Turkey

Accommodation in Turkey varies from 5-star hotels to a simple tent pitched in a vast plateau. So the prices vary hugely as well.

camping and rv-camping

There are many private estates dotting the whole coastline of Turkey, which the owner rents its property for campers. These campsites, which are called kamping in Turkish, have basic facilities such as tap water, toilets, tree shade this is especially important in dry and hot summers of the western and southern coasts and some provide electricity to every tent via individual wires. Pitching a tent inside the cities and towns apart from campsites is not always approved, so you should always ask the local administrator village chief muhtar and/or gendarme jandarma in villages, municipalities belediye and/or the local police polis in towns if there is a suitable place near the location for you to pitch your tent. Pitching a tent in the forest without permission is OK, unless the area is under protection as a national park, a bioreserve, a wildlife refuge, a natural heritage or because of some other environmental concern. Whether it is an area under protection or not, setting fire in forests apart from the designated fireplaces in recreational read “picnic” areas is forbidden anyway.

Stores offering camping gear, while present, are hard to come across, being located on back alleys, underground floors of large shopping arcades, or simply where you would least expect to find them. So, unless you are exactly sure you can obtain what you need at your destination, it's best to pack along your gear if intending to camp. In smaller stores in non-major towns, the price of many of the stuff on sale is pretty much negotiateable—it is not uncommon for shop attendants asking 30 TL for camp stove fuel, whereas it would cost typically 15 TL or even less in another store in a neighbouring town.

Caravan/trailer parks cannot be found as much as they used to be; only a few remain from the 70s. The most known one is the one in Ataköy, near the Atatürk International Airport in Istanbul. However, caravan riders can stay overnight in numerous resting areas along the highways and motorways, or virtually in any place which seems to be suitable. Filling the water tanks and discharging wastewater effluent seems to matter most.

hostels and guesthouses

Youth hostels are not widespread, there are a few in Istanbul, mainly around Sultanahmet Square where Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque are, and still fewer are recognized by Hostelling International HI, former International Youth Hostel Federation, IYHF. However, guesthouses/pensions pansiyon provide cheaper accommodation than hotels, replacing the need for hostels for low-cost accommodation, regardless of their visitors’ age. Please note, pansiyon is the word in Turkish which is also used for small hotels with no star rankings, so somewhere with this name does not automatically mean it must be very cheap expect up to 50 YTL daily per each person. B&Bs are also generally covered by the word pansiyon, as most of them present breakfast not always included in the fee, so ask before deciding whether or not to stay there.

Unique in the country, Olympos to the southwest of Antalya is known for its pensions welcoming visitors in the wooden tree-houses or in wooden communal sleeping halls.

It is possible to rent a whole house with two rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and necessary furnitures such as beds, chairs, a table, a cooker, pots, pans, usually a refrigerator and sometimes even a TV. Four or more people can easily fit in these houses which are called apart hotels and can be found mainly in coastal towns of Marmara and Northern Aegean regions, which are more frequented by Turkish families rather than foreigners. They are generally flats in a low-story apartment building. They can be rented for as cheap as 25 YTL daily not per person, this is the daily price for the whole house!, depending on location, season and the duration of your stay the longer you stay, the cheaper you pay daily.

agritourism

Recently, Bugday Association has launched a project named TaTuTa acronym from the first syllables of Tarım-Turizm-Takas: Agriculture-Tourism-Barter [of knowledge], a kind of WWOOF-ing, which connects farmers practicing organic/ecological agriculture and individuals having an interest at organic agriculture. The farmers participating in TaTuTa share a room of their houses or a building in the farm with the visitors without charge, and the visitors help them in their garden work in return. For more about TaTuTa, see (http://www.bugday.org/tat...)

hotels

All major cities and tourist spots have 5-star hotels, many of them are owned by international hotel chains like Hilton, Sheraton, Ritz-Carlton, Conrad to name a few. Many of them are concrete blocks, however some, especially the ones out of cities, are bungalows with private gardens and private swimming pools.

If you are into holiday package kind of thing in a Mediterranean resort, you’d definitely find better rates when booking back at home rather than in Turkey itself. The difference is considerable, compared with what you’d pay when booking at home, you may end up paying twice as much if you simply walk in the resort.