Transportation in Turkey

Getting around and about in Turkey is easy and not as complicated as it sounds. Probably the best transportation system in the world in terms of convenient.

Turkish railway is not widely spread and improved as one would expect. Trains are running regularly only between some major cities, and it is not as convenient and comfortable as the buses are.

If you wish to travel from one city to another, bus companies are operating, available 24 hours all year round to everywhere in Turkey. The most known ones are Pamukkale, Metro, Varan, Ulusoy, Kamil Koc.
Usually, their offices are within the central bus station of the town; however, in bigger Cities such as Istanbul, Antalya, and Izmir, they do have most parts of the City Booking offices; also, you can be collected from one of these booking offices and transfer to the Bus waiting at the Main Bus Station.

They are modern date vehicles with TV and Radio as well as internet facilities. There are usually free snacks and non-alcoholic drink services available on board.
Prices are cheap; your journey is comfortable, butler service on board and tea, coffee, soft drinks, biscuits and sweets are free. Regular 20-30 minutes break in spotless service stations, usually owned by the bus company.

Dolmush - Shuttle Minibus

If you wish to travel within the city or town, consider using Dolmush. The most convenient public transport ever in Turkey.

They are operating from very early hours of the day till midnight. They pick you up anywhere and drop you off anywhere you want, and they are affordable too.
Dolmush is a shuttle bus. Dolmush means filled or full. These Dolmushes usually start their journey from the starting point when they are full of passengers.
Dolmushes are minibuses with up to 21 passengers; in some places, you may have the feeling that there is more passenger on the bus than it should be, well you are right; however, it is getting more and more strict with heavy fines, so that the drivers won’t take more than appropriate passenger numbers.

The destination or route of a Dolmush is usually displayed on their windows. When dolmush sees someone waiting on the side of the road, they typically signal you or slow down and await some signal back from you indicating that you are or you are not coming; this allows you to read the sign of the Dolmush if you are not sure where this Dolmush goes to.
When you see a Dolmush coming, flag it down by simply holding your hand up or waving; it will stop if it has space for more passengers.
When you are in a Dolmush and wish to get off, ask the driver to stop and you will be dropped off at the next convenient spot.

In Cities such as Istanbul, the Dolmush rides may not be fun as you would imagine. You may come across that passengers, and the driver is not so polite, well I guess this is in a vast city regardless of which part of the world you are in.This, however, changes into fun in smaller towns where the population is used to the tourist and tourism, Dalaman, Marmaris and so on, as the rush move does not apply as it does in bigger cities.

In addition to Bus companies, flight companies are starting to encourage people to travel by plane. It seems like they are archiving a lot as more and more people are beginning to use domestic flights to travel from one city to another.A businessman had to travel nearly 36 hours from Istanbul to the far end of Turkey, now he can do this in an hour or so, and it is not that expensive.