solo traveling in Istanbul humbled me so fast 😭
did my first solo trip recently in Istanbul and i genuinely thought i had everything figured out beforehand
saved a bunch of cafes, restaurants, museums, viewpoints etc
watched TikToks for days
made a whole “perfect” itinerary for myself akdjfhs
then day 1 actually started and my brain completely stopped working 😭
i woke up and immediately realized i had no idea how to structure the day
like do i start from the farthest place and work backwards?
or stay around the center first?
is crossing to the other side of the city worth it right now?
what if i get tired early?
why did i save restaurants that are somehow 50 mins away from everything else 💀
at one point i sat in a random cafe for almost an hour just staring at google maps trying to figure out what order made sense lmao
and somehow i still ended up:
- spending half the day in metro/walking
- missing a place i actually wanted to see
- arriving at a restaurant literally 10 mins before closing
- being exhausted by like 4pm
the funniest part is the trip itself was actually good 😭
it was just the planning part that quietly destroyed me
idk how some people make traveling look so smooth honestly