Shrimp Pad Thai, coconut cream cake, and salad

Love the egg free breakfast options and a small meal on the short domestic flights. Portion sizes have shrunk compared to a few years ago unfortunately.

I just got back from a two week trip to Turkey and wanted to share some highlights, tips, and overall recommendations. While it was my first time to Izmir and Eskişehir I’ve been to Istanbul and Bodrum many times.

There are a lot of posts on here about Istanbul with both a lot of negative and positive commentary regarding costs, scamming, and hassling vendors in the historic city. While this post is not focused on Istanbul I’m going to provide tips to hopefully benefit anyone planning a trip there in the future:

• Use public transit and Uber or Bitaksi: transit in Istanbul is robust and easy to use however the hilly terrain and vast size of the city is going to require the use of taxis at some point during a visit. You can get an Istanbul card or tap to pay on the system. Using taxi apps will get rid of any communication barriers or scams.

• Avoid the historic center: while this is a controversial take given all the main tourist attractions are focused here, this is where you will encounter the most hassling, mediocre food, and price gouging. Focus on researching which sites are most important for you to see like Topkapi Palace, Basilica Cistern, Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia and focus on those and get them out of the way quickly.

• Do not skip the Asian side and suburban villages along the Bosphorus to the north: neighborhoods like Moda have so much charm, Baghdad street has great shopping and people watching, the Marmara sea waterfront in Kadikoy is a great place to stroll and there are good restaurants nearby and it’s more local. On the European side neighborhoods like Arnavutköy, Bebek, and Yenikoy have the best bars and restaurants and are pretty with long promenades along the Bosphorus to walk and enjoy the view. Aside from the city center many of the most recommended restaurants can be found here and given the next topic you should put your money to quality and go eat at restaurants known to be good. The Michelin guide is a good place to start but many of the best restaurants loved by locals are in these parts of town or inland adjacent areas like Levent, Etiler, and Nisantasi.

• Do not expect bargain prices, forget the old reputation that Turkey is a bargain: while the country is suffering from high inflation prices will be high even by western standards unless it’s something like train and plane tickets or pharmaceutical products. Readjust your expectations accordingly.

• Embrace shoulder season: My trip was early September and there were minimal crowds it was easy to get seated at the best restaurants without a reservation prices were slightly lower and it was overall more peaceful.

Pictures:

1 - 5: Izmir

I visited Izmir staying in Alacati which is an old Greek town with a pedestrianized town center with lots of bars and restaurants. Of all the locations I’d recommend Alacati the most to stay in but it’s honestly dependent on what you’re looking for. There are resort hotels, Airbnbs, in all kinds of locations so find what works for your needs. I would recommend renting a car because it’s spread out and there’s a lot to see and do in the region. If you did this as a stand alone trip even going into Izmir city would be worth a trip. Alacati is centrally located on the peninsula and you can easily visit Urla and Çeşme by car as they’re all connected to the same toll road. There are beautiful beaches the first two pictures are of public beaches but there are also beach clubs with table service and umbrellas and chairs at all price points. Urla is more rustic with high end hotels and restaurants in the agricultural areas and multiple wineries. The city center is more artsy and eclectic with a mix of old Greek houses, mosques and local centric markets and bars and restaurants. If you visit I would recommend eating at Begendik Abi. The last picture is from Asma Yaprağı which is one of the most beautiful restaurants I’ve ever been to. Its an old farm house with beautiful trees and plants all over with an on site farm. You go inside to pick your food from a large communal table and then they bring out your choices plated and ready to eat. It felt like family cooking but farm to table. I wish I could have also shared a picture of the actual setting but wanted to showcase their food.

6 - 9: Bodrum - Muğla

The peninsula has many small towns and it’s transformed from a sleepy town 40 years ago to a major tourism hub with a large year round population. My family has a summer house here so I grew up going to the area and have seen it transform for the good and bad. It is suffering from overdevelopment but the area still has a lot of natural beauty and while it can be extremely expensive is still worth a visit. There are so many nice hotels and resorts here and if you enjoy boating there are many bays and islands to explore between Turkey and Greece in this area. I recommend visiting the historic center of Bodrum but much of the action has shifted north to Turkbuku and Yalikavak as they arguably have the prettiest bays. Cennet koy (paradise bay) has been left relatively unspoiled but the mandarin oriental property is near by so it’s starting to encroach. That being said the mandarin oriental has shops and some of the best restaurants so I would recommend visiting. Torba in the picture where the man is paddle boarding stays relatively unchanged and has a village vibe. If you’re looking to visit this will offer the most quaint experience. Yalikavak Marina dor shopping and other high end spots like Macakizi are worth visiting. We had dinner at Kitchen at the Edition Bodrum and it was excellent.

