Private Bosphorus boat tour: your own boat, your own guide, your own turning point

What a private Bosphorus boat tour costs

Guide from €150 per group, not per person; the boat quoted separately for your date, size of group and hours

Duration

About 3 to 4 hours door to door, 2 to 3 of them on the water

Best time

The last two hours before sunset

Route

Dolmabahçe, Ortaköy, Beylerbeyi, the yalıs, Küçüksu and the two fortresses, back past Maiden's Tower

Who is aboard

Only your party, the captain and crew, and your guide

Bring

A windproof layer: it is always cooler on the water than ashore

How the day runs

Timings below are the ones we actually use, not a brochure. Everything here is movable — it is your day, and your guide will happily rebuild it over breakfast.

1. 15:00

   Pick-up and the drive to the pier

   We collect you from your hotel or from the ship at Galataport and drive you to the boat. These times are for an autumn afternoon: we set the departure from the sunset on your date, so in midsummer it moves later and in winter earlier.

2. 15:30

   Dolmabahçe from the water

   We cast off and turn north along the European shore. Six hundred meters of white marble palace, built for Sultan Abdülmecid between 1843 and 1856, and the water is where it was meant to be seen from. The captain can idle off the façade for as long as you like.

3. 15:50

   Çırağan Palace and Ortaköy under the bridge

   Çırağan's long waterfront, then the Ortaköy Mosque at the water's edge with the 15 July Martyrs Bridge overhead: the classic Bosphorus photograph. From a private boat you take it from wherever the angle is best, not from wherever the ferry rail happens to be.

4. 16:10

   Across to Beylerbeyi Palace

   We cross to Asia. Beylerbeyi was the sultans' summer palace, built in the 1860s, with its own marble sea gates and two sea pavilions facing the water. This is the crossing the ferries make in a straight line and we make at whatever speed you like.

5. 16:40

   The yalıs of Vaniköy, Kandilli and Bebek

   The stretch most people come for: wooden waterside mansions in ox-blood red, cream and gray, some three centuries old, with boathouses built into their ground floors. Your guide tells you whose they were, and the captain zigzags between the two shores so you see both.

6. 17:10

   Küçüksu Pavilion and the two fortresses

   The small rococo Küçüksu Pavilion of the 1850s, then the narrowest point of the strait, about 700 meters across. Anadolu Hisarı on the Asian side dates from the 1390s; Rumeli Hisarı opposite was built by Mehmed II in about four months in 1452, the year before he took the city. The current runs hard here and you feel the boat work against it.

7. 17:30

   The turning point

   Usually just beyond the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, off the yalıs of Kanlıca on the Asian shore, which is about as far as a three-to-four-hour trip reaches comfortably. Want to go further toward the Black Sea, or turn back early because the children are cold? You say so, and that is the whole point of a private boat.

8. 18:20

   Maiden's Tower at sunset, and back

   We run south with the light behind the old city and come back past the Maiden's Tower on its islet off Üsküdar, as the domes and minarets turn to silhouette. Then the pier, and the car back to your hotel or the ship by about 18:45.

Priority access · included

Skip the line at every gate

The water has no ticket office, so the boat itself never queues. The lines start the moment you step ashore: if you want to walk through Dolmabahçe before we cast off, or climb the walls of Rumeli Hisarı on another day of your trip, we buy those tickets in advance at the official price and you go in by the priority entrance, so the boat leaves on time.

• Skip-the-line tickets — bought before your day, never at the gate with you standing in the line
• Fast pass at the busiest sites — the priority lane wherever a site operates one
• Priority entrance in every region — Istanbul, Ephesus, Cappadocia, Pamukkale and everywhere else we guide
• Nothing added to the tickets — we add nothing on the fast-pass tickets. You pay exactly the official price charged at the entrance, set by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism or the administration that runs the site

To be precise about what this is: we skip the ticket line, not the security check, and no agency can override a site's own capacity limits.

How skip-the-line entry works in Istanbul

Where we meet, and what happens if plans change

A private Bosphorus boat tour is a half-day trip on your own boat, with a captain and a licensed guide aboard, from Dolmabahçe up to the fortresses at the narrows and back past the Maiden's Tower at sunset. The guide is from €150 per group; the boat is quoted for your date. If you are still deciding how to see the strait at all, start with our guide to every Bosphorus cruise. This page is for people who have decided they want the boat to themselves.

