Originally Posted by
Jaimito Cartero
Telling someone not to go to Turkey in late November, really seems like a knee jerk reaction.
Istanbul is a nice city to visit. I'm sure security will be increased, but I wouldn't change plans if it's at least a few months down the road.
Originally Posted by
arlflyer
My sentiment as well. Yes there have been four attacks this year that I know of. The metropolitan area's population is 15 million people. Compared to what the vast majority of humans throughout history lived through, those of us alive today are very spoiled in our concept of what is "unsafe". We are talking 1 in 10,000 or 100,000 odds.
This. I was in Istanbul this March — arrived a day after the Ankara bombings and left 2 days before the bombing on Istiklal (and stopped over in IST for half a day a week later on my way back to the US from London). Did I feel unsafe? Not at all. Would I have done the whole trip again? Of course. Istanbul is a great city and an amazing place to visit and really the situation now shouldn't change that.
Originally Posted by
iahphx
EDIT: BTW, my family all got a temporary (2 month) TSA "SSSS" for a brief stopover at IST 18 months ago. I assume anyone doing the same these days would get a similar unpleasant souvenir (although you might not get one with a straight there-and-back to Turkey). That's enough of a disincentive to me not to visit IST right now. But I highly doubt anyone just transiting IST is going to be SSSS'ed.
FWIW in March I flew JFK-IST-LON-IST-BOS with 6 days in Istanbul, a week in the UK and another half day stopover in IST on the way back and yet no SSSS.