Would you travel through Istanbul to save money?

Fox

Tue, Sep 27 2011, 11:49 am

ora_43 wrote:

Fox wrote:

However, it is a reasonable question to ask whether the official government policies of a particular place accurately reflect the general mood among the people.

And it's unreasonable to assume that the way someone treats you when you're the customer is a good sign of the general mood. Especially if you're a tourist with no knowledge regarding the local culture or language.

There are things that in American culture would be a clear sign that someone likes you, that in Muslim culture don't mean the same thing at all.

Yes, really, we get that. Everyone agrees. I'm not sure who you're arguing with here. No one reporting her experience in Istanbul has made the jump in logic that polite service = safety. The OP asked for feedback about layovers in Istanbul. We are only reporting our experiences, and those anecdotes must be factored in with other variables, including many that have been mentioned.

Places are not intrinsically "safe" or "unsafe." The best a traveler can do is inform herself from a variety of sources and with a variety of evidence, and make an individual decision based on her own risk tolerance. People vary considerably in their tolerance for risk when traveling. My aunt, for example, is an inveterate traveler who, along with her husband, wound her way through the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, and India -- in the late 1950s/early 1960s. At the age of 88, she still travels internationally. My mother, however, does not have her sister's taste for adventure, and hardly bestirs from her house.

No one is claiming that the Istanbul airport is a "safe" place simply because we've have good experiences there. I wouldn't even make that claim about O'Hare Airport! To my knowledge, none of us have professional expertise in security that would allow us to provide additional hard data about potential risks for Jews in Turkey. Presumably, the OP will research this kind of information elsewhere. In the meantime, relating something positive about our experiences in Istanbul does not constitute an endorsement or any conclusions -- it is simply anecdotal evidence that the OP can factor into her decision.

sequoia

Tue, Sep 27 2011, 2:26 pm

It wasn't even a positive experience! It was a blah-nothing experience. You just sit there for a couple of hours.

By the way I wasn't flying to Israel but to a southern European country and it was, as I said, about half the price of any other airline.

Turkey isn't what it used to be, and everyone is aware of it. But, if you're not traveling with an Israeli passport, there is no reason, aside from principle, to avoid a layover where you'll just hang out in the international section and wait for your connecting flight. Really.