10 - 15: Eskisehir
Eskisehir is a great day trip from Istanbul if you want to visit a normal Turkish city. There are high speed trains almost hourly from Istanbul or Ankara that stop here and the trains are cheap and very nice. The city is known for its preserved traditional ottoman era houses, a lively city center with its trams and charming river with gondolas filled with cafes and restaurants. It’s extremely calm and orderly especially compared to the hustle and bustle of Istanbul. It’s worth visiting for its local food culture with Crimean Tatar food like çiborek and balaban kebab, along with some unique sweets like met helva and boza a fermented drink. The historic city center has a new modern art museum designed by Kengo Kuma and does a good job showcasing Turkish modern art and is probably one of the best art museums in the country. The population is young and educated since it’s a college town so you will see a lot of young people going out if you visit the city.

16 - 20: Istanbul

This post was kind of front loaded with Istanbul tips but now for the pictures I wanted to highlight what makes Istanbul so great. The waterfronts of the Asian side and Bosphorus are so relaxing, you could stroll or sit and take in the views for hours. There are long parks and walking and biking trails along the water on the Asian side. The European side has them too but they’re more disjointed. Hang out in places like Moda or Cihangir for cool bars restaurants and people watching. Beyoğlu and the historic peninsula have amazing historic architecture but that being said minimize your time there. Some of the same stores in the grand bazaar and spice market are in malls so if you want a more calm shopping experience you could go to Istinye Park and get some of the same things there while it would be way less authentic you won’t have to deal with any hassling. One of the best activities for Istanbul and my top recommendation is to take a ferry. Even when you don’t need to take a ferry it’s so enjoyable to go from stop to stop and enjoy the views of the historic city and the palaces along the Bosphorus or take one to the islands. While they’re essential transport you can always take one as a pastime. The Bosphorus line is my favorite and you can get a very cheap city tour out of taking the ferry from end to end.

If you’re also considering a Turkey trip I’ve been many times and am happy to answer any specific questions.

I went to Lupo Verde on 14th with friends and this was the caprese salad I was served for $26. I get that a lot of restaurants are struggling for various reasons but they’re getting produce in bulk and how much could a tomato possibly cost that you’d need to slice it so thinly to make it stretch across multiple plates? I felt like I just ate a ball of mozzarella with a hint of tomato. Whether it’s labor costs or high rent regardless of what the root cause I feel like nothing can excuse this. My friend got tortellini for $30 something dollars and there were only 8 small tortellini on the plate so it wasn’t just me.

Are others noticing shrinking portions and quality while prices continue to go up?

That being said I love the food scene here and you can have so many incredible meals in this city for around the same price as this so why can some restaurants provide quality commensurate to the cost of the meal and others not?

I was expecting this trip to be more challenging but every aspect was much easier than I envisioned. Both my friend and I (US based) don’t have a ton of vacation time but love to travel and decided to take on Uzbekistan in one week and see Tashkent, Samarkand, and Bukhara.

Uzbekistan is fairly easy for tourists wanting to see the main Silk Road sites because the rail system links the main historic sites to Tashkent which is the typical port of entry for tourists into the country.

We were able to book online but this must be done well in advance because tickets sell out quickly to tour groups. Locals tend to ride the cheaper slower local trains, while tourists seemed to make up the majority of the more expensive high speed rail routes.

Since our trip there is now another high speed route connecting Khiva and Urgench opening up more possibilities for visiting Silk Road cities.

Within cities the Tashkent Metro was very user friendly with tap to pay turnstiles and easy navigation, and Yango / Yandex taxi widely available in nice air conditioned cars.

I could easily blow past the picture limit for posts on each city visited because there are so many stunning historic sites and Soviet modernist buildings worth highlighting. I’m happy to see UNESCO recognizing the modernist architecture in Tashkent because that alone is worth a visit even if you skipped all the historic sites.

Photos:
Tashkent:

1. High speed train at Tashkent station.
2. Chorsu Bazaar in Tashkent - definitely worth a visit lots of different vendors and place to eat, even though it’s frequently visited by tourists the majority of shoppers are locals and it’s a very interesting place to people watch and browse different food options.
3. Tashkent Metro (Alisher Navoi Station) - the metro is an attraction in and of itself. Each station is beautiful and worthy getting off and exploring the unique designs. Highlights were Tashkent, Kosmonotlar, and Mustakillik Maydoni but we even took the train out to see the new Uzbek built stations and they were also attractively designed.
4. Amir Timur Square - there are a lot of attractions around the square like Hotel Uzbekistan, State Musuem of the Timurids and State Museum of the History of Uzbekistan.

Samarkand:

5-6. Shah—Zinda complex - tiled mausoleums, each are unique and it takes a bit of time to see everything even though the site doesn’t seem super large.

7. Bibi Khanym Mosque - extremely large and tall mosque that one will pass walking from the complex above to the Registan and is worth visiting. There is also the Hazrat Khizir mosque but we skipped it due to time.

8-9. Registan Square - before visiting I didn’t realize each of the buildings on the square were accessible to visitors on the interior and contain multiple rooms. The Registan took much longer to explore than I anticipated but this was a highlight of the trip. It’s worth seeing day and night because it truly shines when they turn the lights on at night and everyone comes out to see the square at dusk.

