Best of Turkey Tour Package – 15 Days with 4 Domestic Flights

Base: Istanbul · Transfers included

Once you have cleared passport control and picked up your bags, walk out of the arrival gate. Our local team waits for you there and drives you to your hotel. After check-in, the first evening in the city is yours to take slowly.

Night in Istanbul.

Meals: Breakfast · Base: Istanbul

Your first full day has no fixed plan. Use it to find your feet in the city and settle in at your own rhythm.

Night in Istanbul.

Meals: Breakfast & Lunch · Base: Istanbul · Transfers included

08:30 – Your guide collects you at the hotel and you drive to the old city peninsula.

• Hagia Sophia: It went up in 537 AD as a Byzantine cathedral, and for almost a thousand years no domed building on earth was larger. Today it serves as a working mosque. Look for the golden mosaics and the marble galleries, then stand beneath the dome that rewrote the history of architecture.
• Blue Mosque: The Sultan Ahmed Mosque is the city's only imperial Ottoman mosque with six minarets. Light from 260 windows falls on its blue-glazed Iznik tiles, an interior known around the world. Seen from outside, the calm courtyard and the stacked domes are just as striking.
• Hippodrome: This was the political and sporting hub of Constantinople, where 100,000 people could watch chariot races. Along its central line stand three ancient monuments brought from far corners of the old world: the Egyptian Obelisk, the Serpent Column and the Column of Constantine. Each reached Istanbul by its own route, and your guide tells all three stories.
• Golden Horn: This estuary divides the historic peninsula from the Beyoglu district. The Galata Bridge gives the best view, with anglers along the rails on top and restaurants on the lower level. Your guide also shows where the Byzantines once stretched a chain across the entrance to keep enemy ships out.
• Bosphorus Cruise: From the boat the city is easiest to read: Ottoman palaces, the Rumelian and Anatolian fortresses and wooden summer mansions line the water. It is the most efficient way to see the European and Asian shores together before you head inland to Cappadocia.

17:30 – The tour finishes and you are driven back to your hotel.

Night in Istanbul.

Meals: Breakfast · Base: Istanbul · Free time

A second open day in Istanbul. Spend it in museums, wander through different neighbourhoods, go shopping or simply rest.

Some ideas: take a ferry on the Bosphorus, browse the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Bazaar, or walk the streets of Galata and Karakoy.

Night in Istanbul.

Meals: Breakfast & Lunch · Base: Cappadocia · Transfers included

03:00 – Very early pick-up at your hotel (the time and the airport can change).

06:20 – Flight from Istanbul to Cappadocia (the flight time can change).

07:50 – Landing in Cappadocia (the airport and the arrival time depend on availability). You drive straight to the touring area.

• Devrent Valley (Pink Valley): The second name comes from the rosy colour the rock turns when the sun is low. Visitors in the morning or late afternoon see shades that people arriving at midday miss, which is useful to know when you plan your day.
• Pasabag Open Air Museum: Move around the site and look at the fairy chimneys from several angles; only then do you see how complex their shapes really are, something no photo captures. A practical tip for first-timers: walk all the way around the tallest formation instead of only shooting its front.
• Avanos Pottery Workshop: A master potter shows the whole process in one live session, from a lump of raw clay to a finished pot. Then you sit at the wheel yourself. Feeling the wet red clay turn under your hands is one of the Red Tour's most memorable moments.
• Goreme Panoramic View: Cappadocia looks like a different place from above than from inside the valleys, and no stop on the Red Tour shows this more clearly. Having walked the valleys earlier in the day, you now see the same ground from height, and the two views complete each other.
• Zelve Open Air Museum: Zelve is calmer than the region's other museum sites for a simple reason: it has no famous painted churches and no single iconic image that travel content sends people to see. If you value depth over fame, that lack of attention works in your favour.
• Uchisar Castle (exterior view): At this outside stop your guide pulls the day's geology and history together. The same volcanic ash that shaped the animal figures of Devrent Valley eventually became the huge rock fortress in front of you, which gives the whole tour a satisfying arc.

17:00 – End of the tour and transfer to your hotel.

Night in Cappadocia.

Meals: Breakfast & Lunch · Base: Cappadocia · Transfers included

Optional early-morning add-ons: a Hot Air Balloon Flight, rated the #1 Cappadocia experience for its sunrise views and our most booked activity, or a Balloon Watching Tour to the best sunrise photo viewpoints, with the best viewpoints guaranteed. You can add either one at the best available price while booking.

09:30 – Hotel pick-up.

• Red Valley: Some Cappadocia viewpoints feel commercial; Red Valley still feels wild and natural, truly off the beaten path. It draws fewer visitors than the Goreme Open Air Museum, so it stays quiet and you can take it at your own speed.
• Rose Valley (Gulludere Valley): At its northern end the valley meets Cavusin, so the walk can close with a visit to the oldest cliff settlement in Cappadocia, only minutes from where the trail comes out. Together, Gulludere Valley and old Cavusin make a natural half-day route that mixes scenery and deep heritage with no backtracking.
• Cavusin Village: Few places in Cappadocia have been lived in for as long. From at least the 5th century, Greek-speaking Christian communities cut homes and churches into the cliff. The population exchange between Greece and Turkey in the 1920s ended centuries of life in the upper cliff dwellings; their carved fronts survive, but the rooms behind them are empty.
• Pigeon Valley: The canyon was shaped by the same erosion that made the fairy chimneys: over thousands of years, a seasonal stream wore its way down through soft volcanic tuff. In the walls you can see clear horizontal bands of different rock, each laid down by a separate eruption and each wearing away at its own rate.
• Underground City: Small niches for oil lamps are cut into the walls at regular distances, placed to light the main junctions and passages of the tunnel network. In some of the lower rooms the ceilings are still black with soot, the oldest physical trace of the lamps the first residents used.

