Turkey with a toddler: everything you need to know

At 2.5, we took our son to Turkey for a spring break trip. In eight days, we visited three totally unique places and had the best time. Turkey is an incredibly diverse country with a lot to offer, so we barely scratched the surface. Traveling in Turkey with a toddler was overall a truly awesome experience. Read on for what to expect while traveling to Turkey with a toddler, tips for a memorable trip, what to pack, and more.

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Is Turkey toddler friendly?

I always preface this question with stating that I truly believe that if babies and toddlers live there, it’s a place you can probably take with your toddler (baring dangerous situations, always consult your government’s state department website for more information on a given country and do your research). We never plan a trip around traditional “kid friendly” activities like a Disney cruise or something like that.

That being said, Turkey is very toddler friendly in some ways, and less so in other less important ones. Most importantly, people in Turkey LOVE children. I can’t tell you how many times a shop owner gave Nico a piece of candy, or started talking to him, or wanted to hold him and play with him. It was really sweet to see, and our son loved meeting new people. Your child will definitely be welcomed in Turkey.

Logistically, there were some good things about traveling with a toddler in Turkey, like the fact that we never paid for our son’s hotel stay, and how tours and attractions were still mostly free for him as a 2.5-year-old. The airport in Istanbul also had a special line for passport control and security screening for families with children 0-5, which was AWESOME. We flew through!

Food is not too challenging as there is always a place you can find things like picky eaters tend to like, like French fries or chicken or pasta. Our son ate fries most days, which is something we would never do at home but when traveling we are more relaxed about his eating, because we want to have a nice time and not be fighting battles at mealtimes.

Finally, we didn’t find there to be too many restrictions for people in Turkey with kids.

Everywhere we wanted to go, we could easily bring our son with us (the only exception was the Hagia Sofia museum in Istanbul, which stated no children under 8 allowed, but they let us in and even gave our toddler his own headset). The paragliding companies in Oludeniz even said they could fly with our son, which I was amazed by and definitely did not opt to do with him!

There were also some challenges to visiting Turkey with a toddler, but nothing insurmountable:

• Don’t expect to find changing tables readily available in restrooms; this was not the norm in restaurants, for example.
• Not all restaurants had high chairs, but that doesn’t bother us as our son eats in normal chairs when we go out anyways. But many restaurants did have a kid’s menu with things like pizza or chicken nuggets if your little one is picky. And you can pretty much always find grilled chicken or grilled beef with rice.
• Many hotels will not have crib options. Your best bet, if your little one still needs to be contained at night, is to bring a travel sleep set up like a pack and play or a sleeping tent.
• Turkey isn’t necessarily stroller-friendly. I’m glad we brought our travel stroller, we definitely did use it (especially getting around the airport, and oftentimes at night going to and from dinner) but the roads are often old, may be cobblestone, and may not have a sidewalk. There are also many places like hotels and restaurants with stairs and no elevator. I’d still bring one though!

  

• Turkish men smoke everywhere. We literally saw dads smoking while holding their babies or small kids. Thankfully it wasn’t too terrible for us (as in, we could often avoid this – they don’t allow smoking inside restaurants, for example, but it is allowed in outdoor seating areas) but it was certainly a change from back home where smoking is not common.

Flying to Turkey with kids

Depending on where you live, it may be a long-haul flight or a relatively short flight to reach Turkey with your toddler. We flew from Seattle, which was a 12-hour direct flight to Istanbul plus internal flights after we arrived.

Flying with a toddler can be tricky. If you can, I recommend booking an overnight flight for your trip. That way your toddler is more likely to sleep during the plane ride, especially if it’s long. We had an overnight flight on our way to Turkey and our son slept about 8 or 9 of the 12 hours. This made our lives a lot easier, and he happily played with toys, ate snacks, and watched movies while awake.

This did mean, though, that we were all pretty awake when we finally arrived in Cappadocia (after taking a second flight, from Istanbul) and we did not go to sleep until around 2 am local time.

Jet lag with in Turkey with kids

If you’re traveling from the US, your toddler will likely experience jet lag while in Turkey (you probably will as well). Some general tips for making the jet lag easier, for you and your toddler:

• Set an alarm for your first day at a reasonable hour (between 6-9 am) and get outside in the sunlight. This will help your bodies adjust more quickly, even if you’re tired from not sleeping enough the night before.
• Walk a lot. Tire your toddler out physically so they will be more ready for bed!
• Expect it to be a little bit uncomfortable. Know that your little one may struggle at night and plan for it.
• Only let your little one nap if they still nap at home. Otherwise it may make bedtime harder!
• If your doctor approves, consider giving your little one a weight and age appropriate dose of melatonin at bedtime. This is what we did for the first 3-4 nights and I think it helped. We got these melatonin 1 mg tablets and our son actually liked the taste and looked forward to it at night.

