Got euro?

Question: I will be in Istanbul, Turkey, this summer for a few days before a Black Sea cruise. Can I obtain euros from ATMs in Turkey or just Turkish lira?

Susan Levenberg

Palo Alto

Answer: Like Turkey itself, the answer isn’t exactly transparent.

Several travelers I contacted scoffed at the idea that you could get euros from a Turkish ATM. After all, they said, Turkey isn’t yet a member of the European Union.

True enough. But Turkey’s geography puts it partly in Asia and partly in Europe, which has influenced its history, its culture and now, apparently, its ATMs.

Maybe that’s why you can get both lira and euros from some ATMs, mostly in larger cities, one Turkey expert said.

“A minority of ATMs are capable of issuing various currencies, usually [Turkish lira], euros and U.S. dollars,” Tom Brosnahan said in an e-mail. Brosnahan is the creator of TurkeyTravelPlanner.com, a trove of information on travel to that country.

Turkey’s economy took a beating in the late 1990s when inflation reached almost 100%. The country had used the lira since the ‘20s, but in 2005, it changed to the New Turkish Lira. A million of the old lira were worth one of the new.

“The New Turkish Lira is freely convertible,” Brosnahan said. “If the bill is quoted in [New Turkish Lira] but you have euros or dollars, a conversion will be made at something close to the prevailing rate.”

Brosnahan said travel-related services often are quoted in euros. “They used to quote in U.S. dollars,” he said, “but with the dollar’s fall, they’ve switched to euros.”

“Conversions often cost the traveler money, because the travel services doing the conversion -- hoteliers, restaurateurs, taxi drivers etc. -- will want to protect themselves from an unknown rate change and will thus probably use a rate that’s better for them and worse for the traveler.

“So if your hotel bill is in euros and you pay in euros,” he said, “you’ll be paying exactly what you owe.” If you pay in dollars or Turkish lira, “conversion may be made, and you may pay a bit more.”

The adoption of the euro as Turkey’s standard of currency is a long way off.

Turkey would like to join the 27 member nations of the European Union, but a combination of factors may delay that at least half a decade or more.

Until then, enjoy a country that travel experts say is still a relative bargain.

And in these days of the weakling dollar, that’s cause for thanksgiving.

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