We Needed to Use Our Layover to Discover however Forgot to Verify Visa Guidelines

My fiancé and I’ve a knack for piecing collectively budget-friendly flights, and final August, we put our abilities to the check to attend a marriage in Crete.

To avoid wasting a number of hundred bucks on our journey out of New York, we booked a flight that included a 13-hour layover in Istanbul and a short cease in Athens.

Many individuals in our lives thought stopping for over half a day in a single place sounded depressing, however we had a plan: We would maximize our layover and use it as an opportunity to discover a brand new metropolis and go to an previous good friend.

Nonetheless, shortly after we arrived in Istanbul, issues took an surprising flip.

Sadly, our layover did not go as deliberate

My good friend wasn’t feeling nicely, so we scratched our plans to satisfy her within the metropolis middle.

We weren’t apprehensive as a result of we may nonetheless discover Istanbul on our personal — and we determined to reap the benefits of Turkish Airways’ free metropolis tour for layovers.

Once we arrived on the tour desk, although, we discovered that People want a transit visa in the event that they need to exit the airport in Turkey. We had no thought and hadn’t made any preparations upfront.

We’re normally very cautious about checking journey pointers and rules — and I could not imagine such a seemingly small oversight would change our plans fully.

Though we may’ve tried making use of for emergency visas, doing so would’ve value us much more than we would budgeted for our transient layover.

So, we now had 13 hours to kill with out leaving the airport.

We made probably the most of being caught, and I discovered a priceless journey lesson

We tried to profit from spending hours upon hours strolling across the Istanbul Airport, which is definitely fairly lovely.

As an inside designer, I genuinely loved taking within the structure and design particulars of the trendy and chic house. We additionally ended up buying and shopping for overpriced airport meals.

Between meals, drinks, souvenirs, and my fiancé’s spontaneous buy of a drone, our layover prices rapidly added up.

Sadly, in a number of hours, we would mainly spent the sum of money we would saved by reserving a flight with layovers as a substitute of a nonstop one.

The following leg of the journey wasn’t with out its personal set of hurdles both. Once we lastly reached Athens, my baggage broke as we stepped off the airplane.

After 24 hours of no sleep, a number of layovers, and surprising bills, we have been exhausted after we obtained to Crete.

Nonetheless, even with these mishaps, our Istanbul layover was a singular expertise that I would not write off fully — although we would positively be higher ready subsequent time.

The most important lesson we discovered is that it is essential to double-check every nation’s entry necessities earlier than assuming we will discover a brand new place throughout a layover.

And, for those who want a visa to exit an airport, apply for it on-line earlier than the journey to save lots of each money and time.