Time Out Istanbul

We used this to plan a one-day cruise port stop focusing on Sultanahmet and found it full of very good information on major and minor sights. I took off one star because the information on restaurants is minimal--it starts by saying all restaurants in Sultanahmet are tourist traps and offers very few suggestions, leaving us to fend for ourselves.

I have used the Time Out guides for trips to several cities and always find them very useful. The maps are good and the information about different parts of town and the transportation systems is very reliable. I expect to continue to buy them. I will note, however, that they just focus on a particular city, with a small amount of information about day trips you can easily make. If you want to visit a large country they will not cover it all for you. They are specialists, excellent for the areas they try to cover.

I'm a big fan of Time Out travel guides and this one lived up to my expectations. I like the context section at the beginning which gives you a bit of background on Istanbul. It's not exhaustive by any means, but it's a good intro to the city of you don't know anything about it. There are several maps of the city that cover different sections and include useful stuff like the names of neighborhoods, hotels, restaurants, points of interest and public transportation lines. What I like about this guide is that it includes stuff that is not in the usual tourist guides. I like to go off the beaten path and really explore interesting neighborhoods that don't have major tourist attractions. You can find sites and restaurants that mostly locals go to in the guide.

Time out Istanbul offers a good mix of information, as more specific information can be found on the sites. I would personnaly have enjoyed more "on foot" itineraries to discover the city.

SEEMS FINE JUST AS i EXPECTED

As with all Time Out city guides, this one is packed with insiders need-to know information.You can rest assured that what you read about is what you’ll find in real life. Brilliant stuff.

Having really rated the Time Out Marrakesh guide, I was expecting considerably better than I got with the Istanbul guide. The essentials were all there, places to visit, cost, opening hours, etc. But the hotels and restaurants reviewed seemed to consist of mainly the upmarket establishments, particularly with regard to hotels. There were only a handful of hotel reviews included and these were all for tourists with considerably more money than the 'average' visitor on a reasonable budget. Very little was made of the huge selection of good quality restaurants that offer delicious freshly made food, where a main course dinner with drinks can cost as little as £10-£15 per head. I met a couple who had purchased the DK tourist guide, which I'm told was much more informative, but must confess I haven't compared the two guides. Needless to say, in future I will not be so closed minded as to the guides I buy when travelling.

We had a bad experience with this travel guide. As soon as we arrive in Istanbul: we spoted the location of our hotel relatively to the route of the tram on the map, which could serve us as an indication not to get lost. Finally, the route on the map was totally wrong and we got lost (inecessarily climbing a hill with all our lugage). Second, the information on the place of interest (which is scarce) is repetitive: you find exactly the same descriptions in different sections, occupying more space than necessary. This was our first time with "Time out" guides and we will go back to Lonely Planet for our next travel.