Tracy Collins [00:00:00]:
What if you could explore Istanbul, Cappadocia and ancient Ephesus in 12 days, almost entirely by train, on a tight budget? This week I'm chatting with Sinead who did exactly that with her family. From a 25 pound overnight sleeper cabin to hiking through hidden cave churches, there is so much more to Tikia than you might think.

Sinead [00:00:19]:
Welcome to the Global Travel Planning Podcast.

Sinead [00:00:22]:
Your host is founder of the global

Sinead [00:00:24]:
travel planning website, Tracey Collins. Each week Tracey is joined by expert guests as she takes you on a journey to destinations around the world, sharing travel inspiration, itinerary ideas and practical tips to help you plan your next adventure. Join us as we explore everywhere from bustling cities to remote landscapes, uncover cultural treasures and discover the best ways to make your travel dreams a reality.

Tracy Collins [00:00:53]:
Hi everybody and welcome to this week's edition of the Global Travel Planner Podcast. This week I have the lovely Sinead back on the podcast again to chat about her recent travels. She was sharing some beautiful pictures on Facebook and I was like, I need to talk to Sinead about where she is being now. Sinead has always has already been on the podcast. She was on stamped episode 81 last year and she's been sharing her love of train travel. So, you know, totally resonate with us, Sinead, the train travel, because it's something we love. And obviously you've been on a UK Travel planner podcast as well. One of our most popular episodes, episode three, all About Visiting York, where Sinead is an expert all about York, aren't you? So would you like to just share a little bit about yourself, Sinead, and a little bit about your kind of your knowledge of York? Because that is a, it's amazing you know so much about that beautiful British city.

Sinead [00:01:45]:
Yeah, I am, I'm a York based blogger. I've, I also, I have two travel websites. One's made memories about family travel and the other is York Travel Expert, where I sort of delve into everything you need to know about York. What to see, where the toilets are, where the parks are, where to get budget food, where to get good food, every everything a person traveling will need to know.

Tracy Collins [00:02:10]:
Absolutely. And York is incredibly popular. So I'm sure if you listen to this episode and you don't listen to the UK Travel Planning podcast, you need to pop over and take a listen and York will definitely be on your itinerary. I can't imagine if you're visiting the UK that you're not planning to visit York. So do take a listen to that episode and I'll put in links to your website. Into the show notes as well, Sinead. But this episode we're going to talk about your recent trip where you went to. To Turkey.

Tracy Collins [00:02:38]:
So do you want to give us a little bit of an overview of what you did and where, who you went with as well?

Sinead [00:02:44]:
We went as a family of four as our first trip as a four, not a. So it's myself, my husband and my two teenage children. We went for about 12 days and we went the end of March, early April. So it's probably about two weeks before the tourist season in Turkey actually kicks in. So we went before the main tourist season, which was. Was brilliant. That's. That's how we prefer to travel.

Tracy Collins [00:03:12]:
Yeah. So it was, I guess, a little bit quieter than. Than it would ramp up to be because obviously Turkey. Turkey is very popular with a lot of British travelers as well. So give us a bit of an outline of your itinerary and how you go about kind of planning a trip.

Sinead [00:03:31]:
Well, this trip we knew would be a lot of moving around because we had a short time. It's a huge country and we had a few must sees and they were not close to each other. So we knew it was going to be quite trip this one. So we flew to Istanbul and from there we took a direct flight to Izmir on the south. It's literally straight line north to south. That cut out about 16 hours of traveling just taking that one and a half hour flight. From there we took a train to Saychuk, where we stayed for a few days. We went to Ephesus, that was one of our must dos.

Sinead [00:04:11]:
Then we went back to Izmir and we took a 14 hour overnight train journey to Konya in sort of central east Turkey. From there we then took a bus to Cappadocia. We stayed in Gurem Garim, I think it's pronounced for a few days. From there we took a bus to Kayseri, a little further north. And from there we took a train to Ankara and then another train from Ankara to Istanbul. So I did a full circle.

