Planning a journey to Türkiye from the United States and Canada
Most of the people we design for arrive from North America. The practical questions, answered plainly, and how the journey works from your side of the ocean.
Getting here
Turkish Airlines flies nonstop to Istanbul from New York, Boston, Washington, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, and from Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver; its own website has the current timetable. Most other cities connect once, through a European hub. An overnight flight lands in the afternoon; we leave that first afternoon empty on purpose and begin with dinner.
Inside Türkiye the distances are flown: about an hour and a quarter from Istanbul to Cappadocia, Bodrum or Antalya. We book the late-morning flights, not the ones at dawn.
Entry rules
Citizens of the United States and Canada enter Türkiye without a visa for tourist stays of up to ninety days. Rules change; check the Republic of Türkiye's official e-Visa site before you fly, and we check again when your dossier is confirmed. Your passport should be valid for at least six months beyond your arrival.
Time, money, telephones
Türkiye keeps one time all year, three hours ahead of Greenwich, so Istanbul is seven hours ahead of New York and Toronto in summer and eight in winter, ten and eleven ahead of Los Angeles and Vancouver. A message sent in your evening is read in our morning.
The currency is the Turkish lira; cards are accepted almost everywhere and we tell you the few places where cash is kinder. Electricity is 220 volts with European two-pin sockets. Your phone will roam, and an eSIM bought before you fly is cheaper.
How it works from your side
You write to us from home; a designer in Istanbul replies within twenty-four hours, any day but Sunday. The journey is designed by correspondence and a call or two, and arrives as a written dossier. We invoice in US dollars, euros or pounds sterling, by bank transfer or credit card: a deposit of twenty per cent confirms the journey, and the balance is due up to seven days before your first check-in. Mervin Travel also has a United States entity, Mervin Travel LLC, in Dover, Delaware.
If you have a travel advisor, they stay your point of contact and we design and run the journey on the ground; if you arrive with an itinerary already drafted, we work from it and add what we know. How a journey is designed answers the rest.
Asked from North America
- How many nights do we need?
- Seven nights see Istanbul and Cappadocia properly; eleven add a week by the water. Our example journeys show both shapes, and yours would be drawn around your flights.
- When is the best time to come?
- Spring and autumn for the city and the valleys; late May to early October for the sea. When to go, place by place says more.
- Can you arrange our international flights?
- Yes, on request. They are not part of a journey by default; most people book their own and send us the times, and we design day one around them.
Tell us who is travelling.
We will design the rest around you. A travel designer reads every message and replies personally.