The Eastern Express train line in Turkiye also known as "Doğu Ekspresi"
is an outstanding route full of adventure, fun, and speechless landscapes. The train departs
from Ankara going all the way to Kars in Eastern Anatolia and is one of the longest train rides
in the country. If you're planning a trip on this train, here are all of the things and
recommendations that you need to know because trust me, the tickets sell out within hours.
But with our tips in this video you'll have a better chance of finding tickets for yourself.
So finally let's start by telling you what it's all about with this Eastern Express train that in
the past years it has become even more famous not just among the Turkish nationals but also among
foreign tourists. So basically this is a train line that you can get from Ankara and goes all the
way to Kars and just to go from one city to the other it will take around 25 to 30 hours
which by the way, let us know in the comments below if you will feel comfortable traveling on a train for
30 hours or even more? and also this route is 1,300 kilometers long so
throughout this route you will be able to visit cities such as Erzurum, Erzincan, Kayseri, Sivas,
Ankara and you will finish in Kars which is a border city with Armenia and I can definitely tell
you that this Eastern Express train line is one of the most beautiful and most scenic ones that you can take in Turkiye.
In case you haven't watched the other videos that we specifically made
in Erzurum and in Kars, then we highly recommend you go watch them because these are less known
cities but they're definitely worth a visit so if you're looking for some other different places to
visit in this beautiful country, then go check them out!
In our case we didn't have the opportunity of taking the train from Ankara because of course for taking it from there you will need much more time
to spend in that region so that is why we had to take the train from Erzurum and for that, we took a
direct flight from Istanbul to Erzurum and from there we boarded the train all the way to Kars,
and it only took about five hours to arrive so in case that you don't have enough time you can also do this route for yourself.
Also some of you have been asking me in in our previous videos about Erzurum
and Kars how they can take this train all the way from Istanbul to Kars, so well, actually if you
want to travel only by train, you can definitely do it but you will have to change the train line.
So for example, if you want to travel from Istanbul to Ankara by train, you can do it. There is a train
line that actually is the same one going to Ekisehir so you can take that one because that
one will take you all the way to Ankara so you can take it on the Asian side of Istanbul from Söğütlüçeşme
station or Bostancı station which will be the closest stations from the most touristic areas in the city
and the train from Istanbul to Ankara will take about maybe four hours and a half or five hours
to arrive only one way, and actually, it's quite fast because that one is the fast train
it's not like the Eastern Express that is just a normal train.
And before you go ahead and book your Eastern Express train tickets you need to know some information that at the beginning
it was a bit difficult for us to understand and after reading in several Turkish websites
we finally understood how the train works so we don't want you to to make the same mistake
and to book the wrong one or that the experience will be a bit different.
There are two type of trains that you will be able to find on the official website of the "Dogu Ekspresi".
The touristic one you will be able to find it out easily because it's written as
"Turistik Dogu Ekspresi" so that one will be the one that you would like to buy tickets for
because those ones also have those luxury cabin type for two people where also your your cabin
will have a personal table, a fridge, and even will be much more comfortable.
Meanwhile the other Eastern Express train which is like the normal one, not the touristic one, you will find wagons
for seated and a car that also has comfortable seats which can be easily transformed into a bed
also on the train you will be able to find a wagon exclusively for a restaurant where you can find
for example little snacks or tea or even coffee or if you would like to as well you can bring foods
and drinks from outside so depending on the seats and the wagon and even the train that you're gonna
buy the prices will differ so for example for a seated wagon you will pay as little as 30 Turkish
liras per person and for the most luxurious cabin you can pay up to 600 Turkish liras per person.
Also, keep in mind that there is another big difference between these two types of trains, and
the main one, will be that one of them takes longer than the other one so in the case that you want to
take the touristic Dogu Ekspresi just keep in mind that it will take about 30 hours probably one
way, and why is this? because that train tends to stop in some of the main cities so also people can
stretch their legs and even if they want they can also go and explore it just for a couple of hours
mainly they stopped in Erzurum, in Erzurum actually is the longest stop which is just one
before Kars like from the main cities, I think it will stop there about three hours so also you will
have the chance to explore very quick these other cities and the classic one will stop only for 15
to 20 minutes in each one of the stations so that is why if you take the classic one you will arrive sooner than in the touristic one.
This is another question that I have seen a lot on many Facebook
groups and even people they have also written me privately saying like they cannot find tickets
because they just sell out immediately and that is true but for that that is why I want to give you
this specific tip that in our case we did and it worked perfectly.