Tracy Collins [00:04:42]:
Fantastic. So I guess when you were deciding, like how do you decide? Do you decide as a family? Kind of the must do things and places and experiences that, that you want to do. Does that how you kind of do you have a power as a family and kind of sit down and decide

Sinead [00:04:55]:
that Sort of, sort of. We. My husband really wants to go to Istanbul. I really wanted to go to Cappadocia. My daughter studied ancient history, so she wants to go to Ephesus. My son's quite happy as Long as he's fed. So that, that was what we knew because the weather wouldn't be beach weather. We knew we didn't need to go to beaches on this trip.

Sinead [00:05:22]:
So we tend to sort of start with, right, what do we want to see? Is it possible to see it all? Sometimes another trips we've planned, you have to cut something out because it's just not feasibly possible. We, we do like to travel somewhere and stay for three or four days at a time. That wasn't possible on this trip. We had a. We had about four days in Istanbul, we had four days in Cappadocia, we had, I think it was three days in Sayuk, but. And the other places were sort of one night or just even a full day and then we moved on at night. So it was a lot of traveling this time, which is probably more than we like to do. But we just had to try and f.

Sinead [00:06:02]:
All in because you never know if you're going to get to go back.

Tracy Collins [00:06:05]:
Yeah.

Sinead [00:06:06]:
And we, we're also on quite a tight budget on this trip as well. So it did, it did involve quite a bit of research on the cheapest way to get around. The cheapest way to get there. One, One trick I would share with Turkey especially is I have used this trick before with other countries is when we were looking at flights to Turkey, direct flights were quite expensive. They're coming in at around sort of 1500, 2000 pounds, because it is quite a popular destination from here and it's, it's a long flight. But one thing we try to stop off if possible, doing indirect flights, making it cheaper. So one thing I try to do is a reverse search. So I knew we wanted to fly into Istanbul.

Sinead [00:06:50]:
So then I look at flights from Istanbul to elsewhere using skyscanners everywhere search. And if you work out the cheapest places to fly from Istanbul to, you can then look at those flights to go into Istanbul and they're usually the cheapest as well. And then you can sort of mix and match flights. So we flew with Ryanair from England to Romania and we actually had three days in Romania first and then we took a connecting flight to Istanbul with Pegasus and on the way back we flew Pegasus to Brussels with Pegasus and then Orion Air from Pegasus, Orionair from Brussels, sorry, to Manchester. There are risks of doing that, especially if you're traveling with two different airlines, because if one flight is delayed, you're not covered then by the onward flight. But we, as long as you sort of plan a good buffer in it does mean More traveling. It means some waiting around at airports, but on this trip we saved about £600 doing it that way.

Tracy Collins [00:07:55]:
Wow, that's great. And also you got to go to a couple of different places, I guess because you spent a bit of time in Romania. So that's another country they did.

Sinead [00:08:02]:
Kids were happy because they got to country bag again.

Tracy Collins [00:08:04]:
Yeah, exactly, exactly. You kind of go, okay, that's a, that's another one I've been to and visited. So that was good. So that's a really good idea. Now we could talk a little bit about your, your, your time in Romania as well. I think we'll tag that on in the end because I'm quite interested because that's somewhere that I haven't been in in Europe yet. But when you were kind of planning the getting around Turkey and trains and the buses, how did you, how easy did you find getting that information and putting that together?

Sinead [00:08:32]:
Really good. The, the train website for Turkey, I think it's the tcdd, you can select the English language. So it was very easy to book. The one thing I would say is that the sleeper train sold out quite early. We had to just sort of move our itinerary by a day to fit in with the sleeper train we wanted to take. So if you need to do any sort of long distance journeys or one of the popular expressive journeys in the southeast, so north east, southeast direction, you would need to book quite far in advance for them. But it was very easy booking system. We got digital tickets.

Sinead [00:09:09]:
I downloaded the app, it was very easy and train travel is unbelievably cheap there.

Tracy Collins [00:09:16]:
Wow. And also I was thinking about the buses as well. Now I've just been watching and this is a very popular program in the UK and I guess you can access it around the world. And I know they do this similar program is their journey across the world. And I've just been watching that and they, they, they went across Turkey and they're actually in Mongolia now. I've got to watch the final and I guess you've been watching it as well. I know Sinead, you're a fan and I just, what always what opens my eyes because we love the train travel is just how good and comfortable a lot of the coaches are between destinations. Did you find that the same in Turkey as well?

