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University Study Trips in Istanbul

Your syllabus decides the days, not a route somebody wrote before you called.

A seminar on the 1453 siege, held standing on the Theodosian land walls. A class on Byzantine liturgy, held inside Hagia Sophia. The material on your reading list is still standing, and that is what the flights buy you.

Send Your Course and Dates
Duty of Care Answers
A university group standing together on an Istanbul street with their guide
Every guide licensed by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism
Registered with TÜRSAB, the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies, licence number 7651.
5.0 on Google from 145 reviews
4.8 on TripAdvisor from 560

What a Written Programme Needs From You

History, religion, classics, architecture, politics and art history groups all start the same way. Six lines and what comes back is a day by day programme with a reason attached to each site, in a document you can forward without rewriting it first.

The learning objective

In your words. What the course is doing in this city and not another one.

Your dates, or the window

A fixed week, or the term you are working inside.

How many are travelling

Students and the staff coming with them, because the two move a day differently.

What the course must include

A site, a text or a theme the reading list has already committed you to.

What it must not

Say it at this stage and it never reaches the draft.

The language the class works in

English throughout, or a second language for part of the group.

How Long These Programmes Run

Three lengths cover most courses, and the fourth is for when none of them fit. Whichever you start from, you cut it down before anything is booked.

What it coversWho it suits
Four daysSultanahmet, the Byzantine and Ottoman layer on top of each other, and the Bosphorus read as a strait rather than a viewOne subject taught properly, with nothing padding it out
Five daysThe same, plus the Asian side or the Princes’ Islands and their Orthodox churchesA comparative day instead of more of the same
Six daysEphesus, Gallipoli or Troy, which means a night outside the cityA course with a reason to leave Istanbul
Your own lengthThe term and the flights have usually fixed your dates before you write to anyoneEverything the three rows above do not fit

How the Programme Gets Built

Four steps, and the third one is yours.

1

You send the objective

The course, the dates, the group size and the staff travelling with it.

2

We propose the days

Site by site, each with the reason it is on the list, in writing.

3

You cut it

Anything that does not serve the course comes out. That step is what decides whether the programme is any use to you.

4

We name your guide

Named before you travel, so the printed programme carries a person.

What Your Study Abroad Office Can Check Today

Someone whose job is risk signs this off before you can book, and two of the things they ask about are checkable without calling us.

Every guide holds a Ministry of Culture and Tourism licence and works for a TÜRSAB registered agency, licence number 7651, which your office can verify on the association’s own system. And the guide assigned to your group is named before you travel, so the person meeting your students is known to your office in advance.

The facade of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum

What Sits Behind the Programme

Six things the ground programme actually contains.

A guide who can teach standing up

The licence is earned by national examination, and yours can run the seminar inside the building being discussed instead of beside it.

Thirty students, through the door

Getting a cohort into a working mosque or a cistern without losing an hour at the entrance is a logistics problem, and it is ours rather than yours.

A programme you can strike lines off

Day by day, each site carrying the reason it is on the list, in a document a department can mark up and send back.

Transport that is not the teaching day

Moving between sites is arranged around the hours you want to teach in, so a study day does not turn into a transport day.

The language the class works in

Guides work in the language they were licensed in, and the languages your group needs are settled before anyone is assigned to it.

Group work since 2011

Universities, liberal arts colleges, research institutes and schools have been running these days with us since 2011.

A Named Guide, Not a Company

Your group is assigned one of 56 licensed guides, and you have the name before you fly.

The programme reaches me already built. What is mine is the hour on the ground. When a student stands in Hagia Sophia and tells me their book got something wrong, we stop and work through it there, and that is the part nobody can plan in an office.

Ömer Çelik, one of the licensed guides on the roster
Deniz Karagozoglu with a group in Sultanahmet Square, the Blue Mosque behind

Deniz Karagözoğlu

London-born, licensed in Turkey, and bilingual to the bone.

For a cohort whose English has to carry the whole teaching day.

Read Deniz’s page
Omer Celik with a student group at the foot of the Galata Tower

Ömer Çelik

He studied Tourist Guidance at Erzincan University.

For a class following the Jewish, Armenian and Greek Orthodox threads through Balat and Fener.

Read Ömer’s page
Duygu Sinirtas with a visiting academic outside the Istanbul Archaeological Museum

Duygu Sınırtaş

She also participated in the Tepecik-Çiftlik excavations in Niğde during her university years.

For archaeology and classics groups who want the excavation, not the summary.

Read Duygu’s page

Programmes We Have Run for Universities

Three of them, named, with the group size and the month attached. Each one opens on the sites, the pace and how the day actually ran.

World Resources Institute

Research institute · March 2025

Programme
Evening cruise
On the water
2 hours
Route
Kadıköy ferry leg
Back at hotel
c. 20:30

A private evening cruise closing a working visit, built around where the group was actually staying rather than where the boat happened to be. Taking the public ferry from the Asian side to meet the boat on the European shore saved an hour of repositioning, and the group was back at the hotel by about half past eight.

The closing evening of a working visit, spent on the water.

Luther College

University group · January 2026

Programme
Princes' Islands
Focus
Orthodox churches
Options held
Hagia Sophia, Topkapı
Type
Faculty led

A day on the Princes' Islands built around the Orthodox churches, for a faculty led programme where the itinerary had to answer to a syllabus rather than a highlights list.

Hagia Sophia, Topkapı Palace and a Bosphorus crossing sat alongside it as options the professor could take or leave once the group's real pace was known, which on a student trip is never the pace anyone planned for.

A day on the Princes' Islands built around the Orthodox churches rather than around the ferry.

What Faculty Ask First

Yes, and it is a step in the process rather than a favour. The written programme exists so that a department can strike things off it, and most of them do.

Only if you ask for it. A stop goes on the list because you put it there, and Scripps College asked for a programme with none in 2025 and got exactly that. Where a group does want a bazaar afternoon, it is optional and nobody is under any obligation to buy anything.

Yes. Tell us the band you are working inside instead of asking for a blind quote, and you will hear what fits in it and what does not before anything is booked. Quoting waits on fixed dates, because a February group and an April group do not cost the same.

The guide stays with the group and your office handles the individual case, including the consulate run if it comes to that. In Istanbul that is a phone call rather than an expedition.

Ask for them by name. A returning group asking for a specific guide is the most common repeat request we take, and it is usually possible when the dates come early.

Send the Course, the Dates and How Many Are Travelling

Send those three and the programme comes back in writing, with a reason attached to every day and your guide named before you fly. Email works the same way if you would rather type than fill anything in.

If Your Dates Are Not Fixed Yet

Staff rides and battlefield studiesThe same ground read as a military problem instead of a syllabus.The school programmeThe same work with a younger group, running in Istanbul schools since 2011.The guidesWho is on the roster, what each one is licensed for, and the languages they work in.The corporate hubCongress days, CSR programmes, dinners and the rest of the group work.The Princes’ IslandsThe Orthodox churches Luther College built a January day around.The Theodosian land wallsWhere a seminar on the 1453 siege is held standing on the thing itself.
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© 2026 THE OTHER TOUR by BEFORE TRAVEL - TÜRSAB NO: 7651.