Transportation Decisions

It’s tough trying to decide which way to travel in Turkey. I hear horror stories of Turkish drivers so I think I will limit my rental car experiences to areas outside of the major cities. I also have to avoid any mountain passes or scary high spaces – I do NOT do well in high places, and would freak out if I had to drive over a mountain road. Right now the best solution seems to be a combination of train, bus and car travel.

So here’s my itinerary so far: fly out of Cincinnati on Thursday and arrive in Istanbul on Friday. Friday and Saturday will be spent on the main tourist attractions, and a Bosporus boat ride on Sunday. Sunday night I will take the overnight sleeper train to Ankara. It will save me from a long tedious daytime bus ride, and also saves the cost of a hotel room since I’ll be traveling all night. I get into Ankara around 8:00 a.m. I’ll probably spend the day tooling around there OR just take the bus for Goreme – haven’t decided yet.

Ta dah!

My flight is confirmed – the die is cast. I leave on Thursday, May 3rd and return Saturday, May 19th. One stop at JFK, then mega-hours in the air until I get to Istanbul! I headed for the library yesterday and snagged as many travel books on Turkey as I could find, but I’m sure I’ll be buying some. I know I want at least one to take with me – maybe Lonely Planet, which is usually pretty comprehensive.

I’ll be posting intermittently from now on until I get closer to the trip. WAHOO!!!!!

Obsessing

Argghhh….I need to get off my computer. Now that I’ve decided, I’m obsessively searching for any and all Turkey travel references online and adding them to my links. I need to remember I have plenty of time to plan. The most comprehensive site I’ve found so far is the Turkey Travel Planner, which has an interesting 14-day sample itinerary that I plan to look into.

As far as when to go, I’ve decided to shoot for the first two weeks of May. If those don’t work, I might go a week later but I don’t want to run into the summer tourism glut, so I’ll probably hold off till September or October.

Next move – the library. The travel section awaits…