Sinead [00:09:51]:
Yeah, absolutely. We took our overnight train, we bought a cabin for two. So we had a bed each and a sink, you know, power points, everything you need. And that 14 hour train in a cabin for two cost us £25 per person.

Tracy Collins [00:10:11]:
Wow. That is incredible. That is incredible.

Sinead [00:10:13]:
It was amazing. And then we took the, we took the Goone Expressi from Kayseri to Ankara. It was seven hours and it was, I mean it was very slow train but it's beautifully scenic. But the seats are very comfortable, the seats reversed so you could also have a bit of a more of a communal thing. Power points. It was really clean. There was a dining car, the toilets were clean. And that seven hour journey cost us six pound fifty per person.

Tracy Collins [00:10:43]:
That is incredible. That is just incredible. And as I say, a lovely way to travel, a slow way to travel, a way to enjoy and kind of take in the scenery and you can all enjoy it. When somebody's driving, there's always the somebody's driving, somebody's concentrated, somebody's having to do the navigating so you kind of miss out on it and obviously flying. You don't see anything. But what about, and how did that kind of contrast or what was the, how were the coaches kind of in comparison?

Sinead [00:11:12]:
The coaches were comfortable but the ones we took, a few bus journeys, they, they had no toilets on so you had to stop somewhere, it's, you know, a restaurant or whatever to go to the toilet. They were comfortable, they were quicker. I mean the train we took from Kayseri to Ankara, it would have been quicker to have gone by bus, but the buses are slightly more expensive as well. And we, we, we find that trains, you can eat when you want, you can sleep when you want, you can walk around, you can talk to people a bit more because you go to the dining car and you can get chatting to people. And because they're not traveling on major roads, you, you get to go past small towns, you see people working in the fields. We went past flocks of sheep with their shepherds. You went through some beautiful, you know, hilly valleys and it was, it was beautiful. It is a bit.

Sinead [00:12:04]:
In Turkey the trains are slower but they're cheaper.

Tracy Collins [00:12:07]:
Yep.

Sinead [00:12:08]:
But I highly recommend them. They are fantastic. Another cost I've got for you. When we did the Anchor at Istanbul leg, we decided to try the high speed trains. So, you know, sleek, efficient. We, it was four hours and I, I surprised the kids with the first class ticket because we've never ever traveled first class by train, even in the uk. And we got a little telly on our seat, we got a meal and a box and that cost £22 each for a four hour first class ticket.

Tracy Collins [00:12:43]:
Wow. It's fantastic. I, I have to say when I was looking at your trip, I was like, because Doug and I have talked about actually going from London through Europe to Istanbul and then doing something similar. So it's great to see just how accessible it is, how easy it was to book, how cost effective it is as well, and just a fantastic way to travel. And obviously you couldn't travel the whole country by train, which is why you put those bus trips in.

Sinead [00:13:12]:
Yeah, the buses are good for short journeys. You can do really long that we saw one 36 hour coach journey that you could have done. But you've really got to love buses for that. I think the buses are fine. I think short journeys. Use the train for long journeys. The only thing I would say with the train is every train we took from the departure station left on time like to the second. It was fabulous.

Sinead [00:13:37]:
But if you join a long train mid route, they pick up delays along the way. So you have to build in a buffer because sometimes we were four hours late, sometimes we're two hours late. And luckily we didn't have connections, but if we had had, we would have been a bit stuck.

Tracy Collins [00:13:53]:
Okay. So that's worth knowing to make sure that basically if you're doing those train journeys is to maybe stay in the destination that evening so you're not, you know, don't have a connection that if you missed would be sort of disastrous. So I guess you kind of, you had your itinerary, you kind of knew the places that you wanted to go to and then you kind of put the how you're going to get from A to B to C to D and looked all that. What about accommodation? When, at what point do you kind of start looking at accommodation?

Sinead [00:14:22]:
We, we are notorious for booking late last minute and this was, this was worse than normal. Partly due to work commitments and partly due to the situation in the Middle east, we sort of held off as long as we could. So I booked most of the accommodation the night before we flew out.