Let's imagine that you would like to take the train on march 1st so for that you don't have to wait and you shouldn't actually you
shouldn't wait until one or two weeks before you take the trip why because right away the tickets
are selling and that is why we're telling you that if you want to take the train you need to start
looking one month before your trip and that will be on the 1st of February because the system will open up
for your date one month ahead. So please just take this piece of advice with you because this will
really save your plans if you want to take the train because if you wait two or even three days
after the date opens up on the system, more likely all the tickets will be gone and this is
because since the train it's a very popular activity among the Turkish nationals many tourism
agencies the local ones will book at once tons of tickets so we are telling you this because
that almost happened to us and it wasn't even the touristic train it was just the classic one
and even then we almost missed our chance so now you can you imagine with the touristic one that
it's even more famous and more popular so that is why we tell you to start and look into the system
as soon as it is midnight and the system opens up for the date that you would like to travel at
Now I would like to show you from the official website how to get the tickets and what options
you will find it will be mostly in Turkish and actually even though they have an English version
some things are not translated into English so I will show you right now as well.
Here let's start looking for the official website where you can find the tickets for the train so
we really want the first option which is TCDD and "ebilet" it means like the ticket so
this is the official website you can go there and as you can see there there are some announcements
in Turkish which is about the Hes code you are going to need it and here you can click
English for the English version so here we are going to type from Ankara Gar all the way to Kars
now please keep in mind that also the touristic Dogu Ekspresi departs from Ankara to Kars only
twice a week and those days will be Wednesdays and Fridays so if you want to take specifically
the touristic Dogu Ekspresi, you need to choose either a Wednesday or a Friday.
For example, here we can already see at what time it departs which is at
almost 4:00 and this is the time in total that it will take remember that depending on the
weather season and the weather conditions it might take longer as well so if you take
it during the snowy times, it might take longer probably, and here is the classic one
and as you can see this is the price 1,300 TL for a cabin, for the full cabin for two people.
So for example, if you're going with your friend or with your partner, it's 1,300 TL
for both for the cabin and this one also which is the couchette type or the seated wagon.
Now in this part, if you click it, you will be able to see
how long and what stations the train will stop at so here you can also see how long it will
it will stop there are two cities that it will mainly stop for a longer time in this case is
İliç and it will stop for about three hours and the next one will be Erzurum which is
one of the biggest cities before Kars in Erzurum will also stop for almost three hours
and then it will go directly to Kars.
And now, here as you can see this is for the classic dogu ekspresi and this one takes
less time because it only stops for a couple of minutes in each one of the stations so that is
why it will take way less time so you have both options, I mean, if you don't mind taking like
the most comfortable cabin and so on, you can also take the normal one now another option it's also
that you can take it from Kars to Ankara usually those ones are not taken right away so also you
could use this one but keep in mind that this one is only Fridays and Sundays, Fridays and Sundays
So now here we can see at what time it will depart in the case of the classic Dogu Ekspresi departs
early morning but the touristic one will depart on the same day around after 10 p.m.
Here we can see how long it takes and as well it will be the same price here you can have both options
okay now for example depending on the route that you're taking for the train
you're going to stop in different cities so from Kars to Ankara
you will stop in some different cities that the train stopped when coming from Ankara to Kars.
So for example, in this case it will stop in Erzincan, in Erzincan will be
one of the longest stops almost three hours as you can see from here Erzincan three hours.
The next one will be Divriği I don't know how to pronounce it properly
it's also a stop of almost three hours then Sivas, Sivas they say it's a very beautiful city as well
and also about two-three hours and that will be it and then it will go all the way to Ankara.
And the last thing that I want to show you is that also depending on the station you're getting at
it will have a different price so let's compare between the classic
train and the touristic train so you can see what I'm talking about
so here we're going to choose also on Wednesday so we can compare the both trains okay and then
here for example this is the whole route so one will cost 82 TL while the touristic one
1,300 Turkish Liras for the cabin. Now let's imagine if we take it from Kayseri.
Now from Kayseri the classic will be 61-62 Liras
while the touristic will remain the same price 1,300 Turkish liras for the cabin.
On the other hand, if you take it from Erzurum which is just one station before Kars and it's
it's where we took it from
which is uh it takes about five hours actually to arrive
here you can see that you can pay as little as 30 Turkish Liras for the classic one
which is just a seated wagon or the couchette type cabin but the touristic one will remain
the same 1,300 Turkish liras for two people.
And finally, I will just mention at once what are
all the services that we can find inside the train so first of all we will find a wagon with
a small restaurant where you can get coffee, tea, or any sort of small snacks, but as I mentioned
before, you can also bring your own food and drinks from outside so you can enjoy the travel even more.
And the type of wagons as well that you'll be able to find will be the bedded
seated, and also the ones that have the couchette type seats and beds, not only you will have the
opportunity of enjoying amazing and stunning views of the landscapes but also you will have
the opportunity of learning about new cultures even inside Turkiye because Turkiye is so vast and
so diverse that it is so fascinating at the same time and Eastern Anatolia is not the exception.
Take the chance and explore new destinations that are not very common among
foreign tourists just go outside of Cappadocia, Antalya, Izmir, go further, check more destinations trust me you will not regret it.
So these were the things that you should know before booking your
Dogu Ekspresi train tickets, hopefully, our experience and also our recommendations were helpful for you
also, I would like to thank each one of our Patreon and YouTube members for giving us that
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