17:00 – The tour ends and you return to your hotel.

Night in Cappadocia.

Meals: Breakfast · Base: Cappadocia · Free time

A whole day with nothing scheduled. Add extra activities, take your time with photography, or rest in the setting of your cave hotel.

Some ideas: watch the sunset from a viewpoint above Goreme, visit Uchisar castle, or book a Turkish night show (optional).

Night in Cappadocia.

Meals: Breakfast · Transfers included

Have breakfast at the hotel and check out. Depending on your flight time, we drive you to Kayseri or Nevsehir Airport. Based on what is available on your travel date, the flight is either direct or connects through Istanbul.

When you land at Izmir Adnan Menderes Airport, our team meets you at the exit and takes you to your hotel in Kusadasi/Selcuk.

Night in Kusadasi/Selcuk.

Meals: Breakfast & Lunch · Transfers included

08:30 – Pick-up at your hotel and drive to Ephesus Ancient City.

• Ephesus Ancient City: You enter at the upper gate and walk down towards the old harbour, following the path that traders and pilgrims used two thousand years ago. On the way you pass the Odeon, the State Agora and the Temple of Domitian, then reach the busier lower part of the city. When you arrive at the Library of Celsus at the bottom, the plan of the whole city falls into place.
• House of Virgin Mary: Of all the Ephesus stops, this is where people most often fall silent. Visitors who come in talking tend to go quiet a few moments after stepping into the chapel. Whether that comes from faith, respect for beauty or plain awe at such an old place, the effect is real, and guides have seen it happen reliably for years.
• Temple of Artemis: Close to the Selcuk entrance, a single column stands in a flat, waterlogged field. It is all that physically survives, yet it carries a huge story. The temple was built and rebuilt several times over the centuries; when it was finally destroyed, its stones were hauled away for Byzantine churches and for the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. The column you see is a reconstruction, but the ground under it is original.

16:30 – End of the tour and transfer to your hotel in Kusadasi/Selcuk.

Night in Kusadasi/Selcuk.

Meals: Breakfast & Lunch · Transfers included

08:00 – Pick-up at your hotel and drive to Pamukkale.

• Pamukkale: People have come here since Roman times, when emperors and merchants travelled to bathe in the warm mineral springs. The same thermal water still runs down the slope and leaves calcium carbonate behind, slowly building the famous white terraces. The 'Cotton Castle' lies in Denizli province and is among the most visited natural wonders in Turkey.
• White Calcium Terraces: Every terrace is a natural basin whose rim has grown from calcium carbonate over thousands of years of overflowing thermal water. The water is warm and a little fizzy; the minerals that whiten the rock also make it feel silky, almost soapy. Stepping barefoot from ledge to ledge on the warm white travertine is a rare sensation.
• Hierapolis Ancient City: The site museum, set inside the restored ancient bath complex, is one of Turkey's better small archaeological museums. Sculptures, sarcophagi and everyday objects found over decades of digging are shown in rooms where Roman bathers once relaxed. It completes your walk through the ruins outside and adds context the stones cannot give alone.
• Cleopatra Antique Thermal Pool: Fed by the Pamukkale springs, the pool stays at 36 degrees Celsius all year. Roman column drums and pieces of marble lie on its floor exactly where a 7th-century earthquake dropped them. Its name comes from a legend that ties Cleopatra to this old bathing spot; true or not, it is one of Turkey's most atmospheric places for a swim. Swimming is optional, not part of the tour, and paid on site.

16:00 – End of the tour and transfer to your hotel in Kusadasi/Selcuk.

Night in Kusadasi/Selcuk.

Meals: Breakfast · Free time

An open day by the Aegean. Head to the marina or the beach, or follow your own plans.

Night in Kusadasi/Selcuk.

Meals: Breakfast · Base: Antalya · Transfers included

After breakfast, check out of the hotel. We take you to Izmir Airport in line with your flight time. Depending on availability on your travel date, you fly direct or change planes in Istanbul.

At Antalya Airport our team greets you at the exit and drives you to your hotel in Antalya.

Night in Antalya.

Meals: Breakfast · Base: Antalya

No guided programme today. Discover Antalya in whatever way and at whatever pace suits you.

Night in Antalya.

Meals: Breakfast · Base: Istanbul · Transfers included

Breakfast at the hotel, then check out of your room.

12:00 – Transfer from the hotel lobby to Antalya Airport. The exact pick-up time follows your flight time.

15:00 – Flight to Istanbul (the departure time may differ).

16:15 – Landing at Istanbul Airport or Sabiha Gokcen Airport (the actual arrival time may differ). Our team meets you and takes you to your hotel for check-in.

Night in Istanbul.

Meals: Breakfast · Transfers included

We drive you to the airport to match your international flight. This is where your 15-day Best of Turkey tour package finishes, and we hope you take home warm memories of every region you have seen.