what's going on everybody this island hopper tv today we're
going to talk about things to know when visiting Turkey let's do it
all right let's talk about where to go places to see and do obviously you know about
Cappadocia that's the place where you go to see all of those hot air balloons flying
over turkey and then you have the Turkish Riviera which is where i'm at now you have all the way
from bodrum all the way to alanya now in between you have towns like kosh or aldenese which is
actually exactly where i'm at i always say the turkish riviera rivals that of the greek islands
very close to roads too you can even get out there two roads if you wanted to go there then there's
other places like the puma kaili geothermal hot springs and many different ancient civilizations
for you to explore like a pieces and the whole mediterranean coast very full of greco-roman
old civilizations i mean they basically start from the old city of troy and then work their
way down all the way towards pastolania actually and everything in between seems like every town
has remnants or ruins of an old civilization from the greco-roman byzantine lysine history
all right guys when you come to turkey you're going to experience a lot of different foods
that's what we're here to show you so let's get into it there are many different types of kebab
that you'll want to try me personally i like to go with the lamb but you can ask for a variety
of different kebab but mostly donor kebab is something that you will want to research
and try when in turkey and the mixed meat is going to include chicken lamb beef no pork
pork is very limited here in turkey in fact you'll find plenty of sausage like chicken
sausage or lamb sausage and the seafood options are going to include the locally caught fish some
shrimp calamari octopus some caviar anchovies and some other shellfish but don't forget about the
street food and surprisingly enough for me i found a lot of corn as street food along with some nuts
turkey has a whole mixed bag of salads they like to include a lot of olives tomatoes greens and
cheese with their salads but then you can't forget about dessert baklava delicious crepes
and a whole variety of different pancakes and waffles and you have turkish coffee and turkish
tea which is commonly served with turkish delight but last but not least you can't forget about the
turkish ice cream guys that like to tease you while they serve you the ice cream
all right let's talk about transportation in turkey so how are you going to get around from
city to city well the preferred method is airplane airplanes are affordable i've seen flights
anywhere between 50 to 60 dollars for one-way tickets going from istanbul to cappadocia region
or to the turkish riviera check pegasus airlines there's also turkish airlines that's just getting
out of istanbul but then there's some ways to get around from city to city such as rental cars or
taxis personally i've used vip services for sixty dollars to go in a mercedes van just about two
hours for 60 u.s or 60 euros since it's exactly the same value nowadays but there's also some
water taxis that will get you around from beach to beach uh for example you can go from fedee to
oludines by water taxi you can also take a ferry to some of the greek islands like roads from here
there's buses in between but mostly i would say because the airfare is so cheap and turkey is
a big country for the long distance travel you're gonna go airplanes and then for the short distance
stuff you just go on taxis or vip services and it's not going to break the bank and one more
thing about transportation there is a high-speed train that goes from istanbul to ankara and i
believe it goes all the way to konya the thing is that train books up very quickly so do try to
order that in advance but the high-speed train can get you tankara from istanbul in a couple hours
all right so let's talk about some of the activities that you have in turkey
obviously you have turkish baths then you have things to see in istanbul like sofia hajiya
there's the blue mosque then you have riding a hot air balloon in cappadocia but you also have here
in aldenese you have paragliding parasailing riding jet skis riding quads doing safaris so
much to look forward to they have day tours that will take you to puma kaili and ephesus you can
do both of those on like a two day trip one day overnight so you have many different alternatives
of activities that you can explore while here i just gave you a couple right there but there's
many more than that each beach town each town is going to have its own alternative things
all right guys let's talk about safety when you come to turkey what do you need to know
is there anything to be concerned about so i've been in turkey for about eight days now
uh istanbul we've been to several of the towns four towns on the turkish riviera
i would say overall i can honestly say turkey is a safe country it's something that you would take
general precautions for but you don't need to go out of your way to be concerned there's a lot of
things that i read on the internet that made me concerned then when i got here i realized you
can walk around late at night you can walk around in the daytime in the mornings uh very safe place
i mean there was several different airbnb accommodations where they told us don't even
worry about locking your door it's totally safe that doesn't mean that there isn't crime here or
things that you should be concerned about because those things do happen in isolated incidents
but overall i would say if you're planning a trip here and you have any hesitation about
what you're reading online and safety i would say from my experience unless a national
event happens or something just out of the blue happens it is a safe place to visit and travel
okay let's talk about the currency and the things you need to know about transactions here in turkey
they prefer to transact in cash now the problem with that is i've had more problems
