For travellers, not influencers
Thirty-two small, sharp calculators and planners built around the questions that actually come up on a real trip — Marmaray at midnight, bazaar at noon, hamam on Sunday, iftar on the Aegean Tour. No generic currency converter. No filler.
Istanbul transit
Marmaray + İETT + İDO
Etiquette
Cami & iftar
Money
Inflation-aware
Bathing
Hamam protocol
Bazaars
Bargain calculator + carpet price-checker
Every tool answers one concrete question — "should I take the Marmaray or a taxi at this hour?", "is this rug underpriced or a scam?", "how much does a 7-day Cappadocia trip cost in 2026 lira?".
Every page declares what its numbers are based on and where they break — Istanbul taxi traffic at rush hour, Cappadocia balloon wind cancellations, Ramadan İftar schedule shifts.
Open one page, get your number, close the tab. No newsletter, no "join our community", no upsell. The toolkit respects that you have a hotel lobby to get back to.
01 — Transport
Eight tools for buses, ferries, taxis, balloons and the Marmaray — Turkey's transit has more edges than a guidebook admits.
When a 24-hour pass beats per-ride, with Marmaray + İDO mixed in.
Compare Metro, Pamukkale, Kamil Koç comfort + price.
Highway & bridge fees, by vehicle class & route.
When paying cash is actually smarter than burning miles.
Cost-optimised İDO + Şehir Hatları routes + island-hop.
Shared-minibus fares with honest "should I tip" answers.
Real total including hotel transfer, photo package, rebook risk.
Antalya→Cappadocia, Istanbul→Trabzon: full drive cost.
02 — Money & Budget
The lira has lost half its value twice in five years. These tools stop the surprise.
How much your 2024 number would actually cost you in 2026.
What the kiosk gives you, net of commission and fees.
Not 15–20%. Not zero. The actually-appropriate amount by context.
What to actually offer for a kilim, copper tray, or lantern.
Real loss per €100 across airport, hotel, döviz bürosu.
Asking price vs realistic. Built to catch the scam-pattern asking prices.
How the holy month shifts restaurant hours, transport, and prices.
03 — Food & Stay
The lokanta isn't just cheap — it's structured differently. Six tools explain how.
Compare a "serpme" breakfast in three regions.
Per-group, per-round, with regional bottle-price differences.
Tea & coffee cost per day, by region and venue type.
Same dish, two formats — savings per week and per person.
Türkiye's informal "5-star" pattern — what the rating actually means.
Waterfront mansion & boutique stays: what's worth the price.
04 — Culture & Etiquette
Six tools to read rooms you haven't been in before — the cami, the hamam, the bazaar, the köy.
Footwear, gender, prayer time, photography — what's actually ok.
Tell me the bath and the city — what to expect, what to bring.
Three tiers of Turkish phrases for ten common tourist situations.
Historical trade-route stops you can still sleep in or visit.
Slow-tourism-certified towns with what to actually do.
Score a piece in 90 seconds: origin, age, knot count, deal-breakers.
05 — Practical Help
Five tools for the questions you forget until you're standing in the wrong queue.
Ramazan, Kurban, Mevlid — dates for 2025/26/27 and the tourism effect.
Turkcell, Vodafone, eSIM — preference.
Passport country → exact entry rules, fees, and stay length.
Layover length + IST vs SAW + visa fee — can I leave the airport?
Where you can refill your bottle — and where you really shouldn't.
What makes these different
A converter that does EUR → TRY in 2026 is, charitably, 30% of what you need. Real Turkey travel breaks on a dozen specific things: a lira whose purchasing power shifts month-to-month, a transit system where the right pass depends on whether you cross the Bosphorus, a bazaar where the first price is fiction, and a hospitality culture where "tipping 15%" gets a confused look.
This toolkit does the specific Turkey math — and openly admits where the math breaks. Every page cites its source (TÜİK, IETT, HGS, KGK) and tells you the input that breaks it.
Want to verify a number? Each tool page lists its sources at the bottom. Found something off? The disclaimers link to the underlying institution.
About this toolkit
Anatolia Trip Toolkit is built by a small group of independent writers who have lived in or repeatedly travelled through Turkey. We don't sell tours, don't run a newsletter, and don't take affiliate cuts from anything we recommend. We do charge a fair rate for the time it takes to keep each page honest.
The toolkit exists because the standard "best of Turkey" list — hot air balloons, kebabs, Hagia Sophia — doesn't help you decide whether to take the metro or a taxi at 11pm in Sultanahmet. It doesn't tell you what to do if a vendor quotes a kilim at 4× its normal price. It doesn't say which days of Kurban Bayramı the bazaars close.
This one does.
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