How to See Turkey in 9 Days! | Best Turkey Travel Itinerary for Budget Travellers!

Good morning guys and welcome to Istanbul, Istanbul, Istanbul, Istanbul. I decided to travel Turkey as a transit destination on my way from New Delhi to Toronto and today I'm going to give you my nine days long itinerary from start to finish. I'm so happy I'm I will also give you some options for cities you can add to your itinerary at the end of the video so stick around. After a 10 hours long flight from New Delhi, I landed in Istanbul and let me tell you this time I've spent most of my trip in Istanbul and Cappadocia because I wanted to travel slow and explore all of the cities I'm visiting properly. Also, nine days to cover one country is too less and I can easily spend a month in Turkey and still not see everything so this trip's motto was go slow. To be honest, I didn't do much on my first day because I was so tired. We just checked into a hotel, got settled in and just walked around the area to get acquainted. I would suggest to get your money exchanged today and get a sim card if you haven't bought it from the airport. Get an Istanbul card for the public transport and prep yourself for the next day. Day two in Istanbul and today I'm taking you to Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. Grand Bazaar is one of the oldest and largest markets in the world constructed in 1455 and still a bustling market in 2022. There are 21 entrances to the bazaar and can easily make you get lost in its alleys for one whole day. I spent around four to five hours in this place amazed at how historical and architecturally sound this place is. Now we are in Sulemani Mosque which is right in front of our accommodation and it's apparently less crowded than Blue Mosque so definitely a must visit if you want to see the architecture sans the crowd. Sultanahmet is the older part of Istanbul city and houses a lot of tourist attractions so I decided to spend my third day exploring the old city and you'll also find most of the time is spent in Sultanahmet area because most hotels and top tourist attractions are located here including yesterday's Grand Bazaar. My day started in the underground reservoir called Pesiklikar Cistern then moved towards admiring the Christian and Islamic architecture of the 1500 years old Hagia Sophia and lastly getting disappointed in Blue Mosque. So Blue Mosque is under construction if you want you can avoid it there's like you can't really see anything it's all under construction all like pretty much closed off but once it's done I'm 100% sure it's going to be very beautiful it looked so beautiful like whatever glimpses we could get but you can avoid Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace and Pesiklikar Cistern in this area. Check their website I think I forgot to check that's why I didn't know it was under construction but check their website and see what's the status and then decide if you want to come here or not but if it's open definitely come here it looks so nice. All these places are located right next to each other at walking distance so you can use one whole day to see these places all together but remember to start early because the crowd starts getting crazy as the day passes. So we are on our way to Cappadocia and we have a lot of bags but there's one thing that you can do is ask your hotel if they can keep store your luggage so you don't have to take everything with you when you're traveling around different cities that's what we did. We are here at our next hotel we have a reservation from the 6th but we're here on the 4th and they agreed to keep our bags for two days so we are leaving those here and then heading off to the airport. Flights are definitely faster but more expensive. I also saw that at least half a day is used even if you take a flight. It's a good option if you have less days like me but if you're traveling during high season like August be ready to spend at least 100 US dollars with 115 kg baggage to and from Cappadocia. If you want a more economical way to reach Cappadocia you can also book one of the many overnight buses from Istanbul to Goreme. They can be as low as 5 euros and take around 12 to 14 hours to reach Goreme which means you'll also save on one night's accommodation. I would have chosen this method to travel to Cappadocia if I had more days but I did not so I had to fly. It's hot in here it's really really hot so 3 p.m worst time of the day but we've reached our hotel and it looks beautiful. Upstairs. Most tourists stay at Goreme, Uchisar or Nevsehir and I chose Goreme because I found the most affordable accommodation there. Today I mostly went in traveling but don't worry I've got a fabulous sunset and you can catch it from sunset point or your hotel's terrace like me. I was thinking to go to the sunset point to watch the sunset but look behind me if you see that that's the sunset point this is our hotel and that's the sunset. Day five started with the most beautiful sunrise of my life in a hot air balloon and I have posted a video about it last week so watch that to get all the details. And my day ended with an adventurous ATV tour where I saw another