It's easy enough to find information about traveling to Istanbul or Cappadocia but what about to Urfa,
It can be a bit more complicated to plan a trip outside major cities and tourist areas, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. Knowing a few tips and tricks can help you plan a trip in Turkey. We're going to Mardin next weekend for Newroz, so I'm going to use that city as an example as to how I go about planning a trip here in Turkey.
Buy plane tickets directly from an airline's website.
Unlike when buying international tickets, it's always best to buy a domestic flight ticket directly from the airline. There's no use in using Kayak or Momondo here; their rates won't be any cheaper. And you will always get a cheaper ticket from an airline's website than if you go to their offices in Taksim or Sultanahmet.
There are five airlines I check -- Turkish Airlines, Atlas Jet, Pegasus, Sun Express and Onur Air -- but I only fly regularly with the first two and only occasionally with the third. I know for a fact that THY flies to Mardin, so I go there first. Tickets to Mardin are cheap -- 29 TL for each leg of the trip (with a stop-over in Ankara) -- adding up to a total of 326 TL for two people. (I have since learned that Pegasus flies direct from Izmir to Mardin, but I didn't know that until after I purchased my THY tickets).
Call, don't email, hotels.
For hotel recommendations, I turn to my trusty Lonely Planet Turkey guidebook, in this case, the 11th edition, published in April 2009. About 75% of the time, I choose my hotel accommodation according to the Lonely Planet guidebook. If the city is small, like Mardin, it's more likely that I'll make a hotel choice based on my guidebook; if the city is larger, I'm more likely to ask friends for hotel recommendations.
In Mardin's case, it looks like the Erdoba Hotel is my best bet. Mardin's not known for inexpensive hostels (the way that, say, Selcuk is) so if I'm going to pay like a king I figure I might as well sleep like one too. I know from experience that sending an email through a hotel's website often gets me absolutely nowhere in Turkey, so I pick up the phone and call. Here's where speaking a little bit of Turkish comes in handy; most hotel receptionists outside of large cities don't speak English and if they do, they'll quote you prices in dollars or euros. I ask about the price of a double room for March 19-22. The nightly rate is 150 TL, I'm told.
I balk at the price and on a whim decide to ask my friend, a travel agent, if she can get me a better rate. In the meantime, I also call up the Artuklu Hotel and they tell me a room will be 140 TL. I decide to hold out on Erdoba.
A week passes and it turns out my friend can't get me a better rate. By the time I call Erdoba back, the rate has gone up to 180 TL. Sigh. Time to turn to my second choice, the Artuklu Hotel. At this point, they're charging 160 TL a night. I bite my tongue and book a room for three nights. Next time, I tell myself, I'll do it early and I'll do it myself.
The internet is your friend.
My guidebook gives me a basic overview of Mardin (population, exact location, a general description) and offers up a brief history. The book also offers a list of sights -- the famous bazaar, Ulu Cami, the Mardin Museum, Sultan Isa Medresesi, Forty Martyrs Church and the Kasimiye Medresesi, to name a few.
I then turn to the more updated Lonely Planet web page about Mardin. Can you tell that I have a thing for Lonely Planet? The info online is sometimes different than what is presented in the book, so I usually look here for updates. In the case of Mardin, though, Lonely Planet's website doesn't offer anything different than what's in my guidebook; in fact, it had a lot less information (which makes sense because they want you to buy the guidebook, not use their free website for everything).
While I'm on the Lonely Planet website, I jump over to its Thorn Tree travel forum, a place where
Every now and again I'll check out Tom Brosnahan's Turkey Travel Planner. At the bottom of the page, I plug "Mardin" into the search box and away we go. I learn on this site that the Saffron Monastery, a holy place in existence since 495 AD and now an orphanage run by monks, is the city's number-one attraction. I definitely add this to my to-do list. Sometimes I also visit All About Turkey to see if there's anything there I haven't seen elsewhere.
Social media is also your friend.
After that I post a message to
At this point, I figure, I'm as prepared as I can be. I know how I'm getting there, where I'm sleeping and what I'm going to do. The rest will come easily and naturally while I'm there.
Provided that nobody makes ME jump over a flaming fire, it's going to be a great trip!
What about you? How do you go about planning for a trip in Turkey? Do you have any secret tips and tricks? Do share please!
*Note: Not one of the websites mentioned above -- including Lonely Planet, THY, or the Erdoba or Artuklu hotels -- know who I am or care about this website. I wasn't paid to write about them and they wouldn't care if I keeled over tomorrow. Just an FYI.
