Alea Travel · Private journeys through Türkiye and the Mediterranean since 1984

Private and tailor-made since 1984

Türkiye and the sea
beyond it, arranged for you

A family house in Istanbul. Three generations of licensed guides, private aircraft and private boats, and one journey planned at a time.

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1984Founded in Istanbul
ThreeGenerations, still guiding
FiveLanguages, all licensed

Every journey begins with a story

Forty years, one family, one city

Alea was founded in Istanbul in 1984 and has never left the family. It began as a family of guides rather than an agency, and three generations of us have carried a licence since. We still work from Fatih, and the person who answers your first message is usually the person standing with you at the gate of Topkapı.

We only do private travel. No coaches, no fixed departures, nothing bought from a wholesaler and passed on with a margin on top. Every journey starts on a blank page, which is slower for us and better for you.

How we work

Fanny Bardavid, founder of Alea Travel

From the founder

“
We did not start with an office. We started with a family of guides: my mother, my sister, my brother, and now my son, all of us walking the same city.

That is still what Alea is. The work has always arrived through guests who came back and the friends they sent after them, never through advertising, and it is why we would rather turn a booking down than hand it to a guide we do not know.

Fanny Bardavid Founder, Alea Travel
Istanbul, since 1984

In their own words

Five out of five, every review

“
★★★★★

Beautiful hotels, perfectly organised flights, comfortable cars, brilliant guides. Not one thing felt complicated. The best travel experiences are the ones where you never have to think about the logistics. You just enjoy the trip.

Laila B · Istanbul · 2026
“
★★★★★

Fanny conducted the tour in Spanish, the native language of most of my friends. She is equally fluent in many other languages. If I were to go on a guided tour in Istanbul or anywhere else in Turkey again in the future, I would not wish to do it with anybody else.

Irena S · TripAdvisor · 2025
“
★★★★★

The most knowledgeable and trustworthy guides and travel organizers. My trip went flawless, they adapt to every personal wish and need as well as take care of every detail. They become your friends after your trip and feel like family when you are there.

AR · Miami, Florida · 2025

Read them on TripAdvisor

What we arrange

Tell us which of these matters most

Tap any one of them and it opens WhatsApp with that subject already written. A member of the family answers, usually the same day.

01

Private day tours

Guide, van and driver for roughly eight hours. The route is agreed with you on the day, around the weather, the traffic and which museums are open.
02

Special interest groups

Byzantine history, art, painting, archives. The guide is chosen for the subject, not for the route, and a journalist does not get the tourist itinerary.
03

History and architecture

Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman read from the ground up. This is seismic country, so the earthquakes stopped the clock and left us more to read than we had thirty years ago.
04

Art and craft

Rock churches and frescoes, gold mosaics, miniatures and manuscripts, and a digital exhibition in the same week if you want one.
05

Religious journeys

The routes of Saint Paul, the House of the Virgin Mary, the Church of Saint Nicholas, Nicaea. A mosque, a church and a synagogue on one square.
06

Cuisine

Seven regions and seven kitchens. Street markets, spice stalls, olive oil on the Aegean, fish and corn in the north, and the sellers who sing to pull you in.
07

Shopping

Carpets, tiles, textiles, inlay boxes and jewellery, with someone beside you who can tell you what is worth buying and what is not.
08

Family journeys

Paced so that a child and a grandparent are both happy on the same morning, and often ending on a beach.
09

Weddings and events

A wedding in a sultan's palace, a birthday, an incentive for a company, a honeymoon. We have arranged a proposal in a rock church and another one in a balloon.
10

Health and wellness

Thermal springs, Roman and Turkish baths, and the clinics and retreats people now travel here for.
11

Gulet voyages

A private boat for a week, from the simplest to the largest, close enough to the coast to enjoy it, ashore whenever you like. Departures usually on Saturdays.
12

Transfers and logistics

Air-conditioned cars with a driver, met at arrivals with your name on a sign, and the small repairs every journey eventually needs.

Curated collection

Six regions, privately

Places we know by name, not by brochure. Every one of them walked, eaten in and slept in by someone in this family. Anywhere else in Europe, ask us and we will quote it.

The Bosphorus and the Fatih Sultan Mehmet bridge
01
Türkiye

Istanbul

Ottoman palaces, the Bosphorus by private boat, and the quarters most visitors never reach.

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Cappadocia
02
Türkiye

Cappadocia

Cave hotels, rock churches, and the valleys walked before the first coach arrives.

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Ephesus and the Aegean
03
Türkiye and Greece

The Aegean

Ephesus, Pamukkale and Bodrum, with the Greek islands half an hour away by boat.

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Göcek and the Turkish coast
04
Türkiye

The Mediterranean

Antalya and the gulets of Göcek. Mountains behind the sea, where you can ski and swim on the same day.

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Israel, Jordan and Egypt
05
The Levant

Israel, Jordan and Egypt

The Nile, Petra and Jerusalem. The eastern end of the Mediterranean, where we have worked for decades.

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The Acropolis, Athens
06
Greece and Croatia

Athens and the Adriatic

Athens and the Cyclades, then Dubrovnik, Hvar and Split. Italy is one short crossing further.

