I just spent a week in Turkey: three days in Cappadocia and four days in Istanbul. While in Istanbul, I stayed two blocks from Taksim Square at a hotel with no "extra security" to speak of, and I walked all around Sultanahmet, Taksim, Istiklal Street...

Despite all the media hype, I honestly felt far safer in Istanbul than at home in Chicago. Everything felt completely normal. The best part was that the major attractions were less crowded because so many people have an overblown fear of terrorism. I wouldn't hesitate to tell my friends/family to visit Istanbul right now or have them take any abnormal precautions.

People do a terrible job of assessing risk and relative probabilities—the risk of terrorism in Turkey is not nonexistent, but remains substantially lower than the risk of being killed in a much more mundane way (see: traffic accidents, getting too drunk and falling down the stairs, choking to death on dinner, etc.).