If you are staying somewhere around  the  center of the city, like Sultanahmet or Beyoğlu, you will rarely need taxis. And  even if you are staying a bit far from the center, we still don’t recommend  taking  taxis. If you don’t know any Turkish, and if you look even slightly like a tourist, chances are the drivers will try and get more money from you. Even as locals, we try not to take taxis. What you can and should do instead is purchase our  public transportation card, which is Istanbul Kart.

What is IstanbulCard?

IstanbulCard(or İstanbul Kart) is the public transportation card that is used by  almost every local in Istanbul. It is cheap to purchase, easy to use, and is accepted across ALL transportation modes in the city. Once you buy the card, you can use it as many  days as you want by putting money in the card.

It costs around 15-20(around 50 to  70 cents per ride) Turkish liras to use public transportation depending on the  vehicle and you can use one card for two people. So, if you have more than 2 days  traveling around the city, IstanbulCard is the most convenient purchase  you will make.

How To Get and Use Your IstanbulCard

The card itself costs around 130 TL(which is around 3.5USD) and you can get your  card in most public transportation stations and Istanbul Airport or Sabiha Gökcen  Airport from the yellow machines. When you spot the yellow machine, you should  follow these steps to purchase your IstanbulCard;

1. First of all, when you look at the screen you will see a tab saying languages. You can click on the responding button to change the language. If the tab isn’t working, know that depending on the machine you will have a few options. It will offer you to buy ‘passes’ that you can use 3-5-7 times(every  machine offers different options) or it will give you the option of ‘buy IstanbulCard’. You should choose the latter one if you will be staying in Istanbul for more than 2 days.
2. When you click on the ‘buy IstanbulCard’ option, you can purchase the card  with either cash or credit card, but be aware that not every machine will  accept credit cards. Keep in mind that these machines do not provide change for cash transactions, so if you insert a 100 TL bill, the excess amount will be transferred to your card balance.
3. When you have purchased your card, you will put the card back on the  machine. You will wait for the amount screen to come up and when it does you will be able to see the balance on your IstanbulCard and insert more  money if you wish to. You should calculate the amount of money you wish to insert depending on this formula: how many times you are planning to use your card x 25TL*
4. After you have inserted the amount of money you wanted into the card, you are ready to go. All you need to do is to put your card on the toll gates like all the other locals do and you can get on board!

You can download the app IstanbulCard and track your card balance once you buy the card, and you can also insert money into your card without needing the  yellow machines. You can use the link down below to download the app!

• https://play.google.com/store/apps/detailsid=com.belbim.istanbulkart&pcampaignid=web_share

Now you can buy a souvenir for a loved one or treat yourself to a kebab with the amount of money you will be saving by not using the taxis*