Olivia and Nathan here! Here’s our Istanbul Travel Guide for 2023! This city surprised us with the amount of things to do and …

Istanbul Turkey we’ve heard the various descriptions where East Meets West modern meets ancient religious meets secular wow What A vibe it’s one of those global mega cities that can seem quite intimidating at first glance with a population of almost 20 million people life moves at a frantic Pace but at very

Little time Olivia and I learned that navigating this city doesn’t have to be daunting or stressful and the beauty of Istanbul is that if at any moment you feel overwhelmed or need a quiet space you can just pull off to any Alleyway or side street maybe for a Turkish coffee

Maybe to perfect your shisha Smoke Rings or maybe even duck down into a Tavern for some local Raku or go vertical and climb up to a rooftop for an epic view cigarette smoke in the cats though those are impossible ones to avoid because that’s everywhere cats out here they

Even have luxury villas they’re treated like royalty I’m telling you I mean those are better than my Christmas lights two floors they got the evil eye and location location maybe 1.3 million Turkish pop ballots to quintessential turkey can’t escape those But that is the magic of Istanbul it’s an open-air Museum to get lost in and the playful and warm people are truly the highlight and in this vid I hope to share some tips to help you out with your trip from where to stay what neighborhoods to visit how to make it

Fit inside your budget and how to optimize your time there to get the best Vibe and understanding of this amazing City and at the very very end I also share my two favorite areas to visit that are less touristy but can’t be missed Airport This is one of the nicest airports we’ve been in it kind of has reminded me a little bit of Doha okay so the first time we arrived in Istanbul we booked an Uber which just happened to be a regular taxi what and we definitely overpaid for it so I don’t recommend that

Yeah I don’t really think there’s like a designated pickup spot right now because Uber is like very very new to the country so what I do recommend is something called the hawaiiast shuttle this is way more affordable and easy peasy it can be used to go to and from the airport

It’s clean it’s pretty quiet Pro tip though make sure that you’re going to the right airport because there’s a few different make sure it is traveler a Leader’s Choice Award 2022 on the best airport in the world walk middle sooner or later one of the first things we did when we

Got to Istanbul is we got an esim so we can actually use our phones for GPS and stuff secondly we got a Istanbul card which is like their Transit card for taking public transportation Istanbul card topping it off and thirdly we got some cash because we

Got to withdraw a bunch of cash because at the Grand Bazaar and markets like that they don’t take credit cards hey and the USD is a pretty good exchange right now so we’re lucky we’re lucky when visiting Istanbul which happens to be one of the most populated cities in

The world the best way to get around is going to be public transport hands down all right it’s nice and heated in here it’s easy affordable safe we made it and most practical taxi can be really expensive and a hassle to deal with and renting a car is not recommended or

Really necessary the streets are narrow hilly full of traffic so your best bet is to pick up your Istanbul card like I just mentioned and that will give you access to buses ferries and trams here’s what an average day going around the city might look like taking the ferry

I feel like the transport’s pretty easy here yeah yeah and the views on the ferry the ferry cost us 10 Turkish Lear which is basically like 50 cents So for 50 cents you get to get on a boat and get incredible views and unique perspectives

Of the city you can’t beat that that you can’t beat that Pretty organized profollo my downside is at some points during the day gets cool the four main districts I’d recommend are Fati biolu beshiktas and cadike and my reasons for staying in each district depend mostly on the duration of your stay if you’re only in Istanbul for a

Very short stay I’d recommend staying in the sultanaman area in Fati because it’s close to all the major sites it’s more touristy and pricier but you’re paying extra for practicality on a very short visit if you’re staying just over a week or so I’d recommend the District of

Biolu where you could stay in areas like Galata taksim jihangir karakai this is my personal preference because it offers really easy access to the other three districts and in one single day you could walk down to Fati and see all the popular tourist sites it’s also easy to

Take the ferry across to katake or north to bashiktas from there if you’re staying in Istanbul for more than a week or so I’d recommend kazike on the Asian side or bashiktas on the European side to the north these areas are significantly calmer and less busy

