The moment the ferry pulled away from Kabatas, Istanbul started shrinking. The minarets, the traffic, the ten million arguments happening simultaneously across the city, all of it dissolving into the wake behind us. Twenty minutes later, I stepped onto an island where there are no cars, and the loudest sound was a seagull disagreeing with another seagull.
📷 IMAGE PLACEHOLDER: Ferry approaching Buyukada with the Sea of Marmara and Istanbul skyline behind
There is a version of Istanbul that most visitors never see. It floats in the Sea of Marmara, a chain of nine islands that the Byzantines used as a place of exile for deposed princes and troublesome royals. The name stuck. The Princes Islands Istanbul, known locally as Adalar, remain a place of exile, but now the exile is voluntary. I came to the Princes Islands Turkey expecting a day trip, a brief escape from the city. I left with something closer to a memory of another life altogether.
What Are the Princes Islands
The Princes Islands are a small archipelago in the Sea of Marmara, technically within the city limits of Istanbul but feeling like they belong to a different century. Of the nine islands, four are open to visitors and settled: Buyukada, Heybeliada, Burgazada, and Kinaliada. The rest are mostly uninhabited rocks and restricted military zones.
When people talk about visiting the Princes Islands Turkey, they usually mean Buyukada, the largest and most popular. But each island has its own character, and understanding the differences is the key to planning a Princes Islands day trip that matches what you are actually looking for. The archipelago sits in the Sea of Marmara like a final footnote to Istanbul, close enough to see the city but far enough to forget it.
📷 IMAGE PLACEHOLDER: Panoramic view of Buyukada from the sea showing Victorian mansions on the hillside
Buyukada Istanbul is the main attraction. It is the largest of the Istanbul islands, about 5.4 square kilometers, and it has the most infrastructure for visitors, including restaurants, hotels, a monastery at the top of the hill, and the grand wooden mansions that have made it famous. If you only have time for one island, this is the one. The island holds roughly 4,000 residents year-round, though that number swells dramatically in summer, and its waterfront harbor captures the island’s essence: a place where Ottoman grandeur meets the persistent hum of ferry engines and seagulls.
Heybeliada is the second largest and arguably the most beautiful. It is quieter than Buyukada, with a naval academy, pine forests, and beaches that feel like they belong on a Greek island rather than twenty minutes from a city of fifteen million.
Burgazada is smaller still, with a village atmosphere and a famous fish restaurant on the waterfront. Kinaliada is the closest to the city and the most residential, popular with Istanbul commuters who have chosen island life over the mainland chaos.
The Ferry and How to Get There
The Princes Islands ferry is one of the great urban experiences in the world, and I do not say that casually. You board at Kabatas or Eminonu on the European side of Istanbul, and the crossing takes between 25 and 90 minutes depending on which island you are heading to and whether you take the fast ferry or the slow one.
Take the slow one.
The slow ferry to the Princes Islands gives you time to watch Istanbul recede, to see the city from the water the way the Ottomans would have seen it, with the domes and minarets rising above the shoreline. You pass the Asian side of the city, the old neighborhoods of Kadikoy and Uskudar, and then the water opens up and the islands appear.
📷 IMAGE PLACEHOLDER: Istanbul ferry on the Sea of Marmara heading toward the Princes Islands
How to get to Princes Islands is straightforward. Buy an Istanbulkart, the rechargeable transit card that works on all Istanbul public transport, and use it to board the ferry. The fare is a fraction of what you would pay for a private boat, and the ferry experience itself is half the reason to go. There is tea served on board, simit vendors at the dock, and seagulls that follow the boat like an escort.
The ferries run frequently from early morning until late evening. On weekends during summer, the Princes Islands can get crowded, especially Buyukada. For the best experience, go on a weekday or in the shoulder season, September and October, when the light is golden and the crowds have thinned.
The Day the Cars Disappeared
Here is something that makes the Princes Islands unique among destinations near any major city. There are no cars on the Princes Islands. None. For over a century, motorized vehicles were banned, and the islands relied on horse-drawn carriages, known as fayton, for transport.
