🇹🇷 Turkey · Europe
Istanbul
Two continents, sixteen million people, and a ferry to Asia that costs less than a coffee.
cityculturefood☀ best: May, Jun, Sep
The Istanbul guide
Inside the premium guide
A preview of the real thing — a detailed premium guide, researched and checked in 2026. Click a page to enlarge.
THE COMPLETE CITY GUIDE
TURKEY · RESEARCHED 2026
Istanbul
Two continents, sixteen million people, and a ferry to Asia that costs less than a coffee.
sama·sama
The cover
What this guide covers
38 pages, A4 — cover to back. A phone edition comes with it.
What’s inside + how to use
The place & what a day costs
City at a glance — the best-of snapshot
What & how to eat
Where to eat — cheap & local
Mid-range & special occasion
Sweets, cafés & coffee
Vegan, veggie & gluten-free
Supermarkets & typical prices
Markets & food halls
Souvenirs & shopping
Where to stay — neighbourhoods
Budget, boutique & luxury stays
Hostels — the backpacker shortlist
Six big things to do
Top 10 experiences — book & compare
Nightlife & after dark
Best day trips
Insider tips + safety & scams
Ready-made day plans
Getting around
Arrival, tickets & transport cheat sheet
When to go + best time to visit
Cash, cards & tipping
Connectivity & insurance
Health, safety & entry
The travel toolbox
Every link, one place
Sama·Sama · Istanbul guide38 pages
Everything it covers
STRAIGHT FROM THE GUIDE
Designed cover to cover
One real entry from the Istanbul guide
The price tables further down give you the ranges. The guide gives you the places — 34 of them in Istanbul, each priced, each one tap from Google Maps.
€1Simit cartsSesame-crusted bread rings sold from red carts and shoulder trays from dawn onwards, best in the first hour after baking when the crust still shatters.📍 Open in Google Maps →One of 34. The rest are in the guide.
Everything. Two files. One price.
This isn’t a blog post saved as a PDF — it’s a detailed, premium, 38-page A4 magazine — researched and checked in 2026, designed to be used. And every purchase comes as two files: the A4 edition for your laptop, tablet and printer, and a phone edition laid out tall and narrow so you never pinch or zoom — the same guide re-flowed into 105 phone-sized pages. Keep it on your phone or print it, open it at a street corner in Istanbul and it answers the question you’re standing there with.
38A4 pages — cover to back
105phone pages — same guide, re-flowed
244+researched prices in €
244live, verified links
113jump straight to Google Maps
50hand-picked photos
Add it up: 538+ researched details — every price checked, every venue placed, every link live. More usable information than a week of blog-tab hopping, in one beautiful file.
- Made for the phone in your pocket — as well as the A4 magazine you get a phone edition: one attraction per screen, nothing cut, every link still live. No pinching, no sideways scrolling.
- Every venue is one tap from navigation — 113 Google Maps links mean you never type an address on holiday.
- Real prices, not vibes — three honest daily budgets (€30 / €69 / €165) and prices on everything from a dorm bed to a splurge dinner.
- Zero sponsorships — nobody paid to be in this guide. If it’s in, it’s in because it’s good.
- Book everything from the page — stays open on Booking.com & Hostelworld, experiences on GetYourGuide, Trip.com & Klook, transport on official operator sites.
- Plan-it-for-me included — ready day plans, a Top 10, a best-of snapshot, and neighbourhood “best for” labels that choose your base with you.
Buy the Istanbul guide — €9.95 →Or buy Istanbul on Etsy ↗
Was €14.50 — now €9.95, every city the same.
This page gives you the ranges. The guide gives you the places — every venue named, priced and linked.
