I have a 6.5 hour layover upcoming in Istanbul, a city I have never visited. It seems like I can get into the city center, according to the airport website, by metro in approx 40 min. Presumably I can get back in about 40 min as well.
Is it worth it to try and venture into the city and if so what would be my best of Istanbul experience in a condensed ie ~2 hour time frame?
Make sure to see hagia sophia at least.
I have no actual experience with this but when I was looking into flights with Turkish airlines that had long layovers, I saw that Turkish airlines offers free layover tours of different lengths for its customers and that various tour operators also offer Istanbul layover tours. Even if you prefer to do it on your own, the time requirements and schedules for these tours might help you plan.
Short answer: no.
Longer answer: Are you an experienced person with public transport? Even on the metro I think that travel time estimate is very optimistic. The airport is enormous - it took me 20 solid minutes to walk from my arrival gate to passport control. Then you'll have to find someplace to stash your bag first (you will not want to carry it with you) and then purchase tickets and navigate the metro with multiple changes (potentially including bus, which will be subject to the very bad city traffic). If you arrive during rush hour the metro is going to be packed. Then reverse the process back to airport, fetch bag, go back through security, catch your next flight. I don't have experience there, but the advice I read was at least 2-3 hours ahead of your flight time. And by the way I believe you'll need to buy a $50 e-visa to enter the country even for a few hours, but you will have to check on that.
IMHO that does not give you enough time to remotely do Istanbul justice. If you're there midday or on a weekend, all the tourist areas are very busy. The suggested Hagia Sophia is amazing, but it is a mosque that closes 5 times a day for prayers, and once it opens there is usually a pretty long line to get in, you would likely miss out just due to timing. Same with Blue Mosque. Other interesting sights require much more time and tickets (Topkapi palace, museums, cisterns, etc.)
Your available time pretty much gets you at least 3+ hours on public transit and not much looking at interesting things. If you're up for that, go for it. As someone else suggested, if you're on Turkish airlines you might be able to extend the layover for 12-24 hours.
tl;dr: Unfortunately, this is not possible.
CL has hit on several key points. I can add more:
The massive size of the airport often means (it did for me) your flight will taxi forever before reaching a gate. Then you have to go through the usual slow process of getting off the plane. If your flight is on time rather than quite early, you may not get into the airport until much later than the time shown on your ticket. You could easily lose close to 30 minutes there.
The Metro station is a significant walk from the arrivals area of the airport.
The airport Metro line doesn't go anywhere near the center of the city where the tourist attractions are located. It terminates at Kagithane.
You'll have to buy transit tickets or an IstanbulKart (stored-value card) before getting on the Metro. The machines can be tricky, though I assume the ones at the airport are kept in reasonable working condition. There's almost no such thing as a transfer, so you pay separately for each ride (cheap at TL 15).
Depending on what you want to do in the city (eat street food?), you might also need to stop at an ATM to get some Turkish lira.
Istanbul has a dense public-transportation network, but the transfer points (even sometimes Metro-to-Metro) usually require walking several blocks. It may not be instantaneously evident which direction you need to walk. When you need to cross a major road, you may find you have to walk an extra block or two to find a pedestrian crosswalk. Use the CityMapper app or Google Maps to explore what would be necessary to get from the airport to Hagia Sophia, as one example. I just did that, and the fastest option (111 minutes--nearly 2 hours) involved Metro-Metro-Metro-commuter train followed by a 14-minute walk.
Traffic in central Istanbul is dreadful, so even springing for a taxi (likely the equivalent of $35 or more each way) will not get you into the tourist core fast. There wouldn't even be enough time to safely arrange for a taxi to give you a drive-by tour.
Turkish Airlines told me (either via the website or in an email) to be at the airport 4 hours before departure time for my flight back to the US. That was probably for folks with checked bags, and I assume your luggage will be checked through, but the recommended time for a flight back to the US would surely be at least 3 hours before departure. There are extra security procedures at the gate.
Based on my experiences from just over 2 weeks ago, and mostly confirming what others have said.
The metro trip to the "city centre" is only 40-45 minutes, but it's technically the centre and not where you probably want to go (Which is almost certainly Sultanahmet). There is a lot of building work going on at the moment, but some of the metro lines are still under construction which means the train from the airport stops at Kağıthane. From there it would be a walk across to the main Kağıthane metro to get a train to Şişli - Mecidiyeköy Metro Station, change for another metro to Taksim, get the funicular to Kabataş and finally the tram to Sultanahmet. (There are multiple variations, but all are going to end up with a lot of changes).
They are extending the Airport metro line to Gayreteppe which would save you one change in future, and there are also extentions from Kağıthane direct to Kabataş planned to open next year, but held up because of archeological findings.
Istanbul is a wonderful city - probably the most fascinating I've ever been to. If you get a chance to extend your layover, or to come back at a later date, I can highly recommend it - but realistically 6.5 hours isn't going to be enough.
Speaking from experience last month many of the points made above are spot on. Even if travel time into the city were efficient you would still spend lots of time waiting to get into places unless you have skip the line guided tours in place. Mosques do not fall under this category. You may exhaust all of your time just trying to get into either the Blue Mosque or Hagia Sophia. An option would be to spend a night or two in Istanbul before continuing with your connecting flight.
Joining the chorus. Been there a couple times, as recently as two weeks ago. Points made above are accurate and correct.
Ask yourself this: how bad would it be if you didn't make it back in time to catch your onward flight?
Find a nice lounge in the airport (there are some amazing ones) and hang out there. It's just too risky to get to/from the city given all the logistical challenges.
I wouldn't try it. First, the Istanbul airport is huge, and it's going to take some time just to get out of the airport. A 40 minute metro ride will get you into the city, but it won't get you close to most of the things you want to see.
However, there is a very nice museum inside the airport, with rotating exhibitions pulled from museums throughout Turkey.
Also, Turkish Airlines, if you happen to be flying Turkish, has some free tours for people with layovers. Those tours are specifically designed to give folks a taste of Istanbul in a very narrow time frame.
I don't think this is possible, unfortunately. We just got back from Istanbul and it took about 90 minutes to get from the airport to the city center, and about 60 minutes heading back. We didn't take the metro because the estimate was a lot longer. You would have time to get there and back, but not to see anything. It took us about an hour from getting off the plane to exiting the airport- it's that huge.
Perhaps you have time to at least leave the airport. Research visiting someplace closer to IST like the Black Sea resort of Kilyos or Arnavutköy?
