Turkey travel tips

Turkey travel health

Required is not recommended: the first is what the border asks about, the second is what a clinic would suggest. Both, for Turkey, then the number to dial and what care costs a visitor. Applies to every guide in Turkey: Istanbul, Cappadocia, Antalya, Bodrum, Pamukkale, Ephesus & Selçuk and 24 more.

Required to enter

Nothing. No vaccination certificate is asked for at the border.

Recommended

  • Routine vaccinations up to date
  • Hepatitis A
  • Typhoid if you will eat widely outside restaurants

Emergency number

112

Care for visitors

Good and affordable

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.

The general rules — clinic timing, water, mosquitoes, insurance — are in travel health tips.

The guides in Turkey

The New Mosque and Hagia Sophia above the Golden Horn ferry piers at sunsetIstanbulTurkeyTwo continents, three empires, one enormous cityhot air balloons on the sky during daytimeCappadociaTurkeyTwo hundred balloons at dawn over a landscape carved from volcanic asha harbor filled with lots of boats next to a cityAntalyaTurkeyA Roman old town on a cliff, with the Taurus mountains behind the beachaerial view of city buildings during daytimeBodrumTurkeyA white town around a crusader castle, and a gulet waiting in the bayan aerial view of a rock formation in the waterPamukkaleTurkeyA hillside of white mineral terraces, with a Roman spa city on top of itThe Library of Celsus at Ephesus, its facade rebuilt from its own stonesEphesus & 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 itThe Ölüdeniz lagoon from the air, the sand spit crowded with parasolsFethiye & 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 dayA cobbled street of stone houses in AlaçatıÇeşme & AlaçatıTurkeyA windsurfing bay, a stone village of blue shutters and bougainvillea, thermal beaches and the smartest summer crowd in TurkeyBoats in the bay below a castle on the hill near KaşKaşTurkeyA 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 awayThe Roman theatre at Side, rows of seats above the ruined citySideTurkeyA Roman temple on a headland with the sea behind its columns, a theatre for fifteen thousand, and a beach either side of the ruinsAlanya’s castle rock above the town and the seaAlanyaTurkeyA Seljuk castle on a rock between two beaches, a red tower over the old dockyard, and the longest warm season on the Turkish coastBoats moored along the waterfront at MarmarisMarmarisTurkeyA yacht harbour in a pine-covered bay, the start of every blue cruise, and a bar street that is the loudest on the AegeanThe bay at İzmir with the Konak pier and the city around the waterİzmirTurkeyTurkey’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 lineSilhouettes on a pier at sunset over the Dardanelles at ÇanakkaleÇanakkaleTurkeyThe town on the Dardanelles where the ferries cross to Europe, with Troy on one side and the Gallipoli battlefields on the otherPines on the grass behind the beach at ÇıralıOlympos & 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 antiquityThe Lycian rock tombs cut into the cliff above the river at DalyanDalyanTurkeyA river town under Lycian tombs cut in the cliff, with mud baths upstream, a turtle beach downstream and boats instead of roads between themA carved stone head in the snow on the summit of Mount NemrutMount 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 darkUzungöl, the lake under forested mountains inland from TrabzonTrabzonTurkeyA 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 TurkeyStone houses along the still water of Assos harbourAssosTurkeyA temple to Athena on a cliff over the Aegean, a fishing harbour of stone houses underneath it, and Lesbos close enough to count the lightsBursa spread below the wooded slopes of UludağBursaTurkeyThe first Ottoman capital under a mountain that skis in winter: green mosques, a silk bazaar, thermal baths, and the dish the whole country argues aboutSafranbolu’s white Ottoman houses stacked up the hillsideSafranboluTurkeyAn Ottoman merchant town kept whole: white timber houses down a gorge, a caravanserai to sleep in, and the saffron it is named forThe green dome and minaret over Rumi’s tomb in KonyaKonyaTurkeyThe city of Rumi: the green dome over his tomb, the whirling dervishes who still turn here, and a Seljuk capital under the modern oneThe long empty sand of Patara beach, dunes and scrub behind itPataraTurkeyEighteen 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 themA harbour of small boats on the Datça peninsula, mountains behindDatca & KnidosTurkeyA long thin peninsula of almond trees between two seas, with an ancient city at the end of it where the Aegean meets the MediterraneanMardin’s stone city stacked above the Mesopotamian plain, the minaret over itMardinTurkeyA 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 streetThe excavated stone pillars of Göbekli Tepe under their canopyŞanlıurfa & Göbekli TepeTurkeyThe oldest temple in the world on a hill outside a pilgrimage city of carp pools, covered bazaars and the best kebab in TurkeyA lit arcade of shops in the Gaziantep bazaarGaziantepTurkeyThe food capital of Turkey: pistachio baklava by the kilo, a museum of Roman mosaics that stops people mid-sentence, and a bazaar of coppersmithsThe Armenian church on Akdamar island in Lake Van, snow on the mountains beyondVanTurkeyA 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 platesThe Ottoman houses along the Yeşilırmak at Amasya, under the cliffAmasyaTurkeyOttoman houses reflected in a green river, with the rock tombs of Pontic kings cut into the cliff above them and a castle on topThe colonnade of Anıtkabir, Atatürk’s mausoleum in AnkaraAnkaraTurkeyThe 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