Tracy Collins [00:14:42]:
Wow.

Sinead [00:14:43]:
And then the. Our last stop was Istanbul. I booked that on the train just before we arrived into Istanbul. I wouldn't recommend it because it gets a bit stressful, but the other side of that is we got some really good last minute bargains as well. This trip we decided because we were moving so much, we decided to only do one Airbnb. The rest of the time was hotels. Normally we try to rent a self catering apartment, but with cleaning fees and admin fees, it's not really worth it for one or two nights. So we did mostly hotels on this trip and they were brilliant.

Sinead [00:15:22]:
Most people spoke English, people that didn't speak English, we used Google Translate. The hotel sort of varied in standard, but the cheapest we paid was £50 a night for the four of us with an ensuite room. And the most expensive we paid was about £120 a night. For, for, for that was for two adjoining rooms in a hotel.

Tracy Collins [00:15:46]:
So was that like 60 pound each?

Sinead [00:15:48]:
Was that the total or 120 for both rooms? Yeah.

Tracy Collins [00:15:52]:
All right. Okay. That's not too bad at all. And, and was there any standout accommodation? Anything you kind of go, you know, if you went back, you'd, you, you'd want to go back to.

Sinead [00:16:01]:
I really like the hotel in Istanbul. It was down a cobbleside street and when you went up to the roof terrace, you had a fabulous view of the Blue Mosque.

Tracy Collins [00:16:11]:
Oh, wow.

Sinead [00:16:12]:
And that was the place. That was 60 pounds per room, per night.

Tracy Collins [00:16:15]:
Oh, wow.

Sinead [00:16:15]:
And we got breakfast, we got breakfast for that as well.

Tracy Collins [00:16:18]:
Oh, that's good. I'll have to get there, I'll have to get the names of the accommodation officiant aid and I can add that into the show notes. That's also useful for pre planning for us as well to know recommendations of places to stay. And what about. So you put the plan together, you had your transport, you had your hotels. Did you think about kind of what experiences you wanted to have and the places that you were going to? Obviously you mentioned Ephesus, so I'm kind of interested because I haven't been there and obviously Cappadocia is very famous for the balloons. I mean, I want to go to see the balloons because the photos always look amazing. So were there experiences that you looked at and thought, we really want to do those, let's see if we can add them in.

Tracy Collins [00:16:58]:
And I know some of them are expensive. I know we did talk about the balloons in Cappadocia, which I think you need to remortgage your house to be able to afford by the sounds of it.

Sinead [00:17:06]:
Yeah, Ephesus for us was a non negotiable and that was a fabulous day trip. It was really amazing. It's a huge, huge Roman site and so much of it is really well preserved and we've been to quite a few Roman sites around the world, but the scale of Ephesus was outstanding. And they had their amphitheater there can seat up to 25,000 people. It was just. The scale of it was mind blowing. And you're walking down this sort of marble pathway and you think, you know, St. Paul walked down here, Cleopatra walk down here.

Sinead [00:17:40]:
It Was. It was amazing. It was, it was a really impressive site. Cappadocia was on our list actually for the hiking. We didn't really want. We didn't really plan to do the balloons. Didn't really want to do the balloons. But we like hiking and we'd read that it was a very accessible place to go hiking and it was fantastic.

Sinead [00:17:59]:
You could walk out of the town for 10 minutes and you'd be in a deserted valley. And we did, we did three days of hiking there. It was quite challenging in a way because there was no maps available. We had to go by other bloggers, recommendations and things people had put online. TripAdvisor as well. We used. They weren't always completely accurate. We found a moderately challenging hike that turned out to be really difficult.

Tracy Collins [00:18:27]:
All right.

Sinead [00:18:29]:
And the, the hikes weren't particularly well signposted either. But because you always know that the town is in the center, as long as you know the direction you came from, you'd be able to find your way back. But we did some absolutely fantastic heights there. Some of the best we've ever done.