with atm machines in turkey than i have anywhere else in europe
which i guess comes with the territory but because they want to transact more in cash for example
taxi drivers or some of the stores they're always saying can you please give it to us in cash even
the tourist and activity people they want their money in cash but then you explain to them well
i've had issues with the atm machines for example today i went to two different atm machines
both of which had temporary errors on their withdrawals so i had to walk down the road and do
that again to find another one so it took about 20 minutes to find an atm machine that worked
the very first day i got here i went to four different atms so i came over here to pull
money out and they processed two transactions they said something went wrong but i checked my
atm uh bank card on my mobile app for banking and said they processed two transactions for
238 dollars both attempts they didn't give me any cash but they actually debited the money from my
bank that's kind of interesting uh the bank on my online banking told me that i had made those
transactions and they said they were processing but they didn't give me the money so i had to
contact my bank and let them know this so this has been a thing the atm machines the transactions you
can do it it works oh by the way they don't really accept american express maybe 20 of the vendors
accept american express here which is common i guess for most countries outside the united states
now when it comes to shopping there's something you're going to need to know number one is i'm
going to say straight up turkey has great quality clothes they have great quality rugs turkish rugs
are some of the finest in the world but what happens is when you get invited into some of
these stores not all stores it becomes a high pressure sales environment and you can't really
walk away without saying no easily so yeah you can say no and walk away of course but it might
be a challenge but i will say the things that i did buy in turkey i found to be of good quality
and i do enjoy shopping in turkey and would recommend that you guys do consider doing some
shopping while you're here i personally bought plenty of clothes and really enjoyed shopping at
the grand bazaar area that is like credible place to do shopping and i'm not a big shopper but you
can get anything from silver to rugs to spices you name it i would highly recommend checking out the
grand bazaar and even the egyptian bazaar and if you search this channel you'll see our video from
istanbul with the grand bazaar and the egyptian bazaar if you wanted to see that more in detail
we did a full walking tour there i will post a link below to the entire playlist from turkey
now when it comes to accommodation here in turkey i would say airbnb for families is going to be
your best friend if you're couples i would say something like hotels.combooking.com priceline
me personally i used a mix between marriott bon voy hilton honors hotels.com
and airbnb throughout my stay here i averaged around a hundred dollars per night per room while
in turkey so i got reasonable accommodation for a good price the cheapest i paid was around seventy
dollars for two beds the most expensive that i paid was around 180 for a one bedroom apartment
when it comes to doing laundry on site you can do what is called the poor man's laundry method
where you wash your clothes in the sink using your soap that you brought and then you just hang them
out to dry now obviously that works better in the summer than it does in the winter but around the
towns they're going to have the laundry available some of these units though if you look in the
details for the amenities it will tell you if they have laundry on site or in the room and as you can
see here plenty of pools and spas i did notice that they do have cold water jacuzzis here which
was the first for me i'm used to getting in a jacuzzi and having hot water with bubbles but cold
water and bubbles i guess that works too uh also another thing the pools close at sunset at most
all accommodation that i went to in turkey and for those of you like to get your feet in the dirt
they do have a lot of camping especially along the turkish riviera turkey is camping friendly
now one of the subjects that we do want to touch on is crowds turkey in particular in istanbul
can be very heavily crowded we're talking almost 25 million to 30 million people they
don't know the exact number but that's how many people supposedly live in istanbul just
like many other european cities right now when you're in the inner city you're going to have
heavy crowding and i personally am coming from the united states where there's not a lot of
crowds when you walk around downtown with the exception of maybe chicago and new york city
just be aware crowds exist it's a good thing that you get used to with time and it can actually be
fun first you might not want to drink coffee really early in the morning get all jittery
and then go hit the grand bazaar if shoulder to shoulder crowds can make you antsy or anxious
so when is the best time to visit well straight up it's going to be april and may september and
october those are the shoulder seasons less people and more mild weather if you like snow
go to istanbul in december and january and you might just get very cold snowy weather if you like
extremely hot weather show up in july and if you show up in july you're almost guaranteed to get
a lot of people and crowds along with the hot weather so if that's your thing june july and
august perfect for you if mild weather and less crowds are your thing then show up in
april may or september october and just some quick facts about turkey there's 84 million people
that live here the ethnicity and the language is turkish
and on that note if you guys enjoyed this episode of things to know about visiting turkey
hit the like button consider subscribing look below for the link to more of our
Turkey videos all across the country and we will see you guys on the next one you