Question 1

How does booking actually work?

Accepted Answer

There is no checkout on this site and no card form. You send an enquiry, a person reads it, and you get a written reply with a draft itinerary. Nothing is held until you have seen that draft, asked whatever you want to ask, and confirmed it in writing.

Question 2

How quickly will I hear back?

Accepted Answer

Within one working day, and from the person who will actually plan the journey. Enquiries that land on a Turkish public holiday are answered the next working morning.

Question 3

When do I pay, and how?

Accepted Answer

Nothing is charged from this website: there is no card form and no checkout. Payment becomes due once you have confirmed the written itinerary, which is the point the booking exists. The accepted methods and the schedule are stated in that confirmation, and the terms governing them are in the Distance Sales Agreement.

Question 4

What if I have to cancel or move my dates?

Accepted Answer

A cancellation made within 92 days of the purchase date is refunded in full. After that a cancellation fee applies, worked out as a percentage of the total and set by how many days are left before departure. If we are the ones who cancel, you choose between a full refund and credit toward a future journey. Moving dates rather than cancelling is not a fee schedule but a conversation: write to us early and we will tell you what is possible. The binding wording is in the Delivery and Return...

Question 5

What does the quoted price include?

Accepted Answer

Every quote lists inclusions and exclusions line by line, and each journey page on this site carries the same two lists. If something is not on the included list, assume it is not in the price and ask. We would rather answer the same question twice than have you find the gap on the road.

Question 6

Can a set itinerary be run privately, for my party only?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and most of what we do is exactly that. Any journey on this site can be lifted off its published dates and rebuilt around yours, at your pace, with your interests given more room. Start from the journey you like and tell us what you would change.

Question 7

How far ahead should I get in touch?

Accepted Answer

For May, June, September and October, the months most people want, three to six months ahead gives us the widest choice of hotels and boats. We have also put together good journeys in three weeks. Ask even when it feels late.

Question 8

When is the best time to travel in Turkey and Greece?

Accepted Answer

Spring, from April to early June, and autumn, from September into late October, are the two comfortable windows: mild days at the ancient sites, warm enough sea by late May. July and August are hot inland and busy on the coast, which is exactly why those weeks are best spent aboard a boat. Istanbul and Cappadocia are worth seeing in winter, with far fewer people and a different kind of light.

Question 9

I am travelling on my own. Is that a problem?

Accepted Answer

Not at all. A private journey for one person is ordinary work for us, and a solo traveller usually gets more out of a guide, not less. Where a price is quoted per person sharing a room, a single supplement applies and it is stated in your quote rather than buried in it.

Question 10

Does this work for children, or for three generations travelling together?

Accepted Answer

It does, but the itinerary has to be built for it rather than adapted afterwards. That usually means shorter driving days, two nights in a place instead of one, an afternoon left open, and sites chosen for what a child can actually see. Tell us the ages when you write and the first draft will already be shaped around them.

Question 11

Can you plan around dietary needs or limited mobility?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and the earlier we know the better we can do it. Kitchens ashore and aboard cook to order, so vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and allergy requirements are straightforward. On mobility we will also tell you plainly where we cannot help: several ancient cities are uneven stone with no handrail, and no amount of planning changes that. We say so, and offer the parts that do work.

Question 12

Who guides the journeys?

Accepted Answer

Licensed local guides, working in their own region rather than following a script across the country. Some of them you can read about on our team page. On a private journey you have the same guide throughout, which is the difference between a tour and a conversation that lasts a fortnight.

Question 13

How large are the groups?

Accepted Answer

Each journey page states its own maximum, and the numbers are small by design. A private journey is your party and nobody else. We do not merge two small bookings into one larger departure to make a date work.

Question 14

How do we travel between places?

Accepted Answer

Private air-conditioned vehicles with a licensed driver, sized to the party rather than to a coach timetable. Where the distance would otherwise swallow a day, we use a domestic flight instead and say so in the itinerary.

