--- title: "Turkey travel guides, city by city | Wimup" description: "Where to go in Turkey and when to go: the city guides, the food worth crossing the country for, and what to know before you book." url: https://wimup.com/country/turkey type: Country guide updated: 2026-10-06 publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com) --- # Top 10s across Turkey From **Istanbul** and the Marmara shore to the **Aegean ruins**, the **Turquoise coast** and **Cappadocia**, Turkey’s cities each distilled to ten things worth your time, mapped and filmed. ## Quick answer Open in **Istanbul** and give it four days, because nothing else in the country works the same way. Then the route splits. Southwest runs the **Aegean** for Ephesus, Pamukkale and the coastal ruins, then down to **Antalya** and the Turquoise coast to swim. Inland runs to **Cappadocia** for the rock valleys, with **Konya** and **Ankara** on the way. Repeat visitors go southeast, where **Gaziantep** cooks and **Mardin** sits on a ridge over the plain. **May, September and October** work almost everywhere. ## Quick facts - **Best months:** May · Sep · Oct - **Ideal length:** 10–14 days - **Budget per day:** $60–130 - **Language:** Turkish - **Getting around:** High-speed rail, buses & flights - **4** City guides - **86,092,168** People - **2** Video guides Turkey is best taken in regions rather than in one sweep. Istanbul is the obvious opening and the least typical stop, and the Aegean coast, Cappadocia and the southeast each read as a different country. ## 4 Turkey city guides 1. [Istanbul](https://wimup.com/city/istanbul.md): Europe · 10 picks 2. [Antalya](https://wimup.com/city/antalya.md): Europe · 10 picks 3. [Bodrum](https://wimup.com/city/bodrum.md): Europe · 10 picks 4. [Pamukkale](https://wimup.com/city/pamukkale.md): Europe · 10 picks ## Know before you go - **Population:** 86,092,168 - **Area:** 783,562 km² - **Density:** 112 / km² - **Capital:** Ankara - **Major cities:** Istanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Bursa, Antalya - **Tourism board:** Official site - **Currency:** Turkish lira (₺) - **Language:** Turkish Kurdish and Arabic are widely spoken in the southeast. Transport and airport signage is bilingual, and English is common in Istanbul and the coastal resorts. - **Calling code:** +90 - **Power:** 230V · Type C/F - **Emergency:** 112 One number now reaches police, ambulance and fire nationwide. - **Visa:** e-Visa or visa-free Some nationalities enter visa-free, others apply online before travelling. Check yours on the official portal and avoid resellers. - **Getting around:** Flights & high-speed rail High-speed trains link Istanbul, Ankara and Konya. Domestic flights cover the rest of a country that is larger than it looks, and coaches fill in the gaps. - **Tipping:** Round up Around ten percent in a restaurant if service is not already added. Taxis get the fare rounded up. - **Money:** Cards and cash Cards work in cities, hotels and chains. Markets, small kebab counters, village stops and mosque donations are cash. ## When to visit - **Jan** - **Feb** - **Mar** (good) - **Apr** (best) - **May** (best) - **Jun** (good) - **Jul** (peak) - **Aug** (peak) - **Sep** (best) - **Oct** (best) - **Nov** (good) - **Dec** ## Fun fact Türkiye carries 22 sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List, the newest of them the ancient city of Sardis and the Lydian tumuli of Bin Tepe, inscribed in 2025. ## Stereotypes, sorted out - **Myth:** Turkey is one long beach holiday **Reality:** The Mediterranean resorts are real, and they are a fraction of the country. Turkey also holds Greek and Roman cities along the Aegean, an early Ottoman capital at Bursa, volcanic valleys in Cappadocia, and a Black Sea coast that stays green through the summer. - **Myth:** Istanbul is the country **Reality:** Istanbul is the largest city and the least representative one. Ankara runs the government, İzmir faces west and lives more casually, Gaziantep cooks unlike anywhere else, and the southeast speaks Kurdish and Arabic alongside Turkish. - **Myth:** You will be haggled at constantly **Reality:** Bargaining belongs to carpet shops, bazaars and souvenir stalls. Supermarkets, restaurants, transport and ordinary retail are fixed price, and haggling in them looks odd. - **Myth:** You cannot get around without Turkish **Reality:** Signage on the metros, the high-speed trains and the airports is bilingual, and English is common in Istanbul, the coastal resorts and Cappadocia. It thins out quickly