Introduction to Turkey Country
I went twice to Turkey. The first trip was in 1986 and took 7 weeks. At that time, the mosque of Dogubayazit was on the cover of the Lonely Planet guide, so I definitely wanted to see that. I went from Istanbul over Cappadocia to Eastern Turkey (Trabzon - Kars - Dogubayazit - Van - Diyarbakir - Nemrut Dagi) and then along the coast (Alanya - Kas - Fethiye - Selcuk - Efese - Pamukkale -Afrodisias) and back to Istanbul. OK, 1986 was a long time ago, but I'm trying hard to get updates through the LP Thorn tree section and through "Wegwijzer travelinfo", an independent organisation for travellers in Bruges, Belgium.
My second trip was in 1995. We then made a trip from Istanbul to Damascus. See also the Syria chapter for this trip.
PLEASE NOTE A LOT OF THIS INFO HAS NOT BEEN UPDATED SINCE 1995 !
Travel guides
Lonely Planet The LP on Turkey is good and provides all the practical info you expect. The 7th editon is from 3/2001.
Order the Lonely Planet Turkey now for only 17.59 US$ They also have a guidebook on Istanbul, edition 4/99.
Order the Lonely Planet Istanbul now for only 11.96 US$ If you plan to visit more countries in the Middle East, the LP on the Middle East is propbably a more economical (and less heavy) option. It has info on Turkey, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria, UAE and Yemen. It has 912 pages, edition 1/2000.
Order the Lonely Planet Middle East now for only 19.96 US$ Rough Guide I used this guide during my second trip, and it's at least as good as the LP. The 4th edition is from 8/2000.
Order the Rough guide Turkey now for only 15.96 US$ Let's Go guides I don't like them, but I understand they are popular amoung American students. They are written by first time travellers/students to the region. As one competitor said: "just like a sex guide written by virgins".
Order the Let's Go guide Turkey now for only 15.99 US$
Guide du Routard This is a popular guide in French speaking countries. I used it on both my trips, but it's really not worth taking with you. There's 1 big exception: their description of walks in Cappadocia is unique and very good, and their restaurant section is also good, but then again it is a French guide of course.
Other books 
If you can't make up your mind, click on the Amazon.com logo and search for more books
If you want to read this site systematically, it's best to go to
General info 1 and follow the hyperlinks at the end of each page.
Links
An interesting site, especially if you plan to tour the Middle East with your own car, is
this one. The site has a lot of practical info on how to prepare your trip, insurance, visa etc... No practical info on sights though. It also has an impressive number of links.
Wegwijzer
For those of you speaking dutch, it is definitely worth considering becoming member of "Wegwijzer". This is a non-commercial organisation based in Bruges, Belgium. They have an incredible amount of info coming from guidebooks, leaflets but also reports from members. Since 2001 you can now get a lot of these reports online!! Membership is only 25 Euro a year, and this includes a good magazine they publish every 2 months. Have a look at
www.wegwijzer.be. I myself am a member since almost 20 years now.
Article Comments:
| 04/16/2006 |
| Ken Grubb (5) |
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I came here to Turkey in 1998 on a 15 month assigment and I'm still here in 2006! The place really grows on you. As a heads up, the best site I've seen about Turkey is Turkey Central, at www.turkeycentral.com. It's an english directory of Web sites about Turkey like Yahoo only it's actually twice the size of Yahoo's Turkey category. So if you need to find sites about Turkey, Turkey Central is the place to start.
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