In December 2021, the Turkish Lira crashed to an all time low due to the Turkish economy and rising inflation. This leaves all British holiday makers with a key question: What Currency Should I Take On Holiday?
Hotels, shops, restaurants & excursion operators all accept Turkish Lira, British Pound Sterling, USD and Euros.
If you are thinking of travelling to Turkey for your holiday, we recommend taking Euros. Most sellers use this as their base rate currency so its makes more sense to take this on holiday. We travelled to Antalya this month and found that most shops and sellers sold items in Euros (apart from the big chain companies like McDonald’s, Burger King etc who still advertise prices in Turkish Lira) Gone is the time when you go to a bazaar and all items are marked with Turkish Lira price. Now most items, if not all are in Euros. Local sellers prefer the Euro over the Turkish Lira as the currency is more stable and they don’t have to keep changing their prices. Although most sellers still accept the Lira, it is no longer needed when going on holiday. Even Taxis and local excursion operators all advertise in Euros now. The Big chain companies also accept any of the above currencies.
The safest option is to have around £50 in Lira as spare (Which you can exchange in Antalya) as you get a better rate out there. Then the rest, get Euros (Which you will probably get a better rate here in the UK)
If you have any spare USD lying around, now is a good time to use these to exchange into Euros as the price of USD-Euro is good right now. You get approximately 1 euro to 1 USD currently due to the strong USD.
If you want to take Pound Sterling (GBP) then that’s also not a problem as most sellers accept this too. The rate you are given will change as they use Euro as their base calculator. We found most sellers offer an honest exchange rate when using GBP.
To sum it all up – We were able to freely use Turkish Lira, USD, Pound Sterling and Euros whilst on holiday in Antalya. Not one seller declined to accept any of these currencies. We did however find Euros was the best currency to have and the easiest to use and ensure you knew what rate you were getting from the exchange rate from GBP.
check out our free Currency Calculator to check live exchange rates. It’s a good idea to keep this page bookmarked or saved for when you are on holiday. You can then quickly check the rates to ensure you always get the best deal.