You’ll have a lot less traffic and it’ll be way more affordable it’s a much more authentic experience overall and it’s how the majority of locals live at more local prices all right we just made our way down from istikal Street we’re in Galata now about

To get run over by a bike now crossing the bridge to an area called we are strolling around just got to be yeah you gotta watch out for the cars out here run run lots of traffic oh gosh oh we’re supposed to go left all right go this way okay

Just takes over the whole pedestrian area and that’s a normality out here I’ll say a lot of the drivers here don’t give a full big question a lot of visitors wonder about is how walkable is Istanbul really well let me tell you although known as the city of Seven

Hills I found Istanbul to be very walkable it’s a place to meander and get lost in as long as you have good walking shoes one big tip though is to strategize your days so you mostly walk the downhills and take public transport on the uphill parts of the city here’s a

Real life example of this let’s say your starting point is tax team square and you want to go to the Grand Bazaar I’d recommend walking to the Grand Bazaar which is mostly downhill from taxim but then taking the tram back some districts are relatively less hilly than others I

Found areas like kejuke and Fati not that hilly but bashiktas and Blu for example are very hilly and do expect to walk up some very narrow and winding staircases most buildings are very old and have no elements oh my God Nathan party in the front party in the back going down these stairs

How your glutes feeling dude burning dude we definitely burn everything we eat here though I think all that bakava no problem give me more on a textural level it’s like the best marshmallow treat I’ve ever had I think I overdid it on the baklava Times Like These I wish I had my Brooklyn Bedding bed from back home but I don’t Nathan’s a little salty about some of these Airbnb mattresses this bed sucks it’s tough because we do have the best beds back home whether we’re chilling in

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Price tag they offer 120 night sleep trial free shipping and a 10-year warranty so if you want to upgrade your mattress just like we did head on over to brooklynbedding.com honoral travel and use our code on-roll travel to get 25 off a quick word on the Turkish language as

Someone who really enjoys foreign languages I found Turkish to be quite challenging even saying a simple thank you correctly proved to be quite difficult I knew right away that I was going to make a fool out of myself trying to say things correctly but being a visitor in their country I still had to go for it I do recommend learning some basic phrases before going the two most helpful to

Start with are thank you which is Tisha cute And if you’re worried if people make fun of you for trying to speak Turkish just remember that we’ve got some dirt on them too congratulations another day another call to prayer there are over 3 000 mosques in turkey’s largest city so there’ll pretty much be one inside at all times anywhere you

Walk some are Grand and magnificent others more discreet and unassuming but out of all of them the most popular three to visit are Aya Sophia which has been around for 1600 years and is still an active mosque welcoming over 6.5 million visitors each year sultanaman mosque also known as the Blue Mosque

Which was built to confront and surpass the older one and was built 1200 years later and suleimanja mosque which was an ottoman Imperial mosque built on the third Hill of Istanbul but my personal favorite to visit was the orange koi mosque in bishektas located right on the

Bus for his Waterfront right off or to koi Pier Square it’s a lot less busy so you don’t have to wait in line and you can really take your time there just remember to not wear shorts take your shoes off and women must cover their heads you’ll also be able to hear the

Call to prayer sung live and projected on speakers five times a day all throughout the city Oh my God the marble is so cold that’s what he told he told us not to do it on the Marvel well it’s fine okay put them in put them in our tour guide just told us to watch out for nuggets like what’s a nugget he’s like well there’s

These pigeon that stood up on the lights so I’m like walking around looking at the carpet like I don’t want to step on any birds [Applause] the emperor Constantine built it as a reservoir 1600 years ago here the Basilica cistern or cisterna Basilica is the largest Subterranean

Cistern out of the hundreds that lie beneath the city of Istanbul it’s just 500 feet from Aya Sophia and was built in the 6th Century during the reign of Byzantine emperor Justinian today they keep it with very little water so that people can have public access to the space Sean Connery got to

Enjoy it in 1963 in James Bonds From Russia with Lou find your head now we’ve made it to the Basilica cistern and oh my God the lighting in here is incredible they keep changing it from like red orange to green and there’s all these art pieces around in the water and there’s the