Tracy Collins [00:18:45]:
So do you go out for a whole day and you've got a hike? Is it kind of a. For me a hike is like 10 minutes down the road. That's me for a hike. But is this a whole kind of day expedition that you go and how do you, how do you prepare for that and what do you like, you know, if you're going, you know you're going to go hiking. So how do you prepare for.

Sinead [00:19:03]:
Eat a good breakfast.

Tracy Collins [00:19:04]:
Yeah, yeah.

Sinead [00:19:05]:
Bring as much water as you can carry. We usually stop, we usually stop at a soup, a little supermarket or corner shop to stock up on snacks and things for lunch. And we are sort of. Hikes average about seven or eight hours.

Tracy Collins [00:19:20]:
Makes me tired all over just, just hearing that.

Sinead [00:19:23]:
But the scenery was, was outstanding. It was really amazing.

Tracy Collins [00:19:26]:
I must admit. I did see your photos and I mean I'm a notoriously not a hiker but then I absolutely loved hiking in New Zealand. So I kind of come across as a bit of a fiber. Maybe it's just on it depends where and then I might be motivated. But I did look at your photos and it did, it did look absolutely fantastic. I was a little bit unsure when you said some of them were a little bit more challenging. I needed a little bit of a. Are there easier hikes for me, for somebody like me who doesn't particularly want to do anything that's particularly challenging?

Sinead [00:19:53]:
Yep, there are well trodden hikes with quite obvious paths that are fairly undulating but mostly flat. I think if you're going to do some of the other challenging hikes, I would really do your research, get a map on your phone. Don't rely on WI fi because there won't be any. And I regretted not bringing my hiking poles because some of the bits we did were really, really steep. There was a couple of bits where there was literally a rope dangling. You sort of had to pull yourself up on the rope. I was just thinking, I really hope I can trust this rope. And you're sort of pulling yourself up on bushes as well.

Sinead [00:20:30]:
It was really, really. But it was. We did one particular hike. It was a large circular hike through the Red and the Rose Valley. And it's renowned for having cave churches painted. Cave churches. None of them are signposted, none of them are labeled. So every hole or cave entrance you see, you have to go in.

Sinead [00:20:50]:
And we went into some and there was these beautiful 9th century frescoes on the ceiling. And then we went into another one and there was stone carvings on the ceiling. And then we saw this really rickety bridge with a sort of cave entrance. And we walked across it and there was steps carved into the rock. And you went up and there was like inside a 30 foot church hand carved out of the rock. It was. I mean, it was unbelievable. It was so beautiful.

Tracy Collins [00:21:15]:
That's incredible. And you have to hike, obviously. You've got to hike to these, these, to these places.

Sinead [00:21:20]:
Yeah.

Tracy Collins [00:21:20]:
Kind of discover them as you go. That sounds amazing. And what about the balloons? I'm gonna have to ask you about the balloons because I think if I say Cappadocia, most people think about balloons. Is it as beautiful as it looks?

Sinead [00:21:33]:
It is, it is. I think we got. We got enjoyment just by watching the balloons. We got up at.

Tracy Collins [00:21:39]:
Yeah.

Sinead [00:21:39]:
Half five, six every morning just to watch them. And it was really peaceful. And especially as the sun comes up and hits the colors, it's beautiful. But it is an industry. You know, we'd be watching these beautiful balloons rising and then there'd be a fleet of mini buses underneath driving around to drop people off and pick them up. And it is, it is a industry. Then you can do anything you want. You can have a photo in a red flowing dress, you can have a photo in a classic car.

Sinead [00:22:08]:
The balloons, for us, we weren't tempted at all really, because you can fit 18 people into a balloon. And we just felt it wouldn't be quite the experience we would be looking for anyway. And we looked into some Prices and It was about $250 per person, which for us was just out of reach. But I think if you're on your own or in a couple, it would be a wonderful experience. But one of the, one of the best things we actually did in Cappadocia, which was lovely, was an Airbnb experience. And it was a man who just started a business making lamps, you know, the mosaic lamps. So myself and my daughter went and we had two hours making a lamp. We stuck all the mosaics on.