SHOESTRING
€30/day
dorms, street plates, transit
COMFY
€69/day
private room, sit-down meals, a treat
FLASH
€165/day
nice hotel, good dinners, no maths
🧮 Trip maths
€486 total
What Istanbul costs, day to day
🛵 Getting around
BiTaksi
Uber
Bolt — not an option here — BiTaksi and Uber are the two apps
İstanbulkart tap (metro, tram, bus)per tap — Transfers within two hours are discounted.€0.7
City ferry, Europe to Asiaper crossing — The best view in the city.€0.7
Marmaray under the Bosphorusby distance — Sirkeci to Üsküdar in four minutes.€0.7–€1.3
Funicular & nostalgic tramper tap€0.7
M11 metro from Istanbul Airportone-way — ~35 min to Gayrettepe, then change.€1.7
HAVAIST / Havabüs airport coachone-way — Pay the driver by card.€5.2–€7.8
🛏 Stays
Per night
Hostel dorm bed€9.5–€16
Budget hotel double€39–€52
Boutique 4★ in Sultanahmet€82–€113
Bosphorus-view 5★€156–€304
Monthly
Studio, Kadıköy or Şişli€347–€564
1-BR, Cihangir or Beşiktaş€521–€825
🛒 Groceries & daily life
Migros — the default, in sizes from the pokey M to the sprawling 5M
CarrefourSA — similar ground, similar prices
Street pazar — fruit and veg for a fraction of the supermarket — half a kilo is fine
Water 1.5 L€0.3–€0.4
Bread loaf€0.4–€0.6
Eggs ×12€2–€2.4
Milk 1 L€1–€1.2
Beyaz peynir 500 g€4–€4.7
Tomatoes 1 kg€1.5–€1.9
Çay, loose, 500 g€3.6–€4.3
Efes beer 0.5 L can€1.5–€1.8
🍜 Eating out
Simit from a cart€0.9–€1
Balık ekmek at Eminönü€3.5–€4.3
Two hot dishes at an esnaf lokanta€5.2–€7.8
Çiya Sofrası plateper person€13–€22
Ocakbaşı grill and mezeper person€22–€35
Meyhane night with rakıper person€26–€43
Mikla or Neolokal tasting menuper person€87–€156
🎡 Things to do — with kids
A Bosphorus commuter ferryper ride€0.7–€3.5
Basilica Cisternentry€24
Blue Mosque and the Hippodromefreefree
Büyükada, Princes' Islands ferryeach way€1.7
🌙 Things to do — grown-ups
Hagia Sophiaentry€22
Topkapı Palaceentry, harem extra€39–€56
Grand Bazaar and Spice Bazaarfree to wanderfree
Meyhane night with rakı and mezeper person€26–€43
🌤 Climate
Day °CSea °CRain
Best: May, Jun, Sep · Wet: Nov – Jan
Wetter than people expect, and the wind off the Black Sea makes winter feel colder than the numbers suggest. The sea is only properly swimmable from late June.
✈️ Getting there
Turkish AirlinesPegasusAJetWizz AirRyanairAntalya€22–€52
Athens€35–€87
Berlin€35–€95
Two airports on opposite sides of the city and they are not interchangeable — IST is north-west on the European side, Sabiha Gökçen (SAW) south-east on the Asian side. Always price both.
🏧 ATMs & money
Fees: Turkish bank ATMs all charge a foreign-card withdrawal fee and it has climbed steeply — budget roughly €3–6 a pull whatever the amount, so take out more, less often.
Limits: Usually 10,000–20,000 TL a withdrawal depending on the bank. Max it out to dilute the flat fee.
Best machines: ZiraatVakifBankHalkbank
Use a machine attached to a real bank branch. Walk past the free-standing yellow Euronet machines around Sultanahmet, Taksim and the resort strips — their fee and their rate are both awful. Always decline the machine's offer to convert to euro and choose lira. Change cash at a döviz office in town, never at the airport.
🩺 Health & safety
Vaccines: No vaccinations are required. Being up to date with your usual jabs is enough; a travel clinic may suggest Hepatitis A and Tetanus if you plan to eat widely at street stalls.
Health: Pharmacies are marked eczane, they are excellent, and the pharmacist will sort out a stomach upset without an appointment — a rota of night pharmacies (nöbetçi eczane) is posted in every window. State hospitals are free to attend but chaotic; private ones such as Acıbadem, Memorial and the American Hospital in Nişantaşı are quick and English-speaking and want payment or an insurance guarantee up front.
Tap water: ❌ Chlorinated and technically drinkable, but it tastes of the pipes and nobody local drinks it. Bottled water costs pennies.
Safety: Violent crime against visitors is very rare. The realistic risks are heat at the ruins in July and August, traffic that does not stop for crossings, steep wet cobbles in the old towns, and pickpockets in the crowds — İstiklal, the Grand Bazaar lanes, a packed tram. Bag in front of you and that is genuinely most of it. Turkey is seismic, so know the drill: drop, cover, hold on.
Emergency: 112 for police, ambulance and fire
🌱 Vegan, veggie & gluten-free
Plant-based: Easier than its reputation, provided you think in meze rather than mains: half the cold dishes in any meyhane are olive-oil vegetable dishes that happen to be vegan — zeytinyağlı beans, stuffed vine leaves, imam bayıldı, barbunya, hummus. Çiğ köfte wraps are bulgur-only by law and lentil soup is usually made with water.
Gluten-free: Harder, because bread is structural here. Rice dishes, grilled meat and glutensiz labelling in the bigger Migros stores are the way through.
No meat = 'etsiz' · no dairy = 'sütsiz' · watch for butter, which goes into more things than menus admit, and for vejetaryen occasionally being stretched to include chicken.
🛂 Visa & entry
For most short tourist trips, citizens of the US, UK, EU/Schengen, Canada, Australia and New Zealand either enter visa-free or get a simple online authorisation (an eVisa or eTA) before flying. Typical visa-free stays run 30–90 days. Some countries want a visa arranged in advance, and a growing number ask you to fill an online arrival or eVisa form even when 'visa-free' — so always check the official portal for your exact nationality before you book.
Rules change — always verify with an official source for your nationality before you book.
💬 Traveller tips & reports
Skip the tourist cruise, ride the commuter ferry — The ordinary city ferry from Eminönü up to Anadolu Kavağı covers the same water as the Bosphorus cruise for around eighty cents on an İstanbulkart — same palaces, same bridges, and Turkish families for company instead of a PA system.
@bogaz.commute · May ’26 · ▲ 193