In our experience, I suffered jet lag a lot worse than my toddler did. The first few nights were pretty tough on me, but my son actually did pretty well. Hopefully yours will too!

Getting around Turkey with a toddler

When planning our trip to Turkey, I considered taxis and public transit versus rental cars and ultimately decided we needed a rental car, except for in Istanbul. This is what I would recommend to future travelers as well, particularly if you follow our itinerary.

Airports were about an hour by car from the locations we stayed in each place, which already makes public transit more challenging. Additionally, dealing with car seats in taxis is very unpleasant unless you have a very small easy to carry car seat like this one (imagine having to haul a car seat around with you while you explore, because you took a taxi to a local attraction. Yeah, not my idea of a fun time. We only did that once and said never again).

Having a rental car not only allows you to avoid car seat issues (car seat is always in the car, hurray!) or navigating buses or trains, but it also allows you supreme flexibility with your travels. Flexibility while traveling is always important, but it’s even more important when it comes to traveling with a toddler.

For example, when I was considering not getting a rental car for Cappadocia because the attractions are located pretty close to one another. Then I thought about taking organized tours to see the main areas, and could not imagine having to be on a 7-hour tour with specific stops with a toddler and a bunch of other strangers. What if he has a meltdown, or what if we need to leave early for some reason? I’m sure people DO take tours with toddlers, but for me personally the freedom and flexibility of having a car was really worth it.

We rented cars in both Cappadocia and Oludeniz (Kayseri and Dalaman airports) via DiscoverCars and had a great experience with them. I recommend you book with them ASAP for lowest prices once your trip is confirmed! You can filter to your specific preferences like automatic transmission, car type, and more and they will identify the most affordable options for you.

A note on car seats: I have read that oftentimes US car seats are illegal in Europe. If this is a concern for you, some car rental agencies offer car seat rentals. However, I have concerns about this personally (what condition is the car seat in, and if they have one for toddlers not just infants as some companies only have infant car seats) so I have always brought our own car seat for travels and never had an issue.

Where to go with a toddler in Turkey

When I think about what is enjoyable with a toddler and what is enjoyable for me, there’s actually a lot of overlap. Mainly, beautiful outdoor areas with room to explore and run around. Thankfully, Turkey has gorgeous and unique landscapes that lend themselves well to a fantastic toddler-friendly destination.

I wanted to focus on two main regions, Cappadocia and the Turkish coast, to get a taste of what Turkey has to offer, and I highly recommend our itinerary because we absolutely loved our trip. We also spent one day in Istanbul, which was nice, but in general I find cities to be much more difficult to enjoy with a toddler; attractions like museums and churches are not as fun for them. Turkey is massive, so you will probably want to identify just a few places depending on the length of your trip.

One thing to consider is how easy is it to get between places you want to go? One down side of our itinerary is that there were no direct flights between Cappadocia and the Oludeniz area; we had to have a layover in Istanbul. It was worth it to me to spend more time traveling to get to this region, but you may feel differently. I did consider Antalya for our coastal portion of the trip, as there are direct flights from Cappadocia, but felt that the beauty of Oludeniz and the surrounding attractions outweighed the inconvenience of having to take two flights to get there.

Here’s a summary of destinations and why I picked these destinations:

• Cappadocia: not only is Cappadocia an iconic, very distinct place with a LOT to see and do, it lends itself really well to toddler travel. Why? There are wonderful outdoor experiences that everyone can enjoy. For example, there are beautiful and short hikes across the different valleys (Love Valley, Red Valley, Devrent Valley, etc.) that your little one will love to explore while you take in the fairy chimneys and intriguing landscape. Additionally, the ancient settlements like those found in the Goreme Open Air Museum or the Zelve Open Air Museum are really cool for the whole family too.

  

We stayed at the Angel Cappadocia Cave Hotel and had the best experience in a typical cave room. Highly recommend it! The room was spacious and the beds were super comfortable.

• The Turkish Coast: I picked Oludeniz because it looked like the most beautiful area on the Turkish coast, and I was not disappointed. Any toddler parent who has been to the beach with a little one knows that beaches are an easy win for toddler travel! Kids love playing in the sand and in the water, which makes a beach excursion a great way to spend your day. There are also really cool places to visit within about an hour of Oludeniz, like ancient ruins in Xanthos or Kadikoy or Tlos, or great views from the Lycian Way trails or the Babadag mountain gondola. You won’t get bored here, and neither will your toddler.

We stayed at Hotel Kumsal, which I highly recommend. There were cheaper options with more space in the town of Oludeniz (about a 10-minute drive from the beach) but it was SUPER clutch to wake up and walk straight to the beach. You cannot beat the location, they have a pool, and the hotel staff was incredibly kind to Nico. They also had a yummy restaurant on site (try the spinach chicken or the sea bream).

