I’m really enjoying reading about your Turkey travels and your great writing style. Good luck with the apartment I hope it all works out.
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I follow your writings with interest.
I know you are having some good moments but for me the administrative hassle would not be worth it.
I am not sure Greece would be easier, but at least when I was there I was on my British Registered Ship so had nothing to do with land-based administration. Also last year in our MH visit to Greece, including to Patmos island, the only administration we encountered was to show our Vaccination documents on arrival at Patras. Anyway in Greece I know 'Mr. Fixits' without having to pay - well few ouzo maybe.
I know your reason for being in Turkey is to avoid the Schengen 90/180 limit so maybe the hassle is worthwhile.
A high spot seems to be the way your landlords are taking care of the apartment. Congratulate them from me.
Continue to enjoy the good bits. Hopefully the Admin. part is over.
[I have responded to the thread about re-importing to UK, only because I may need same information]
Geoff
Thanks Geoff, for both responses
Our current position is that the residency permits give us far more time to properly explore Turkey and it really is worthwhile. Secondly it gives us an opportunity to experience the lifestyle and consider if we'd like to stay here for a few years.
The apartment is on the first floor of a three storey full refurbishment. They're supposed to be holiday lets so there isn't much storage. The landlord and his family are superb, we feel part of the family.
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Hi. We are trying to do the same in our Bessacarr leaving in a week. But have just found our insurers won't cover Turkey. How did you get your insurance?Greetings all
Wendy and I left the UK in Dippy III, our 2008 Rapido 7099F, on 7th November 2021 and have driven via the Balkans to Turkey where we arrived a week ago on February 7th 2022.
We have learned so much from this forum and there aren't a lot of Turkey travel posts about so I thought I'd create a post for the mutual benefit of anyone interested in coming this way and getting out of Schengen for 90 days. Like France, Turkey also offers a 12 month visa but I haven't properly investigated either yet.
We have a FB page Travels on a State Pension that covers the whole trip. Typically I post a brief note in the mornings which outlines our plans for the day and Wendy posts a warts and all rerview of our day every evening. If there's any interest and you don't do FB I could copy and paste those on here. We are certainly not seasoned camper travellers and, with a combined age of 137, we aren't the quickest at learning new tricks.
People travelling from the UK do not currently need a visa to visit Turkey for periods of 90 days or less.
Covid rules and regulations change almost daily so you should always check the current rules. In our case we have been fully jabbed with the third vaccination on 31/10/2021 and we had completed the obligatory Passenger Locator Forms.
We crossed from Greece into Turkey at Ipsala and the whole procedure lasted 35 minutes.
Window 1 - we were waved straight through
Window 2 - we showed our passports and they wanted to look inside the van, he just stood outside and peered through the open door! We were asked how much alcohol and tobacco we had and if we were carrying anything illegal. He asked to see all the alcohol I had mentioned and while I was away from the door retreiving it he asked Wendy for suitcases as he wanted to look inside those. She opened the wardrobe door and he just shrugged and walked away. We were asked to get out of the van and had our photographs taken from a camera on a fixed pole. We are both quite small but still had to crouch down for the lens
Window 3 - We had to show our V5 and insurance green card.
Window 4 - we had all our covid related stuff ready to hand over but they didn't ask. They pointed in the direction of a large buiding 50 yards away and said GO then comeback! The building turned out to house their vehicle xray equipment, they took our documents waved us through to the xray and asked us to leave the vehicle and take with us "cat and dogs". Duly x-rayed we parked up and returned to window 4 as requested where an officer just shouted GO at us so off we toddled.
In general the roads have been excellent, better than the UK, but there are still places where a good road peters out into a dirt track before reverting to tarmac again. The driving has been easy enough, other drivers are more polite than the Balkan countries. A word of warning though for all countries South of Slovenia, they take left hand bends with at least two wheels on the wrong side of the road and don't hurry to get out of the way when they see another vehicle coming towards them!
Garages are plentiful and modern with diesel between 80p and 88p per litre while LPG pumps charge around 43p per litre.
We plan to spend most of our time off-grid but there are far fewer places at the side of the road to overnight in. They are careful to ensure any rain can easily drain away from the road so there are often gullies running the length on each side. Stopping places on major routes are few and far between too.
When parking for the night we are very discreet, no camping and all blinds up and ensure our spot isn't obstructing anyone. We've stayed by a beach and on a quayside and the police haven't been interested in us at all. Officially so called "wild" camping is illegal in Turkey.
Their carriageways seem to be a little wider than ours.
The people are incredibly friendly!
That's it for now and I'm not sure which is the best way to report our travels and/or answer any questions you may have.
I don't want to clog the board up with all our daily posts unless there is a demand for it and you can follow our trip on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TravelsonaStatePension
We are also very keen to hear from others who have visited Turkey, all hints, tips and suggestions of places to visit are welcome!
We're with Saga.Hi. We are trying to do the same in our Bessacarr leaving in a week. But have just found our insurers won't cover Turkey. How did you get your insurance?
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