inland and in the east, where a translation app earns its place. - **Myth:** Turkish coffee is the everyday drink **Reality:** Tea is. It arrives in tulip glasses at every hour and with most transactions, offered free. Turkish coffee is an occasion: small, thick, and usually after a meal. - Shoes come off at the door of a home and often at a guesthouse. Slippers are usually waiting for you. - Mosques ask for covered shoulders and knees, and a headscarf for women. The large ones lend scarves at the door. - Tea is an offer, not a transaction. Accepting one in a shop commits you to nothing, and refusing flatly reads as cold. - Friday midday prayer fills the big mosques. Visit outside prayer times, and walk around a congregation, never through it. - Public affection between couples stays low key outside Istanbul and the resorts. Read the street before assuming otherwise. - Ramadan changes the rhythm, and the country stays open. Restaurants keep serving in tourist areas, and iftar at sunset is worth planning around. ## Famous Turkish faces - **Mustafa Kemal Atatürk**: First president, who founded the Republic in 1923 and remade its alphabet and law. - **Orhan Pamuk**: Istanbul novelist, Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006, author of My Name Is Red and Snow. - **Mimar Sinan**: Chief Ottoman architect for half a century. Built the Süleymaniye and Edirne’s Selimiye. - **Aziz Sancar**: Biochemist, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2015 for mapping how cells repair DNA. - **Nuri Bilge Ceylan**: Director, Palme d’Or in 2014 for Winter Sleep, and a Cannes regular. - **Sezen Aksu**: Singer-songwriter who shaped modern Turkish pop. The country still sings her songs. - **Ara Güler**: The Eye of Istanbul. His black and white photographs record the mid-century city. - **Naim Süleymanoğlu**: Weightlifter, winner of three consecutive Olympic golds from 1988 to 1996 - **Recep Tayyip Erdoğan**: President since 2014, and prime minister for the eleven years before that - **Tansu Çiller**: Prime minister from 1993 to 1996, the only woman to hold the office - **Süleyman Demirel**: Prime minister seven times and president from 1993 to 2000. - **Nâzım Hikmet**: Jailed poet stripped of citizenship, and still the most quoted in modern Turkish verse. - **Yaşar Kemal**: Novelist of the Çukurova plain, best known abroad for Memed, My Hawk - **Elif Şafak**: Novelist writing in both Turkish and English, shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2019 - **Evliya Çelebi**: Seventeenth-century traveller. His ten-volume Seyahatnâme maps the Ottoman world. - **Yılmaz Güney**: Director and actor, whose Yol shared the Palme d’Or in 1982 while he was in exile - **Fatih Akın**: German-born Turkish director, winner of the Golden Bear in 2004 for Head-On - **Türkan Şoray**: Actress and director, the defining star of the Yeşilçam studio era - **Barış Manço**: Singer and television host who fused Anatolian folk with rock and toured it worldwide - **Tarkan**: Pop singer whose Şımarık became one of the few Turkish songs to chart across Europe - **Fazıl Say**: Concert pianist and composer, performing his own work with orchestras worldwide - **Arda Güler**: Midfielder for Real Madrid and the national team, signed from Fenerbahçe at eighteen - **Mete Gazoz**: Archer, Olympic champion in the individual recurve at Tokyo 2020 - **Hidayet Türkoğlu**: Basketball forward, named the NBA’s Most Improved Player in 2008 - **Cahit Arf**: Mathematician behind the Arf invariant, and the face of the old ten lira note - **Feza Gürsey**: Theoretical physicist, known for work on symmetry in particle physics - **Fahrelnissa Zeid**: Painter of portraits and vast abstract canvases, shown in retrospectives across Europe. - **Refik Anadol**: Media artist making data-driven installations for museums and public buildings worldwide ## Must-try Turkish food - **Mantı**: Thumbnail dumplings under garlic yoghurt and chilli butter. Kayseri claims them. - **İskender kebap**: Sliced döner over torn pide, tomato sauce and melted butter. A Bursa invention. - **Karnıyarık**: Aubergine split and filled with minced lamb, onion and tomato, then baked. - **Kuru fasulye**: White beans in tomato sauce with rice. The everyday lunch, eaten everywhere. - **Menemen**: Eggs scrambled loose into peppers and tomato, scooped up with bread. Breakfast. - **İçli köfte**: A bulgur shell around spiced lamb and walnut, boiled or fried. Southeastern. - **Adana kebabı**: Hand-minced lamb on a flat skewer, hot with pepper. Named