Sinead [00:22:55]:
He then fitted it into the lamp. We've got lamps about sort of that size. They're quite big. We had Turkish Delight, we had Rose Tea, it was lovely. And that was 15, 15 pounds each. That sounds fantastic. Souvenir to bring home. So I think as well as doing the main sites in Cappadocia and the main attractions, there are lots of little things, people offering cooking classes, you know, guided tours.

Sinead [00:23:25]:
It was, it was. If you sort of look beneath the surface, I think you could have a really good one to one experience.

Tracy Collins [00:23:30]:
That sounds really nice because I have to admit, I. Traveling and going in a hot air balloon isn't something that I ever want to do. It doesn't appeal to me at all. But I do want to see it. I think it's just seeing, like you say, seeing the balloons come off, it was very beautiful. Sounds amazing. And I love the idea of cookery class as well, and, and making the lamps as well. That's.

Tracy Collins [00:23:50]:
That's fantastic. And bringing those back, talking about, I guess, cookery kind of, that's a really good segue into food. How did you find the food while you were travel?

Sinead [00:23:59]:
We were quite surprised by the price of eating out in Turkey, it was quite expensive. A meal would be sort of between 15 and 20 pound per person and that was the cheapest thing on the menu. So we. Wow. We found our diet was quite basic. We had a lot of kebabs because that was the cheapest thing on the menu. Anything, you know, steak or fish was, was quite a lot more. Obviously we try to sort of go where the locals go.

Sinead [00:24:29]:
It's not always that easy. Somewhere like Cappadocia is built for tourists, so it's not that easy. But if you go where the locals go, it is a lot cheaper. We found a wonderful cafe in Istanbul and that was excellent food, really cheap. In Saychik, we went to a pide restaurant. So pide is like an unleavened flatbread in the shape of a canoe. It's almost like a pizza, but it's it's safe. It's filled then with savory things.

Sinead [00:24:58]:
So we had spinach and cheese and you can get sweet ones for pudding. And they were about six pounds each. So they were, they were delicious. So it's the age old thing. Look, look to where the locals eat and it will be a lot cheaper.

Tracy Collins [00:25:10]:
Yeah, I did a food tour actually in Istanbul when I was there last year. That was really good. I was sometimes, I know the food tours aren't as necessarily cheap, but they're also a good way to kind of find out where, what sort of foods are, where to eat. You can always ask a guide and usually they'll give you a good, good recommendation of places to eat. Before I could. I'm going to ask you about a bit of a tip about anybody planning a trip like you did to Turkey. What, you know, what would you share? But I just want to quickly kind of skip back to, to your few days in, in Romania and how you found that, how did, how did you plan that? That section, obviously you had a flight in and a flight out, so that would kind of dictate how much time you'd have on those days. Was it your Romania first time?

Sinead [00:25:54]:
Yeah, we actually went as a group of seven. My daughter and her friend came with us. So we hired an Airbnb in central Bucharest and we had a day in Bucharest. And then because we're not really city people, the next day we took a train to Senaya up in the mountains, which was lovely. And then our third day, we had a day at the spa, the Therma spa, just outside Bucharest. We felt we all needed it, but she actually stayed on after we left and she took another train up to Bran and went to Brasov. And she said those smaller towns and villages were the highlight of Romania for her. She really enjoyed that.

Tracy Collins [00:26:34]:
I kind of like the idea of. Because you can, obviously you could do this by train if you've got longer, you could go to Romania and do a lot by train as well, because we've looked at that in the past as well. So Romania looks like, again, a kind of reasonable, reasonably accessible, in terms of budget, a destination as well, to include in your trip. Did you find it kind of comparable to Turkey or a little bit cheaper or.

Sinead [00:26:59]:
The accommodation was quite reasonable. We had an apartment for seven and that cost us £80 a night. And that was in central Bucharest, right in the city center. Eating out was cheaper again, but as long as you went to where the locals ate, they had a lot of bakeries in Bucharest. Some of them were just like a window and a wall and you knocked on the window and then you just told them what they want. They passed out. They were very cheap. You could get a coffee and a pastry for about £1 50.

Sinead [00:27:28]:
The one thing we were surprised that was train travel was slightly more expensive there. Our trip to Sanaya, I think it was about an hour and a half to two hours. That cost us about £25 each. So compared to Turkey, it was much more expensive to use the train.

