Discover hidden gems, travel routes, and essential tips.
Most people heading to Cyprus still carry an old equation in their heads: cigarettes there cost next to nothing. Anyone who knows Cyprus cigarette prices by that old maths gets a surprise the moment they walk into a supermarket.
A 70 cl bottle of Chivas Regal 12-year-old hovers around 2,000 TL in Turkey, yet stays between 900-1,150 TL on TRNC shelves. Raki and beer point the same way. The mechanism behind it is tax: the TRNC keeps duties on alcohol notably lower.
Everyone planning a holiday gets stuck at the same point: "how much is this going to set me back?" If anyone answers the question of Cyprus holiday prices with a single number, they're giving you an incomplete calculation. Airfare nearly quadruples depending on the month…
North Cyprus supermarket prices move fast enough to upend the expectations of even frequent visitors to the island. For most people, the first shock comes at the shelf label; on most items that label…
Leaving Ercan and pulling up to your first pump, you'll see a single figure on the sign — there is no second option. Fuel prices in Cyprus are not the station's business. The number on the pump is set by the Council of Ministers…
In North Cyprus you could pay three very different bills for the same evening meal. The corner döner shop, the neighbourhood eatery, and a fish restaurant at Kyrenia harbour: all three say "restaurant" on the sign, but the bill…
On Trip Rent a Car's website, two pages sit open side by side: the current North Cyprus car rental price list and an older blog post. For the same Nissan March, one says 2,300 TL, the other 2,000…
420 flights a month depart from Sabiha Gökçen for Ercan — the busiest gateway to the island. Istanbul Airport, Ankara, Çukurova and Izmir are on the list too, but the bulk of the traffic flows through this single terminal.…
Most passengers landing at Ercan look for the duty free on the day they fly home, at the departure gate. Yet the same operator also has a shop on the arrivals side; you will see the sign as you walk toward the baggage carousel. Ercan duty free…
You've landed at Ercan and opened "Bolt" on your phone. The map shows the north, but not a single car is moving on it — same picture on "Uber". On the island, a taxi is still something you summon by phone, on WhatsApp or from a rank…
Search for the same hotel two weeks apart and you may see a different TL figure on the screen. The hotel hasn't raised its rates. In the TRNC, hotel tariffs are mostly kept in Sterling or Euro, and the TL equivalent moves with the exchange rate.…
There are two different ships on the Taşucu-Kyrenia route, and they are not the same journey. Foot passengers board the fast ferry that leaves at midday and cross in two, at most two and a half hours. Those bringing a car board around midnight…
The TRNC (North Cyprus) has a "central bank" but no printed currency of its own. The currency of Cyprus's north is the Turkish Lira, so the paper and coin TL in your pocket works on the island exactly as is — neither the supermarket nor the shared minibus asks for anything else…
Finding figures for flights and hotels is easy — for casinos, it isn't. Search for "Cyprus casino prices" and you'll find minimum bets, but none of them come from the hotels' own websites; neither merithotels.com nor the casino pages of Etstur and Jolly publish table minimums.
On the north of the same island the Turkish Lira is legal tender; on the south, the euro. Two separate price regimes, with a Green Line in between. Most people look for the answer to "North Cyprus or South Cyprus" in hotel prices, when in fact…
