Return flight from Izmir, Turkey

I live farther west than you and had same conundrum. ended up booking a one way flight from Izmir to Amsterdam on SunExpress airlines, departing in the early afternoon, so I had a free morning in Kusadasi and paid for a private shuttle to Izmir airport (about an hour away). I stayed overnight at a Schiphol airport hotel (Citizen M) and then had a morning flight the next day via Seattle to Portland. It was actually nice to break up the flying time and have a leisurly departure day compared to some of my tourmates that had VERY early departing flights. FWIW, I booked a multi city ticket on Delta: Portland - Amsterdam - Istanbul, then Amsterdam - Portland, knowing that it would be on me if I somehow missed my separate SunExpress flight.

We were recently considering a Rick Steves Turkey tour, but haven’t yet made the commitment. Your flight situation was intriguing, so just looked up possibilities on Rome2Rio.com.

How about Salt Lake City? I realize it’s a 4 1/2 hour drive between there and St. George, but a flight is just over an hour. If you’re not completely opposed to flying via Salt Lake City, this itinerary came up:

Fly TUI Airlines Netherlands from Izmir at 12:20 PM, arriving at Amsterdam at 3:25 PM (4 hr, 5 min flight)

Two hours and 5 minute layover later, fly KLM to Salt Lake (depart 5:30PM, arrive 7:30PM , 10 hour flight)

Assuming there was no issue making the connection at the Amsterdam airport, and that the KLM flight reaches Salt Lake on time, and (this could be the catch in this plan) you can make the 8:45 PM Delta flight to St. George, you’d be back at your home airport at 10:05 PM, no need to stay overnight anywhere on the way home. If you’d driven to Salt Lake to get to Turkey, paid to park at SLC, and had the energy to drive straight home, you’d be looking at getting home sometime after midnight.

Being able to make that 8:45 flight (would partners KLM & Delta make sure you could connect in Salt Lake City - if you got thru the Salt Lake immigration control?) might be the toughest part of this, along with arriving home nearly 24 hours after you’d first gotten to the Izmir airport to start the return journey. If it was doable, that could beat 10-20 hour layovers, and a potential airport hotel night.

Cyn already hit on what I thought of , i.e., looking to fly to Vegas or Salt Lake ( spend the night) and then head home the next day to avoid a long layover somewhere in Europe?

Book an open jaw aka multi city ticket: St G to Istanbul and Izmir to SLC/Vegas and then a separate 'whatever' to home. ( flight or one way car rental?)

I did something like CL did. I flew to Paris on Sun Express in the afternoon, spent the night at a CDG hotel, and then flew home on Delta from there. The Sun Express flight was not part of my Delta itinerary, so there was a bit of risk, but there were several Sun Express flights to Paris after mine, so I figured it was pretty safe.

I shared a private ride to the Izmir airport with another tour member so it wasn’t too pricey. I agree with CL that it was great to not have to leave very early. Also, there’s not much to do, see or eat at the Izmir airport, so you really don’t want to hang out there for too long.

Some members on my tour flew back to Istanbul to spend some extra days and then it was easy to get a flight back to the states. The Best of Turkey was a fabulous tour, but it really doesn’t spend enough time in Istanbul, so this might be another possibility for you.

I also loved this tour! Mine was quite some time ago. The RS office took care of a taxi for me to the Izmir airport (far- maybe an hour?) because they ended up combining two tours and I had to leave the group a day early (long irrelevant story!). I flew (can't remember the airline) to Istanbul and stayed overnight at the airport. Then continued on the next day to Seattle.
I run into this often, also, despite Seattle being a larger airport. I typically stay airside at an airport hotel as you describe. It's an added expense but nice to get a fancy night's sleep :) and break up the flight.

If you can add a few days to your trip, fly from Izmir back to Istanbul and give this fascinating city some more time. The tour is great, but as others have mentioned, it doesn't spend much time in Istanbul.