Touring Turkey during the Covid Pandemic Pt 1
My wife, Amanda and I, have always loved to travel. We booked a weekend getaway to Mexico after only knowing each other for a couple months. When the wedding bells came ringing we knew that we needed to have an epic honeymoon! Eventually we ended up touring Turkey during Covid!
We planned a two week adventure in Switzerland to see and climb a portion of the Matterhorn, eat at elegant restaurants, shop at fancy boutiques, and drive a Ferrari on a track in Italy. In March of 2020 the US went into Covid lockdown with the rest of the world. Our July, 2020 honeymoon was in danger.
The reservations were held right up to the last minute hoping that Covid would subside. As everyone knows now, it was going to be a long while before everything returned to normal. With just two weeks before the wedding we spent an entire day canceling all of our Switzerland and Italy reservations. Covid was not going to stop us from going on an adventure though! We pulled up a very short list of countries that were still allowing foreign visitors, and simply picked one. On top of the typical frantic organization that comes with an approaching wedding we made fairly impromptu plans for two weeks in Turkey.
We were disappointed that our initial trip had to change and we would have likely never picked Turkey as a destination to visit. Looking back though, the uniqueness of this visit and the amount of substance we walked away with could have never been more special. Sometimes, the unexpected plans turn out to be the best ones!
We rented a car for the two weeks and picked up 4 hotel rooms in Istanbul, Kusadasi, Antalya, and Cappadocia. Given that we were also planning a wedding, we did very little research about the cities or areas we would be visiting and let ourselves decide on the fly when we arrived what we would do!
Istanbul
We arrived in one piece despite almost missing our flight out of Germany. Half the airport being closed as a result of Covid. We would ask for instructions where something was and most of the airport employees didn’t know because they were operating in terminals that they had traditionally not worked in. That was fun.
Grand Bazaar | Istanbul, Turkey | © Untethered 4 Life
Regardless, we made it one piece without any complications despite Covid being in full force. As soon as we got into our rental car though, madness and stress ensued. The city was moving very fast, streets signs were different, lanes were more like guides, motorcycles, bikes, and pedestrian’s moved freely in and out of the road. The streets surrounding our hotel were under construction making our directions useless. At one point I went down a tight one way street the wrong direction that I was then forced to spend what felt like 15 minutes turning around. Out of frustration and stress, I made a jolt onto nearby tram tracks to make the final leg of the journey to our hotel. The stress of the roads dissipated as we entered our hotel in Istanbul. The hospitality of the Turkish hotel was stellar, incredibly professional from the door, handling your luggage, room introduction, and so on. Check out where we stayed here:
Fer Hotel
Of course, visiting Istanbul requires shopping at their Bazaar’s. We stopped at two, the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Bazaar. The Grand Bazaar in particular contains over 4000 merchants all housed under a 330,000 sq ft structure. The structure divided by evenly spaced large columns connected with extravagantly decorated arched ceilings. Shopping was intense, you often found yourself shoulder to shoulder with people moving in all different directions. When we left the Bazaar we weren’t really sure where we were relative to where we had entered. Both bazaars were a marvel of a sight and experience.
Various pictures in and around Istanbul | Istanbul, Turkey | © Untethered 4 Life
Istanbul was a great place to visit on foot as every turn felt like a new adventure. A variety of cobbled roads, gorgeous stone architecture, winding alleyways, street art, and interspersed higher vantage points overlooking the city made exploration thrilling. To get more of a feel for how citizens actually lived in Istanbul we took a bus, jumped off randomly, and walked an area outside of the typical hotel and tourist zones. It was clear there was a decent percentage of the population living in areas that were dilapidated. Buildings literally falling apart, filled with garbage, and far from safe. It was surreal to see people walking to work, pedestrians riding their bikes, or kids playing amongst the rubble and debris.
We also had a strong interest in visiting the famous Hagia Sophia while in Istanbul but it was closed due to construction. So we snagged a picture of the outside and moved along.
Kusadasi
After a couple days exploring Istanbul we jumped into our rental car and drove 6 hours to Kusadasi. The landscape felt similar to New Mexico or Arizona in the states. Very dry, rolling hills, scrub and bushes dotting the terrain. The drive was draining, the terrain left a lot to be desired, the radio was completely in Turkish, and poor reception to boot. The rental car had Bluetooth, so at one point we pulled over to try and use our phones for music, navigating the rental’s Turkish radio menu we slowly learned that the Bluetooth only worked for calls, uh.
Kusadasi is a smaller known town on the west coast of Turkey facing the Aegean sea. It was a romantic town with a gorgeously lit boardwalk, art, street vendors, food, and plenty of places to sit down and relax watching the sea. It was a nice departure from the hustle and bustle of Istanbul. Again, the hospitality at our hotel was extraordinary and we had a beautiful view of the sea and overlooked the Kusadasi boardwalk. You can check out where we stayed here:
Ilayda Avantgarde
While in Kusadasi, we took a day to visit a natural and anthropological landmark, Pamukkale. As a result of Covid the amount of tourists was incredibly reduced. Strolling through all kinds of ancient ruins and archeological artifacts with limited interaction with others was a unique treat. In fact, we were able to capture a handful of pictures of ancient ruins, including the Pamukkale theater, without a single person in the pictures! Many of the remains were extraordinarily detailed and absolutely gorgeous.
Ancient Architecture outside of Kusadasi | Istanbul, Turkey | © Untethered 4 Life
We walked barefoot through the Pamukkale pools. Extensive white calcium-covered cliffs with gorgeous, ankle deep, sky blue hot spring pools.
The cliffs overlooked miles upon miles of Turkish landscape. My wife, playfully, let me do a honeymoon Instagram model photo shoot with her in a bikini. This, I admit, was extremely fun given the limited number of tourists. While we were away from the city we also signed up to go on a desert ATV ride, Amanda mistakenly wore a white tank-top which was a nice light brown when we were done. Covid masks were already tough to breath through in general but made more complicated after eating some desert dust!
The highlight of Kusadasi for me was an interaction with a local beach side restaurant owner. On our third and final day in Kusadasi we decided to grab breakfast at …., a small hip restaurant we had eaten at the day before. Eating and taking in the scene I fell into a groove listening to the restaurant’s music. It was electronic dance music with a tropical feel and cadence mixed with both English and Turkish lyrics.
I asked the owner where his playlist came from and despite a bit of a language barrier he managed to demonstrate to me that it was on a flash drive connected to a laptop. He followed up with, “Do you have flash drive? I will give you.” While I didn’t have a flash drive on me I excitedly told him I’d be back and I was on a hunt. After roughly 30 minutes I found a cell phone store that had both a flash drive and a Bluetooth speaker. Without hesitation I bought them both and scrambled back to the restaurant and the owner gladly transferred the files to my new flash drive. As I was leaving I tried to slip him roughly $20 USD worth of Turkish Lira, he vehemently refused. The rest of our stay in Turkey included 18 more hours of driving. The restaurant owner’s roughly three hours of Turkish electronic dance music made the drive so much more bearable and fun. I took that flash drive home with me and still have that music to this day.
Half way through our honeymoon and it had already been filled with so many spectacular and beautiful moments. The trip could have ended there and I would have been more than satisfied with our impromptu decision to visit. Based on how the first week had gone we already knew the second half of our trip was going to be just as epic as the first. Especially because we had yet to arrive in Cappadocia, a famous city in the heart of Turkey known for its still active cave dwellings.
Check back soon or subscribe to our newsletter to be informed when Part 2, the second half of our Turkey visit is posted.