Viator.com in Turkey
 

Has anyone used the online tour company Viator.com in Turkey? We are looking at their Cappadocia package (air, hotel, trans between the two, 1.5 day guide of Cappadocia - for an excellent price). May consider others they have. We typically make all our own arrangements, but this seems like a good price. I've done a search in Fodors for "viator" and received no matches. So if you have experience, good or bad, with this online company, please comment. Thanks in advance for any/all information!!

Why don 't you use a local company based in Istanbul such as Efendi Travel?

I thought they had been mentioned several times. I've never used them in Turkey, but have in other places. It's just a convenient one-stop portal to find local tours, that's all. They are not the tour company and don't do them, they are an aggregator for local tour companies, so it will be a local one. Their prices are not necessarily higher than booking directly, either, in fact, sometimes I think they get discounts. It's sort of like Expedia, etc.

Now in the case of packages like you are asking about, I am not sure how they works. I still don't think it is Viator doing it. The advantage of Viator is one-stop shopping, and may be easier to plan and deal with than a local company. You can compare their prices to Efendi, of course, which I think it a high-end company.

We haven't used Viator, but rather a company owned by them called Travel Toe. We booked a general tour for a destination with them, and tured out my husband and I were the only 2 on the tour, so it became somewhat of a private tour! Excellend, knowledgable guide and was at a good pace. We booked online prior to leaving for Turkey and didn't run into any issues once there. Go for it!

We used them to book a tour of the Vatican. The guide was very good; knowledgeable and was American living in Rome for the past 8 years. She had some impressive credentials, based on what she told us per her education and background.

If you see a tour or event on Viator that you like you can also do a google search of a distinctive phrase in the description and find website of the "real" operator who offers it. The Viator descriptions are copied from the operators own description. I have done it that way and then used tripadvisor.com to see if there were reviews of that operator or the specific tour or event.

I just made my own arrangements. You can fly within Turkey very cheaply on Pegasus Air. To get a bus anywhere, just go to the bus station (Otogar) and book and/or just show up and get on. Unless it is a holiday period, you can often just show up and get the next bus.

I have yet to figure out which bus company is the "best" bus company. They are all about the same.

I have been to Turkey twice--most recently in July 2014. The politics there have become a bit dicey and am not planning to return unless that changes in the future. By the time I left Turkey at the end of July, there was a lot of antisemitic graffiti all over. As a Jew, I was feeling uncomfortable. Turkey's government supports Hamas and is allowing itself to be held hostage over ISIS. ISIS is holding 49 Turks hostage and the government has allowed that to dictate its foreign policy vis a vis ISIS (which will, of course, encourage ISIS to grab more hostages). While the Turkish people I met were very hospitable, I just see no reason to support those supporting ISIS through silence or actively supporting Hamas by spending my money in Turkey.

I am not telling others that they should do what I do. I am simply advising them of the situation. You can all make up your own minds.

Turkey is a very interesting country, but, for me, the politics trumps that for now.