Is a private Bosphorus boat tour worth it over the public ferry?

Often, but not always, and we would rather you chose well than chose us. The public ferry is one of the great bargains in travel: tea in a tulip glass, gulls in the wake, and the whole strait for a small fare. Its limits are simple. It keeps to a timetable, it does not stop when you want a photograph, you cannot hear a guide over a full deck, and it does not turn back because you have seen enough.

	Public ferry	Private boat with our guide
Who is aboard	Everyone with a ticket	Only your party
Departure	The timetable's	Yours, timed to the light
Stopping and lingering	Never	Wherever you like
Commentary	None	A licensed guide beside you
Turning point	Fixed	Your decision, on the water
Cost	A small fare per person	Guide from €150 per group, plus the boat

So the private boat earns its cost when one of these matters to you: a ship or a flight that sets a hard end time, children who will not last six hours, a celebration, or simply wanting to know what you are looking at.

What will we see from the boat?

Heading north, Europe is on your left and Asia on your right, and a private boat crosses between them as often as you like.

• Dolmabahçe Palace, the white marble waterfront of the last sultans.
• Çırağan Palace and Ortaköy, the mosque beneath the first bridge.
• Beylerbeyi Palace, the summer palace on the Asian shore, with its marble sea gates.
• The yalıs, the wooden waterside mansions of Kandilli, Kanlıca, Bebek and Arnavutköy.
• Küçüksu Pavilion, a small rococo jewel box on the Asian shore.
• Rumeli Hisarı and Anadolu Hisarı, the two fortresses facing each other across the narrows.
• The Maiden's Tower, on the way back, ideally in the last of the light.

How far north does the boat go?

On a three-to-four-hour trip, usually to just beyond the second bridge, which covers everything above. A longer charter can carry on past Sarıyer toward the Black Sea mouth; tell us when you write, and we will quote the extra hours.

When is the best time for a private boat on the Bosphorus?

The last two hours before sunset. That is the reason to book late rather than early. On the way north the low sun lights the European palaces from the front, and on the way back south the old city turns to silhouette behind the Maiden's Tower. Because sunset in Istanbul moves by about four hours between December and June, we set your departure from the date, not from a fixed timetable. Spring and autumn are the kindest months on the water; summer evenings are warm and long; winter afternoons are short, quiet and often beautifully clear. Our best time to visit Istanbul page covers the seasons.

What does the private Bosphorus boat tour cost?

Two parts, and we keep them apart so you can see both. The guide, the car and the planning are our standing price, from €150 per group — not per person. The boat is hired separately for your date, and its price depends on its size, the number of hours and the month, so we quote it on inquiry rather than print a figure we could not stand behind.

What you are quoted	How it works
From €150 per group	A licensed guide aboard, the private car to and from the pier, and all the planning
The private boat and captain	Quoted for your date, group size and hours, in euros, before you commit
Food and drinks aboard	Bring your own, or ask and we add them to the boat quote
Tips	Customary for the guide, driver and crew, and entirely at your discretion

Gezginol is a licensed TÜRSAB agency, number 15746. You pay nothing to ask, and nothing until the day is agreed.

Can cruise guests do the private boat tour?

Yes, and it may be the best use of a short call in Istanbul. Galataport sits right on the Bosphorus, the car takes you from the terminal to the boat, and because the boat runs to your schedule rather than a timetable, we build the whole trip backward from your all-aboard time. Our Istanbul shore excursion guide explains how we plan around a ship.

Can you combine the boat with a day on land?

Easily, and it is how many guests use it. A morning in the Old City on our Best of Istanbul tour, a long lunch, then the boat in the late afternoon makes one of the best single days in the city. Palace lovers can tour Dolmabahçe on foot, as on our Ottoman Palaces tour, and then see it again from the water. If you would rather cross the strait the way the city does, on the commuter ferry, our Two Continents tour does exactly that. Traveling with children? Boats revive tired legs better than anything; see Istanbul with kids.

See all our private Istanbul tours, or tell us your date and your group, and we will come back with the boat, the timing and one price.

Private Bosphorus Boat — frequently asked questions

What you'll see