Wellness retreats in Turkey

Silk route in Turkey. Amazing places.

I loved Turkey and found it a very safe country to visit. A lot of places are set up for tourists, which carry pros and cons. The first day I participated in a tour organized by the local tour agency, I was quite shocked to encounter 3 different shopping stops, as I did not realize I had signed up for shopping tours. The tour agency didn't think to alert me to this as they are accustomed to setting up this type of tours for other tourists. As someone who is used to more independent travel this was not my style and quickly grew to resent the amount of time I was 'stuck' in these shopping stops. On this same trip I signed up for a few Airbnb Experiences and found them to be much closer to my ideal way of experiencing the place—spending time with locals doing what the description of the experience said we would do (no hidden shopping stops). I tried to tell my local agency about Airbnb Experiences and they did not believe that these experiences would not contain shopping stops. The tourism industry offering the types of tours consisting of shopping stops needs a huge rehaul if it were to appeal to millennial and middle-aged travelers who are more used to custom-tailored experiences that don't make people feel stuck and having their precious little time abroad wasted on activities that do not appeal to them.

It would be impossible to imagine a better Istanbul guide than Ergul. As well travelled as we are, the quality of a bright, engaged, thoughtful guide who is far more than doing her usual talk was perfect. In Cappadocia we had particular delight in our accommodations, luxury cave indeed!. Of course both the balloon experience with Erdal, an owner of Turkiye Balloons was fabulous and our guide made the valley an exciting time of discovery and understanding. On our own we did a day boat out of Gocek that we loved. All we wanted was more of everyting we did.