GETTING TO TURKEY
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We highly recommend Skyscanner as the first place to look for any direct or indirect flights to Turkey. The site is easy to use, and the best price is usually there!
Airports & Airlines
Turkey’s busiest international airport is Istanbul Airport, in the northwest of the city. Istanbul also has a smaller airport on the Asian (southeast) side, called Sabiha Gökçen International Airport, which mainly services budget flights from Europe and some domestic flights.
Turkey’s national carrier is Turkish Airlines, which flies direct from Istanbul to a large number of capital cities around the world. It has a strong reputation for service and has won multiple international airline awards over the years.
From both Istanbul airports, there are good connections to Dalaman airport (for Fethiye cruise departures), Antalya (for Olympos and Demre), or Bodrum airport. Domestic routes are well served by Pegasus, SunExpress, and Turkish Airlines, with one-way fares sometimes available for well under 50 Euros, depending on season and how far in advance you book.
From UK & rest of Europe
British Airways – From London Heathrow
Pegasus – From London
Wizz Air – From London Luton
DALAMAN AIRPORT from the UK
easyJet – From London Gatwick, London Luton, Manchester, Edinburgh, and Newcastle
SunExpress – From Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London Gatwick, Manchester, and Newcastle
TUI Airways – From Manchester, Norwich, Nottingham, and other regional UK airports
British Airways – From London Gatwick (seasonal) and London Heathrow (seasonal)
Wizz Air – From London
Ryanair UK – From London Stansted (seasonal)
Turkish Airlines – From Istanbul (connecting)
Pegasus – From Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen (connecting)
Austrian Airlines – From Vienna (seasonal)
Aeroflot – From Moscow (seasonal)
easyJet – From London Gatwick and London Luton
SunExpress – From Edinburgh, London, Manchester, and Newcastle
Wizz Air UK – From London
Turkish Airlines – From London Heathrow and London Gatwick
Corendon – From Düsseldorf and Nuremberg
Freebird Airlines – From Düsseldorf, Cologne, Munich, and Stuttgart
Pegasus – From Istanbul, Cologne, and Mersin (connecting/domestic)
easyJet – From London Gatwick, Liverpool, Bristol, Edinburgh, and Manchester
British Airways – From London
Ryanair UK – From London
AJet – From London
SunExpress – New route from Manchester, starting summer 2026
Turkish Airlines – From London Heathrow and Gatwick (via Istanbul transfer)
Discover Airlines – From Munich and Frankfurt
Pegasus – From Istanbul and Mersin (connecting/domestic)
From Australia
- Turkish Airlines – Direct from Sydney (daily as of January 2026, via a Kuala Lumpur technical stop) and from Melbourne (via Singapore); fully nonstop service is planned for late 2026 (Sydney) and 2027 (Melbourne)
- Emirates – From Sydney and Melbourne, connecting via Dubai
- Singapore Airlines – From Sydney and Melbourne, connecting via Singapore
- Malaysia Airlines – From Sydney and Melbourne, connecting via Kuala Lumpur
- Qantas – Codeshare access to Istanbul via its Emirates partnership (Dubai hub)
- Lufthansa and other European carriers – Often cheaper, but require a transit through a European hub before continuing to Istanbul
From New Zealand
- Emirates – From Auckland, connecting via Dubai
- Singapore Airlines – From Auckland, connecting via Singapore
- Air New Zealand – In combination with partner airlines
From USA
- Turkish Airlines – Nonstop from New York (JFK) and Los Angeles (LAX)
- Lufthansa – Connecting via Frankfurt or Munich
KLM – Connecting via Amsterdam
From Canada
Most routes from Toronto, Ottawa, and Vancouver connect through a European hub (often the UK) en route to Istanbul.
We recommend using Skyscanner as a first step to compare direct and indirect flights to Turkey, since fares change frequently by season.
Looking for your airport transfer?
Ferry/Hydrofoil from Greece
This is becoming an increasingly popular route (instead of flying), as many travellers explore Greek islands before or after their time on the Turkish coast.
The Rhodes to Fethiye ferry is the most commonly taken crossing, with a journey time of around 1 hour 30 minutes (up to 2 hours depending on the operator and vessel). We recommend booking in advance for high season. There are multiple sailings most days, typically up to 2–3 per day in summer, with around 16 weekly departures overall during the summer season.
Here are the main routes:
- Fethiye–Rhodes–Fethiye
- Rhodes to Marmaris
- Kos to Bodrum
Ferry from Italy
There is currently no direct ferry service between Italy and Turkey. Marmara Lines used to run a seasonal route between Ancona and Çeşme, but this service ended around 2010 and has not been replaced.
If you’d like to travel overland/by sea from Italy, the practical workaround is to take a ferry from Italy to Greece, island-hop via Piraeus to Chios, and then take a short onward ferry from Chios to Çeşme.
Trains to Turkey
A real experience is the Bosphorus Express (also known as the Trans Balkan Express), which runs between Bucharest in Romania and Istanbul in Turkey through Bulgaria. It operates as a direct overnight service from mid-June to mid-October (conveniently, exactly the window that matters for our season). The journey takes around 19–21 hours, crossing the Danube from Bulgaria into Romania via the Ruse–Giurgiu bridge, with a locomotive change and passport control along the way.
The train arrives in Istanbul at Halkalı station, connected to central Istanbul by the frequent Marmaray suburban line.
Buses to Turkey
Coach services to Istanbul from Western Europe mainly run from Germany, Italy, Austria, and Greece, with FlixBus operating the bulk of these routes today (having absorbed most of the old Eurolines network). If you’re travelling from other Western European cities, you’ll likely need to catch a connecting coach to one of these hubs first.
Fares and travel times vary significantly by season and how far in advance you book, but as a rough guide:
- Frankfurt (around 45 hours),
- Munich (around 42 hours),
- Vienna (around 36 hours),
- and Athens (around 20 hours).
Check FlixBus or a booking aggregator like Omio directly for current fares before you travel.
Buses around Turkey
Two of the main companies connecting all the major towns and cities in Turkey (including Istanbul to Izmir, Fethiye, Antalya, Bodrum, Marmaris, and Ankara) are:
- Metro Turizm – Turkey’s largest coach operator with the widest domestic network,
- and Kamil Koç (now operating under the FlixBus brand in Turkey).
Both run modern, comfortable coaches with air conditioning and Wi-Fi.