Historical sites 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.

The different destinations were beautiful as we have wished and imagined. The ballon ride was like a dream. It was really good.