Turkey Itinerary - 3 Weeks
 

Last winter we booked reward tickets for a 3 week trip to Turkey this October ... unfortunately life then got in the way, and I have not had a chance to do any planning whatsoever until now! We want to spend time in Istanbul, Cappadocia, and on the Turquoise Coast, and want to make a short stop in Selcuk in order to see Ephesus. We will have 20 nights total in Turkey. I now am in the process of trying to sort out my itinerary and would appreciate any feedback / suggestions / advice:

- 3 nights Istanbul (the first day is a write off since our flight doesn't arrive in Istanbul until early evening)

- fly to Kayseri or Nevsehir; 5 nights Cappadocia (will probably stay in Urgup)

- fly direct from Kayseri to Izmir; pick up rental car at airport; 2 nights Selcuk in order to visit Ephesus

- 7 nights total along the Turquoise Coast - trying to figure out how to break this up - 3 or 4 nights in Kas or Fethiye, and the other 3 or 4 in Cirali? Suggestions?

- fly from Antalya back to Istanbul; 3 more nights in Istanbul before departing Istanbul in the early evening on the last day to head home (with an overnight in Geneva on the way, oh the joys of annoyingly lengthy routings that one often gets stuck with when booking reward tickets!)

I had originally been planning to do 6 nights in Istanbul up front. This would have been my preference (we don't like switching hotels as much as we will be doing on this trip), but doing the 6 nights in Istanbul all together meant that on the day we would have been due to fly from Kayseri to Izmir, I was unable to find any direct flights on either SunExpress or Pegasus. So, I reworked the itinerary by breaking up the nights in Istanbul, so that we would be flying from Kayseri to Izmir on a date when Pegasus flies direct. I haven't yet booked any internal Turkey flights, just checked availability, so I can rework the itinerary if it would make more sense to structure it in some other way.

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

I have no suggestions but I did have a question: were all your flights booked on an award ticket or is the award ticket only to/from Istanbul and you paid for the other flights?

The award ticket is only for the flights to/from Istanbul. We will be booking internal Turkey flights separately.

Ah, thanks. Enjoy your trip!

We found it easy to make all of our hotel reservations for our trip to Turkey using www. booking.com.

No help but I will be watching this thread closely as we plan to take a similar trip next summer.

I would drop 1 day from Cappadocia and use it to stay 1 night at Lake Bafa on the road from Selçuk to the Lycian coast (visiting Priene and Miletus along the way).

I would also do 2 nights in Fethiye, 3 nights Kaş, and 2 nights Çıralı.

We rented a car for 9 days and drove from Izmir to Kayseri. You might consider doing the same. Click on my name to find my trip report.

I split my Istanbul time as well, and it was actually kind of nice. On the first pass we visited mosques, museums, etc., and then when we returned we just wandered the city.
I also think you will be glad to have 5 nights in Cappadocia. I had three and felt a week would have been grand.
I have tentatively planned a Turquoise coast trip and felt the same conundrum about allotting nights. All I can suggest is good old fashioned list making--to see where you should be in order to make exploring convenient.

You might find some helpful information in my trip report, which covers my 3.5 week trip including many of the same areas you hope to visit. Just click on my name to find it. As you'll see, I put all of my time in Istanbul at the end of my trip. I was glad that I didn't have to split my time in Istanbul, but it really depends on what you want to see and experience.