The first way is to join a group or travel independently. It is from Shanghai to Tehran, Iran, with a connecting flight-landing in Ankara-Kappa-Antalya-Mibaobao-kusadasi-Kanakale-Istanbul, and finally from Istanbul to Tehran, with a connecting flight back to Shanghai.
Advantages of group tour: the hotel is all five-star, with comfortable rooms, swimming pool, gym, world buffet, Turkish local specialties, MAN bus (more comfortable than Mercedes-Benz and full wifi) and many scenic spots. Without compulsory consumption and shopping visits, tour guides will appropriately increase interesting and cheap activities such as going to sea.
Disadvantages of joining a group: the degree of freedom is weak. Although most scenic spots are free activities, you need to say hello to the tour leader if you want to leave the group and play by yourself. The tour guide may disagree. Istanbul's two-day trip is quite tight, and there is not much time in the Grand Bazaar.
My views on free travel in Turkey (combined with the feedback from several friends who have been free to travel later): I originally wanted to travel freely, but my friends experienced free travel, and after comparing the strategies of online free travel, I had my own views.
First of all, the cost of free travel is not cheaper than traveling with a group, and living is definitely not as good as traveling with a group. Small hotels in Turkey often cost 50 or 60 euros a night, and a small restaurant can eat dozens of lira for two people.
Tossing and turning between cities often leads to the annoying experience of being thrown off the bus in the middle, and many people will react to the situation that drivers bypass hundreds of lira to argue.
Secondly, those beautiful strategies are still very different from the reality, because my friend came back from Turkey and said that Turkey's freedom is self-abuse. The burning sun in the Mediterranean, no one can go shopping happily all afternoon; The night bus between cities is not as beautiful as others' travel notes. After sitting on the bus all night, I stopped to have a rest and couldn't sleep at all. If you meet someone who dumped you halfway, you really want to die. Free travel will also encounter many cheating situations, such as high-priced hot air balloons, paragliders and other projects.
Third, Turkish English can be said to be rotten to the extreme. Except for people in big scenic spots who can speak English, others basically try to figure it out by body language. In addition, the Turks openly ask tourists for high prices. If you make a counter-offer, he will play dumb in Turkish even if he understands. I'm not afraid of losing business.
As for the deep tour, you can only surf the Internet in the hotel or take photos in the surrounding towns when you arrive in the remote Mediterranean town for the first time. There is a simple reason. The town is full of Turkish speakers. It takes half a day to buy an ice cream and black tea. Not to mention bargaining for olive oil or talking about history and football with local people over black tea.
Of course, free travel is still beneficial, such as Kappa's red and green grand slam, which is definitely out of reach with the group. If you want to live comfortably in Istanbul, you must travel freely and stay for at least 3 days. Other tours, such as Crocus City Turkish bath, fethiye paragliding and Cotton Castle paragliding, are also difficult to enjoy. One of the biggest advantages of free travel is the convenience of shopping, because the fixed location for group tours is often more expensive in the surrounding shopping areas, and free travel can go shopping in some cheap places such as small markets and hypermarkets.
In short, there are many places to travel freely, but it is easy to encounter unpleasant things; Joining the group is very labor-saving, and you should have a good time, live well, take a good car, eat well, and the price is reasonable, but you always feel that time is not enough. You have to spend time and mind on shopping before you can find the small market and supermarket in town.
If you are free, you won't live well. If you eat, the price is not cheap. The night bus intercity bus is not as beautiful as described on the internet and is often cheated by Turks. But you can play what you want and skip what you don't want to play.
Many people who have never been to Turkey but want to go to Turkey but just watch free travel notes online have been challenging my travel experience, saying that "joining a group is taking a bus for one day".
Then I can tell you that in Turkey, a country where there is almost no railway, buses are used to pick up and drop off between cities. Whether traveling alone or with a group, as long as you shuttle between cities, you will definitely spend a long time on the bus every day. Team buses don't stop at high speed all the way (except for stopping every four hours according to the law). If it's free, it's also a bus, and the time will be longer (waiting for the bus, arriving at the station, changing trains, and the route will be detoured). )。
Next, prepare the currency before going out. You can take Huaxia Card to travel to Galanti for free, but note that there are no ATMs in kusadasi, and it is difficult for Kappa to find ATMs. There is no Galanti in Ahmed and Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, so other places should prepare enough cash in advance, such as Taksim Square. Only Antalya and Izmir can easily find the ATM in Galanti.
If you join a tour group, take US dollars with you and change more when you get off at the airport, otherwise it is not cost-effective to settle shopping in US dollars. It is not recommended for tour groups to deposit UnionPay and take it from Garanti. Basically, only one stop in Antalya will see two Garanti within reach, and there is no Garanti in other places 1 hour walking distance.