for the city. - **Urfa kebabı**: The same skewer without the chilli. Milder, and the usual first order. - **Şiş kebap**: Cubed lamb or chicken over charcoal, served with grilled pepper and onion. - **Köfte**: Grilled meatballs, seasoned differently in every region that claims them. - **Beyti**: Minced lamb wrapped in lavaş, sliced into rounds and set on yoghurt. - **Haydari**: Strained yoghurt with garlic and dried mint. The one that cools everything else. - **Ezme**: Raw tomato, pepper and onion chopped fine and sharpened with pomegranate molasses. - **Fava**: Puréed broad beans set firm and cut into squares, with dill and lemon. - **Patlıcan salatası**: Smoked aubergine mashed with yoghurt or olive oil. Tastes of the charcoal. - **Zeytinyağlı yaprak sarma**: Vine leaves rolled around rice, pine nuts and currants, served cold. - **Balık ekmek**: Grilled fish in half a loaf with onion and rocket, eaten by the Bosphorus. - **Midye dolma**: Mussels stuffed with spiced rice, sold by the shell with a wedge of lemon. - **Çiğ köfte**: Bulgur kneaded with pepper paste and spices, now made without meat and wrapped in lettuce. - **Kokoreç**: Seasoned offal wound on a spit, chopped fine and served in bread. Late night. - **Kumpir**: A baked potato mashed with butter and cheese, then loaded from a counter of toppings. - **Simit**: A sesame ring sold from red carts. Breakfast, or whenever you pass one. - **Lahmacun**: Thin dough under minced lamb and pepper, rolled around parsley and lemon. - **Pide**: A boat of dough baked with cheese, egg or minced meat, cut into strips. - **Börek**: Layered yufka pastry with cheese, spinach or meat. Sold by weight, eaten warm. - **Poğaça**: A soft savoury bun, filled or plain, that goes with the first tea of the day. - **Baklava**: Filo, pistachio and syrup. Gaziantep is where people go out of their way for it. - **Künefe**: Shredded pastry over stretchy cheese, soaked in syrup and served hot. - **Lokum**: Turkish delight, best with pistachio or rose, dusted and never sticky. - **Maraş dondurması**: Ice cream thickened with salep and mastic, stiff enough to cut with a knife. - **Sütlaç**: Baked rice pudding with a scorched skin, eaten cold from a clay dish. - **Çay**: Black tea in a tulip glass, brewed in a stacked pot and drunk all day. - **Türk kahvesi**: Ground fine, brewed in a cezve, served with the grounds settling. Say how sweet first. - **Ayran**: Salted yoghurt whisked with water. The standard answer to a plate of kebab. - **Şalgam**: Fermented turnip and carrot juice, sour and salty. An Adana habit. - **Salep**: Hot orchid-root milk under cinnamon, sold on winter streets. ## Films - [Best of Antalya](https://wimup.com/watch/antalya.md), 19:10 - [Istanbul on Foot](https://wimup.com/watch/istanbul.md), 3:01:54 ## FAQs ### How many days do you need in Turkey? Ten to fourteen days covers a real itinerary: four in Istanbul, three or four on the Aegean coast, and three in Cappadocia. With a week, pick Istanbul plus one region and leave the rest. ### When is the best time to visit Turkey? May, September and early October work almost everywhere: warm coast, bearable interior, and lighter crowds than midsummer. July and August are hot and busy on the Mediterranean, and winter closes much of the coastal resort trade. ### Do you need a visa for Turkey? Many nationalities enter visa-free, and many others apply online through the official e-Visa system before travelling. Check your own passport on evisa.gov.tr, because the rule differs by nationality and changes. ### Is Istanbul enough, or should you travel further? Istanbul is worth a trip on its own and it is not representative of the country. Cappadocia and the Aegean coast are both a short domestic flight away, and each reads as somewhere else entirely. ### How do you get between Turkish cities? Domestic flights cover the long distances cheaply, high-speed trains link Istanbul, Ankara and Konya, and intercity coaches reach everywhere the trains do not. Distances are larger than the map suggests. ## Related countries - [Italy](https://wimup.com/country/italy.md) - [France](https://wimup.com/country/france.md) - [All of Europe](https://wimup.com/europe) Part of [Europe](https://wimup.com/europe.md) ## Sources - [Tourism board](https://www.goturkiye.com/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Visa](https://www.evisa.gov.tr/en/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Getting around](https://ebilet.tcddtasimacilik.gov.tr/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.