Read on to find out what happened on my Eastern Turkey tour with 52 students who sang, danced and ate the whole time. There was very little sleep to be had! …We were headed for Harran, a small town in famous for its beehive shaped houses made from dried mud. Disappointingly, when we arrived I…
Back in 2004 I worked at Erciyes University in central Turkey. When some of the final year students approached me to be a chaperone on a four day three night trip touring Eastern Turkey I jumped at the chance. This is an excerpt from a longer complete story. “As instructed, we arrived at the faculty…
For many people, Turkey stops in Istanbul. Drawn here by the chance for adventure, work schedules and low wages mean a lot of foreigners don’t get an opportunity to see much of the country. Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to travel to Eastern Turkey several times, first with my now husband, and later…
Back when I first travelled around Turkey on my own in 1990 there were no mobile phones, the internet didn’t exist and the only way to let my family know I was safe was via occasional expensive phone calls from the post office or aerogram letters that took six weeks to arrive. Needless to say,…
After the devastating earthquakes in south eastern Turkey in 2023, thousands of lives were lost and more changed, and innumerable damage done to individuals and places. It will take years for the people and the region to recover and one way you can help is by coming to visit the UNESCO World Heritage Sites Turkey….
Almost as soon as Kim set foot on Turkish soil he started taking photos, and he’s been doing so ever since. On his very first trip to Göreme in central Turkey he took more than 200 photos in a week. In these days of digital that might not seem a lot, but back then everything…
I’m an Australian living in Istanbul and like many people here in Coronavirus Turkey, daily life is very different. I haven’t been out other than to buy food since March 14. Every day I read the contradictory medical reports about the Coronavirus on the news, see the rise in infections and deaths and like everyone,…
When Atatürk uttered the words “Ne mutlu Türküm diyene!” meaning “How happy is the one who calls themselves a Turk!” to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Turkish Republic in 1933, he wanted to promote unity. Although the majority of Turks are and have always been Sunni Muslims, they can also be Alevi, Bektaşi or…
With a few notable exceptions such as Orhan Pamuk and Elif Şafak, many portrayals of Turkey and particularly the life of women here are projected through the lens of Western perceptions of the Middle East – dangerous, mono-cultural, male-dominated and archaic. However Turkey is not an Arabic country, and Turkish people are extremely diverse. They…
I’m a member of a Facebook group for travel writers and I recently asked for suggestions of blogs about Turkey and neighbouring countries. Surprisingly, at least to me, there were few suggestions. Naturally, I decided to compile my own. Listed below, in no particular order, are some but by no means all, the blogs about…