Is Türkiye Expensive? What 18 Nights Actually Cost Us in 2026

Türkiye has a reputation for being the cheap Mediterranean option, and after eighteen nights there I think that is true and also slightly misleading.

It is genuinely cheap to move around. It is genuinely cheap to eat. And then one dinner in Bodrum cost us more than three nights of accommodation, and it was entirely our own fault.

So rather than give you a range, here is every transaction we made across seven bases between 15 June and 3 July 2025, with the GPS still attached. Eighty payments, no estimates.

Is Türkiye Expensive? My Quick Answer

No, and the everyday prices are lower than I expected. A tram across Antalya was two dollars fifty. A proper Turkish breakfast for two was fourteen. We crossed the entire country, seven bases, for less than we spend on transport in a fortnight at home.

We averaged A$164.55 per person per day all in. That is not a cheap number, and it has almost nothing to do with Türkiye being expensive.

The number that actually tells the story is that one. Nine dollars a day to cross a country, and seventy two dollars a day to eat in it.

What Türkiye Cost Us: The Full Breakdown

Eighteen nights, two of us, June and July 2025. The lira sat between 25.4 and 26.3 to the Australian dollar through our trip.

Two separate sets of numbers here, and I have kept them apart on purpose. Our accommodation is the total for both of us, because that is how a room is priced. Everything else is tracked per person, so those figures are one of us, not the pair.

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Nearly half of everything we spent went on restaurants. Not on entry fees, not on tours, not on getting between seven different towns. Restaurants.

Where We Slept, and What Each Bed Cost

Eighteen nights across seven bases. Two of those nights were on a gulet cruise that we did not pay for, which I will come back to, so the real figure is A$1,936 across sixteen paid nights.

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Istanbul and Antalya came out identical at eighty eight dollars a night for the two of us, which surprised me, because Istanbul felt like the expensive one while we were there.

The most expensive bed of the whole trip was our cave hotel in Cappadocia at a hundred and seventy a night, and it is the one I would pay for again without thinking about it.

Real Prices We Paid

Not researched, not averaged. These came off our card.

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That last line is the whole article. One dinner, two hundred and fifty dollars, which is twelve per cent of everything I spent on the ground in Türkiye across nineteen days.

The Bit Nobody Warns You About

Türkiye is cheap right up until you decide it isn't.

Nothing forced us into that dinner. We could have eaten beautifully in Bodrum for thirty dollars, and on other nights we did. But Bodrum has designer shopping and beach clubs and a sunset that photographs like a holiday advert, and once you are in that setting it becomes very easy to keep saying yes.

Our spend per day, base by base, makes it obvious.

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Bodrum cost us almost twice as much per day as Antalya, and we were doing broadly the same things in both: eating, swimming, walking around. The difference is entirely the setting.

What We Would Do Differently

Not much, honestly, but two things.

We would have kept the car for longer. We hired one in Bodrum to drive to Çeşme and it changed the trip. Türkiye's buses are cheap and fine, but the coast is full of places you cannot reach without your own wheels. If you are doing the same route, compare car rental prices before you commit to buses, because it cost less than we expected. A small car out of Bodrum runs around €38 to €48 a day depending on season, so roughly €270 to €340 for a week, and February is the cheapest month while August is the most expensive.

We would have used cash less. A$282 of our spending is just ATM withdrawals, which means I genuinely cannot tell you what it went on. Card was accepted almost everywhere.

Is Türkiye Cheaper Than Greece or Italy?

Yes, and not marginally. The accommodation is the clearest comparison: eighty eight dollars a night for two in central Istanbul, in June, would not get you a room in Rome or Santorini in the same month.

Food is where the gap is widest. A sit-down Turkish breakfast for two people for fourteen dollars has no equivalent anywhere else on the Mediterranean that I have been.

Where the gap closes is at the top end. Zuma in Bodrum is priced like Zuma anywhere. The designer shops are priced like designer shops. Türkiye is cheap at the middle and the bottom, and international at the top, so your bill depends far more on your choices than on the country.

What About the Gulet Cruise?

Two of our eighteen nights were on a gulet on the Turkish Riviera with Far Out Cruises, and I want to be upfront: that was a collaboration, so we did not pay for it.

That means I cannot honestly tell you whether it was good value, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. What I can tell you is that it was our favourite two nights of the trip, that we slept on the deck, and that the one thing I would change is doing the three night option instead of the two.

So, Is Türkiye Expensive?

No. We spent A$164.55 each per day and we could comfortably have done the same trip for A$110 without giving up anything that mattered.

Cut the Zuma dinner and the day club and our daily average drops by seventeen dollars on its own. Skip the designer district, eat where the plates cost eight dollars instead of eighty, and you are looking at a very affordable three weeks in a country that does not feel cheap while you are in it.

That last part is the real answer. Türkiye does not feel like a budget destination. It just happens to be one.

Where we slept, and what we would book again. Every one of these is somewhere we stayed or would stay, and the nightly prices above are what we actually paid.

Bodrum, the priciest coastal night

Costa Maya Bodrum

Bodrum. Where we actually stayed, A$160 a night for the two of us in June, with a pool we used every day.

Check current Costa Maya Bodrum prices

Cappadocia, the priciest night full stop

Cappadocia Cave Lodge

Cappadocia. The most expensive bed of our trip at A$170 a night, and the rooftop is where we watched the balloons go up.

Check current Cappadocia Cave Lodge prices

Antalya, the cheapest base of the trip

Oli Hotel and Suites

Antalya. Walkable to the old town and the cove beaches, which is the whole reason to stay central here.

Check current Oli Hotel and Suites prices

Prices move a long way by season in Türkiye, so it is worth checking your own dates. Everywhere we slept in the country is on our Türkiye stays page.

Still planning? Here is how we would plan the whole trip and every bed and what it cost.

FAQs About Türkiye Costs

How much money do I need for two weeks in Türkiye?

On our numbers, about A$2,300 per person for two weeks, all in, excluding flights. That is at our rate of spending, which included one very expensive dinner. A more careful two weeks would sit closer to A$1,550.

Is Istanbul more expensive than the coast?

For accommodation, no, our Istanbul apartment was the joint cheapest of the trip at A$88 a night for two. For everything else, slightly. Istanbul is where the inflation is most obvious, and it is the one place where I felt prices had moved recently.

How much is a meal in Türkiye?

A local lunch runs A$8 to A$22 for two. An ordinary sit-down dinner is A$14 to A$31. A high-end restaurant in Bodrum or Istanbul will take as much as you let it.

Should I take cash or card?

Card. We withdrew A$282 in cash and I still could not tell you where most of it went. Cash is useful in Cappadocia and at smaller places, but almost everywhere took a card.