Tracy Collins [00:27:44]:
Was it kind of comparable comfort wise? Nice train.

Sinead [00:27:48]:
Yeah, yeah, it was very good. Again, very scenic. Ran on time? No, it was. It was very good, yeah.

Tracy Collins [00:27:56]:
And did you book those train tickets ahead of time or did you wait until you were in Romania to do that?

Sinead [00:28:02]:
I think we booked them there. We were. We were very organized. So, yeah, we booked them there. We also went to the Thermay sp bar, which is very popular with weekend getaways. And I would say about that, that it is, it is quite expensive, but it is quite good value for money the longer you stay. The only thing I would say is we bought a four hour ticket and they count the four hours from when you go in the building, not from when you actually enter the spa. So if you can go in, go in your spa outfit and then, yeah, straight in.

Tracy Collins [00:28:40]:
Yeah.

Sinead [00:28:41]:
And then when we came out. Because obviously the four hours ends as you leave the building, not when you leave the spa area. I couldn't find my locker so I ran over time. So as I left, I got billed for another half an hour stay. So I really just keep an eye on the time in there. All the costs start to add up

Tracy Collins [00:28:59]:
a bit and remember exactly where your locker is.

Sinead [00:29:02]:
Exactly.

Tracy Collins [00:29:05]:
So. So overall, would you go back to Romania? I guess that gave you a little bit of a taste. Is it enough for you to kind of go. Might want to go back and explore a bit more.

Sinead [00:29:12]:
I would definitely. I wouldn't rush back to Bucharest, but I would. I would like to explore the smaller towns in the countryside. They. I mean, the scenario was lovely. It was really beautiful and my daughter's photos of Bran and Brazov look lovely. So I think, yeah, definitely go back, but to explore the countryside.

Tracy Collins [00:29:29]:
That's great. I'm just going to throw one little question in as well about obviously traveling on the trains and using the buses, etc. How. What, how do you pack when you. I guess you're quite a light packer, Sinead. You're pretty prepared. So you're a hand luggage only.

Sinead [00:29:44]:
I'm guessing we are, but this time we all brought way too much stuff because we, we assumed it'd be warm. And then about two days before we looked at the forecast. Oh. So we each had a day pack and then we had two cabin 10k cabin bags. So we shared two bags between four of us, which is more than we usually bring. And I still felt it was, it was too much because you're moving around a lot. The lighter the better.

Tracy Collins [00:30:17]:
Yeah. And also it really, to be honest as well, if you're moving around a lot, if you wear a pair of jeans for two weeks, nobody's going to notice. That's my.

Sinead [00:30:24]:
Yeah, exactly.

Tracy Collins [00:30:25]:
That's my thing as well with it. And what about kind of accessing? Because you just did mention a little bit about accessing kind of, you know, WI fi, keeping in kind of contact, you know, things like eims. And what about kind of cash? What about those kind of practical aspects of, of travel, particularly in, in Turkey.

Sinead [00:30:48]:
In Turkey we carried some lira. We, we tried not to use ATMs because they did charge a fee. So we had some lira each. So we tried to use a card as much as we could. We use Revolut or Wise. Yeah, most places take credit cards. Some places are only cash, some places ask for euros.

Tracy Collins [00:31:07]:
Right.

Sinead [00:31:08]:
But it's, it usually works out cheap if you pay in lira.

Tracy Collins [00:31:12]:
And then what about kind of keeping in contact with each other? Did you do good on the ESIM route or.

Sinead [00:31:17]:
Yeah, we, we, we got, everybody got a very basic package, just, just enough for basic WI fi and calling. I think I paid. It wasn't much. It worked out to be about 80p a day that I paid and that, that was enough. I was able to download films and everything on that, so it was great.

Tracy Collins [00:31:36]:
Oh, wow, that's really good. Excellent. Right, so is there anything, I guess I always end with the same thing. Is there any tip or the one tip that you would share if somebody's thinking, I really like the idea of this and Sinead and I both are kind of sitting here going, go by train. If you can take the trains around these countries, because it is the best, best way to travel. And Doug, if Doug was sitting on my shoulder, he'd be nodding his head vigorously because we all love getting around by, by train and actually watching this race around the world, I'm thinking, well, if I can't do it by train, I can always jump on a coach in between because they also seem quite good in a lot of these places as well. So if there was one tip you could share with anybody kind of thinking about, oh, I quite fancy doing this. I quite fancy doing the flight over to Turkey and doing something similar to what Sinead's done.