Tips for traveling to Turkey with your toddler

• Bring a toddler carrier. While you will probably find some use for your stroller, you will definitely want the carrier for hiking days or exploring ruins. This is especially important in areas where the trails may have drop offs or questionable staircases like some ruins do. You could bring a structured carrier, but we just used our soft sided carrier and it worked fine (we also did not plan to hike for many miles. If you plan to do long hikes you may want the hard sided carrier if your toddler fits in it).

• Know that places DO NOT OPEN EARLY in Turkey. Most cafes, restaurants, and stores don’t open until 9 am. If your little one needs food early or right away after waking up, be sure you have snacks with you. You may have a hard time finding anywhere to buy things if not! Our hotel breakfasts started at 8:30 and 9 am, respectively.

  

• Plan out where you want to go and what you want to see in advance, and make sure the list is prioritized. You may need to eliminate a given activity depending on what is going on with your toddler (maybe you really need to get them a hotel nap one day, or maybe you don’t actually want to go for that hike while it’s raining), so it’s best to have a “must see/do” list and a secondary list with things you’d like to do if possible or as backup options.

• Confirm if the activity you have in mind is possible with a toddler. We did not find it to be super limiting, but there are definitely things you can’t do. For example, no air balloon company will allow a child under 5 or 6 to go up in a balloon (we checked). The only way to do it would be to get babysitting services or have each parent go independently. On the other hand, we did do a camel safari, which was awesome! But, some camel companies only allow children 3 or older, so confirm any age limits as you are booking. Some also may charge full price for a young child while others may offer discounted price. We booked this tour (gives big discount for children 11 and under!) and I recommend them!

• Keep the routines you can, but don’t sweat it when things aren’t like home. For example, most nights we read two books at night, which we do at home as well. But on the other hand, we also didn’t have nap time in bed every day, because there were things we wanted to do and see! If we spent every day returning to the hotel for nap time we would not have experienced nearly as much.

• Try to pack everything in one checked bag for the family, and a small backpack for each person. This is already a lot of luggage. Check what your airline allows. I had planned to bring a backpack as a personal item, and carry on for each person, but Turkish Airlines doesn’t allow personal items to be backpacks (they list that a personal item can be a phone or headphones). I think one large checked bag worked better anyways as it was less to cart around than 2-3 carry on roller bags plus 3 backpacks and the toddler gear.

What to pack for Turkey with a toddler

Naturally the clothing you bring will depend on the time of year you visit, but here is my general list:

• Toddler carrier, an absolute must. We love this one but if your toddler is larger than 45 pounds, this is a great option
• Travel stroller, especially for airports and when your little one is tired around town
• Travel sleep set up, like this pack and play or this sleep tent, if needed. We also used this safety net around our pack and play when our son could climb out of it but still needed to be contained while sleeping. Alternatively, you can get a toddler travel air mattress.

• Travel car seat. We have this one which is cheap and light weight that we have used since our son was about 1. However, if your toddler is over 40 pounds this is a good option. I also highly recommend this car seat backpack which protects your car seat and makes it easier to carry.
• Tablet or iPad with kid friendly movies: your plane may or may not have an in seat tv, so we like to have downloaded movies our son likes for long flights.
• Fun snacks: we do not strictly control eating while traveling and let our son have way more sugar than he gets at home. A particular winner for us on this trip was giving him individual M&Ms when we needed him to be in the carrier and he wanted to walk, or while we were riding the camels and he wanted to get down and couldn’t.
• Portable white noise machine: this is a life saver, I used to pack the full-sized Hatch that our son has at home and it takes up way too much space. The portable one is tiny and easy to bring.
• Travel toys. We like self-propelling cars, travel magnetic tiles, and favorite books from home. Honestly, you know your kid best, just be sure to bring a few of whatever they like for your trip!
• Pants and long shirts, especially a sun shirt if you are going in warm months
• Shorts and short sleeve shirts if it’s warm
• Rain suit if you are traveling when it may rain. Seriously a life saver. I bought the 2T size when my son was 1 and it has lasted two seasons so far.
• Fleece suit if you are traveling in fall, spring, or winter. This fleece bunting size 18-24 months has fit our son for two years now as well, at 2.5 and tall it still fits him.
• Hiking shoes and sneakers. We’ve bought these hiking shoes in two sizes now and our son loves them. We only brought two pairs of shoes for our toddler and they worked great. I wish we had brought water shoes for the beach as the sand was rough on our feet, our son loves these water shoes.

Final thoughts on Turkey with a toddler

Turkey was honestly one of our favorite trips ever. Our son did amazingly well with all the travel and thoroughly enjoyed the adventures we had, especially playing in the sand (at ruins, in the desert, on the beach…). When I asked him if he wanted to go home or stay in Turkey, he wanted to stay! It was a winning destination for all of us and I’m so glad we went.

Do you have questions about Turkey with a toddler? Let me know in the comments!