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In our own words

Three coastlines we work every week

The Aegean and the Mediterranean

Sun, history and sea

The Turkish coast has carried great civilisations for three thousand years, on fertile land under a climate that was always kind. Alongside the beaches and the hidden coves there is history everywhere, and the Greek islands sit half an hour away by boat, so two countries can be one journey. Bodrum wins people over with its white houses. Antalya, with ancient cities at its edges and a mountain range behind it, lets you ski and swim on the same day, and works twelve months of the year.

Israel, Jordan and Egypt

The wider Mediterranean

You cannot take the measure of this sea without its eastern end: shaken by wars, enriched by a glorious past, held by neighbours who love and resent one another. Egypt astonishes twice, once for what it was and once for how it lives now, colouring a difficult history with a thousand spices along the Nile. Jordan is small and unreasonably rich, all desert, tents and Roman stone. Israel is young, modern and secular on one side, religious and conservative on the other, and worth seeing for that alone.

Greece, the Adriatic and beyond

Colours and flavours

Athens and the Cyclades are ordinary work for us, often joined to Türkiye in a single journey. North of them the Adriatic: Dubrovnik inside its walls, the lavender and stone of Hvar, and Split built into a Roman palace. Further west, Italy is a living museum from north to south, all art, appetite and medieval villages, with a beach for every taste, and France holds people with Paris, the Côte d'Azur, its kitchens and its wine. Anywhere else a guest asks for, we will quote and arrange it.

A private aircraft cabin

Private at every level

If you want it privately

Most of our guests travel with a guide, a car and a good hotel. Some want the whole journey held at another level, and that is arranged from the same desk, by the same people, with nothing sent out to a third party.

  • Private aircraft between cities, and yacht or gulet charter by the day or the week
  • Chauffeured Mercedes, with drivers we have used for years rather than whoever is free
  • VIP meet and greet at the aircraft door and fast track through the airport, on request
  • Suites held in hotels we know personally, and tables booked where booking is difficult
  • Palaces, yalıs and private mansions for weddings, dinners and company events
  • Entry timed so that you are walking in while the queue is still outside
Ask about VIP arrangements
The rock valleys of Cappadocia

Your guide

Family first, then chosen by family

Alea has always been a house of working guides, not an office that hires them. Most days you are guided by somebody in the family, and where you are not, it is by someone we have guided alongside for years. Every one of them holds a professional licence and a valid work card, and you are told who it will be before you leave home.

  • Named and introduced before you leave home
  • Licensed, examined and insured, without exception
  • Reachable directly once the journey is confirmed
Begin a journey
Balloons over Cappadocia at first light

Before you travel

A document, not a quotation

What arrives in your inbox is a printed-quality itinerary. Every day set out with its own photographs, what is included and what is not, and the payment terms written in plain language. Most guests keep it long after the journey is over.

  • Day by day, with hotels, timings and overnights
  • Included and excluded listed separately, never blurred
  • Fifty per cent deposit, the balance twenty days before departure
A historic synagogue interior in Türkiye

A speciality

Jewish heritage, properly done

Very few agencies in Türkiye do this work seriously. We have arranged heritage journeys for families, congregations and researchers: synagogues and cemeteries in Istanbul, Izmir and beyond, on to Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, archive visits, and the people who can still tell you who lived where.

  • Access arranged in advance, not assumed
  • Guides who know the communities, not only the buildings
  • Kosher arrangements and Shabbat observance where needed
Ask about heritage travel
Breakfast at a cave hotel in Cappadocia

Where you sleep

Suites we have slept in

We do not book a hotel from a photograph. The cave suites in Cappadocia, the palace hotels on the Bosphorus, the small houses above the Aegean: somebody in this family has slept in the room before it goes into your itinerary, and we hold the room we mean rather than the category.

  • A named hotel and a named suite, never a star rating
  • Private vehicles and drivers we have used for years
  • The view you were promised, from the window you were promised
A private boat on the Golden Horn, Istanbul

On the ground

Istanbul is our office

We work from Fatih, a few minutes from Hagia Sophia. Transfers, tickets, hotels and the small repairs every journey eventually needs are sorted out from there, in the city, on the day, in Turkish.

  • Hotels we have slept in ourselves
  • Private vehicles and drivers we have used for years
  • One number that answers at any hour of your journey

Day to day

Where we were this week

Every journey we run ends up here first. Balloons at six in the morning, a table on the Bosphorus, a guide halfway up a valley.

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Guided in your own language

Five languages, all of them licensed

The language is what most often decides whether a date is possible, so tell us early. Our family and the guides we work with hold professional licences in each of these.

◆English ◆Español ◆Português ◆Français ◆Italiano

Begin a journey

Tell us what you have in mind

  • A member of the family reads it

    Not a ticket in a queue. The message reaches our WhatsApp in Istanbul, and we normally answer the same day.

  • You receive a full itinerary

    Not a price list. A day-by-day proposal, and you may change it as many times as you like.

  • Nothing is owed until you accept

    A fifty per cent deposit confirms the journey. The balance falls due twenty days before you travel.

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