Immerse your family in Turkey’s captivating scenery on a 14-day tour of the country’s top highlights. Start this epic adventure on Istanbul’s lively streets and finish it on a private gulet on the breathtaking sea of the Mediterranean.
Istanbul / Antalya
10:00
Istanbul, Cappadocia, Ephesus, Marmaris, Fethiye, Antalya
The 14-day tour will let you explore Turkey’s incredible attractions from every dimension. Start on land as you tour Turkey’s most visited city, Istanbul, before taking to the skies in the magical Cappadocia. Later on, enjoy a peaceful cruise coupled with stops at idyllic towns for the rest of your tour.
Strengthen that family bond on a perfect trip designed for families.
We just returned from our 12 day tour with two teen daughters that included Istanbul, Cappadocia and Kas. We are season travelers (this was our 26th country), and we all agreed that this was one of the best int’l travel experiences we’ve ever had. Working with Ismael was a great experience beginning to end – he planned the perfect trip for us, he was very communicative and flexible throughout the whole process, and when things went wrong (they always do) he was immediately available to help adjust our plans. The tour guides he chose for us were first rate, the quality of the private shuttles, boats, drivers, etc… far exceeded our expectations. And Turkey was everything we’d hoped for and more. This was the first time we’ve ever used a travel agent to help us plan a trip, but it will not be the last. I couldn’t recommend Made in Turkey more highly.
This was to be a family trip to be remembered! So, we did TONS of emailing back and forth with Ismail before our trip. Ismail!!!…. the most patient, gracious, accommodating and knowledgeable person ever! We cannot say enough about our experience with everything that was arranged and recommended for our 13 day trip. Everything was first class from the hotels in Istambul and Cappadocia, the tours of the city, ballon ride, the transfers, drivers, restaurants, amazing guides, and our fabulous time in the Gulet sailing on the Coast of Turkiye! We were spoilt rotten by the crew with the service and level of comfort and safety. We would not hesitate to recommend Ismail and Made in Turkey Tours to plan the PERFECT holiday for you. We will never forget our time in Turkiye and we definitely plan to come back!
My wife and I travelled to Turkey in late March/early April on a trip organized and customized for us by “Made in Turkey Tours” (MTT). We had a number of ground rules involving a more luxurious trip than is commonly booked. Ismail organized the trip and at every step, he strived to implement our requests. All of his responses were quick, professional, and helpful. We handled our own arrangements in Istanbul, and the tour started with pickup in Istanbul. The conditions were imperfect due to lockdowns starting and ending during the trip. Despite that every contact, pickup, etc. was on time or early, and all accommodations met or exceeded our expectations. The car, driver and guide were excellent.
Our itinerary was Cappadocia, Konya, Antalya, and after a break on a gulet, Fethiye, then back to Istanbul. We had a full-time guide named Fathi who was excellent. Fathi had an encyclopedic knowledge of Turkish history and culture. Since there have been dozens of major civilizations in Asia Minor over the years, he knew a lot. Equally important Fathi was able to communicate his excitement over the subject. He was also adept at gauging how tired we might be at times, and how events – like the snowstorm in Cappadocia – changed the itinerary on the fly.
Cappadocia is of course one of the great sights to see in the world, and we saw as much as we could despite the snow and fog storm that lead to a balloon flight cancellation. We were able to see the Dervishes in an 800-year-old caravanserai. There were at most 30 others in the audience in a venue that could have seated hundreds. There are good things and bad things about travelling in the pandemic. We also met and had dinner with Ismail in Cappadocia.
A note on the itinerary – we chose to go to Konya rather than Pamukkalle since we’ve seen unusual rock formations before and it’s not our thing. We also chose to limit the driving time to a maximum of about four hours a day, which the route through Konya facilitated. Konya is itself an interesting city. Travel is about both past and present, and the drive (by accident) through the large and rapidly expanding industrial areas of Konya was a sight in itself. By taking the route through Konya we were able to visit the prehistoric city of Catalhoyuk – arguably the second oldest city in the world. We also visited the caravanserai at Sultanani as one of our rest stops along the way.
We enjoyed Antalya which has major Roman and Greek sights, but it’s basically a beach resort, and when in a beach town, you should go to a beach resort. It must be said that Antalya does have an attractive “old town” which might have been fun to stay in in non-pandemic times. One of the three choices Ismail gave us was the Rixos resort in Antalya. This resort was >90% (by our estimate) inhabited by Russians and predominantly young Russian families. This provided it’s own window on travel and life around the world. The food at the all-inclusive buffets was surprisingly good and authentic as much as we can judge authenticity. Since the Russians (as an Istanbul guide said) “deny the pandemic” the Rixos was fairly busy. There is a long beach and cliff walk in front of the hotel linking much of Antalya.
When you pay in advance there’s always trepidation about what will result. In the case of MTT, everything promised was delivered and everything was very good or excellent. A set of refunds for the balloon rides and a hotel misunderstanding were promptly processed and sent to us.