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Family-run Go2altinkum has been offering speciality tours, airport transfers and supporting visitors to Altınkum for 18 years. Their office is located in the Third Beach area and is open 7 days a week throughout the summer season.
Owners Harun and Elif Olguner and their team organise many activities for Altınkum visitors and residents, including daily boat trips, jeep and quad safari, day trips to Kos, Adaland water park, Temple of Apollo, and Mavişehir night market, as well as longer excursions.
This autumn and winter, Go2altinkum is offering regular trips to Izmir. Visit IKEA and neighbouring mall Bornova AVM, historic Kemeraltı and the mammoth Optimum shopping centre.
IKEA and Forum Bornova AVM weekly shopping trip
IKEA needs no introduction as the Scandinavian home of flat-pack furniture, kitchen utensils, soft furnishings and Swedish meatballs. IKEA Izmir has been open for 20 years and is celebrating its anniversary by offering a prize draw if you spend over 5,000 TL in October.
IKEA Izmir is a full-sized IKEA store with showroom area featuring model rooms, where you can walk through the curated designs to get a feel for how to plan your purchases. Downstairs is the retail area, divided into sections from kitchenware, soft furnishings, kids’ rooms, bathrooms, accessories and more. It also sells seasonal items including Christmas decorations as we approach the end of the year.
No visit would be complete without a trip to IKEA Izmir’s café, which offers IKEA classics such as Swedish meatballs in gravy, desserts, unlimited hot drinks and even the occasional Turkish dish. There’s also a Swedish food shop if you want to buy treats to indulge at home.
If you’re coming with younger children, IKEA Izmir has a supervised play area for 3-6 year olds. If you have limited mobility the store is fully wheelchair-accessible, and can provide a wheelchair if requested in advance.
Forum Bornova is a single-level open-air shopping mall on the adjoining site to IKEA. It features a multi-screen cinema with Turkish and international films, a range of restaurants and coffee shops, and well-known retail brands. Adidas, Berschka, Bosch, Cacharel, Calvin Klein, Calzedonia, Camper, Columbia, Deichmann, Diesel, Gant, Lacoste, Levi’s, L’Occitane, MAC, Mango, Nike, Nine West, Oysho, Pandora, Pull&Bear, Ray-Ban, Samsung, Sephora, Skechers, Swatch, Tommy Hilfiger, Victoria’s Secret and Zara are among the international brands you can find at Forum Bornova, as well as upmarket and high-street Turkish stores.
Go2altinkum’s IKEA & Forum Bornova trip is perfect for Christmas shopping or just a bit of retail therapy! This trip runs weekly and costs 1,000 TL per person.
Kemeraltı Çarşısı & Izmir Optimum AVM monthly shopping trip
Go2altinkum’s Kemeraltı and Optimum AVM trip offers two drastically different shopping experiences in a single day, bringing together the whimsical, historic lanes of ancient Kemeraltı with the modern wow-factor of giant shopping mall Optimum.
Kemeraltı Bazaar sits on a location with ties back to ancient Byzantium, with the Fortress of San Pietro being replaced in the late 1500s by the Hisar or Fortress Mosque. The original bazaar was a long open market on a single street following the curve of Izmir bay, once further inland than it is now. That street was covered over in the 1600s and today forms the main backbone of Kemeraltı, with small open-air lanes radiating off the main curving thoroughfare. By the 1800s, Kemeraltı was home to thousands of caravanserai, which were trading posts offering accommodation to travellers, workshops, food, and other services.
Most of the caravanserai were destroyed in the Great Fire of Smyrna, but the heart of Kemeraltı still beats today. It’s one of the world’s largest open-air bazaars and you can find Turkish carpets, leather, clothes, jewellery, food, shoes, fresh juice, artisan crafts and many, many other wares you could only describe as “miscellaneous”.
At the heart of Kemeraltı is the Kızlarağası Han, built by the head of the Sultan’s harem, which was used as an inn for travellers, merchants and their camels in Ottoman times. Today it has been restored and houses shops, cafes and art galleries around a charming open-air courtyard.
You could hardly find a greater contrast to Kemeraltı than Optimum AVM, a vast high-end shopping mall in Izmir’s Gaziemir neighbourhood. If you can’t buy what you’re looking for in Kemeraltı, you certainly can at Optimum – it’s 235,000 m2 of retail heaven, three storeys of clothing, homewares, footwear, electronics, cosmetics, food and drink, and entertainment, with a large food court offering all the shopping-mall favourites on the top floor, and coffee shops and restaurants on the ground floor.
If you’re bringing children, Optimum has a free outdoor adventure playground where adults can sit and enjoy a drink while kids work off some of their energy. There’s also an indoor entertainment area with a soft play, gaming area, bowling, indoor rides, and a cinema showing international and Turkish films.
As for shopping, there are 250 retail outlets, including international brands such as Birkenstock, H&M, GAP, Lefties, Les Benjamins, Puma, Mango, Guess, Harley Davidson, Samsonite, Decathlon, Dyson and Karcher, and many more.
In the run-up to Christmas, Optimum is a fantastic place to get in the Christmas spirit, with twinkling lights and a spectacular Christmas tree in one of the central atriums.
The Kemeraltı and Optimum trip runs monthly throughout the autumn and winter season, and costs 1,000 per person.
Go2altinkum also offers shuttle and private airport transfers, car rental and hire, flight tickets, hotels, and tours and excursions. They have a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/go2altinkum and Instagram account at www.instagram.com/go2_altinkum with more photos and information.
For booking and information about tours, car rental, airport transfers etc, contact Laura Kuş on via WhatsApp on +90 530 068 1913.