Question 15

What kind of hotels do you use?

Accepted Answer

Small properties with an owner rather than a corporate standard: boutique hotels in the cities, cave hotels in Cappadocia, family-run places on the coast. Your itinerary names the hotel for each night, or names one and says "or similar" when the season makes it uncertain. If a named hotel changes you hear it from us before you travel, not at reception.

Question 16

What happens if the weather turns, or something goes wrong?

Accepted Answer

The order of the days changes before the content of them does: an indoor museum moves to the wet morning, the coastal walk moves to the clear one. At sea the captain decides, and that decision is about the sea, not the schedule. You travel with a local number for your guide and for our office in Antalya, and both are answered by someone who can act rather than log a ticket.

Question 17

What exactly is a gulet?

Accepted Answer

A broad-beamed wooden motor-sailer built on the south-west Turkish coast, in the yards around Bodrum and Marmaris. The hull shape comes from the working boats that carried sponge divers and cargo along this coast; the modern version keeps the timber and the lines and adds cabins, a crew and a galley. It is slower than a modern yacht and far more comfortable to live on.

Question 18

Are the boats yours?

Accepted Answer

No. We charter them from owners we have worked with for many years, and each gulet comes with her own captain and cook. We have been aboard these boats, which is why we can tell you what a particular one is actually like rather than reading you a broker's description, and why we can put your group on the boat that suits it rather than the one that happens to be free. Each boat has its own page with her cabins, deck space and crew.

Question 19

Do I need any sailing experience?

Accepted Answer

None. Every cruise is fully crewed, normally a captain, a cook and a deckhand, and they run the boat while you do not. If you want to take a turn at the wheel or help with the sails, say so and the captain will usually be delighted.

Question 20

What does a day on board look like?

Accepted Answer

Breakfast at anchor, a morning passage of an hour or two, then a cove for swimming and lunch cooked aboard. Afternoons are for a second bay, a shoreside ruin, or nothing at all. Most nights are spent at anchor in a quiet inlet rather than in a marina, which is the whole point.

Question 21

Can the route change once we are aboard?

Accepted Answer

It can, and sometimes it should. The captain reads the wind and the sea each morning and may swap the order of the bays or choose a different anchorage. The places you were promised still happen; the day they happen on is not a promise.

Question 22

Do I need a visa?

Accepted Answer

That depends on your passport and the rules change, so we will not print a list that goes stale. Check the official Turkish e-visa service and your own foreign ministry, and if you are combining Turkey with the Greek islands check the Schengen side as well. Tell us your nationality when you enquire and we will flag anything we know of.

Question 23

Is travel insurance required?

Accepted Answer

We do not make it a condition of joining, and we do not sell it. We do expect you to have it: the terms you agree to when you book place responsibility for travel insurance on the traveller, and cover for medical treatment and repatriation is the part that matters on a boat or in the mountains. Buy it when you confirm rather than the week before you fly, since cancellation cover only works if it predates the reason you cancel.

Question 24

Will you meet me at the airport?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Transfers are arranged as part of the journey, with someone holding your name at arrivals, and the driver has your flight number so a delay is watched rather than waited out.

Question 25

What about money and cards?

Accepted Answer

Turkey uses the lira, Greece the euro. Cards work in hotels, restaurants and larger shops in both countries; cash is still useful in villages, at small archaeological sites and for tipping. There is no need to arrive holding local currency, and no need to carry much of it.

Question 26

Will I have a phone signal, and can I drink the tap water?

Accepted Answer

Coverage is good in the cities and along most of the coast, patchy in the deeper coves and in parts of the eastern interior, which many guests come to regard as a feature rather than a fault. Hotels and boats have wifi. On water: bottled is the norm for drinking everywhere in Turkey, and it is provided aboard.

Questions and answers

Booking and payment

Planning your journey

On the road with us

Gulet cruises

Practical information

Still wondering about something?