Eight, ten or twelve of you are coming to Istanbul. A journey taken together deserves to be arranged that way — the days yours, the guide yours, the party never divided.
Up to twelve guests travel as one party, with your own licensed guide for the whole day. Here is how that day is arranged.
Most of the larger families we look after are traveling for a reason. A milestone birthday. Three generations meeting halfway around the world. Friends who have talked about this for years and finally set a date. The trip carries some weight, and it should feel that way from the first morning.
How many people can travel together on a private Istanbul tour?
Up to twelve guests, with one licensed guide, as a single party.
Your guide is with your family for the whole day, and with your family alone. Nobody outside your party ever joins. Where your hotel calls for it, transport and a driver are arranged as well, so the whole party arrives together.
What a guide does for a larger family
Your guide carries the day.
That begins before you arrive, with the order the monuments are seen in, so your family walks straight in at each one. It carries on through the morning, with the whole party hearing the same story in the same place. And it means reading the room as the hours go by — who has slowed down, who wants longer in a courtyard, who has been saving a question since breakfast.
Our guides are licensed and local. When your uncle asks what the inscription over the door says, or your daughter asks what a family here actually eats on a Sunday, the answer comes back straight away.
Does it still feel private with a larger party?
Privacy here is a question of whose day it is.
Your guide is talking to your family and to nobody else. The route is yours to change at eleven in the morning, because someone is tired, or because someone has fallen for a courtyard and wants twenty more minutes in it.
What changes with a larger party is the planning behind the day. That part is ours.
Tickets held before you land
Off The Beaten Path is a registered travel agency in Istanbul, and that is what allows entrance tickets to be held for a whole party in advance. Yours are arranged before you arrive, so your family walks in together.
Your guide and the entrance fee for every site on your itinerary are quoted together, as one clear figure in US dollars, with transport included where your family needs it. The figure follows the size of your party. There are no hidden costs. The Basilica Cistern is the one place where entry is arranged at the kiosk on the day.
Food and drink stay in your hands on a sightseeing day, so your family eats where and when it likes. The Istanbul Food Tour works the other way around, because there the eating is the tour.
What we recommend in Istanbul
Two days, in this order: the Old City with your guide, and the Bosphorus on a private yacht.
They work together because they are opposites. One day is the great monuments of the historic peninsula. The other is sitting down, the whole party in one place, watching the city go by.
The Old City with your guide
The historic peninsula is where a guide earns the day for a larger family. Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace and the Grand Bazaar stand close enough together for an unhurried day between them, in an order your guide sets so the day stays easy and the family stays together.
Your hotel settles one question, and only one: whether the day needs a car.
In the old city the monuments are at your door, and your guide meets your family in the lobby. From anywhere else, a driver brings the party in, returns for you at an agreed hour, and stays on call in between — so if someone would rather go back early, they can, while the rest of the family carries on with your guide.
Everything else is arranged either way.
That is the Istanbul Old City Tour, and for a larger family it is usually the right first day.
The Bosphorus, on a yacht of your own
The second day is the one everybody remembers.
The yacht is reserved for your party alone, and matched to the size of it. A licensed English-speaking guide is on board, and there is tea and refreshments as you go. You see both shores, the European and the Asian: Dolmabahce Palace, the old waterfront mansions, the Ottoman pavilions, Ortakoy Mosque under the great bridge that joins the two continents.
The boat is yours alone, so it moves to suit you. Late afternoon into sunset is the most beautiful hour on the water.
For a larger family it does something no monument can. Nobody is moving from one doorway to the next, and nobody is waiting for the rest of the family to catch up. Everyone is seated in one place, at the same time, with the city going by — which is usually the photograph the family keeps.
That is the private Bosphorus cruise.
Arriving together
Everyone and their luggage travel from the airport in one vehicle, on a single drive, so your family reaches the hotel together. Send us your flight details and a rough count of the bags, and your arrival is arranged before you land.
Three generations on the same day
Our larger families are often mixed. Teenagers, parents, and grandparents who walk perfectly well and would still like somewhere to sit by the third hour of marble.
Every route we suggest is a starting point, and yours to move. A shorter morning at Topkapi and a longer hour by the water. An early finish for part of the family while the others carry on. An afternoon on the water in place of a fourth monument.
Tell us the ages when you write. Your guide plans the pace before you arrive.
Two days suit a larger family
One day in Istanbul is a full one. With a larger family it is fuller still, because the party moves at the pace of everyone in it, and the small pauses add up.
Two days gives the trip room to breathe. The Old City on the first day, the Bosphorus by yacht on the second. Families who have longer add the food tasting and the Asian side.
Adding the rest of Turkey
Families who come this far often want more than the city, and Istanbul makes the natural first chapter.
Cappadocia is the usual second. Two nights is the right length — the valleys, an underground city, and a balloon at dawn, with the days left unhurried. Breakfast is included wherever your family stays. The balloon flies with a shared basket, and a whole basket can be chartered for your party if you would like one to yourselves. If the flight is grounded for weather, the balloon is refunded in full.
Ephesus, Pamukkale, Gallipoli and Troy extend the same journey, each with a licensed guide. Everything is quoted as one clear figure in US dollars before anything is confirmed. The Turkey journeys page shows how it fits together.
Planning it
Tell us how many of you there are, roughly when you are coming, and the ages if the party runs across generations. That is enough for us to come back with a plan and a clear price.
We are a small, owner-run agency here in Istanbul, so the person who answers your message is the person who will arrange your family’s days.
Send us your dates and we will build the trip around you.