youssef Mohamed on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Turkey
April to June, and September to October (the winter is cold and grey, and high summer is 30°C and dry)
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 50mm in May
Where it is
39.93°N, 32.86°E Open in Google Maps
Things to do
Several days- Give the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations a whole morning
- Walk up to Anıtkabir and watch the guard
- Eat inside the castle walls at sunset
- Wander Hamamonü
- Take the fast train to Konya for the day
Ankara travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Turkey
Good valueExchange offices (döviz) in the centre give a better rate than the banks and far better than the airport, take no commission and post the rate in the window. Change in small amounts; the lira moves. Cards are taken almost everywhere.
ATMs & cards
Garanti BBVA, İş Bankası, Akbank and Ziraat are the ones to use. Turkish machines charge substantial foreign-card fees, so take out more at a time — or change cash at an exchange office, which often beats the machine. Decline the conversion.
Avoid these
- Euronet
- the standalone machines in the bazaar
Use these instead
- Garanti BBVA
- İş Bankası
- Akbank
- Ziraat Bankası
Turkish machines charge high foreign-card fees now, so an exchange office with cash often beats the machine. Decline the conversion.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Turkey
SafeComfortable and heavily policed, a working capital rather than a tourist city. Pickpockets around Ulus and the bus station; the usual care with taxis off the app. Demonstrations happen in Kızılay and are best walked away from.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (7 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
Worth more attention
- Ulus and the bus station — pickpockets
- a demonstration in Kızılay — walk the other way; the police response is the risk
- taxis off the app — the meter, or the lack of one
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Turkey visa rules
No visa neededup to 90 days
90 days within any 180-day period.
Other passports
e-Visa requiredup to 90 days$43-$60
Applied for online in minutes. Buy it only from evisa.gov.tr — the lookalike sites charge several times the real fee.
Visa required in advance
How to get it: The e-visa is issued online at evisa.gov.tr, usually within an hour. Print it or keep it on your phone; airlines check it at the gate.
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Health & emergencies all of Turkey
Good and affordableRequired to enter
No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Routine vaccinations up to date
- Hepatitis A
- Typhoid if you will eat widely outside restaurants
Getting treated
Private hospitals in Istanbul are genuinely excellent and a fraction of Western European prices, with English spoken in the international departments. State hospitals are free for emergencies but slow and rarely English-speaking. Insurance is strongly advised — you will be asked to pay up front at private hospitals.
Tap water is chlorinated but heavily mineralised; almost everyone drinks bottled.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
Very goodAnkara tava, and the city’s long love of the kebab houses on Bahçelievler 7. Cadde; simit and çay for breakfast anywhere; and beypazarı kurusu, the dry biscuit, from the town of the same name up the road.
Nightlife
A student and civil-servant city: bars and live music in Tunalı and Bahçelievler, rock bars in Sakarya, and no beach crowd anywhere.
- Tunalı Hilmi — the bars
- Sakarya Caddesi — cheap beer and live music
Closing: Around 02:00.
Getting around
Easy- UberWorks here
- BiTaksiWorks here
- BoltNot here
BiTaksi the Istanbul taxi app · Uber which dispatches those same taxis
- Against a taxi
- The same metered taxis. The app matters because it records the ride and the driver cannot refuse a short fare quietly.
Private ride-hailing is illegal in Turkey; everything on the app is a licensed yellow taxi.
Time zone and your working day
Europe/Istanbul — 7 hours ahead of you
1 hour of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — 09:00–10:00 your time, 16:00–17:00 theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 02:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 02:00–10:00 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Internet speedall of Turkey
What these numbers mean
Home broadband — Fair. Video calls and streaming for one or two people — fine for a holiday, thin for a household working. Broadband here runs at 70% of the global median of 130 Mbps.
Mobile data — Fast. Enough to work from a cafe or a beach on a hotspot all day. Mobile runs at 1.7× the global median of 109 Mbps.
A median is the middle of every connection tested there, old copper and new fibre together — so in a country part-way through laying fibre it sits well below what a fibre line actually delivers, and a rental on one can run several times this number. Half of the connections are slower; a fibre flat is rarely one of them. It says what a place can do, not what your rental does, so every listing on Holistay carries its own measured speed and the date it was tested.
Getting online: Airalo or Holafly — a data eSIM for Turkey, installed before you fly and working the moment you land.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Must-see
Nearby day trips
Say a few words
Turkish
- HelloMerhabaMER-ha-ba
- PleaseLütfenLOOT-fen
- Thank youTeşekkürlerte-shek-koor-LER
- Yes / NoEvet / HayırEH-vet / HA-yuhr
4 more phrases
- Excuse meAffedersinizaf-fe-DER-si-niz
- How much is it?Ne kadar?neh ka-DAR
- The bill, pleaseHesap, lütfenheh-SAP
- Cheers!Şerefe!sheh-reh-FEH
Religion
Sunni Muslim, secular state
Around 99% Muslim by heritage, but the state is constitutionally secular and Istanbul is cosmopolitan. Women cover their heads to enter mosques, everyone removes shoes, and mosques close to visitors during the five prayer times.
Do's and don'ts
Do
- Accept the offered tea — refusing it outright dismisses the gesture
- Take shoes off entering a home or mosque
- Cover shoulders and knees at mosques; women cover their hair, and scarves are lent at the door
- Haggle in the bazaars, politely and with humour
Don't
- Do not point the sole of your foot at anyone, or cross your legs so it shows
- Do not blow your nose at the table
- Do not make jokes about Atatürk; insulting him is a criminal offence
- Do not photograph people, especially women, without asking
Where to stay in Ankara
No Holistay rentals in Ankara yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is Ankara on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Esenboğa ESB
45 minfrom the airport· 28 km as the crow flies
45 min on the Belko Air bus.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
