Tips for planning your next trip to Turkey
Visiting a hamam is at the top of many tourists must-do lists when they visit Turkey. The Turkish bath, or hamam, is an ages-old tradition with its roots in the ancient Roman bath complexes. During Ottoman times, you could find at least one hamam in just about every Turkish city: in Istanbul you will find…
Şanliurfa (also referred to as just Urfa) is a real Mesopotamian city, set 80 kms east of the Euphrates River. Urfa is the most Middle Eastern-feeling of any Turkish city I have ever visited. The city has been inhabited since antiquity and is believed to be the birthplace of the Prophet Abraham. This ancient history,…
Göbekli Tepe is arguably the most important historical site in Turkey, believed to be home to the oldest temple in the world. Excavations here started in earnest in the 1990s and what they have uncovered has changed our assumptions about the development of human civilization.
Nemrut Dağı (Mt Nemrut), a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is one of the most unique sites in Turkey and is frequently featured on the front of guidebooks and tourist brochures. The site exists because a crazy, megalomaniac king of a long-dead empire decided he wanted to be buried on top of a remote mountain in…
Gaziantep is best known for being Turkey’s culinary heartland. Many of the country’s most famous and beloved kebabs and desserts are native to the Gaziantep region. The region is also the heart of Turkish pistachio production. In addition to fabulous cuisine, Gaziantep is home to one of the best museums I have ever seen: the…
You may know that you definitely want to visit the coast while you are in Turkey but you might be trying to figure out which town or part of the coast to visit. Below is my take on the key attributes of each of the main beach options in Turkey.
I judge Turkish restrooms all the time. Public Turkish restrooms are a topic of conversation with my family in a way that restrooms in the US almost never are. Our default expectation in many places is that the bathroom will be horrible so we are excited and amazed when public restrooms defy expectations. To make matters worse, you…