Transport

Istanbul Card - This is a plastic card that you scan to use on Istanbul’s transport system. It works on the metro, trams, bus, and even ferries and electric buses and taxis on the Prince Islands.  You get one from the yellow machines outside every station. They cost 50TL for the card and you top it up using the same machines.

You just put your card on the pad and then insert a note and it’s ready to go.  (Note: try to avoid 100TL notes as the machines don’t like them).  I also discovered that each card can only be topped up until 500TL. After that you need to get a new card.  At the time of writing a journey on the tram cost 8TL and a boat to the Prince Islands cost 26TL. Getting one of these card is essential if you are going to use public transport. Remember that it’s generally faster than taxis but can get crowded.  Prices are increasing regularly due to Turkeys spiralling inflation though.

Maps and more infor on the Istanbul transport system is available here at the official website (the prices no’t seem to have been updated for some time but the rest of the info is accurate in my experience. See here. I also found (with some difficulty) the timetable for the many boats to the Prince Islands. There is also an inter-island service timetable and finally one that serves the quietest island, Sedef (my favourite). 

Uber (Android / IOS) works in Istanbul and there are similar local services like BiTaksi (Android / IOS).

These take the stress out of hailing a cab and haggling a price. I used Uber but I am told BiTaksi has slightly cheaper rates.