The Week Before You Fly: A Treatment Trip Checklist

With a week to go, four jobs are worth an evening: copy your documents into two places, get a written schedule out of whoever booked the trip, make sure your phone works the moment you land, and arrange a second way to pay. Almost everything else is either already booked or not yours to worry about.

This is a travel-logistics checklist and nothing more. We sell mobile data; we do not recommend clinics, arrange treatment or offer medical advice. Every question about the treatment itself — whether, where and when — belongs with qualified medical people who know your history, not with a travel article. Our medical travel page is explicit about that boundary.

Documents, and copies of documents

The failure mode is rarely a lost passport. It is the one email with the address in it, buried in a thread, on a phone charging in the other room. Copy things twice, in two formats.

What to copy	Where the copies should live	Why it matters
Passport photo page	Phone gallery, cloud folder, one printed sheet in another bag	Hotels and any form-filling ask for it
Booking confirmation and written schedule	Screenshotted on the phone, plus printed	Screenshots survive an archived inbox and a dead connection
Insurance policy number and 24-hour assistance line	Saved offline, and on paper	You may need it when the data is off
Addresses and numbers for every location	One printed page, in Turkish as well as English	A driver reads the Turkish spelling far faster
Emergency contact at home	Phone, paper, and told to them in advance	Someone should know your dates and your hotel

One insurance point worth checking rather than assuming: the UK’s EHIC and GHIC are not valid in Türkiye. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office says so plainly and tells travellers to hold insurance covering local treatment and medical evacuation (gov.uk Türkiye travel advice, checked 23 August 2026). Insurers treat trips taken for planned treatment differently from an ordinary holiday, so read your own policy wording while you are still at home.

What to confirm with whoever booked the trip

Ask for all of this in one message, in writing, so you can reread it in an airport at midnight:

• The full address of every location, written in Turkish, not just a district name.
• Who meets you at the airport, and where exactly they stand.
• Which appointments include transport and which do not — the answer is rarely “all of them”.
• A phone number that answers out of hours, ideally on WhatsApp.
• What happens if your flight is delayed.
• Which hotel nights are covered, and the checkout time.
• Whether anyone travelling with you is included in transfers, or arranging their own.

If an answer comes back vague, ask again. An organiser who cannot say which days include a car is telling you something.

How transfers usually work

The common pattern is an airport pickup and a car between hotel and appointments on named days. What that leaves out is the rest of the week: an unplanned trip out, a companion going somewhere separately, an appointment added at short notice. Assume you will book something yourself and you will not be caught out. Our companion piece on getting between your hotel and the clinic goes through the İstanbul and Antalya options.

Two things save a lot of standing around: ask for the driver’s mobile number in advance, and message it the day before so the thread exists. Arrivals halls at İstanbul Airport are enormous, and “I am at the meeting point” means little without a name and a number.

Phone and data

Sort this at home, on your own WiFi, days ahead — not jet-lagged in a queue.

• Check your handset supports eSIM and install your Türkiye data plan before departure, with the line switched off until you land. If the technology is new to you, what an eSIM actually is covers it in two minutes; plan sizes and current prices are on our pricing page.
• Keep your home number active on the other line so bank verification codes still reach you.
• Save every number into WhatsApp before you go: coordinator, hotel, driver, insurer, emergency contact.
• Download offline maps for your district and an offline Turkish pack in your translation app.
• Note that 112 is the emergency number in Türkiye and reaches ambulance, police and fire (gov.uk Türkiye travel advice, checked 23 August 2026).
• Turn on live location sharing with someone at home if you are travelling alone. It answers the “are you all right?” message before it is sent.

Cash versus card

Cards are the default in Turkish cities. Contactless is normal in shops, restaurants and taxis, and Visa/Mastercard are accepted almost everywhere. Three habits still help:

• Carry a modest amount of lira for small payments, tips and kiosks.
• Take two cards from different banks, in different bags. One blocked card in an unfamiliar country is a bad afternoon.
• When a card machine offers to charge you in pounds instead of lira, decline. That hands the exchange rate to the terminal, rarely in your favour.

Tell your bank your dates — easier now than from a hotel lobby.

What to pack that a normal holiday would not

• A printed page of names, addresses and numbers, for a flat or lost phone.
• A long cable, a multi-port charger and a power bank — hotel sockets are never near the bed, and a day of appointments drains a phone.
• A plug adapter: Türkiye uses the round two-pin European sockets at 230 volts.
• Downloaded entertainment for waiting rooms and quiet hours.
• A notebook and pen, for things you would rather write down than type.
• Earplugs, an eye mask and a warm layer for air conditioning with one setting.
• Spare glasses if you normally wear contact lenses.

Land already reachable

None of this makes the trip relaxing, but it shrinks the list of things that can go sideways. The item underpinning the rest is a phone that works the second the wheels touch down — the schedule, the driver, the address and the people waiting to hear from you all live in it. Set your Turkey eSIM up at home while you have WiFi and a clear head, and arrive with that part already done.