In 2020, the horse carriages were also banned after years of animal welfare concerns. I met Ayse at the bicycle rental shop near the Buyukada ferry terminal on a September morning. She had been renting bikes for twelve years, and she moved with the ease of someone who had made the same journey a thousand times. When I asked her which way to go, she said, “The loop, clockwise, all the way to the back side of the island. Most tourists only stay near the port, but that is not Buyukada. That is only the memory of Buyukada.” I followed her advice, and she was right. Three kilometers around the southwestern coast, the noise of the restaurants faded entirely. The beach turns rocky, the trees close in, and you find yourself on a quiet stretch where not a single building is visible, just water and pine forest and the occasional sound of a fisherman’s boat. Where locals swim when they want to forget the island has become a tourist destination.
The Princes Islands bikes are the best way to understand how different each place is. Renting a bike on the Princes Islands is one of the most liberating things you can do near Istanbul. No traffic. No horns. No diesel fumes. Just the sound of your wheels on the road and the wind through the pine trees. The roads are mostly flat along the coast, with some hills if you want to climb to the monasteries and viewpoints. Bikes can be rented from shops near the ferry terminals on each island at reasonable prices.
What to Do on Buyukada
Most visitors to Buyukada Istanbul follow the same route, and for good reason. From the ferry terminal, walk along the waterfront past the cafes and restaurants, then head uphill toward the Aya Yorgi Church and Monastery at the summit of the island. The climb takes about 30 to 40 minutes on foot, passing through pine forests and past old wooden mansions in various states of grandeur and decay.
📷 IMAGE PLACEHOLDER: Historic wooden mansion on Buyukada with ornate Victorian architecture
Halfway up the climb to Aya Yorgi, I stopped at a small restaurant that overlooked the water. The owner, Dimitri, was a third-generation islander whose family had lived on Buyukada since before the 1920s. Over Turkish coffee, he told me about the days of the fayton, the horse carriages that once crowded every street. “The horses knew the island better than the people,” he said. “They would take you where you needed to go, even if you did not know where that was.” His eyes had a particular sadness when he talked about the ban in 2020, not because he disagreed with it, but because it marked the end of something that had defined the island for more than a hundred years.
He insisted I have lunch at his restaurant before leaving. I ordered levrek, a sea bass grilled whole over charcoal and dressed with nothing more than lemon juice, olive oil, and salt. It arrived still steaming, the skin crisp and the flesh so delicate it fell from the bones. I ate it slowly, looking out at the Sea of Marmara, and Dimitri brought me raki, the clear spirit that tastes like licorice and burning wood. “This is what the island gives you,” he said simply. “The fish, the water, the view. Everything else is noise.” In that moment, he was right. The taste of that fish, the brightness of the lemon against the richness of the olive oil, the sound of the water far below, the weight of centuries in that small restaurant, created a kind of quiet perfection that you cannot find in Istanbul.
The Aya Yorgi Monastery at the top is a Greek Orthodox church that has been here since the 6th century. The views from the hilltop are extraordinary. On a clear day, you can see all the way back to Istanbul, the Asian and European sides both visible, with the Sea of Marmara spreading out in every direction. Visitors come here to pray, to remember, or simply to sit in the silence that only a 1,400-year-old church can offer.
The things to do Princes Islands beyond the hilltop walk include swimming at the beaches on the southern side of Buyukada, exploring the back streets where the old Ottoman and Greek mansions stand, and sitting in one of the tea gardens watching the ferries come and go.
The splendid wooden mansion known as the Prinkipo Greek Orphanage, once the largest wooden building in Europe, stands on the northern hill of Buyukada. It has been empty and slowly deteriorating for decades, and it is one of the most hauntingly beautiful abandoned buildings you will ever see.
The Other Islands Worth Visiting
If you have more than a day, or if you want to escape the crowds on Buyukada, the other Princes Islands Turkey are worth exploring.
