Recently, tourists visiting Turkey are increasingly preferring a “savage” holiday to staying in hotels. By “savage” I mean independent recreation. This is when a person does not buy a tour or fly with a group, but buys a plane ticket on his own, chooses his own place of residence and plans his vacation.

To relax as a savage, you need to do a few important things:

1. Plan your time

2. Buy a plane ticket

3. Select city and place of residence

4. Rent property

5. Order a transfer from the airport to your place of residence

6. Rent a car if you plan to travel around the area

 

If you decide to drive your own car, then you need to study the articles “Importing a car from abroad”, and replace the above points 2, 5 and 6 with point 2. Choose a route for your car.

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The question often arises when purchasing insurance: whether you need to take it in your country or buy it in Turkey. Unfortunately, there is no clear answer. Even in Turkey itself, the insurance system works according to an algorithm that only they understand. But personally I would recommend the following:

take out insurance in your homeland if you plan to spend time as a tourist for no more than the permitted visa-free days;

Decide with insurance in Turkey if you decide to live here more than the visa-free days provided for citizens of your country.

Information about visa-free days for your country can be found here.

You can look up plane tickets on carriers' websites and in various applications. But if you want to save money on this, then there are many different “comrades” on WhatsApp and telegram who sell tickets for charter flights. The price there is much cheaper than the official carrier, but as in all interesting niches there are a lot of scammers. So be careful. If you are interested, I can offer you one trusted seller in Turkey. In my subjective opinion, he has the most affordable prices. And he has never let me down yet. Prices there change daily, and sometimes 2 times a day. Therefore, it is impossible to predict prices in advance. The system “the sooner I buy, the cheaper it will be” does not work on charters. As a rule (not always), the closer the departure date, the cheaper the ticket. But you can only buy tickets this way when you are flying alone or two. If you are planning to fly with your family and/or more than 2 people, then you should take care of tickets in advance. In general, everything is individual, depending on the route, the season, and a bunch of other factors. Therefore, it’s worth subscribing to the newsletter and just observing a little to understand the pattern. (I can send you the phone number of the agent through whom I buy tickets only upon personal request on WhatsApp or Telegram).

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So, you have made up your mind and resolved the issue of arrival.

Now we need to select real estate. You can rent from a hotel room to an apartment, house, or villa. There are a lot of options. Since I am on the Mediterranean coast in Alanya (Antalya, Turkey) I will write about it. But in general this applies to other cities in Turkey.

I would recommend studying the rental housing market on the Booking and Arnbnb websites. Only after studying the prices there can you choose an apartment. How convenient are Booking and Arnbnb? Because even if you are visiting this area for the first time, you will be able to get a rough idea of the area and the apartments.

In addition, my personal opinion is that there are very interesting offers on the Booking and Arnbnb sites and they are much cheaper than most local realtors will offer you. Foreign realtors (not Turks, but perhaps your compatriots) offer for their services the same amount as the cost of renting an apartment and ask for a deposit for the same amount. And then it may happen that you won’t find it (there was a case). In fact, I call it a “sucker scam.” Such services do not exist and cannot exist. Therefore, be sure to study and calculate the financial component. Never make an advance payment if you do not have information about the recipient of the payment, I categorically do not recommend it. Of course, there are exceptions to any rule and you will meet a conscientious person, but be careful. The more you know about him, the better. Well, in order not to take risks, it is better to make a reservation on the Booking and Arnbnb sites. ATTENTION: please note that Booking does not work in Turkey, so to use Booking you need to download and install a VPN (it is advisable to do this before traveling to Turkey).

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The next step is to get from the arrival airport to your place of residence. I hope your financial situation is not that difficult. That you are ready to take the bus. If so, then I would not recommend you go at all. Turkey is no longer the Turkey it was before the “war,” especially before the “pandemic.” I recommend ordering a transfer. As a rule, a transfer can be ordered for you by the person from whom you rent the property. As a rule, they do not inflate “their interest” in the services of transport workers. Moreover, they will be able to meet you at the airport and bring you to your place of residence. If you doubt the honesty, you can order it yourself; you can find out phone numbers on the websites using a search engine. If necessary, you can contact me, I will try to help.

 

Well, the next stage is renting a car. You can rent a car at the airport of arrival, or you can find it at specialized points upon arrival. There are also a lot of rental outlets, prices can vary significantly. I would recommend ordering on a specialized website. As a rule, prices on the site are more conservative and realistic.

I will provide you with more detailed information in the following articles.

I hope you will write clarifying questions in the comments below so that I understand what points need to be revealed in more detail. Write, call and ask.

 

P/S: I did not copy this article anywhere, did not steal it, and did not use any aggregators. Everything that is written is my personal creation. Therefore, help me and tell me what you do not understand or what is not disclosed.

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