Turkey travel tips

30 guides in Turkey — when to go, how to get around, which ATMs not to use, and what a fair price looks like.

The New Mosque and Hagia Sophia above the Golden Horn ferry piers at sunset

IstanbulTurkeyTwo continents, three empires, one enormous city

hot air balloons on the sky during daytime

CappadociaTurkeyTwo hundred balloons at dawn over a landscape carved from volcanic ash

a harbor filled with lots of boats next to a city

AntalyaTurkeyA Roman old town on a cliff, with the Taurus mountains behind the beach

aerial view of city buildings during daytime

BodrumTurkeyA white town around a crusader castle, and a gulet waiting in the bay

an aerial view of a rock formation in the water

PamukkaleTurkeyA hillside of white mineral terraces, with a Roman spa city on top of it

The Library of Celsus at Ephesus, its facade rebuilt from its own stones

Ephesus & SelçukTurkeyThe best-preserved classical city on the Mediterranean: a marble street down to a library facade, a theatre for twenty-five thousand, and a country town beside it

The Ölüdeniz lagoon from the air, the sand spit crowded with parasols

Fethiye & ÖlüdenizTurkeyA working harbour town with Lycian tombs above the rooftops, the most photographed lagoon in Turkey next door, and paragliders coming off a 1,900-metre ridge all day

A cobbled street of stone houses in Alaçatı

Çeşme & AlaçatıTurkeyA windsurfing bay, a stone village of blue shutters and bougainvillea, thermal beaches and the smartest summer crowd in Turkey

Boats in the bay below a castle on the hill near Kaş

KaşTurkeyA white town on a cliff over water clear enough to see the wreck below it: the diving capital of Turkey, a sunken city offshore, and Greece twenty minutes away

The Roman theatre at Side, rows of seats above the ruined city

SideTurkeyA Roman temple on a headland with the sea behind its columns, a theatre for fifteen thousand, and a beach either side of the ruins

Alanya’s castle rock above the town and the sea

AlanyaTurkeyA Seljuk castle on a rock between two beaches, a red tower over the old dockyard, and the longest warm season on the Turkish coast

Boats moored along the waterfront at Marmaris

MarmarisTurkeyA yacht harbour in a pine-covered bay, the start of every blue cruise, and a bar street that is the loudest on the Aegean

The bay at İzmir with the Konak pier and the city around the water

İzmirTurkeyTurkey’s third city and its most relaxed: a seafront promenade that walks for kilometres, a bazaar older than the republic, and Ephesus an hour down the line

Silhouettes on a pier at sunset over the Dardanelles at Çanakkale

ÇanakkaleTurkeyThe town on the Dardanelles where the ferries cross to Europe, with Troy on one side and the Gallipoli battlefields on the other

Pines on the grass behind the beach at Çıralı

Olympos & ÇıralıTurkeyRuins in a river valley that comes out on a pebble beach, treehouse pensions in the orange groves, and a hillside that has been on fire since antiquity

The Lycian rock tombs cut into the cliff above the river at Dalyan

DalyanTurkeyA river town under Lycian tombs cut in the cliff, with mud baths upstream, a turtle beach downstream and boats instead of roads between them

A carved stone head in the snow on the summit of Mount Nemrut

Mount NemrutTurkeyStone heads of gods and a forgotten king on a 2,150-metre summit, watched at sunrise by everyone who made the drive up in the dark

Uzungöl, the lake under forested mountains inland from Trabzon

TrabzonTurkeyA Black Sea port under tea plantations, with a monastery glued to a cliff face an hour inland and green hills that look like nowhere else in Turkey

Stone houses along the still water of Assos harbour

AssosTurkeyA temple to Athena on a cliff over the Aegean, a fishing harbour of stone houses underneath it, and Lesbos close enough to count the lights

Bursa spread below the wooded slopes of Uludağ

BursaTurkeyThe first Ottoman capital under a mountain that skis in winter: green mosques, a silk bazaar, thermal baths, and the dish the whole country argues about

Safranbolu’s white Ottoman houses stacked up the hillside

SafranboluTurkeyAn Ottoman merchant town kept whole: white timber houses down a gorge, a caravanserai to sleep in, and the saffron it is named for

The green dome and minaret over Rumi’s tomb in Konya

KonyaTurkeyThe city of Rumi: the green dome over his tomb, the whirling dervishes who still turn here, and a Seljuk capital under the modern one

The long empty sand of Patara beach, dunes and scrub behind it

PataraTurkeyEighteen kilometres of empty sand behind a ruined Lycian capital, with loggerhead turtles nesting on it and a rule that keeps the beach closed at night because of them

A harbour of small boats on the Datça peninsula, mountains behind

Datca & KnidosTurkeyA long thin peninsula of almond trees between two seas, with an ancient city at the end of it where the Aegean meets the Mediterranean

Mardin’s stone city stacked above the Mesopotamian plain, the minaret over it

MardinTurkeyA city of honey-coloured stone stacked up a hill over the Mesopotamian plain, with Syriac monasteries around it and Arabic, Kurdish and Turkish in the same street

The excavated stone pillars of Göbekli Tepe under their canopy

Şanlıurfa & Göbekli TepeTurkeyThe oldest temple in the world on a hill outside a pilgrimage city of carp pools, covered bazaars and the best kebab in Turkey

A lit arcade of shops in the Gaziantep bazaar

GaziantepTurkeyThe food capital of Turkey: pistachio baklava by the kilo, a museum of Roman mosaics that stops people mid-sentence, and a bazaar of coppersmiths

The Armenian church on Akdamar island in Lake Van, snow on the mountains beyond

VanTurkeyA city on the biggest lake in Turkey, under a rock fortress with cuneiform on it, with an Armenian church on an island and a breakfast that runs to twenty plates

The Ottoman houses along the Yeşilırmak at Amasya, under the cliff

AmasyaTurkeyOttoman houses reflected in a green river, with the rock tombs of Pontic kings cut into the cliff above them and a castle on top

The colonnade of Anıtkabir, Atatürk’s mausoleum in Ankara

AnkaraTurkeyThe 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