Tracy Collins [00:32:22]:
What be the one tip that you'd share with them?

Sinead [00:32:25]:
I think if you're a budget traveler, don't be afraid of missing, missing things out. Because one of the things people said to us, oh, you didn't go on the balloons? And we're like, no, but we didn't go for the balloons, we went for the hiking. The balloons are an added bonus. And we had, I think we had four days in total there and three of those days we didn't spend any money because we just went hiking in Istanbul as well. Istanbul was surprised. I loved Istanbul. I surprised myself because I don't like cities, but I loved Istanbul. I'd love to go back.

Sinead [00:33:01]:
But it surprised us how expensive it was for the major sites. But there's so many alternatives you can do that are cheaper. So to give an example, the Hagia Sophia to get into cost €25 per person. But right opposite is the Blue Mosque, which is completely free. And then you've got other mosques. The Suleimani Mosque is one of the most beautiful mosques I've ever been into. That was completely free as well. If you went on a Bosphorus boat trip, it cost you maybe 20, 25 Euro per person.

Sinead [00:33:36]:
We took a two hour ferry ride out to the Princess Islands and it cost us two pound twenty each. So there's lots of ways of saving money. You just don't have to do the big ticket things.

Tracy Collins [00:33:49]:
Yeah, it's kind of looking under the surface, isn't it? It's kind of looking at like those, those may be the kind of and of often over touristed as well. And that's something that I think we're all becoming more conscious of now is that, you know, promoting. And I'm very conscious of that for the UK and for London on my, on my other podcast as well, because we often talk about the Big Ticket because, you know, a lot of people want to go to the Big Ticket, but it's actually looking underneath that because there are so many ways to save money, but also to see other sites where you're not going to be surrounded by 25 billion other people with taking the same photos, having the same experience. So I think that's, that's a really, really good and very valid tip, Sinead. Very, you know, absolutely. So much more to do often than kind of looking at those top things that everybody promotes.

Sinead [00:34:35]:
Yeah, you Won't be missing out. And you might find something. No, you might find something better.

Tracy Collins [00:34:40]:
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Sinead, for coming on to the podcast. Always, always great to chat with you. And I will link to your websites and obviously you've got Facebook groups as well, so we can link to that. So if you want to join Sinead on Facebook and kind of see where she's. Where she's. Where's your next plan, Sinead? Have you got something up your sleeve about where you're thinking about going next?

Sinead [00:35:04]:
In the summer, we're doing a bit of a tour of the uk. We're going to Scotland, Wales, back to London for a few days, across to Ireland, and then in October, we're going over to New England, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode island and possibly New York.

Tracy Collins [00:35:21]:
Wow. Okay, so you've got some great plans. Well, I know a great UK travel planner podcast if you need anything for your UK site plans, but otherwise great. Thanks so much for coming on. And I'll get some photos off you as well so we can share some of those beautiful places, those beautiful churches that you discovered on your trip. And also some pictures of the trains as well, please, if you can today, that'd be great.

Sinead [00:35:46]:
Thank you very much for having me.

Tracy Collins [00:35:49]:
A huge thank you to Sinead once again for joining me today. Links can be found in the show notes@globaltravelplanning.com Episode 9 7. If this episode has got you thinking about your own adventure, our free workbook plan your dream trip with ease is a brilliant place to start. And if you enjoyed this episode, sharing it with a fellow travel lover is the best way to help more people find the show. Until next week, as always, from me, Happy Global Travel Planning. Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Global Travel Planning Podcast. For more details and links to everything we discussed yesterday, check out the show notes@globaltravelplanning.com Remember, if you enjoyed the show, please consider leaving us a review on your favorite podcast app, because your feedback helps us reach more travel enthusiasts just like you. Anyway, that leaves me to say, as always, happy Global Travel Planning.