Flying back to the USA after the 13 day Turkey tour

Turkish Airlines and its budget flagship, Pegasus Airlines, both fly from Izmir (ADB) to Istanbul’s IST or SAW Airports.

Skyscanner is a good place to research budget airlines in Europe.

However, it is more efficient to book the whole trip on one combination ticket rather than paste together the individual legs yourself. The single itinerary offers some guarantee for the connnections.

Skyscanner shows Lufthansa Airlines flies from Izmir (ADB) to RSW that involves a connection in Frankfurt (FRA). Some discount airlines don’t publish their schedules until six months and the earlier you book on a low-cost carrier the cheaper it is. Flagship carriers i.e., Delta, Lufthansa, Turkish Airlines print their schedules eleven months out.

We booked our tickets through United, who in turn booked us on SunExpress from Izmir through Munich to Denver. Although their boarding process was a bit raggedy, everything else was quite smooth. Baggage checks seemed more like United - not stringent like a budget airline.

Fabulous tour! You can read about my experience on the tour and our SunExpress flight in my Best of Istanbul and Best of Turkey tours trip report from this past May.

Thank you all that replied to my post. it is really helpful!!
Happy Holidays!

We are flying from Izmir through IST to Boston in the same day. Current schedule has a 3 hour layover in IST. First time to Turkey for us and first time on Turkish Air. Fingers crossed...

The Rick Steves Turkey tour is terrific, and Turkish Air has for several years been rated the #1 airline in Europe. My experiences with Turkish Air have always been positive, I encourage you to spend some extra days in Istanbul before the tour, and maybe after. It is a very large city with many, many sites and experiences, and the tour spends very limited time in Istanbul, which I thought was quite rushed.

Agreed about the Best of Turkey time spent in Istanbul. For that reason, we booked back to back Best of Istanbul and Best of Turkey tours.

By the time we had planned our own pre-tour time, it wasn't much of a stretch to do both tours. Of course there was overlap, but we decided that those things (Bosphorus Cruise, for example) were worth doing twice.

Thank you for the comments about coming in early to Istanbul.

Thank you also for the information about Turkish Air.

We are planning to fly from Izmir to Istanbul and then to Dulles. Is a 2 hour connection in IST feasible? It seems a bit tight to me

Prepare to be fed on Turkish Air. During my less-than-two hour flight from Izmir to Istanbul after the Best of Turkey tour, we were served a full meal, followed by another one on the two-hour flight to Rome. It's a very hospitable airline.
Cynthia