Reflection of these pillars and it is so freaking cool it’s also much warmer in here my friend today is a beautiful day my friend which 10 rugs would you like to buy oh man we’ve entered the Grand Bazaar they were absolutely we’re actually right below where James Bond drove his

Motorcycle along the road yes where he caused lots of damage his motorcycle fell to the side and they to replace 80 000 tiles because of it because this building is so old like you must have felt the vibrations from his bike being down here I’m like oh I bet they didn’t

Allow people to be in here I will show them if you’re too much of a people pleaser and you have a hard time saying no in Turkey my friend my friend you’re gonna be spending a lot of money no thank you uh he’s trying to get me something no thank you

Because they’re really good at me like oh you need this you need this oh have this ice cream they’re very playful but I watch some people even like they’ll be selling like perfume and whatnot you can tell they don’t really need it but they feel sucked into doing it no no thank

You they smell good I’m gonna get you the money I’m gonna make sure you get the money and we can spend it together this is an interesting one since inflation has hit turkey pretty hard in recent years their currency has devalued quite a bit this is good for visitors

Coming with us dollars or Euros but one thing I’ve noticed is that to counteract that inflation prices for things have shot way up especially in the Heart of the City around the touristy areas are things still relatively more affordable for us visitors yes absolutely but expect to pay way more for things

Compared to previous years and if you leave the popular areas like Fati and biolu and head to more local areas like vegetas or katake you’ll pay one-third to one-fourth the price for things just something to consider The thing we immediately noticed though is that in beshiktash es have are way less than in the touristy areas where we’re staying the Minutemen that I had yesterday it’s an egg dish that’s kind of like shakshuka it was 140 lira at that restaurant it was 60. Lira

That’s so wild yeah when you leave this sort of city center World tourists are price has come down tremendously this feels so strange there are a bunch of top things to do in Istanbul but here are our top five it’s soaked up and rubbed down in a

Turkish Homam ain’t gonna lie as a grown ass man I thought it was a bit strange to get fully Washed by someone else but in very little time I was one over Get lined up and straightened out at a Turkish Barber but just know that ain’t all you’re gonna get no way facials massages ear hair singing it feels unreal expect to be wild test your vertigo at a whirling derva show just watching these guys might make you dizzy Go down a hidden side street and try both Turkish coffee and Turkish shisha gotta keep working on them rings get five star service at a wonderful Turkish restaurant this was our personal favorite called Pera antakia if you want to run down of some of Istanbul’s best street foods then check

Out our other video highlighting our top 30. There’s no shortage of great coffee shops here in Istanbul I’m Blown Away by just how many you come across just like wandering the streets they’ll just find this like little door that takes you through this like Alleyway or up some stairs and they’re serving like incredible espresso incredible coffee and uh yeah and

They’ll do some latte art like that Swan I just got coffee’s no joke out here and you most definitely can’t leave Istanbul without doing at least one trip to the Anatolian side this is how a large majority of istanbulites live and you’ve got to experience it foreign

We just got off the ferry and made it to kajike on the Anatolian side uh which is I learned that’s the way you’re actually supposed to call it although we just went from one continent to another technically from the European to the Asian side in under 20 minutes by ferry

That is pretty special that is the first time for us and that was also the first time we crossed the boss first straight it’s a big straight I must say uh it’s not a river it’s a straight and I had to look that up because I didn’t really

Know the difference myself but right now we’re in dire need of a cup of coffee and I need to urinate if I’m completely honest I’ve been holding it for the last 30 minutes let’s do this all right we have made it to ortakoi and the ortokoi mosque right here on the

Water with the bridge in the background you got city views all around you of the other side is absolutely stunning a lot of pigeons as well you gotta watch for your head you know so I got this hoodie when the pigeons fly overhead I just popped this over like that I’m in

The clear Olivia unfortunately she’s screwed what’s going be shiktas is a much more relaxing place to hang out further out from the bustling City there’s lots of great restaurants and tons of coffee shops here you won’t find too many tourists as it’s mostly locals All right that wraps it up the end bye oh

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