The next step is to eat. Many people in Turkey are not used to eating. There is a simple reason. Their dishes lack the essence of cooking-salt.
Therefore, whether you are traveling freely or with a group, you usually pay more attention to taste when eating. It is recommended to bring some snacks or a bottle of sauce similar to Laoganma, which can help you when you are not used to it.
If you can eat fried rice with salt at home, it will be delicious. If you can't stop eating a few bowls like me, you can eat all the turkeys without any strategy!
There are many kinds of barbecue rolls in Turkey, including chicken, beef, vegetables and French fries. You can find your own raiders to do your homework when you have time, but don't believe the prices in any raiders, many of which are outdated.
For your information, in Bambi, a chain barbecue restaurant in Istanbul, a basic chicken skewer costs 4.75 lira: chicken and French fries are wrapped in a big bread. For a girl with a small appetite, one snack can be eaten all afternoon, and one snack is definitely not enough for dinner. And a veal burger with 3 lira. Let me have a look. If it's a dinner, I have to eat at least 12 to get full.
Pizza, Turkey's specialty is the pizza with mutton sprinkled on the cake, which is very thin and delicious, but because I ate it with a group meal, the price is not clear.
Cheese and cheese control the world, but some kinds of super salty cheese are commonly known as European sufu, others are delicious, and you can eat well in restaurants with free bread. If you want to eat all the cheese, you have to prepare a bulging wallet.
Bread, European bread is really super delicious! Anyway! However, unlike domestic bread, most of them are relatively hard whole wheat bread, that is, the kind of bread whose shell and inside are as hard as stones. In a Turkish restaurant, you can eat steamed buns for free.
Starbucks, Turkey, latte 6.75 lira medium cup.
Coke, canned from 1.25 to 6 lira, most supermarkets and convenience stores are 2.5 lira. As for the Istanbul City Cup, you can't buy it anywhere, as described in most free travel notes. On the contrary, almost every Starbucks can buy it, and Starbucks near Istanbul's Grand Bazaar can also buy cups from other cities. It is a good choice to give them away. The cup of espresso is 15 lira. The big one is 45 lira.
The cheapest cup of black tea that Turks drink is 0.5 lira, and in most places it is 1.5 to 2 lira, and the more expensive one is not capped.
Pomegranate juice, drink hard in Kappa Dozias, purple pomegranate juice, delicious to explode! I remember a large glass of 3.5 lira. After leaving Kappa, you can only buy 10 lira for a drink in Istanbul, and it is difficult to find pomegranate juice in other places.
Cherry, 5-6 lira can buy one kilogram, and higher quality 15 lira is also available. Maybe it's the season. When my friend went, the same store was only 3 lira a per kilogram.
Strawberries that can only be seen in supermarkets in Istanbul are also very cheap.
Yogurt, add honey if you don't like salty! Amitabha without honey.
When the highway passes through Izmir's rest stop, there will be local specialty snacks, poppy seeds and yogurt mixed with honey, 7 lira each.
If you don't eat, you will regret it. Poppy seeds are not drugs, please eat them!
Dessert, except rice pudding, is so sweet that it hurts. Try it, buy the smallest portion, and continue to buy if you can eat.
Eggplant and Turkish eggplant can be said to be a must. You must try different eggplant practices, which are completely different from domestic practices and subvert your understanding of eggplant.
Shopping, first of all ceramics. Don't trust the ceramic shop in Mianbao Town in the online free travel guide. Although the price is already cheap, it is still very expensive. Only two places are recommended for ceramics, souvenir shop and small shop in front of Kappa Dozias Natural Museum. The smallest bowl is 3 lira, the larger one is 7 lira, and the larger one is 15 lira. The quality and workmanship of souvenir shops are better. The distinctive Turkish blue is slightly more expensive, but it is also the cheapest official souvenir shop in Turkey.
Followed by the Grand Bazaar, the first shop selling porcelain at Gate 1, with a small bowl of 2.5 lira, a medium bowl of 5 lira and a large bowl of 7.5 lira.
These are the only two points for buying porcelain, and you don't have to look at other places.
Wool scarves are mostly produced in Yiwu, but you should know that you can't buy them in Yiwu, because people don't retail them and only export them to the Middle East, so you can still start with beautiful patterns. 27 lira is the cheapest I have ever bought. The Grand Bazaar costs 40 lira, less than 30.
Sheepskin products, Kappa Dozias buy the right ones, and then the farther away from Kappa, the more expensive it is. A decent leather coat can be won for 3000 to 5000 RMB.
Wool carpets, handmade things, the price is not outrageous at all. Just looking, unless you're in a ditch.
Olive products, olive oil, olive soap, etc. The oil in the supermarket is the cheapest in Turkey. It is packed in iron drums. Every time the tour leader in China comes to empty a box, he has to carry several boxes of oil back. MMigros has a supermarket chain, which is cheaper than Carrefour. Olive soap is basically 2-3 lira, and beautifully packaged is a little more expensive, but I don't think it's interesting to pack it, and unpacking it is just as useful.
