By plane

1 Kars Harakani Airport (KSY IATA) has daily flights from Istanbul (both IST and SAW) and Ankara, and several days a week from Izmir. It's reasonably clean and efficient, with the usual facilities including car hire. It's only 6 km south of the city, taxis and dolmuşes will take you downtown.

By road

Highway E80 traverses the country from the Bulgarian border via Istanbul, Ankara, Erzincan and Erzurum. Branch at Horosan onto E691 for Kars, while E80 continues east to Doğubeyazıt and the border with Iran. From Ankara is 1100 km, about 13 hours driving.

By bus

Buses from Istanbul run twice a day and take 21 hours via Gebze, Bolu, Erzincan and Erzurum. One bus a day is from Izmir via Ankara, Erzincan and Erzurum. The main bus line from the west is Kamil Koç, now part of Flixbus.

Yesil Artvin Ekspres runs daily from Rize on the Black Sea coast, via Hopa on the Georgian border, Artvin and Ardahan.

2 Kars Inter-city Bus Terminal opened on 30 Oct 2025. It's off D965 bypass just north of the airport, 5 km from the centre.

3 City Bus Station downtown is where a dolmuş might bring you instead.

Don't follow outdated directions to the old bus station northeast of town where the main boulevard rejoins D965. It's the abode of weeds, stray dogs and the undead.

By train

Doğu Express departs Ankara daily at 18:00, reaching Kars 26 hours later. The return train leaves at 08:00. There are couchettes and a buffet but no sleeping car. Main stops along the route are Kayseri, Sivas, Erzincan and Erzurum. For times and online tickets see TCDD

A more expensive tourist version of this train runs three times a week Dec-March. It makes long stops for sightseeing eastbound at İliç (for Kemaliye), Erzincan and Erzurum; the westbound train makes long stops at Divriği and Bostankaya. Total travel time Ankara-Kars is 30 hours. You buy eastbound and westbound sections separately so you're flexible on how long you stay in Kars. The accommodation is in standard sleeping cars, which have been purloined from the conventional train, so the travel experience on that has been degraded. Tickets go on sale 30 days in advance and are instantly snapped up by scalpers, so realistically you'll have to buy through a travel agency.

A regional train runs twice a day from Akyaka near the border with Armenia, taking an hour. This used to be the railway to Gyumri, but there is no longer a border crossing.

The railway via Kars to Georgia and Azerbaijan opened in 2017 for freight, but to date TCDD are incapable of organising a passenger service. The shiny new train sets bought (with some fanfare) for this service are gathering rust and graffiti on a siding somewhere.

4 Kars railway station is 1 km east of city centre. Taxis wait outside.