My husband and I are considering the Rick Steves "Best of Turkey in 13 days tour" beginning in late may ending first week of June.
At the end of the trip we are considering taking a ferry to Samos in Greece and spending 5 more days before heading back home.
Has anyone done this? and What would be a cost effective flight path back to Oregon?
We are open to other location suggestions for closing out our trip if anyone has any suggestions.
Thank you,
Cheryl
What would be a cost effective flight path back to Oregon?
Not sure what 'cost effective' means to you, but you can use skyscanner.com to search flights from Samos to PDX.
Most require 2 if not 3 stops.
How do you plan to get to Istanbul? Perhaps just have to plan a Samos to IST transit and follow your bread crumbs back home?
Good luck!
Have you considered Bulgaria? A few days in Sofia would be delightful. Maybe doing the RS "Best of Bulgaria" after your Turkey adventure would maximize your time and minimize transEuro, transAtlantic and transAmerican flying. There is a June 9, 2019 "Best of Bulgaria" tour that might fit nicely with your plans. Sofia connects to PDX via Amsterdam on Delta. Pricey though.
I took a different RS tour in Turkey which focused on the southwest coast and ended in the resort city of Bodrum. From my experience on that trip, I want to put a plug for the city of Izmir. It is a relatively large city but has a lovely waterfront and a nearby beach resort called Çeşme. If you have to fly back from Izmir anyway (I can't think of another gateway city that's close to Kuşadası) I would highly recommend leaving some time to check it out. I have not been to Samos, but from the map, it certainly looks like the most convenient side trip. It should be easy to get to either Samos or Izmir from Kuşadası.
The Kusadasi-Samos ferry puts you in a good place for traveling along the Dodecanese island chain. You could visit one or two smaller islands en-route to Kos or Rhodes, for instance, but might need more than 5 days. You can fly to Athens from the larger islands on Olympic/Aegean airlines. A long overnight ferry would be second choice.
We are also heading to Samos after our April trip for 4 nights. Hoping to ferry to Izmir, then fly to IST, spend one night catch our early a.m. flight to Paris then home to OR. Flights are very inexpensive from Izmir. If that doesn't work, we will ferry back to Kusadas & taxi to the airport. Good luck.
I like simple. Take the short ferry ride back to Kusadasi, shuttle or taxi to Izmir airport and fly back to Istanbul. That doesn't seem to take longer than getting to anywhere else and allows you to book round-trip Istanbul. Turkish Air is one of the better airlines for long-haul flights. The seats feel a tad roomier than most, the food is good and the entertainment options are very good. They have non-stop flights to SFO.
You could spend another night or more in Istanbul. There's plenty to see and do and the tour spends little time there.
