Day trips from Istanbul

In October 2024, I was on the 14-day tour of Turkey.

If you want a mix of culture and fun, Kusadasi (https://explorekusadasi.com/) is a good place to go. It's only about a hour south of Istanbul by plane. The ancient city of Ephesus -- one of 12 cities that were members of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era and an important center of early Christianity -- is easy to get to from Kusadai. And Kusadasi has a resort city vibe with cruise ships docking there every day along a beautiful waterfront. The town has a great bazaar and tons of eateries.

If you're an antiquities geek like me, you could visit the site of Ancient Troy in Çanakkale. It's only 20 miles southwest of Istanbul. My guide told our tour about it, and I wish I had had one more day. Here's a CNN story: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/canakkale-troy-turkey.

As usual it will depend on your personal interests. Typically I caution travelers from cramming too much in when they gain a time opportunity such as you've described. Instead, I recommend using those extra couple days to get genuinely acquainted with the place you're at. For example, enjoying a more authentic Turkish restaurant and not one that merely caters to tourists, such as the incredible traditional Turkish breakfast spread at Privato Restaurant near Galata Tower. That is the kind of truly magical experience you will come away with in place of tourist group memories.

Princes' Island would be my top pick -- the perfect distance for a day trip. I was thinking about doing that a few years ago, but it never quite happened.

A day cruise to the Black Sea and back is another option.

Troy is 200 miles and 4 hour drive from Istanbul. I wouldn't want to do that on a day trip. When we went to Troy, we left Istanbul at 7 a.m., stopped at the ANZAC memorial at Gallipoli, stopped for lunch close to the Dardanelles, and arrived at Troy mid-afternoon. We spent the night in Assos.

Taking one of the frequent public ferry boats along the Bosporus toward the Black Sea is a great way to cool off on a hot day and there are dozens of fascinating sights along the way. We took the ferry from Besiktas up to Sariyer and Yenikoy and followed Rick’s informative tour narrative in his Istanbul guidebook.

It is possible to do a day trip by air to Ephesus but it is a very long day. I have done it although some years ago when Istanbul’s airport was closer to the city than it is now. Forget about the cruise ship port of Kusadasi. There is no airport there, and you don’t have enough time to go both there and Ephesus. Ephesus is a world class site that is worth this long and pricey trip, which I don’t think is true of Kusadasi, pleasant as I don’t doubt it is (I haven’t been there). You need to fly to Izmir, the nearest airport to Ephesus (or to Kusadasi) and ideally have a prearranged car and driver there to take you to Ephesus and the nearby small town of Selcuk (where the museum of Ephesus artifacts is and an interesting market) if you have time and then back to airport.