We landed in Istanbul yesterday. It was a lot! A big change for us in all the things, temp, culture, time zone, all of it. Add in a baby and x the impact by 100.
I thought I would share what we have spent in the last 24 hours just getting in and getting set up. It’s always a bit of a shock jumping from one country and one culture to another, especially when you are also experiencing a big change in weather and timezone too. We always try to be conservative but not be too concerned the first 24 hours with money.
You just want to get to where your going, get set up, be comfortable, quiet and have a bloody good sleep!
Our total cost on the ground was $357 AUD and included local sim cards, our transport to the accommodation, dinner, some warm clothes, breaky and lunch for today.
Exactly WHAT we spent money on is below:
As soon as we arrived in the airpoirt we purchased local sim cards. There were 3 options available, we went to the middle one (Turkcell), while Jacob was waiting I walked across to the other two to see if the pricing was much different and it wasn't. It cost a lot more than I thought! 1463 lira each ($70) for 25GB and one month. This was the cheapest option, the recharges were cheaper at 450 lira ($22) for 20GB. Sim cards are one of those things, yes you can rely on wifi but it does get annoying, especially if you need maps and we always like the added safety and security of being able to use our phone at all times.
When we landed we prebooked a private car from the airport to our accommodation. Cost was 50 euro ($83 AUD). We don’t normally but we thought we better seeing as it was our first time here and we had no idea what the airport and transport options were like. It was honestly the best 50 euro I've ever spent. The airport was busy and overwhelming (as most are) and it was SO COLD when we landed! What I had mapped as a 40m drive ended up being 2 hours in traffic. The car was warm, private, comfortable, quiet and spacious. We really needed that after 2 big days of flying!
We realised immediately that we needed warm clothes. Jacob was the only person in the airport in a t-shirt and shorts! We walked the streets and picked up the below. PS: the shopping is AMAZING, so plentiful and such good quality we absolutely could have gone mad but had to remember we only really needed a few things and we really didn’t have any spare room in the packs either!
Beanie for Jacob & I (100 lira each) $5 ($10)
Beanie for Kaia (140 lira) $7
Jumper (350 lira) $17
Scarf (200 lira) $10
Booties and warm onesi for Kaia (130 lira) $6
Tracksuit for Kaia (300 lira) $15
Then we needed a nice easy and warm dinner so we ducked into a little restaurant near our room. We ordered 3 simple things and 2 glasses of tea and it was 900 lira ($43) – pretty expensive for us but we really just needed the simplicity and convenience
This morning we headed out to find some fruit and a cheap simple breaky and a Turkish coffee! We got some bananas and strawberries for 140 lira ($7). We then found a nice cheap Turkish café and got 2 pastries and 2 coffees for 100 lira ($5) which we were stoked with!
Starting to find our groove a bit for lunch Jacob got a sammich off the road for 75 lira ($4) and Kaia and I shared a chicken kebab and rice bowl for 200 lira ($10).
For us it was a pretty expensive day, but kind of needed to happen to keep everyone happy and sane after 2 days of traveling. It already feels like it's going to be a bit more expensive here than Thailand but that’s ok and to be expected as we head more towards Europe.
We are pretty passionate about being able to give anywhere a shot and believe there's usually always a way to experience places cheaply, even the ordinarily expensive ones. We already feel like we are getting the lay of the land and settling in and I look forward to seeing what the coming days and weeks bring and how cheap and local we can do it with the baby!
Til next time,
R
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