FOR BUDGET-CONSCIOUS INDEPENDENT TRAVELLERS

The language is tricky, distances are vast (it is over 1,000 miles across) and the culture gap is broad in rural areas, yet Turkey is an easy and incredibly worthwhile place to travel around independently. The infrastructure is superb – new roads, bridges and tunnels have proliferated in the country in recent years; the newest is a 1.2-mile-long suspension bridge spanning the famous continentdividing Dardanelles Strait which opens in March – making it easy to get around.

Most towns have a decent variety of accommodation on offer, hire cars are cheap (from £20 a day) and fuel is almost 50 per cent less expensive than in France. Comfortable airconditioned coaches link most towns, with a ticket from Istanbul to Van (a driving distance of nearly a thousand miles) costing only £21. There are also nearly 60 airports spread across the country, with a flight on the same route from Istanbul to Van costing from just £28. You should be able to grab a hotel room from as little as £20 for a double and with meals out often costing less than a tenner, it’s easy to see why Turkey is an inexpensive place to travel in.

Beginners looking to fill a week should fly into Antalya with easyJet, (easyjet.com; from £109 return), hire a car (holidayautos.com; from £136 per week) and drive west across the mountainous uplands to Fethiye (around four hours).

Return slowly to Antalya via the coastal road linking the resorts of Fethiye, Patara, Kalkan, Kas and Cirali. This glorious route will take you along exhilarating coastal drives, past beautiful beaches and incredible ancient sites such as Patara, and promises a range of hotels to suit every budget.

If you have a sense of adventure and two weeks to spare, then why not fly into Van via Istanbul with Pegasus (flypgs.com; from £140 one way). From here, you can visit the Armenian island-set church of Akhtamar before heading north by local bus across volcanic peaks to Dogubeyazit to see the biblical Mt Ararat (16,800ft).

Continue north to remote highland Kars, close to the Unesco-listed Armenian ghost city of Ani, and cross the Pontic Alps in the footsteps of Xenophon to reach the fabled ancient city of Trebizond (Trabzon) on the Black Sea. You can fly home direct from here with Turkish Airlines (turkishairlines.com; from £97 one way).