Istanbul Travel Tips

So you are now on a long vacation and you can’t handle it at home anymore, you decide to pick your bags up and book a flight toward istanbul. so far so good, you have chosen the best city to spend your vacation and enjoy your time because istanbul city is famous for its historical sites where you can live an amazing experience , beautiful nature where to take pictures, delicious food to give your stomach a gift, and modern joy facilities to spend time you won’t forget. but before booking your flight you should know some tips about traveling to istanbul, especially if it is your first time, it is really useful. here are the most important tips to know:

published: 26 September 2022 / updated: 7 March 2024

Hotel Reservati̇ons:

Make sure to print out your reservation and keep it with you because at the airport the police might ask you to show them the reservation. It is not likely to happen but in case it happened, make sure to be prepared not to waste your time at the borders and if you don’t have it printed do not worry you can download it to your phone.

Hotels:

Well, since istanbul is a touristic city, it is not surprising to find an enormous number of hotels and it is really annoying to sit and read about every single hotel so you can decide the best one for you, or even to look in the map for places you don’t even know a thing about it. So here is an advice, if you want to stay at a calm simple comfortable hotel you can book a room in a mid-range hotel in Beyoglu district, it is going to cost you between 40-80 US dollars according to the hotel ratings.

If you are looking for more luxury hotels you can book a room in Sisli district but it is going to cost you a minimum of a hundred US dollars a night.

Try to keep yourself away from 5 Dollar a night motels, you won’t feel happy at any of them.

What about the best time to visit Istanbul ?

It is beautiful all the time and every season has its own feeling in istanbul but in general, the weather in April, May, and June is lovely because the sky is almost clear and sunshine is soft with a cool refreshing air so you can walk around the city and enjoy your time at any site or place.

If you are not a fan of heat make sure to avoid walking around the city during August, otherwise you are totally fine.

Airports:

There are two airports in Istanbul. The first one is Sabiha Gokce in the Asian side of Istanbul, it is not that big and flights arriving to this airport are usually cheaper than the other airport but if you are not staying at the Asian side it is going to be a bad choice because you need to cross the Bosphorus all the way to the other side.

The other airport is called Istanbul Airport in the European side of Istanbul, this airport is new and extremely huge and has all the facilities you would need restaurants and cafes, huge duty free market, kids playgrounds, and the best thing about it is that you can find a lot of people wearing shirts with “ask me” phrase written on it, these guys are spread all over the place to help you in case you are confused.

The worst thing about it is that its 50 Kilometers far from the city, so make sure to check out from the hotel early because you have a long ride to the airport.

In any cases, there are always very comfortable busses work for the airport and take passengers both ways from and to the airport from literally everywhere in Istanbul.

Transportation:

One of the best things about Istanbul is its organized transportation network. In fact, the public transportation network of Istanbul considered on of the most connected and spread networks in the world, you can go everywhere in Istanbul using public transportation whether Train lines, metro lines, Metrobus line, Busses, and Minibuses but it is better to keep a map of the transportation routes with you and if you don’t like to hold big maps you can download an app called Trafii, this application will show you the best ways and routes to reach your destination.

So if you are planning to visit Istanbul for the first time, do not worry about anything just make sure to prepare yourself and come to have the best time in your life.