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Travelling from Ankara to Izmir

  • 22 March 2022
  • 4 replies
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R

Hello, my girlfriend and I are planning a trip of 2 months through Turkey, Greece and Italy. We plan to start our trip in Istanbul and travel through Turkey with an Interrail Global Pass. After staying in Istanbul we want to go to Ankara and from there we are planning to travel to Izmir. But we can't figure out if Interrail allows us to travel from Ankara to Izmir by train using our Global Pass. According to interrail.eu you can travel from Ankara to Izmir making use of the night train which will take 15 hours and 20 minutes. But when I try to find the route in the Rail Planner app on my phone, it says "We couldn't find any stations matching Izmir in our timetable". Does that mean that there is no possibility to travel from Ankara to Izmir by train using Interrail? Or is there an alternative?

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Best answer by rvdborgt 22 March 2022, 20:50

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R
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Turkish timetables ar not included in the app. The pass is still valid of course, that is not determined by  the timetables that are included. For Turkish timetables, check TCDD website, although it seems to be unreachable for now.

Further, there are no trains from Turkey to Greece.

Please ask questions in the community and not via a private message. That's the quickest way to get a response. I don't work for Eurail/Interrail.
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  1. do NOT use IR for local travels in TR. LOcal fares are a lot cheaper! PLus that as far as my latest info is (around Nw Yr) there were NO trains in fact, except for the hi-speed lines (does not reach Izmir-yet) and an odd long-distance train, plus the locals around the big cities (that are out of IR since a few years-only local very low fares, but you must first get the local chipcard to even be able to pay and enter stations). This all due to covid, info from a german teaching in TR and a real trainfan. Even the always well-informed seat61.com seems not really up for here.
  2. The hi-speed lines are from ISt(Asian side!).-Ankara with a sideline to Konya, very recently extended further south. All trains require REServation-extra cost unknown, but tickets are on your name (which can be mr. turis).
  3. as has been told here so many times, the IR-app is quite worse. It only shows timings that some railways have put in. of course-no need to even explain, the site of local railway=here TCDD, is best. Good luck with it. These railways are also obviously the ones to provide IR with the actual info-so you can guess how keen they are on this.
  4. as any decent travelguide will explain, in TR the BUS is by far the means of choice-once you´ve seen the giant luxury busstation in Ankara you will understand why-and then compare it to the main train station. A route like Ank-Ist has a bus ev 10/15 mins for 24 hrs (well, a bit fewer nighttime) and Ank-Izmir a few per hour too. Most are not really on the web-you just go and buy ticket, there will be plnety of choice. This vs. (when all is normally) 1 overnite train and maybe another one-with eternal delays.
  5. +1: also IN GR IR is not really worth it, as the main line Athinai-Thessaloniki is not the line that most 1st timers want. There are also NO INTern. connections to/fro GR by train. The former narrow gauge in the Peloponnessos is also out of use. There has been eternal debate on this forum as noone could confirm that an IR would still offer a free ship-passage (except then for the port+fuel+cabin+hi-season supplmt) or that this is only for the 6-islands ferry pass. Most of the ferries running GR-IT offer ju+se-nior discounts or even to any passholder.
R

Turkish timetables ar not included in the app. The pass is still valid of course, that is not determined by  the timetables that are included. For Turkish timetables, check TCDD website, although it seems to be unreachable for now.

Further, there are no trains from Turkey to Greece.

Thank you for replying! I'm going to take a look on the TCDD website once it is available again. I am wondering though, on the Railway Map you only see two destinations in Turkey (Istanbul and Ankara), but as I mentioned in my previous question, the site tells us that there is a domestic route from Ankara to Izmir using the night train even though Izmir isn't marked on the Railway Map. If I understand what you're saying, we are still be able to travel from Ankara to Izmir with our Interrail passes using a domestic route from the TCDD?

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I am wondering though, on the Railway Map you only see two destinations in Turkey (Istanbul and Ankara), but as I mentioned in my previous question, the site tells us that there is a domestic route from Ankara to Izmir using the night train even though Izmir isn't marked on the Railway Map. If I understand what you're saying, we are still be able to travel from Ankara to Izmir with our Interrail passes using a domestic route from the TCDD?

A map (do you mean this one?) doesn't specify where Interrail is valid. It is valid in all TCDD trains, regardless of what is displayed on a certain map.

But you should compare with normal fares. Interrail may not be a good deal in Turkey.

Please ask questions in the community and not via a private message. That's the quickest way to get a response. I don't work for Eurail/Interrail.

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