eastern turkey

I haven't been to all of the places on your route, but here are a few ideas/thoughts for you: 1). You'll be spending a lot of time in the car with the route you've proposed. Get a copy of the Lonely Planet guidebook. It's pretty good at identifying resources (food/lodging) in eastern Turkey and tourist sites both big and small to see to break up your trip. 2). Save some time in Ankara to see the sites there (e.g. Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ataturk's tomb). 3). Give youself a few days in Cappadocia. This area is dense with interesting things to see. With a car you'll have flexability to see the top sites along with many high quality smaller sites. Here are my top recommendations - Goreme museum and adjacent churches (buckle and el nazer) and fairy chimneys, Church of St. John in Gulsehir, Eski Gumusler monastery near Nigde, Uchisar castle and nearby fairy chimneys, either Derikyu or Kamakli underground city, Sarihan caravansary near Avanos and Avanos itself, Deverent Valley (fairy chimnies), Ilhara Valley (hiking and churches). 4). The traditional time to see Nemrut Dagi is a dawn, so plan on arriving the night before and hiking up in the early morning. Consider dropping down to Harran a couple of hours to the south to see the beehive houses. This will detour you off of your planned route, however. 5). Just before you go check up on the PKK to make sure there aren't any recent issues with places you've picked out in the far east or southeast. Have fun!

We visited Eastern Turkey in 2010 as part of a month in Turkey.
I echo what Rob said about the driving. We used a combination of air and rental car. We flew Turkish Airlines to Trabzon and picked up a car at the airport. The tickets were fairly cheap. The big attraction is the Sumela Monastery. From Trabzon we drove East along the coast to Artvin for a night to break up the driving and then headed to Kars to see the ancient Armenian city of Ani. It was one of the highlights of our trip. From Kars we drove South through Kurdish territory to Dogubayazat to see Mt Ararat and the Ishak Pasa Palace. From there it was down to Van to see the lake and Akdamar to see the Church of the Holy Cross. We dropped the car at Van Airport and flew to Cappadoccia where we picked up another car. We stayed in Goreme and saw all that Rob mentioned. After Cappodoccia we drove to the coast and slowly worked our way back to Istanbul via Izmir where we dropped off the car. We found Eastern Turkey was so different from the rest of the country. Very few tourists. People were friendly and curious. There were many places we would have liked to have seem had we had more time. Despite the potential dangers it was worthwhile. You will see lots of army checkpoints in the countryside. Driving was Ok, some roads were pretty rough. When we were there there was a major paving project underway. Whatever you decide, you'll have an exciting time that not too many on this board have experienced