Istanbul questions

Istanbul is a magnificent city. Have a great trip.

For airport transfers, I would either arrange a transfer through your hotel or try Welcome Pickups. There's a thing called Bitaksi that's supposed to be kind of like Uber, but I haven't tried it. I don't trust taxis in Istanbul.

I have done a cruise up to Rumeli Fortress twice, once on a private cruise and once on a Turyol ferry. Both were fine. If I did it again, I would pick Turyol. It was cheap, easy, and we saw what we wanted to see. We thought about doing the full day public ferry to the Black Sea, but, like you, we didn't want to eat up the whole day.

I have never done a culinary tour, and I don't have any specific recommendations there. I stop at random hole-in-the-walls, and the food has always been good. My only advice is that food always seems substantially more expensive in Sultanahmet than in other parts of the city.

We enjoyed a Bosphorus cruise but it wasn’t a full day, much shorter.

My son and I leave for Istanbul, for our first visit, in 1 week!

—I’ve been agonizing over transportation from Istanbul airport to the city. I’m staying at an Airbnb, so no hotel transfer option. I would like to try Welcome Pickups, but I’ve been tracking my SeaTac to Istanbul flight for the last few weeks, and it consistently arrives 1 - 2 hours late. I’m concerned Welcome Pickups won’t be there for us with our unreliable arrival time. But, I keep reading of the high likelihood of being scammed by taxi service, from the airport to city. It’s a quandary!

—I’ve booked an expensive foodie tour through Airbnb. The tour guide has excellent reviews, and the tour runs from 9am - 3pm, with ferry ride, and 10 food stops. My son attended culinary school, so we welcome the full day experience, and the included ferry ride to the Asian side.
Carla

In 2019, pre-COVID, my son and I used Havaist bus. There were signs on how to get to the pick up spot. There was a manned kiosk where tickets were sold. The buses ran on a scheduled, timed with flights so if you miss one, take another. There were several stops around the city. One stop was about a tenth of a mile from our hotel in Sultanahmet. We took the bus back to the airport as well. It was a comfortable bus with wifi and very inexpensive. hava.ist Enjoy your trip, Turkey is a great place to visit!

Thank you for the replies! We are excited for our trip. Carla in Sequiem, can you share the name of the food tour you booked?

We have friends in Istanbul now and they're loving it.

Vandabrud - thank you for that suggestion.

Coffee Girl - “Istanbul Foodie Walk with Ferry Ride”, hosted by Latif, on Airbnb experiences.

Transfer service: I just returned from Turkey and used Welcome Pickups for my airport ride IST-Sultanahmet. Traffic in Istanbul can be a nightmare - whether you take bus, taxi, or shuttle service you'll have the same issue. Welcome Pickups is flat fee no matter long it takes but a taxi runs on meter. I didn't bother with the metro due to the multiple changes required to get where I wanted to go. My driver was very communicative through their app and also WhatsApp, he even sent a video showing precise instructions to get to the meeting place. They monitor your incoming flight and will know if you're late and will wait an hour after your scheduled pick up time. You can also message the driver directly if your flight is delayed. The Istanbul airport is HUGE and it takes a good while to get from your plane to passport control. Based on my messaging with the driver, I got off the plane with my carry on luggage, went through passport control, and was at the meeting point 22 minutes later. It took about an hour to get to my hotel during moderate traffic. My driver commented that the Sultanahmet traffic was less than he expected. I used the service for a return shuttle from Kusadasi to Izmir airport and had a fine experience, though the driver was not as communicative and was five minutes late to pick up, but we got where we needed to be.

Food tour: I did a Foodie Tour in conjunction with a Rick Steves tour, operated by SRM Travel, the company that provides all of RS guides for Turkey. It was fantastic. We spent the entire time on the Asian side and not only did food things but learned a lot about how real Istanbul residents live outside the tourist center. We sampled about 20 different foods and it was a splendid (and filling) day out. SRM may be able to offer a private tour or possibly fold you in to an already planned tour if you contact them directly.

Ferry: I can only speak for the short Bosphorus cruise we did on the RS tour - we took a private boat which ran about 1.5 hours and turned around about at the Rumeli Fortress (we were dropped off on the Asia side to meet our tour bus). It was a fine experience to see the city from the water, but with your limited time I would honestly spend your time seeing other things.

Restaurants: I didn't eat at any seafood restaurants, but our guide pointed to Akın Balık Karaköy as one dinner option for fresh fish. YMMV.

I'm currently in Istanbul. The Havaist bus from the airport was inexpensive, but the traffic was awful so the journey is slow. Also , I cannot really find a stop near to Sultanahmet (The Havaist English pages seem to have disappeared, but I was looking at their map and the closest I could get seemed to be Taksim - and from there it would be funicular to Kabataş then the tram.
You would need an Istanbulkart (you need one anyway because the public transport systems are so good and easy to use)

There are several 2 hour cruises from Eminönü (2 tram stops from Sultanahmet) - they seem to be around tl150 and go up as far as the forts at Rumeli Hisari before turning back. They don't stop along the route.

I love the ferries - there is just so much happening on the Bosphorous. If you get a ferry from Eminönü around sunset across to Kadıköy , then the sun setting reflecting on the Blue Mosque,Haghia Sophia and the Topkapi Palace is beautiful. There are a lot of good seafood restaurants on the Asian side, but my favourite so far has been a small place called "selfish seafood"

I can't help with the transportation or foodie tour issues because we were on the RS week in Istanbul tour way back in 2014 and we used the shuttle from our RS hotel.

What I can say is be sure to visit the Basilica Cistern:
http://yerebatansarnici.com/ Click on the British flag for English.

And be sure to eat profitaroles, at Inci Pastanesi if possible: https://restaurantguru.com/Inci-Pastanesi-Istanbul

Finally, enjoy the many, many cats. 😽

Lo's comment reminded me I forgot one suggestion, to watch the documentary "Kedi" about the cats of Istanbul. I checked out a DVD from my library, but they also had it on the library's Kanopy streaming service and I believe it's rentable on various streaming platforms. There are so, so many lovely kitties in Istanbul (and all of Turkey). I took dozens of photos. Plenty of dogs too. Unfortunately some of my tourmates were very allergic and didn't know to prepare for furry critters. So if you're allergic plan accordingly, as if you eat outdoors (and even indoors) you will be joined at some point by one or more of them.

TimW's comment re: Istanbulkart - to get a new one from a machine, you need to use 100 lira note. You'll get a card (70 lira for a new card) with a 30 lira credit (two rides on tram). I only know this because some random guy at a tram stop helped me (I think he was hoping for a tip). You can top up the card with lesser amounts after you get the initial one.

Hello,
In September 2022, we did the Two Markets, Two Continents food tour by Culinary Backstreet in Istanbul. We really enjoyed it. In particular, I appreciated going to some of the quieter areas of the city.
So. Much. Food. Avoid eating much for breakfast. 😏
Have a wonderful trip.
Cheers!

Thank you, all! Mary Lou, thank you for the food tour suggestion. That was one we were looking at so I may go ahead and book it.

Just back from a month in Turkey. Our first 4 nights at an Air B&B in Instanbul. We took the Havaist bus to near Taksim Square and walked the kilometer to Galata Tower where our flat was. We could have taken a taxi. A couple joined us when their flight arrived later that night from Houston. They took a taxi, and used a credit card to pay, easy. 5 days later we took a taxi from our Air B&B back out to the airport to pick up our rental car for the rest of the journey. We ordered the taxi using an app. I also noticed older comments saying taxis were unreliable. We didn't experience that.

We took an hour and 1/2 cruise at sunset. That was plenty - and it was fun!