Let me tell you about the time I spent in Istanbul.
The planning phase
My best friend and I always talked about traveling. Our friendship and our instagram inboxes were FULL of travel reels and highlights of places we would visit one day.
I wake up one morning in January of 2025 and decide, you know what? Why not this year? With a quick call and an enthusiastic “Lets do it” from my best friend, the planning process began. We decided we are going to Europe.
It felt insane if I am being frank.
Between the two of us, I had a substantially higher amount of free time. Since she was still in school at the time, I was tasked with all the research and booking of this trip. Starting with flights.
I definitely expected our flights to be one of the most high ticket items on our list. I wasn’t expecting for a flight with a layover in Istanbul to be one of the most affordable options. Interestingly enough, before I started planning this trip, I had a patient who spoke VERY highly of Turkish airlines. She said that whenever it’s possible to fly with them when traveling she booked them above any other airline.
That got me thinking, do they fly to Portugal I wonder? I plugged it into the internet and sure enough, they had a flight from my home airport to Portugal! The catch was, there was a 12 hour layover in Istanbul before flying to Lisbon.
In my opinion, it just felt like it added to the adventure. Sometime later, we hopped on a facetime call and booked the flight.
Fast forward to August…
Our first time in Istanbul
The flight from Seattle to Istanbul was 12 hours long and by far the longest flight I have ever taken in my life. I was nervous, I had never been on a plane this long. I get stir crazy just being on a two hour flight (yikes). Our flight was also overnight and I have never been able to sleep on planes (yikes x2).
12 hours later…
We arrived in Turkey around 4-5pm local time and our flight to Lisbon was not until 6am the next morning. It felt jarring to both take off and land in the late afternoon. With that said, in airports I swear it just always feels like the twilight zone anyway.
We had an overnight layover in Turkey. This was something I was unreasonably stressed over if I am being honest. I have never had this long of a layover anywhere, let alone a foreign country. I did not know what the protocol was, were we supposed to get our luggage? Are they keeping it and transferring it to our next flight? Should we get a hotel for the night?
Fortunately, all these questions were quickly answered. I.e. I put myself through an astronomical amount of unnecessary stress for no reason. No, we were not supposed to get our luggage. Yes, they are keeping it and transferring it to our next flight. So with our carry-ons on our backs, we went to get a bite to eat, then to find a corner of the airport to hunker down for the night.
Something i did not consider about only having my carry-on during this layover, is i only had one outfit to wear. My comfrt sweat set was the star of the show for the entire 24 hours I spent without access to my checked luggage lol.
Later that night
We found a nap lounge. After how comical we found this initially, we were so relieved to have somewhere quiet to lay down our heads. It was one of the worst nights of sleep of my life. Have you ever slept on the floor of the Istanbul Airport? Me either, but my friend could not get comfortable in the nap chairs, so to the floor she went.
After sleeping 3-4 hours or so…
We decided to collect our things and head to every American’s favorite place abroad – Mcdonalds. We sat and ate our breakfast. Turkish coffee, Tiramisu, and churros with chocolate sauce (I SEE YOU TURKISH MCDONALDS), and we took it all in. We were thousands of miles away from home and at the very beginning of a once in a lifetime adventure.
Money comes and goes, but you will never be 25 eating 4 am mcdonalds in the Istanbul airport again.
After our gourmet breakfast, we made our way to our gate to get our passports and boarding passes checked. Something I haven’t experienced in a long time traveling domestically in the U.S. is the requirement of having a physical boarding pass. It was something that was required when flying in and out of Turkey, no exceptions. Each physical boarding pass was checked and stamped by the gate agent before we were allowed to board the plane.
We boarded, were served our second meal of the morning and 5 hours later, we landed in Lisbon, Portugal.
Our return to Istanbul
*two and a half-ish weeks later*
Since we decided to fly Turkish airlines round trip from Europe, the same way we had a layover on the front end of our trip, we also had one at the tail end of our trip. This time, it was with intention.
Turkish airlines offers a stopover program to promote tourism in Istanbul. When flying in and out of participating countries, and at no cost to the passenger, you can stay a few extra days in Turkey (accommodation only). This was a HUGE deciding factor when it came to us picking Turkish airlines for this trip.when given the chance to explore turkey for a while, we JUMPED at the opportunity.
After departing Rome Fiumicino Airport earlier that day, we arrived back in Istanbul. This time, we headed to customs, got our passports stamped, collected our baggage and went to search for the best way to get to our hotel for the night.
The hotel we booked came from a list of options provided by the airline, so we assumed they were in relatively close proximity to the airport… wrong. We were a bit shell shocked when we realized our taxi ride was almost 45 minutes from the airport. Alas, what were we supposed to do, not go? Obviously not, so we got in the taxi and away we went.
Where we stayed
Hotel: Hyatt Regency Istanbul Ataköy (Not an affiliate link, just informative)
As we were driving down the stretch of road where our hotel was located, we looked to our left and saw that there were other hotels in this area as well. As we continued to look, we realized that these hotels were nice… like really nice. We pulled up to our hotel and woah… this place was gorgeous.
We collected our bags from the taxi and entered the lobby to check-in for the night. There we were, standing in the lobby and looking extremely out of place. Almost like we had just backpacked around a few countries with nothing but our trusty Northface Basecamp duffels (seriously one of the best things i have ever bought in my life, not sponsored but HIGHLY recommended) the past few weeks and did not plan to be staying in a nice hotel.
Since we had the option, we booked two rooms. On our floor, we parted ways to unpack, settle in, and get ready for dinner. There was only one hotel restaurant still open, and at this hour we were NOT going to venture out again for food, so the hotel rooftop restaurant was! After dinner, we went back to our rooms, and for the first time in almost three weeks, I took a BATH.
The next morning
We met around 8am and went back down to the lobby for breakfast. Thankfully, our hotel accommodations came with meal tickets for breakfast for each morning we were there and we did not have to worry about an extra expense (thank you again, Turkish airlines). This breakfast spread was unreal, when i tell you it was one of the most extravagant things ive ever seen, i mean it.
We didn’t realize it the night before, but our hotel was right on the water, and we got to spend our morning drinking coffee and looking at the sea.
We made a plan to relax a bit before we went exploring the city. After the busy weeks we had leading up to this point, it was nice to sit down by the pool in the sun and just read. I’m certain we both fell asleep for at least a little while as well.
Let the adventure begin!
Around noon, we change and get a cab into the city. Our main objective is to go see the architecture, but above all, we wanted to go to the spice bazaar. The architecture was absolutely breathtaking. When I tell you that it is probably in the top five most amazing things I have ever had the opportunity to see/experience, I mean it.
Something else I found so fascinating was the amount of cats in the city, they are EVERYWHERE. In addition, they also have a little but of housing to support the cat population. Outside a lot of buildings and businesses, they had CAT HOTELS. The way the population of Istanbul lives side by side with the cat population was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.
While we were in Istanbul, if we did nothing else, we were told to try kebab (interestingly enough, our first day in Portugal we met a group of tourists from Turkey, hence the recommendation for when we returned to Turkey weeks later). When we got hungry, we went in search of the best kebab we could find.
As our first and last full day in Turkey came to a close, and as we watched the sunset over the Istanbul skyline, I spent that moment taking it all in. A similar moment I had when we arrived in Turkey the first time three weeks ago. I had the same thought that I had in that airport Mcdonalds, “money comes and goes, but I will never be 25 again watching the sunset over the city of Istanbul.
– Hay