Heybeliada has the Halki Seminary, a Greek Orthodox theological school that was closed by the Turkish government in 1971 and has remained a point of diplomatic discussion ever since. The island also has better beaches than Buyukada and fewer tourists. A bicycle loop around Heybeliada takes about an hour and passes through some of the prettiest coastal scenery near Istanbul.
Burgazada is the island for people who want to eat well and do nothing else. The fish restaurants on the waterfront serve some of the freshest seafood you will find in Istanbul, and the pace of life here makes Buyukada feel rushed by comparison.
Kinaliada is the island Istanbul residents go to when they want to feel like they have left the city but do not want to spend half the day on a ferry. It is the closest island to the mainland and has a more residential feel, with apartment buildings alongside the historic mansions.
The History Beneath the Surface
The Princes Islands have been a place of exile since the Byzantine era. Empresses, patriarchs, and deposed rulers were sent here, which is how the islands got their name. The word Adalar simply means “islands” in Turkish, but the English name Princes Islands carries the weight of a thousand years of political intrigue and displacement.
📷 IMAGE PLACEHOLDER: Aya Yorgi Monastery on the hilltop of Buyukada with sea views
Leon Trotsky lived on Buyukada from 1929 to 1933, writing in a rented mansion while in exile from the Soviet Union. The island has sheltered Armenian, Greek, Jewish, and Turkish communities for centuries, and if you look closely at the architecture and the streets themselves, you can see these layers like the rings of a tree. On Buyukada, I found Ottoman mansions with their characteristic wooden latticed windows next to Greek Orthodox churches with their blue domes next to small Jewish memorials half-hidden in side streets. Walk through the back streets in the early morning and you see signs in Greek, store windows with Orthodox icons, cemeteries where the headstones are written in a script few living people can read. In the cemetery near the center of Buyukada, I found graves dated to the 1880s, and the names told the island’s story: Armenian names, Greek names, Jewish names, Turkish names, all of them sleeping on the same plot of ground.
This layering is not just historical curiosity. It is visible in every structure, every street corner, every restaurant where you eat seafood that tastes the way it did a hundred years ago. The Princes Islands are a compressed archive of Istanbul itself, a place where you can walk through four different empires in an afternoon. The Ottomans came after the Greeks, the Turks came after the Ottomans, and yet the churches remain, the old houses remain, the memory of every group remains visible in stone and wood and overgrown gardens. What makes the Princes Islands more than just a pleasant day trip from Istanbul. These islands are a living museum of coexistence, a place where history is not something you visit in a glass case but something you walk through every day.
Planning Your Visit
Getting there: The Princes Islands ferry departs from Kabatas and Eminonu on the European side of Istanbul. Use an Istanbulkart for payment. Fast ferries take about 25 minutes to Kinaliada, 35 to Buyukada. Slow ferries take 75 to 90 minutes but offer a better experience.
Best time to visit: Weekdays in September or October for the best combination of weather and fewer crowds. Summer weekends can be extremely crowded on Buyukada.
Getting around: Rent a bicycle near the ferry terminal. Electric shuttle vehicles also operate on the larger islands. Walking is perfectly viable on all four main islands.
What to eat: Grilled levrek and sea bass at waterfront restaurants, especially on Burgazada and Buyukada. Turkish breakfast at one of the cafes on Buyukada’s main street. Tea and simit from the vendors near the ferry terminal.
How long to spend: A full day is ideal for Buyukada alone. Two days allows you to visit two or three islands comfortably.
📷 IMAGE PLACEHOLDER: Sunset view from Buyukada with the Sea of Marmara and distant Istanbul skyline
Combining with Istanbul: The Princes Islands day trip works perfectly as a mid-trip break from the intensity of Istanbul. After days of mosques, bazaars, and traffic, the silence of the islands feels like medicine.
I have traveled to islands all over the world, from the Mediterranean to Southeast Asia, and the Princes Islands are unlike any of them. They are not remote. They are not tropical. They are not even particularly exotic. What they are is the answer to a question that Istanbul never stops asking: where do you go when you need the city to be quiet? You go to the islands. You always go to the islands.