7 Travel Tips for Turkey
Since Turkey was a surprise trip for me, I was completely caught off guard in the preparation department. I had to learn from my own experiences there, but I’ll offer you some tips that are good to have in mind when you travel there.
1. The best exchange rates are in The Grand Bazaar
Believe it or not, the best exchange rates can be found in one of the most touristy areas in the city: the exchange offices at the Grand Bazaar. I feel like touristy areas are the hotspots for scams and cheats to prey on tourists, and that is usually the case. However, I’m happy to report that I did check it out for myself and sure enough all the daily exchange rates are clearly on display at the offices. There is little to no commission and you receive an official receipt after the transaction.
You can exchange some of your money at the airport to pay for initial expenses but if you’re stopping by The Grand Bazaar anyway (and you should, it’s a major must-see sight) you might as well get a better exchange here.
2. Don’t rely on credit cards, bring some euros just in case
Speaking of money in general, fraud is very prevalent in Turkey so make sure to coordinate and triple check with your credit card company multiple times before your trip. Even though we already notified our credit card companies, our cards continually got denied at restaurants, so don’t just rely on credit cards there.
Because of the boom in tourism and the value of the Turkish lira fluctuating daily, many big expenses, especially in the touristy shopping areas only take Euro. So my advice would be to have your credit card but just in case, bring Euro for the big expenses and exchange some of it to Turkish Lira for the smaller expenses.
3. Plan your mosque visits between prayer times
The call to prayer chants can be heard five times a day from dawn to nightfall booming through the loudspeakers of the minaret, the tall spires connected to the mosques. The exact time for the call to prayer changes from day to day depending on the rotation of the earth and sun so you’ll have to look up the times on the day of. During prayer time, mosques are closed to tourists for up to 90 minutes so it’s best to plan your mosque visit ahead of time so you don’t end up waiting outside when it’s closed. On the upside, if you’re waiting for the Blue Mosque, start heading towards there 10 minutes before prayer time ends so you can reduce your wait time in line.
4. Wear comfortable shoes and dress a bit more modestly
Istanbul is actually a lot like San Francisco, it’s pretty darn hilly! Chances are you’ll be walking everywhere so bring comfortable shoes to trudge up and down the hills and narrow streets.
It was also pretty rare to see women wearing shorts even on the hot summer days, dresses and knee-length skirts were more common and are considered more modest. When entering mosques, women will need to cover up their hair, shoulders, and legs. The Blue Mosque offers a complete gown for you to borrow, but the smaller mosques may not have that so bring a scarf to wrap yourself up.
5. Don’t get hustled by cab drivers
Actually that may not be possible, so instead try very hard NOT to get hustled by cab drivers! Cab drivers are pretty infamous for trying to hustle tourists, but I experienced it to an even higher extent in Istanbul.
First off, always look for an official yellow cab that prominently says “taksi” on the top and side of the vehicle. If you’re near a touristy area, don’t walk towards the cabs that are already conveniently waiting there, they’ll most likely give you an outrageous number. Instead, walk further away or try to hail another taksi from the road.
Also, make sure you locate the meter and keep your eye on it. We’ve been in cabs where the meter was up above in the rearview mirror (just an innocuous red number that doesn’t even look like a fare), and also hidden way below behind the gearshift (where you have to get up off your seat just to peer at it). If the driver tells you his meter is broken and he’ll estimate your fare, just get out and get yourself a new taksi.
At one point we were less than a mile from home but didn’t feel like walking the monster hill to get up there. We knew the taxi ride would be under ₺10, but one waiting cab driver told us it would cost at least ₺40 because there was a huge soccer game going on at the stadium near our hotel and it would be really nasty traffic. We rolled our eyes at him and hailed our own cab who promptly turned on his meter, and we got home with zero traffic (the stadium was empty, there was no game!) for ₺6.
6. Pronunciation of Turkish words
This is why Kapadokya is spelled like this so it's not pronounced Jappadojia
If you’re scanning over a menu or looking at a map for directions, you’ll see Turkish words that you may think you’re able to pronounce, but when you’re met with a dumbfounded look you just know that the other person had absolutely no idea what you said. I may not be able to actually read Turkish, but with these helpful pronunciation tips I was able to fake it like a pro.
Ğ - a G with a curve above it is silent, so don’t pronounce it!
G - any G is a hard G, there are no soft G’s
Example: nobody knew our hotel when we pronounced it “St. Ree-jis, instead we had to say, “St. Reg-ist like I’m able to say regular”
C - an ordinary looking C is actually pronounced like a J
Example: if you’re named Cecelia, you will be called Jejelia
Ç or Ş - a C or S with a squiggly underneath it will have an accompanied H sound, so think chat or shawl
7. Find Products cheaper outside of your tour group in Cappadocia
Cappadocia runs almost entirely on tourism which means there’s fierce competition between hotels and tour companies. You can find TripAdvisor stickers on pretty much all the hotel and restaurant doors, and managers highly encourage you to write reviews when you return home.
The town is so attached to tourism that they have everything packaged up neatly with a cute little bow on top. On pretty much any tour you join, you’ll be shown the various sights from underground cities to rock castles but in between they’ll also bring you to various craft demonstrations like pottery making or onyx jewelry making. It’s a cool experience to see the artistic process and afterwards you’ll be guided through the showroom where you can purchase the art.
However with a town as small as Cappadocia that relies so heavily on tourism, you know these shops have connections and commissions with the tour groups that bring the tourists in. Just make a note to yourself that wherever they bring you, you can probably find it cheaper on your own somewhere else in town that doesn’t have a deal with the tour companies.
