Turkey Money

There are ATMs available outside of Istanbul. They are less common in rural areas (e.g. some of the towns in Cappadocia), but most major tourist areas will have them. Some tourist areas frequented by cruise passengers will accept Euros (more common) or dollars. I would not count on being able to use non-Turkish currency, however. One caveat - you will need dollars or Euros to buy your visa stamp when you arrive. Good luck!

The Turkish Lira will be the best currency to use to receive the most favorable conversion rate. ATM's are in the airport after you clear customs. In many cases, USD or Euros are acceptable but the exchange rate may not be
as favorable. You may be asked to pay for your visa in US Dollars if you are a US citizen. Correct change is helpful. The visas are priced differently for each country and I believe the visa for US citizens is still $20.

One issue we ran into on a trip to Turkey was that the ATMs will usually give you large bills, 50 or even 100 TL, but many of the smaller merchants will not accept them unless what you are buying is close to that amount. I once spent a half day wandering around Istanbul going from bank to bank trying to get them broken into smaller bills and not a single bank would do that. For my most recent trip I got some Lira in advance through Travelex (not the best exchange rate but I could request specific small bills). Once in Turkey I used the exchange service available at many Post Offices to change clean, crisp U.S. dollars for Turkish lira, although sometimes I had to beg to get the smaller bills there.

We spent a month in Turkey last September and had no problems with merchants not accepting large bills nor do I remember only getting 100TL bills from the ATMs. If we did we probably saved those for paying our accommodations. ATMs were available all throughout Turkey even in the Black Sea and Eastern Turkey we had no trouble finding one.