City life Istanbul! Tips and impressions for the city on the Bosporus

Hello People! 

In the following I will show you some tips if you want to visit Istanbul for a week or less. Clueless travel is all about to save you time, money and hustle, so let’s dive into it.

1. Rough Orientation

2. About Money

To withdraw money in Turkey you need to pay up to 5$ ATM fees every single time ! Make sure to bring bigger amounts of CASH with you if you want to stay longer to avoid this crazy fees. Alternatively you can withdraw a one time sum, but we all know it’s difficult to plan how much money you’ll really need. Deniz bank is an option where you pay comparatively less fees when withdrawing  from the ATM. 

Furthermore never withdraw money in your “home currency”. You always want to withdraw in local currency. Turkey Lira in this case. It’s a scam the banks and their ATM’s use to get more money (through transaction fees, bad exchange fees) out of your pocket.

If you are from Germany and still don’t have a proper credit card or want to have other options, I highly recommend you to click here to check out my top credit cards! It’s very important to have at least 2 credit cards while travelling. If an emergency appears out of the blue you want to be on the safe site and act quickly!

3. Internet and censorship: Get a VPN

First things first!

The twos things I always  do when travelling to a new country is to get some cash in local currency and a internet connection before everything else. 

If for some reason it’s not possible or to expensive to exchange money, than I’m using my credit cards!! That’s why I have them the first place. And it can be much cheaper to use your credit card temporarily before you exchange money at the airport or train station counter! Usually it’s tend to be super bad rates over there.

It might sound logical, but there are so many people just don’t understand it and struggle all the time because they didn’t withdraw and/or exchanged some money and bought internet data (or turned on roaming). 

If you stay more than 3 days somewhere the return on in investment is just ridiculous! It will almost always save you time and money in the end of the day if you can look up something quickly. Like this tips here for example 😉.

You don’t have to buy a expensive plan when looking for internet data. In Turkey it’s possible to actually make a deal with the shop owner. Don’t worry about finding them, because they are literally everywhere in the tourist places and main traffic hubs. There’s no need to go to an official shop. 

You also don’t need to show your passport in the smaller shops and therefore can be fully anonymous while surfing the web!! It’s faster, easier and cheaper. I got unlimited access for just 100 Lira for two full weeks. You might pay a deposit but, you will get it back if you bring back the simcard back!

Censorship – Get Nord VPN now!*

YES, in Turkey some censorship is going on. Especially popular social media platforms like Facebook and dating applications might be blocked. That’s why I recommend you guys a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to stop this craziness! 

I myself use Nord VPN wherever I’m for WIFI security. In my opinion it’s the best VPN by far with a huge choice of servers worldwide and it’s ridiculously cheap and easy to use! 

You can get it by clicking here. In the moment they have a huge discount almost 70% off for a two year plan. You should take advantage and definitely grab the deal by clicking here!

4. Transport

Don’t think to much and get a Istanbul card straight away and load it up with 50 Lira. You can buy them at any station. Just look for some ticket machines. This should be enough for you visit in Istanbul.

It’s very practical and you can use it for metro, trams, bus and ferry!

Again don’t bother with one way tickets and save your time!

5. Impressions