GBP to Lira

zagfles

ShamA29 wrote: »

As it’s 4 lads going, Turkish baths aren’t really on the list ����. All we plan to do is a new excursion everyday. Food wise, I’m not sure what prices to expect, but I would’ve thought £300 in total is ample? If this isn’t the case in your experience then please do advise me on how much more I should take. Breakfast is already pre-paid, it’s just lunch, snacks and dinner that we are paying for when we’re there. I assume you drink, so perhaps that explains your higher expenditure? We don’t, due to religious reasons, so that’s a cost alleviated from our budget.

£300 per person for a week is easily enough. Typical excursions are £10-25 each, often including lunch, you can get excellent Turkish meals for around £10 each, or cheaper meals (eg kebabs) for under a fiver. If you want to do expensive stuff like paragliding you might need a bit more, otherwise you'll be fine. Soft drinks are very cheap, they don't seem to rip you off on soft drinks there like pubs do here, typically around £1 for a mocktail and under £1 for a coke etc in a bar, much cheaper in supermarkets.

ttoli

7.3 TRY to the pound here today.

EveryWhere

ShamA29 wrote: »

As it’s 4 lads going, Turkish baths aren’t really on the list ����. All we plan to do is a new excursion everyday. Food wise, I’m not sure what prices to expect, but I would’ve thought £300 in total is ample? If this isn’t the case in your experience then please do advise me on how much more I should take. Breakfast is already pre-paid, it’s just lunch, snacks and dinner that we are paying for when we’re there. I assume you drink, so perhaps that explains your higher expenditure? We don’t, due to religious reasons, so that’s a cost alleviated from our budget.

Take Pounds in cash and change there or take one of the suggested cards. Don't change here. That's all you need to know.

suki1964

Don't even bother with the £150 in lira. All you need is about £10 worth in smaller notes to buy a bottle of water for the transfer, tip the driver etc

Once there, GBP or Euro is King

Inflation is rife in Turkey ( not as bad as it was, but still not good ) and those that work in the tourist industry prefer to have hard cash under their mattresses then Turkish lira.£100 GBP is worth more to them then 700 Turkish Lira

We always take say £200 in cash, and a clarity card. We spend or change the cash for small spends - a coke, a sandwich , everything else is done on the card

As for eating out, you can pay as much as you pay in the UK , or you can eat very cheaply, and its not all Kebabs , Turkish cuisine is one of the finest in the world and its a haven for vegetarians

Find a Lokanta. its a working mans cafe. All the food is set in Bain Maries, apart from the kebabs and grilled meats, and you can eat very very well for about 2/3 quid a head. You just point if you cant speak Turkish. Your choice with be served with rice, salad, chillies, bread and water. We have been in pretty posh ones with individual tables and air con, but the majority its bench seats and tables outside. And the food has always been fantastic

If we were having a cheapie holiday, we would head to a lokanta about 2 0r 3pm meaning in the evenings we only wanted something very small, a toastie or a cake at one of the numerous coffee bars. Sitting at an outside table lingering over a coffee and a cake watching the world go by, making new friends, wandering on a bit and perhaps getting an ice cream in another

Boat trips are usually great value, esp if you book direct and not via any rep at the hotel.One year 6 of us hired a Gulet for the whole day, lunch included, for £60. So we had to go where the crew wanted to go, and they were squid fishing, but what a fantastic day we had

Katiehound

Do not book tours with the holiday rep.but do listen to what is on offer and note those costs. Then go into the local town / village and see what the local tour companies are offering.
There are 4 of you so you should be able to haggle a bit over the prices and pick the self same tours (or even some better ones!) at a better price- just check what the main language will be!

You can probably get a good idea by checking online what is available before you travel.

I once went on a very interesting day trip but all the other tourists were German so needless to say the commentary wasn't in English. Luckily I speak a bit of German & the other tourists were very friendly and helpful.

zagfles

Yes, we went with TUI and the prices of their excursions were ridiculous. You can get very good value tours with local operators, typically around £15pp inc lunch for a full day tour. You normally have to pay for drinks with lunch or on a boat trip, prices a bit more than typical bar prices in Turkey but not unreasonable IME (maybe £3 for a beer, £4 for a wine, soft drinks maybe £1.50 or so).

Be aware that on many/most day tours you'll get taken to a carpet factory, or gold factory, where you'll get a hard sell and a load of bull. These aren't a problem if you're expecting it, you'll get a free tea/coffee and a toilet stop and it'll waste 30-45 mins or so of your day, but it's one of the reasons the trips are cheap as it subsidises the tour.

As an aside we've had these on trips all over the world and it's quite amusing how the MO is so similar when appealing to stupid Western tourists whether they're selling carpets, gold, jewellery, argan oil products or whatever:
Make out it's a "women's co-operative". Show some women doing hard/intricate/boring manual labour. Make a sexist joke about men being incapable of such work etc. Claim that the price is so high because of the amount of labour involved, and all the price goes to the women's wages and materials (obviously the male salemen work for free). Claim that you could sell the product at home for much more than you bought it, or that it'll appreciate in value so it's an "investment".

If you want to avoid this sort of thing you can look for tours that specifically exclude them (we saw loads advertised as NO GOLD FACTORY/NO CARPET FACTORY), but unless you're a gullible fool or really object to wasting half an hour of your day then they aren't really an issue. I actually don't mind them, I find them quite amusing. I think I'll do a bingo card for the next one ticking off the things we expect to see (women's co-operative tick, women doing manual labour tick, sexist joke, investment etc :rotfl:).

Manxman_in_exile

I always check this before exchanging money:


https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-travel-money/


In particular, check point no. 4 on there - got a good rate just down the road from me!