To those considering this trip (or maybe any Adventurer level trip) please consider the following carefully. The itinerary is good, but the trip is not well represented in the itinerary.
First, the local guide has nearly 100% control over the trip and it can vary widely depending on your guide I am sure. On my trip the guide arranged every free day and optional tour in such a way that they were not really optional. This was mostly OK by me except that he did the guiding rather than hiring local guides (except for one time) -- and he wasn't as knowledgeable or competent at guiding for all the locations.
Also note that while the tour sounds cheap - the number of additional charges adds up almost daily. In the end it costs as much or more than the most expensive trips. If you really had the options to join in on things or not, then you might be able to save by doing some things on your own -- but we really couldn't opt out... and when on a few occassions some folks tried to do so, the guide was confused and had a hard time figuring out how to accommodate the request.
On the other hand, the guide managed to get a private bus for us rather than using the public bus for the majority of the time - and this was not at an additional cost. Further, by including the entire group on all the optional activities it probably reduced our individual costs for those that would have done those activities anyway.
The itinerary shows a lot of free time - but the way our guide organized it there was essentially no free time (very, very little)... and he had us getting up before 4am and 3am at times. For example, the itinerary implies you have 2 full days in Dalyan but in our case we didn't arrive there until 7pm on the first of those days and the second day the guide had arranged an all day touring event. For me this was fine - but it doesn't really resemble the itinerary.
In addition, our guide arranged everything at the last minute. This may be a cultural difference, but on our tour the majority of the group wanted to have a bit more understanding of what we were going to be doing. In the end, the guide was very good at making the logistics work -- but there always seemed to be panic that things would not work out.
Please note that Imaginative Traveller claims they do not allow single supplements - but if you complain and insist hard enough they will do this. When there is an odd number of single travellers of the same gender they should rotate the single room -- but they did not do this. Given personality conflicts among the travellers this caused some significant problems on the trip.
Note that the public buses (which we took on a few occassions) are clean and comfortable (as far as a bus goes). But there are no toilets on the bus. They stop from time to time and for a lire you can use a toilet. Be prepared for squat toilets on occassion. Given the overnight buses and very early morning and very long driving days -- you will be tired. go for it -- pay to fly back to Istanbul... it is worth it.
They say the Adventurer level is for younger people -- most of the people on our tour were over 40. The trip is very doable for people of any age. There are two slightly more challenging hikes -- but if you take your time it isn't hard to do any of the activities.
My personal recommendation -- look for a slightly more upscale tour with a similar itinerary. Imaginative Traveller doesn't quite have the service side of things down yet. But if this is the itinerary for you, go well rested and be prepared to be flexible and to pay a lot of add-on fees.
Again, the iterinerary is terrific.
