Such exciting news!! After my setback with my planned trip to Cairo this month, I have officially booked my tickets to go to Cairo for my other cousin’s wedding, with a three day stop-over in Istanbul. I’m absolutely elated to be going back to Cairo to visit my family for the special occasion, and to finally visit, Istanbul, which has been at the top of my wishlist for a few years now. I’m going in October for a little over a week, leaving on a Friday night (#nightflight4lyfe),  staying in Istanbul on a stopover for a few days (one of which is Columbus Day, woo maximizing that Monday holiday!) and then spending the rest of the week in Cairo for the wedding.

As I’ve mentioned before, the beauty of the stopover is that you essentially get two vacations for the price of one, my flight to Cairo including a few days in Istanbul cost less than $50 more than the cost of a normal flight to Cairo. Turkish Airlines is known for offering great prices if you book far in advance, but booking with them usually doesn’t make sense if you are going to Europe, because you have to backtrack, but if you’re going to the Middle East, or even further east to Asia, it makes total sense. If I didn’t stop in Istanbul, I’d have to stop in Frankfurt, London, or Rome anyways, as there are no direct flights from Boston and the flight time is 17 hours…so breaking that travel time up isn’t the worst. The cheapest route just so happened to be through Istanbul, DESTINY.

Another fun part about this upcoming trip to Cairo is that my parents and my sister are coming! (And maybe my brother, but he’s still checking his schedule). They arrive to Istanbul the day before I do, and then we all fly over to Cairo the same day. I’m super excited that we’ll all be together, I was initially thinking I’d be going to Istanbul by myself. Which would be fine, but company, and family no less, will only make it better! My dad has also been going to Turkey for years, and knows a lot of people there and is very familiar with the city. He’ll be a great tour guide to have with us, and I’m pretty sure I can stay with them instead of booking a hostel, which is awesome.

CANNOT WAIT. Fingers crossed that I don’t hit any unexpected snags this time around!!

Cairo is a very familiar city to me, but Istanbul is brand spanking new. What are your favorite things to see and do there?

Happy Wandering!

-xo