Before you start

A KentKart, bought and topped up at a machine, kiosk or through the app
A residence permit (ikamet) and Turkish tax number if you intend to exchange your licence
Your valid home-country licence with a notarised Turkish translation, or an International Driving Permit
A car with working air conditioning if you buy one — this is not a comfort question here

Step-by-step

1
Get a KentKart and learn the two axes
Buy and load the card at machines, kiosks or in the app; it covers the metro and the municipal buses. The mental model is simple because the city is flat: the metro runs roughly north-south through Seyhan, the Seyhan river runs alongside it separating Seyhan from Yüreğir, and the bus network fans out east and west from that spine — around 100 lines and 1,500 stops, with the municipality's own route and timetable portal the best way to plan a journey.
In personWho: YouSame dayCard a few US$; rides under US$0.45
2
Plan around the heat, not around the timetable
From roughly May to October the binding constraint on any journey is temperature, not frequency. Locals do errands before ten in the morning and after seven in the evening, and the city's social life runs late accordingly. Waiting fifteen minutes at an unshaded stop at two in the afternoon in August is genuinely unpleasant and occasionally dangerous. Check where the shade is on your regular route, carry water as a matter of routine, and treat the metro's air conditioning as worth a detour.
In personWho: YouMay to October
3
Drive on your foreign licence for up to 6 months
You may drive on a valid home-country licence for up to 6 months from your date of entry. Carry a notarised Turkish translation at all times, or an International Driving Permit — required if the licence isn't in the Latin alphabet and asked for at roadside checks, which are common on the motorway corridors here. Once you hold a residence permit, relying on the foreign licence becomes legally risky, so treat the exchange as the next step.
In personWho: You (driver)Valid up to 6 months from entryNotarised translation ~US$15-30
4
Exchange your licence at an Adana İlçe Nüfus Müdürlüğü
Book through the national NVİ portal (randevu.nvi.gov.tr, or Alo 199) and attend in person at your district population office — Seyhan, Yüreğir, Çukurova and Sarıçam each have one. Türkiye's reciprocity agreements cover the EU, UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea and many more, so eligible nationalities exchange with NO written or practical exam. Bring the original licence plus notarised translation, residence permit, tax number, a driver health report (sağlık raporu), one biometric photo, blood type and the fee receipt.
OnlineWho: You (via NVİ appointment + İlçe Nüfus Müdürlüğü)Appointment + ~2-4 weeks for the card~US$200-280 in official fees, plus translation and health report
5
Optional: owning a car, and what the Taurus actually asks of it
Cars are expensive because of ÖTV stacked on VAT, and you will need compulsory trafik sigortası, the biennial TÜVTÜRK muayene and an HGS transponder for the motorways. Two Adana-specific points. First, air conditioning and cooling-system condition are not optional extras on a car here — check them before anything cosmetic. Second, the road north to Ankara climbs through the Cilician Gates to well over 1,000 m, which means a long sustained ascent in summer and genuine winter conditions with snow and chain requirements at the top, an hour and a half from a city that never sees frost.
In personWho: You / dealer / insurerOngoingHGS tolls; muayene every 2 yrs; trafik sigortası annual; ÖTV baked into the purchase price

Documents you’ll need

Valid home-country driving licence + notarised Turkish translation (or International Driving Permit)
Residence permit (ikamet) and Turkish tax number (vergi numarası)
Driver health report (sağlık raporu), one biometric photo, and blood-type record
KentKart for the metro and buses — from a machine, kiosk or the app

Things most newcomers don’t know

In Adana the transport question is thermal, not logistical — and it changes where you should live.

The city is flat and compact enough that distance is rarely the problem. For five months of the year the problem is being outside at all between eleven and five. That makes 'how far is the walk to the stop, and is any of it shaded' a far more important question about a flat than 'how many minutes to the centre'. Newcomers optimise for the second and regret it in July.

Source: MGM Adana normals (34.8°C average August high); local practice

The train to the Taurus is a genuine day out, and the line is a piece of engineering history.

The Baghdad Railway climbs from the plain into the Cilician Gates on viaducts including the 172-metre Varda bridge at Karaisalı. Regional services run it from Adana for a normal fare, which makes one of the most dramatic railway ascents in Türkiye an ordinary weekend rather than an expedition — and gets you a thousand metres of altitude and a temperature drop with it.

Source: TCDD regional services; Karaisalı line

Most nationalities exchange their licence with no driving test at all.

Türkiye's reciprocal recognition agreements cover the EU, UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea and many others, so eligible holders swap at a district Nüfus office after submitting documents. People routinely budget time and money for an exam they do not need to sit.

Source: NVİ (nvi.gov.tr) — driving-licence exchange

Buying a car here without checking the cooling system is the local version of buying one without checking the brakes.

Ambient temperatures above 40°C for weeks at a time are hard on radiators, air conditioning and batteries, and a used car sold in Adana has usually lived its whole life in that. A pre-purchase inspection that skips the cooling system misses the component most likely to fail in the season you most need it.

Source: Local motor-trade practice; MGM Adana temperature records

Common mistakes to avoid

Driving on your home licence past the 6-month window, or after getting residency, without exchanging it.
Choosing a flat by distance to the centre rather than by how shaded and short the walk to the stop is.
Setting off over the Taurus toward Ankara in winter without checking conditions — the pass gets snow the city never sees.
Buying a used car without a cooling-system and air-conditioning inspection.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.