Turkey ferry routes & schedules — Istanbul & the Greek islands

Tea on the Deck, One Foot in Each Continent

Every weekday morning a particular kind of Istanbullu ritual plays out on the water. You buy a small tulip glass of tea from the man with the swinging tray, you find a spot on the open stern, and for twenty minutes the boat carries you from Europe to Asia while gulls hang in the wake waiting for simit crumbs. This is the Şehir Hatları commuter ferry, the oldest and least glamorous member of the family, and also the one that best explains why this city is built around the sea rather than beside it. The workhorse runs go Eminönü, Karaköy and Beşiktaş across to Üsküdar and Kadıköy, and you board them the way locals do everything: no reservation, no printed ticket, just tap an İstanbulkart at the turnstile and walk on. Buy the card once from any kiosk, top it up, and it becomes your key to the ferries, the trams, the Marmaray tunnel and the funiculars alike.

Cutting the Corner of the Marmara

The commuter boats are slow on purpose. When Istanbullus actually need to be somewhere on the far shore, they take the fast sea-buses of İDO, which slice diagonally across the Sea of Marmara and turn a three-hour drive around the bay into a short hop. From Yenikapı you reach Yalova in roughly 75 minutes or push on to Bandırma in under three hours for the train connection down to İzmir; from Pendik on the Asian side, Yalova is about 45 minutes away. Two kinds of vessel share these piers, and the difference matters: the lean, aircraft-style sea-buses carry passengers only, while the broad fast ferries swallow cars. If you are bringing a vehicle onto the busy Yenikapı crossings in summer, book the sailing ahead rather than gambling on a walk-up slot. Down on the Bursa side of the bay, BUDO runs its own smart catamarans from the Mudanya coast; note that from the start of 2026 its Istanbul-bound sailings tie up at the Kabataş Transfer Center rather than Yenikapı, dropping you a funicular ride from Taksim.

Where the Sea Grows Narrow

Keep heading southwest and the water pinches into the Dardanelles, the strait the Turks call Çanakkale Boğazı, where continents come close enough to shout across. Here GESTAŞ is king. Its stubby car ferries shuttle almost constantly on the Çanakkale–Eceabat line — the one most pilgrims to the Gallipoli battlefields take — with shorter hops on Çanakkale–Kilitbahir beneath its Ottoman fortress and the quieter Gelibolu–Lapseki crossing further up. The Eceabat and Lapseki runs keep going around the clock. One local quirk to plan around: heavy trucks face timed restrictions on the strait crossings during peak passenger hours, so freight and holiday traffic are deliberately kept apart. GESTAŞ also carries you off the mainland entirely — out to wine-and-windmill Bozcaada from Geyikli, and to rugged, far-flung Gökçeada from Kabatepe, the longest of these island legs. Sailings to both thin out sharply once summer ends, so an autumn crossing rewards checking the timetable twice.

The Last Turkish Jetty Before Greece

Follow the Aegean coast down and the ferries stop being domestic errands and become border crossings. From a string of resort towns you can be on a Greek island in time for a late lunch: Çeşme to Chios, Ayvalık to Lesvos, Kuşadası to Samos, Bodrum to Kos (and on to Rhodes), and Marmaris to Rhodes. These are genuinely short seams of water — some under an hour — but they are international, so a passport is non-negotiable, and the boats mostly run from April into October, thinning to a skeleton service in winter (Bodrum–Kos and Marmaris–Rhodes hold on longest).

For Turkish citizens there is a small piece of paperwork magic worth knowing. Greece runs an "express" door visa issued right at the island port: about €60, valid for a stay of up to seven days, single-entry, within a rolling 12-month window, and currently offered at roughly a dozen eastern Aegean islands including Rhodes, Kos, Samos, Chios, Lesvos, Kalymnos, Symi, Patmos, Leros, Kastellorizo, Limnos and Samothrace. The catch is in the name: it is an islands-only permit. It will not carry you onward to the Greek mainland or into the wider Schengen area, and expect fingerprints and passport control on arrival. The scheme has been extended into the 2026–27 season, but always confirm the current island list and price before you buy the ferry ticket.

Where you're going	Who runs it	Rough time
Eminönü/Karaköy ↔ Üsküdar/Kadıköy	Şehir Hatları	~20 min
Yenikapı → Yalova	İDO	~75 min
Pendik → Yalova	İDO	~45 min
Mudanya → Kabataş	BUDO	~1 h 50
Çanakkale ↔ Eceabat	GESTAŞ	~25–30 min
Çeşme ↔ Chios (Greece)	Seasonal lines	under ~1 h

From the tea glass on a Bosphorus commuter boat to a passport stamp on a Greek quay, it is all one connected system of water. You can trace every Turkish ferry route across the network in one place, then match the crossing to your day.