Turkey Travel Answers

Kristi, Turkish Airlines is no longer a monopoly although they are still by far the dominant carrier. This means that flights within Turkey are quite a bit cheaper than they used to be. One other major change is that Turkish Air now has a low-cost carrier subsidiary called Anadolu Jet, which also makes things cheaper. All of the flights are easily booked online. Turkish Airlines is now a member of Star Alliance. You can use your UA, US, etc. miles to get award flights, if you've got the miles. I've done this for internal flights in Turkey--I did a conference two years near Dalaman and managed to get Keith there all the way from Geneva and back on Turkish Airlines, using miles. I think I did have to call United to do it (and the jerks charged me20 for the phone booking even though it wasn't possible to book online).

Thanks Julie, it's good to know that I don't have to pin my hopes to some odd travel agent in Turkey anymore. David is looking to do a swim race, that's a whole other story as it looks like they penalize foreigners doing the race, it's some god awful amount like £330 and I'm pretty sure that the Turks aren't paying anything close to that. We have a friend going to Turkey tomorrow, we're going to see if she can help us with that :-)

Hello Kristi, country is developing very fast and so many new agencies are also around late ten years. The main problem i see here, the system force you to follow all discount campaings if u want to get good priced flight. There are two airport in Istanbul ; Ataturk Airport (European part and easy to reach city center even by metro) ataturkairport.com/en-EN/Pag... Sabiha Gokcen Airport (Asian part, it takes really time and no metro line here) sgairport.com/havaalani/eng/... Carriers i know; Atlasjet, Pegasus, Anadolujet, Sunexpress, Turkish Airlines,Onurair all the best

Definitely no need to bother with a local travel agent, at least for the flights. Turkish Airlines is very easy to deal with, and you will be amazed at how good they are if you haven't flown them in a while. The airline is now partially privatized (full disclosure, owning the shares of the company in my fund was one of the best purchases I ever made!) and it is now fully stocked with new planes, good food, fine service, etc. I have taken a number of long-haul flights with them (including one last month from Istanbul to Delhi) and to be honest I prefer them to many other big carriers! My only experience with the coast of Turkey is Gocek, which is near Dalaman, and a neat little place. Turkey is getting huge numbers of tourists these days and I get the feeling that a lot of places like Izmir and Bodrum are fairly overrun and built-up, although it is pretty easy to get off the beaten path into smaller and more charming towns. The coastline is really beautiful.

Hey Kristi, The transportation industry in TR has shown a huge development, especially on the last years, giving us inbound frequent flyers the option to be more flexible on time schedules and less on prices ... :) First of all, I wouldnt suggest u to make ur flight plans thru an travel agency, all the flag carrier and/or low cost airlines in TR have web sites on which u can make prebookings and also purchase, even u can use one of the many branch offices in cities as u reach here the country. Below I detail u the main carriers web sites for ur convinience to check which r in English now : http://www.turkishairlines.com/en-tr/ atlasjet.com/AtlasjetWeb/atl... onurair.com.tr/default_eng.a... http://www.flypgs.com/en/default.aspx http://www.borajet.com.tr/main.aspx http://sunexpress.com.tr/en So, u can reach from Istanbul to mostly all of the other cities in TR easil and in budgeted fares .. Besides, as u've mentioned that u dont wanna use bus as transportation, but let me tell u that there r now several great bus liners w new couches, single seats, wifi, channel tv, comfy seats, very good food and beverage offers etc ... So, besides flight, u might also consider them, too ... The main ones r Ulusoy, Varan, Kamil Koç, Pamukkale ... http://www.ulusoy.com.tr/default.aspx http://www.varan.com.tr/ http://www.kamilkoc.com.tr/ http://www.pamukkale.com.tr/ And as u've said that u r open to suggestions, I have a 3th option for u as change, for example, from Istanbul to Izmir now there is a very new system, combining ferry and bus in one ticket, more budgeted, less hassle and very fast, by IDO, web site in English as follows : idobus.com.tr/web/home;jsess... And also of course, connections by train : tcdd.gov.tr/tcdding/index.ht... Hope those infos help by ur planning of ur journey to TR, best wishes ... :)

Bodrum now has its own airport so you could fly into there. In and around Bodrum there are a few places I have stayed in. Yalikavak, short dolmus ride from Bodrum. Torba about 20 minutes in a dolmus from Bodrum. Guverchinlik is about 30 minutes from Bodrum on the road to Milas, this village is used mainly by the Turkish people these days for their holidays. Pamukkale is about a four hour drive from Bodrum by car.

Thanks for all the info, you've given me what looks to be a lot of choices! If Bodrum has an airport I might see if I can fly dirctly there or maybe I will find some other place once I start reading that looks more interesting. But it's good to know that there are some airline options. I'm not opposed to taking trains or buses BUT with only a week, I can't afford to spend 14 hours on one!!!

Hi again, This is Bodrum Airport pages. If u look at the flights where they are coming from maybe u use the same way. As far as i know most flights are charter types from Europe and this means u may also catch very good prices too. I do remember one of my friend came from Amsterdam to Bodrum for 20 usd something... all the best milasbodrum.dhmi.gov.tr/hava...

I used Pegasus when in Turkey and found them good and a reasonable price, have a look at their web site http://www.flypgs.com/en/default.aspx

atmairport.aero/Dalaman_en/i... dalaman is also at that area and gets more international flights too. U may also check that airport arrivals

If you do land at Bodrum airport and head towards Bodrum, you will drive through Guverchinlik and then on your right hand side you will pass Torba.

In recent years I've used Turkish and Onur to fly between Istanbul and Kayseri (for Kapadokya) and Bodrum. Very reasonable prices and certainly the Bodrum flights I booked online. The only thing to be wary of is which Istanbul airport the carrier uses. The low cost ones often use the new smaller airport on the Asian side (can't remember the name). I didn't use it because it seemed to be more difficult to access from the city. Ataturk is what most international & domestic carriers use, and it is easy to get to from the city centre.