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Plan Izmir Day 1: what could go wrong?
Unpredictable train, rental car, and winding roads 😬😬😬
Jessie Chen
January 25, 2026
The plan in Izmir is to first get the car (we planned to drive to Pamukkale the next day), explore the city in the morning and then get some good rest in the evening for the next day’s exploration in Pamukkale. However, the actual time to get there is 5 hours later than expected (we arrived at 2pm 😢), so we ended up not having much time to explore Izmir…
Super happy that we were able to get off the train after 13 hours
Table of Contents
Tips for Logistic
About parking in Izmir, finding a parking lot close to main roads is recommended. We stayed in Piano Hotel and parked here. It’s highly possible that the hotel you stayed is located in an ally and if you use google map to find a parking lot on spot, it may guide you to one that is close but requires to drive through some super small allies, which is quite dangerous and time consuming 😬 (the roads in Izmir are like that. If you zoom out the map, you’d realize it’s not really car friendly) I’d recommend finding a parking lot near main road and walk to the hotel you stay.
As you can see, the roads in Izmir is pretty winding. We spent 30 minutes finding a good parking lot 😬
Sunday morning between 9:00-10:00 doesn’t have traffic in Izmir, so it’s a good time to depart. When we arrived in Izmir downtown around 6pm on Saturday, the traffic was crazy. We were worried about being stuck the next day when leaving for Pamukkale, so decided to wake up a bit early. It tunes our Sunday morning is pretty chill.
If you plan to pick up a rental car at Izmir airport, remember to go to the service counter inside the airport first to checkin (you’ll have to go through a security when you enter the airport since it’s mandatory in Turkey). When we get to the airport by Uber, we saw a rental car sign and thus followed the instruction and get to the rental car pickup/return. But the staff there asked us to go back to the service counter, we then spent some minutes walking back. I wish I knew it earlier so we could save some back and forth, especially when I was tired and carried a 7kg bag.
My experience
The sleeping cabin of the train is pretty comfortable. The chair can be turned into a bed; there’s a sink in the cabin so you don’t have to go to the outside restroom for brushing the teeth; it also comes with slippers, some snacks and water. The setup is good that I fell asleep quick after boarding the train.
Bed on the train
Snacks and water
We were supposed to arrive in Izmir at 9am, but ended up arriving at 2pm because the train took another longer route for some reasons. In that situation, our plan to explore Izmir is basically ruined since after exploring Pamukkale the next day, we would head to the airport and fly to Cappadocia. All we did on the day is to get the rental car, head to a mall near by for dinner and drive to the hotel unfortunately 🥲
Stay tuned! Next week, I’ll share about if it’s worth visiting the UNESCO site Pamukkale.
