Plan your trip to Türkiye

The tourist regions — Istanbul, the Aegean coast, Cappadocia — are, in our daily experience, safe and very used to visitors. Ordinary city sense applies: pickpockets work crowded areas like the Grand Bazaar and tram stops, and taxi disputes are the most common tourist complaint in Istanbul. Before any trip, read your own government's current travel advice, since it is updated as things change and we are guides, not a foreign ministry.

It depends entirely on your passport, and the rules have changed repeatedly in recent years — several nationalities that once needed an e-Visa no longer do. Check the official evisa.gov.tr for your own country before booking flights, and be wary of lookalike sites that charge a fee to fill in the same form.

April–May and September–October are the sweet spots: warm, clear and without July's heat. Summer on the Aegean regularly passes 35°C, and Ephesus has very little shade — if you come in August, start at opening time. Winter is quiet and cheap, Cappadocia in snow is genuinely beautiful, but some coastal places half-close.

Türkiye remains good value by European standards, though inflation has moved prices a lot in recent years, so any figure written down ages badly. The reliable advice: budget separately for site entrance fees (they are not small at the major sites), domestic flights between regions, and balloon flights in Cappadocia, which are the single biggest line item most people do not expect.

For working mosques: shoulders and knees covered for everyone, and a headscarf for women — most large mosques lend scarves at the door. For ancient sites: proper shoes. Ephesus is marble, polished by two thousand years of feet, and it is slippery. A hat and water in summer are not optional.

Yes — it is a public archaeological site, you can buy a ticket and walk in. Whether you should is a different question. Ephesus has very little signage, and without someone to explain it you will walk through a beautiful field of marble not knowing that you passed the commercial agora, a brothel, and the theatre where a riot in Acts of the Apostles took place. Plenty of people hire a guide for a couple of hours and explore alone afterwards, which is what ephesusbylocals.com is built for.