Hot air balloon, Limousines, and hammams: A luxurious ₹5 lakh Turkish Holiday

As part of Mint’s travel series, Sengupta shares details of the couple’s 8-day holiday in Turkey, ticking off bucket list items and enjoying luxuries that are unique to the country. In this series, Mint captures the costs and experience of travelling in different countries through the personal stories of travellers.

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The Itinerary

Between Ankur and I, I am the travel planner, be it within India or abroad. I chose Turkey for our holiday this year out of my love for history and to check off a few bucket-list adventures, from staying in cave hotels to soaring above the stunning Love Valley in a hot air balloon.

I always dive deep into research when it comes to planning our holidays, and I like to start well in advance. For our trip in mid-September, I started researching in May and booked everything, including flights, hotels and day trips by July. This helped us get good deals. We had to book in advance also because of our membership with Caribbean Holidays International which locks hotel bookings two-months ahead of the travel dates.

We had bought a 10-year membership for ₹1.5 lakh in 2023, which gives us 6 nights/7 days hotel bookings per year anywhere in the world. The hotels are 3-star/4-star and we have to pay an annual membership charge of ₹8,500 per person separately while booking. We used this to book six nights in Cappadocia and Istanbul and paid an extra ₹30,000 as annual maintenance charges and for breakfast. After running a quick calculation, we found out that we had saved 10-15% compared to what we would have paid for the same hotels without the membership.

Reading through travel blogs I gathered that Istanbul alone deserves four days, so we decided two days in the magical landscapes of Cappadocia, two days in the sun-soaked coastal city of Antalya, and four days in the vibrant streets of Istanbul.

Cappadocia was all about staying in the cave hotels and taking a hot air balloon ride over the Göreme, Pigeon Valley and Love Valley. The cave hotels, carved into volcanic rock formations, were truly astounding. While they are more costly than standard accommodations, they are an experience you simply cannot miss.

I was most excited about the hot air balloon ride and it didn’t disappoint; in fact, it turned out to be the highlight of our trip. In the wee hours of dawn, as the balloon drifted across the sky of Göreme, we felt an adrenaline rush.

We got super lucky that the balloon flight operated on the day of our booking because it was cancelled on two preceding days due to bad weather. Balloon rides are not guaranteed. 

These are governed by the civil aviation ministry of Turkey and customers are informed one evening ahead of the flying date whether the flight will take place or not. The money is refunded if the ride gets cancelled, but for us, it wasn’t about the refund. We didn’t have any extra days to try again if our ride was cancelled.

The panoramic view of the fairy chimneys dotted landscape and the valleys from the balloon was an otherworldly experience for me.

The ride cost us ₹34,000 since I was able to get a discounted rate through my colleagues in the Istanbul office who helped me book directly with an agency, saving up on the middlemen costs. Booking online was costing us about ₹50,000.

After Cappadocia, we moved to Antalya, a beautiful beach resort town, which is relatively more expensive. We spent about ₹30,000 on a two-night hotel booking.

We spent a day exploring the vibrant town which boasts of a mix of Greek and Persian culture. Day two was a day tour to Pamukkale—cotton castle of Turkey, which is about three hours from Antalya. The name cotton castle comes from the water terrace formations of thermal pools in the town, which are a UNESCO World Heritage site. The naturally formed, pristine white pools were a breathtaking sight. While tourists could pay extra to swim, we were content with the included privilege of dipping our feet in these cool waters.

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Historic Crossroads of Istanbul

The last leg of our trip but the most anticipated was Istanbul. We stayed in the centre of the town in Sultanahmet, which gave us easy access to most tourist spots in the city. First up, we explored the old town through a day-long walking tour.

The guide walked us through prominent heritage sites, narrating history right from the Byzantine empire ruling over Constantinople, current Istanbul, to Kemal Ataturk taking charge of modern Turkey from the third Ottoman emperor. The tour felt like a living history lesson, as if the different episodes were unfolding right before my eyes.

While we thoroughly enjoyed the tour, it was a bit of a surprise to discover it was a walking tour, which became somewhat tiring towards the end.

We took a day trip to Princess Island, which included a boat ride through the beautiful blue waters of Bosphorus Strait. However, we found that Princess Island itself was disappointing and felt like a waste of both time and money.

We had our sightseeing itinerary organized in advance in Cappadocia, Pamukkale, old Istanbul and, Princess Island for ₹87,000, which included entry fees to different spots as well as airport transfers. The only extra fee we paid was €30 for the entry fee to Galata Tower.

The last two days were spent exploring Istanbul’s iconic sites, like the Blue Mosque, Galata Tower, Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace, eating at the popular San Sebastian Cheesecake, indulging in Turkish Hammam bath, and shopping around the Grand Bazaar. We bought a day pass to go around the city on the tram.

The Grand Bazaar is a tourist spot and offers items at premium prices. We shopped from the streets of Eminonu, which provides more affordable options. We like to shop on our holidays but we curtailed in Turkey; given that we had already spent a lot on sightseeing and stays.

Turkey’s famous Nusret restaurant is known worldwide for its steak. We had decided that we would use the leftover Lira on the last day to splurge on dinner at Nusret and did just that. We had an unforgettable steak dinner for Lira 6,000 ( ₹14,700).

Price Tags

I like to plan my sightseeing in advance rather than relying on spontaneous bookings. After selecting our desired destinations, I compared individual costs for day trips and entry fees with group packages offered by platforms like Get Your Guide and Caribbean Holidays International, our hotel membership provider.

The latter offered the most affordable option, including airport transfers in Limousines and luxury cars, as part of the package. Google research revealed that this is a unique experience common to West Asian countries, and Turkey was among the more budget-friendly options.

Of course it was more expensive than taking Uber but the price difference wasn’t significant and we decided to take it. In hindsight, it was a wonderful decision to opt for this once a lifetime experience. We felt completely spoiled being chauffeured in these luxury cars!

We were able to save the most in meals as we ate at small Turkish joints instead of restaurants. We spent about Lira 600 ( ₹1,500) every day on meals, which were predominantly non-vegetarian.

We carried about ₹90,000 in cash that was used for shopping, meals, and miscellaneous spends.I exchanged cash with my trusted local forex dealer at an exchange rate of ₹3.14. We carried cash instead of cards as we wanted to track all extra spends. Most expenses, including accommodation, commute, and sightseeing were booked, hence we wanted to limit the remaining expenses to the cash we had on hand.

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Local commute was part of the ₹87,000 package, except for the one-day day pass we bought in Istanbul.

A big part our budget was spent on flights for inter-country travel that cost us ₹98,000 for three flights. While buses would have been a more affordable option, we opted for flights due to our limited time off. If we had more time, we would have definitely taken the bus to save on this extra cost.

We spent about ₹5 lakh on the entire trip and it was within the budget we had worked out before the trip. We had a truly fulfilling holiday where we didn’t compromise on comfort, a feat often challenging in Europe and West Asia due to their higher costs, explored everything on our bucket list, and, yet didn’t overshoot our budget.