Turkey -- well, Istanbul -- is actually quite nicely connected with plenty of public transit. If you don't have to be somewhere at a specific time, or are operating on what we came to call "Turkish Time" which is a sort of perpetual lateness that ends up being quite charming, then public transit will do you just fine.
Public Transit
The first day we were in town, transit was mysteriously free until 1pm, but it was hard to figure that out because of course we had hardly any Turkish. We bought a pair of Akbil, which are these thumb-sized transit passes. Much more convenient than having change on hand, plus the fare is discounted for transfers (though we didn't figure that out until the second week). Even so, fares are very cheap (paying full fare to go all the way across the city -- a 1 1/2 hour trip with two transfers -- was 4.5TL, or about $3.20 at the exchange rate we had during our trip). It's a set fee, unlike BART which charges you more for going further. Like most European countries, Turkey does not penalize you for using public transit.
The thing about public transit is that it can be really crowded.
That's the tram at our usual morning stop (Aksaray). People rely on the doors to hold them in the tram, and it is crowded, very crowded. We often walked up to the next station to get on a slightly less crowded tram. But we'd still be pressing ourselves into a a space where the average American would think nobody more could fit.
Also, practically nobody in Turkey uses deodorant.
On the other hand, public transit was one of the few places where nobody smoked in defiance of the "Sigara Içilmez" (Smoking Forbidden) posters. Possibly because it would be impossible to light up a cigarette in such a crowded space.
On the other hand, some forms of transit were really quite civilized. The Metro -- North of the Golden Horn on the European side -- was much like BART, only on a grander scale, and new enough that it wasn't making the horrible sounds BART makes.
I liked the decorative details on this door.
And near Taksim Square, you can take this incredibly slow but cute streetcar:
It's the "Historic Tramvay" and it is awfully sweet, if a completely inefficient way of getting anywhere promptly.
Walking
Walking is always a viable option in Turkey. OK, maybe not safe, but viable. For really big roads, they have pedestrian underpasses, which are lined with tiny shops.
This was just such an underpass on a Saturday afternoon.
Americans often bemoan the fact that our cities are not walkable, that we need nice sidewalks and comfortable streets and all kinds of things to make them more usable, or nobody will use them. In Turkey, almost none of the streets has a sidewalk that would pass muster in the US. They're uneven, have steep curbs (one near our hotel was 2 feet tall), crowded with merchandise and people and junk, and sometimes cars are parked half on the sidewalk. Intersections are often uncontrolled in any way, and where they are the controls don't take pedestrian traffic into account at all. But people walk, because it's a walking culture.
One thing that I liked a lot about this was that everybody was aware of what was going on around them at all times. You can see in the video that the cars are paying attention to the pedestrians, and vice versa. And pedestrians pay attention to each other.
The only thing I really didn't like was that if you have any kind of physical disability, any reason to rely on handrails or even sidewalks, you are basically out of luck in many parts of the country. Most parts of the country. You'll need to rely on taxis and hotels with elevators, and some restaurants and cafes will be inaccessible for you. And of course the bathrooms are inaccessible.
Driving
I don't recommend you drive in Turkey. We did, because my cousins lent us a car and we went on a big tour through the countryside. But driving in Turkey, especially in the big cities, is much more complicated than driving in the US. If you feel right at home driving in Rome, Turkey will be your driving oyster. (That was not a very graceful metaphor, but let's stick with it and move on.)
Drivers in Turkey use road signs as a suggestion. And lane markings; if another car fits, they will put it there, often a lot closer than Americans are comfortable with. They rarely signal. The horn is used both to say, "Hey, I'm doing this" and to say "get moving" and other ruder things. Some of the larger cities are crazy warrens of one-way streets and divided roads where you can't get where you need to be, and road maps are few and far between, and leave out many roads. Also, there are practically no street signs, so even if you have a map you can't place yourself on it. And the people who give you directions (assuming you know enough Turkish to ask for them and understand them) are all pedestrians, so sometimes they say to turn through a covered market or plaza where you obviously cannot drive a car.
We didn't take any bus tours or trains. I've heard buses are pretty nice, trains are pretty slow, and to get to the cities in the center of the country you should just take a plane. Everybody we know seemed to rely fairly heavily on buses and hitching rides with a friend who is headed in a particular direction.
Ferries
The next time we go to Istanbul I want to take a water taxi, but it didn't work out this time.
The ferries from Istanbul to cities along the coast on the Asian side were quite civilized, but definitely not tourist-oriented. For the most part you end up in a cabin where you can barely see through the windows, with no outdoor access at all. But the ferries are fast and efficient, and relatively cheap if you don't have a car with you. They save you a long slow drive around the Bosphorus and through the city, and for us, they picked up and dropped off at a ferry terminal a few blocks from our hotel in Istanbul, which was a big win.