beautiful sunset to end the day. I highly recommend accommodating this tour somewhere in your itinerary because it's cheap and a lot of fun. You would see certain parts of Goreme that you wouldn't otherwise. My last day in Goreme started with catching a sky full of hot air balloons and trust me you wouldn't want to miss this. The best place to watch hot air balloons is Love Valley but a lot of hotel terraces also have a great view. Then we embarked on a day-long journey which is called the green tour. You need one full day for this tour because you see a lot of places and travel around 250 kilometers in a day. This underground city is like the perfect place for me, the perfect size. I fit in everywhere. I booked all these tours except the hot air balloon tour with a local tour company called Hero Tours and haggled my way to get a good deal. Make sure you ask around and bargain for a good deal, not get ripped off. So again I'm back and we are staying in Taksim. Beoglu is the area where Taksim is located. Popular for nightlife, shopping, restaurants, historical landmarks and so much more. I'm sure you must have heard of Taksim. Just walking on the streets of Taksim and admiring the beautiful architecture. It's really pretty. This area is the perfect blend of new and old and you will never get bored of this place. Ask me, I had been here every single day of my stay in Istanbul and I still was so intrigued by how amazing this place was. Every suburb in this side has a separate charm and you can see the change of vibe as soon as you move into the next suburb. I would highly recommend to walk around Beoglu and see the different neighbourhoods by yourself. You'll fall in love for sure. Princess Islands is a group of nine islands in the Sea of Marmara just off the coast of Istanbul, making it the perfect day trip. Only four of the nine islands are open for visitors and I was going to Boyukada, the biggest of the nine islands. You can take a public ferry from Kabataş in European side of Istanbul to get to any of the four islands. It costs about 5 lira on Istanbul card one way. Ferries are also available from Asian side and it costs almost the same from there as well. The best part about these princess islands is that they're so there's no motor driven vehicles, only electric cars, electric taxis and bicycles or you can walk on foot. Earlier there used to be horse driven carriages but now they're banned as well which is a great thing. Oh My trip to Boyukada was not the best and I'll share more about it in my next video but I spent half a day at Princess Island and went back to mainland to explore another beautiful neighbourhood called Palat. Palat can be easily reached by bus or taxi and as soon as you enter Palat you'll see less tourists, heaps of antique shops and charming colourful buildings. Palat was an old Jewish quarter which now has been listed as a UNESCO world heritage site and this is a neighbourhood that has changed my day from bad to wow and once I went here I didn't feel like leaving. This place also signifies how diverse Istanbul is and how unique every neighbourhood is and I would definitely recommend having half a day spare to visit Palat. Good morning, last day in Turkey and tomorrow we are leaving and I was contemplating whether I should do Dolmabahce Palace or not. Last night I decided I should do it because this is a marvellous piece of architecture and history and I really wanted to see this place. We didn't do Topkapi Palace so we are doing Dolmabahce Palace. We are here at around one. The crowd is not that bad, just standing in the line to get our tickets. The ticket for this palace is 300 Turkish lira which also includes a free audio guide but to get that guide you need to have your passport or 100 euros as deposit. I did not have either so I did not get the guide. Dolmabahce Palace was constructed in the 1800s and is located on the Bosphorus river. Photos or videos were not allowed inside but I still managed to get some really nice shots. This palace was another marvellous creation and every room ceiling had such stunning architecture that I was in awe. The history of this place is controversial and it looks like a European mansion that speaks of riches but nevertheless it's beautiful and you can easily spend three to four hours in the palace. So my suggestion would be to not pack too much into this day and just spend enough time in Dolmabahce Palace. And finally no trip to Istanbul is complete without a Bosphorus cruise. There are plenty of tour companies that organize daily cruises but they can be very expensive. I found a cheap cruise that cost only 60 lira and it was on a first-come first-served basis. This is what locals go for and you can also take this cruise from Eminönü pier and it takes you on a sunset tour on the river that separates Asia and Europe. What an amazing way to end the trip! I will post detailed daily vlogs about each day of my trip in the coming weeks so keep watching this space and if you want to visit more places during your trip here are some of my recommendations that I was really interested to visit if I had more days. Sorry don't call me because I'm gonna be on break