If you want to travel freely, you can go to a small town called Ayvalik, where olives are abundant. There are many oil-squeezing workshops in the town. After oil-squeezing, they are directly labeled and sold in the store. The price is cheap and the packaging is exquisite.
All the other sugar and tea are bought in the supermarket.
Blue eyes, Kappa Dozias is the cheapest, and you can buy them as soon as you see them, especially those with exquisite knitting skills. Other pendants with single blue eyes can be bought directly from Taobao. . . . Small 1-2 lira, big price is hard to say, depending on technology, material and size.
Joy, nuts and tea are the cheapest and most reliable in the supermarket.
Sepiolite products and the sepiolite pipe of Grand Bazaar are basically 400 Dorila, which is not much, but this thing is worth the price. The souvenir shop of Antalya Museum also has a sepiolite pipe, 380 lira. For your reference, you can ask Dochado if necessary. Other scenic spots also have so-called sepiolite pipes, each of which is dozens of lira, all of which are fake plastic.
Hot air balloons, whether with a group or free travel, can be booked online by themselves, but at least five days in advance, otherwise it will be a tragedy if they are not booked. Recommend three big companies, Royal, Butterfly and Kappadocia. You can also find other small companies if you want to be cheap. There is not much difference, but the departure time and reception service are good and bad. Hot air balloons are cold in the morning, so wear enough clothes. If you are traveling with a group, you need to confirm the hotel in advance to make a reservation. The first group of people who take off will be able to return to the hotel after 7 o'clock, and they will certainly be able to catch the team breakfast and leave.
Going out to sea, going out to sea in Antalya, Mediterranean, I am a team charter, 2 hours, very fun, 45 dollars a person. Malahi also went out to sea to see two Eurasian continental bridges. Personally, I don't think it's interesting, so I don't have to go. The Bosporus Strait can be ferried, which is of little significance.
The beaches and resorts in Antalya and the seaside in Kusadasi must be visited. Remember to protect yourself from the sun.
Cotton candy, team tours are all from the top entrance, don't worry. The suggestion of free travel is to enter from the foot of the mountain and return to the original road after playing. Don't try to climb from the foot of the mountain to the top, it will take 4 hours, and you will be drained. There is a platform on the top of the cotton fort, where there is a back garden and a very clear and comfortable pool. There are few people, and there are benches by the pool. Sitting on it can just soak your feet. If you don't want to be crowded with Russians, you can consider going there to enjoy yourself. Antiques in the cotton fort
Swimming pool, no one is available before 9: 00 am, you can go in and take a dip, 32 lira tickets plus 5 lira safe. The environment is great. After 10, the Russian army will come to the bathhouse, so you don't have to go in for a bath. There are also several water traps in it. What comes out of the pool is clean and pure natural soda water. Be sure to taste it! Russians always pack a whole bottle and put it back to drink.
Sun protection, be sure to bring more! The Mediterranean sun is terrible!
Slippers, toothbrushes and towels are available. Free travel will definitely be used. If you join a group, your toothbrush will be used. You can wear slippers on the plane.
Istanbul, the traffic jam can only rely on prayer. Istanbul has many ultra-detailed online strategies, which have certain reference value. But the price and comments of food can be ignored, and it is helpful to know the tour routes and attractions.
Roasted corn in the square in front of the Blue Mosque is a good food to satisfy hunger, 2 lira each, and it tastes good. Don't try China restaurant easily. The taste is similar to that in China. It's not bad or delicious. But the price of a bowl of spaghetti with scallion oil is 50 lira, and you won't regret it if you sit in it.
Duty-free shops in airports are generally duty-free shops in Istanbul and Ankara, and cosmetics will be cheaper, especially perfume. Others are not cheap either. There are many kinds of cigarettes, especially cigars and cut tobacco. Playing with handmade noodles, GV 7 lira 1 bag. For those who play fighting, Dunhill series fighting silk is also complete and cheap.
Locals, a little too enthusiastic, can't speak English and drag you to chat and take pictures. Pay attention to distinguish between Turks, Syrian refugees and Gypsies. Most Turks are not bad. Let's chat and be polite to each other. You can also take a photo when the other party invites you to take a photo. Gypsies are the type where everyone is my friend. There is a great chance of meeting a liar. Be careful. Stop talking about Syrian refugees and leave us alone.
Finally, talk about religion. Islamic culture is quite interesting. You can do some homework before you go. Turkey can be regarded as a cultural journey. The local area is not as extreme as Iran, but the religious atmosphere is still relatively strong. Every time I hear the sound of the minaret, I wonder if the locals are bowing their heads and praying at this moment.