Bukhara:
10. Bukhara Station - located 20-30 min drive outside of the city center and requires a taxi journey to get to your final location.

11. Plov - I didn’t want to take up too much of the post with food pictures but everything we ate was delicious. All the hotels we stayed in had elaborate breakfast spreads, Tashkent had great cafes and coffee shops, and the food regardless of cuisine was delicious, you can tell all the ingredients are extremely fresh and sourced locally.

12. Bukhara Jewish cemetery - there was some miscommunication regarding visitors hours but the rabbi at the synagogue called the security guards and they briefly let us in. We also visited the synagogue, the rabbi was very friendly and eager to share the history of the Bukharian Jewish community.

13. Bukhara Historic center - narrow streets, madrassas and squares with pools made Bukhara the most charming of everywhere we visited. I wish we could have stayed longer, even though you’d run out of main sites to see, being there was so pleasant it just encourages you to stay longer. While Samarkand felt like a big modern city with a giant historic site in the middle of it, Bukhara felt like a lived in functional time capsule where life happened around the ancient sites in total harmony. We also were there during the biennial which brought a lot of art installations and special events.

14-15 - Summer Palace - somewhat far outside the city but worth visiting for the gardens and architecture.

16. Ark of Bukhara

17. Bolo Havuz Mosque

18. Madrassa near Labi Hovuz. The Phoenix like Huma bird is featured in many Uzbek emblems.

After Bukhara we took the train back to Tashkent and spent time exploring the city at night which we did not have the chance to do when we arrived.
18. Tashkent City - Large new development with housing, hotels, malls, convention center, and office towers centered by a large park. There are many restaurants in the area and it was extremely lively at night. Just because it’s new and could be anywhere in the world I wouldn’t skip this because you get a good idea of how locals live and spend their time by visiting this area. It’s also connected to three metro stations so it’s very easily accessible.

19. We also explored traditional neighborhoods at night and stayed in a former Soviet housing block instead of at a hotel this time. The streets were really quaint and I loved the vines growing over the road. This was somewhere near Novza metro. I was ready to hate on some of the Soviet housing blocks but they’re pretty quaint with quiet car free tree lined streets and it’s easy to keep your children playing outside safe. The interiors were also spacious and if nicely renovated like ours was, extremely nice to live in.

Overall I loved visiting Uzbekistan and would love to go back and see more of the country. Whether you like history, modernism, or good food it’s a great pick and very easy to get around with the high speed rail system. Some of the Silk Road era buildings do feel repetitive after awhile but locals were friendly and its overall pleasant spending time there so even if you get bored of that I think there are ways to spend time and enjoy the country. It’s also very far away from North America but part of why I am posting this is to show that you can to trips to more exotic locations on an American vacation time and still see so many things. So many people said I was crazy to go so far for only a week but I’d have rather visited briefly than not at all.

Before Uzbekistan I also spent a few days in Kazakhstan, which was also lovely. I posted about that trip here. Central Asia is very slept on and has incredible nature and historic sites and mostly untouched from mass tourism. I don’t see it staying that way with what it has to offer, but I don’t see it becoming completely overwhelmed like Barcelona or Dubrovnik, but that being said if you want to visit and have it relatively to yourself visit sooner rather than later and during off peak times.

Several months ago I was in my bathtub and came across cheap flights to Panama from my location. I thought, well I shouldn’t really be going anywhere but that’s a good deal and it will probably be really cold then so I justified it and booked it.

I didn’t really have a specific plan in mind but it’s a new country, never been to Central America and once again, let me stress this as much as possible, I’m in desperate need of a bit of heat and humidity.

I honestly forgot about the trip until it got close to departure because I was distracted by other major life changes at work and at home so I almost cancelled it but I’m so glad I ended up going as it was the perfect quick getaway.

I travel vlogger I watch on YouTube @worldwidewu randomly made content on Panamá City and recommended a canal tour, I never thought I’d be interested in it but I’m so glad I booked this experience because the nature within the canal was so beautiful and it was very cool to see the gigantic container ships go through the locks. Seeing and experiencing it in person gives you a huge appreciation of the challenges and lives lost building it.

I also decided to visit the Pearl Islands specifically Isla Saboga because it looked extremely remote and untouched by tourism. The other days I chose to explore the city which was a really pleasant surprise. The old colonial center is a charming mix of Spanish colonial and art deco architecture I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere else, and the rest of the city is extremely modern and clean. It felt safe walking around and was very easy to navigate. They have the only metro in Central America and it was very cheap to ride and again very clean. The food was also very good, growing up in South Florida a lot of it is very familiar to the other Latin American Caribbean cuisine I was exposed to but it is always a treat getting to eat certain dishes in their native environment.

I also enjoyed this trip because it was easy getting there, Copa Airlines has four flights a day from where I live making the flight options easy to work with my schedule. It was my first time flying them and both flights were very good.

This was a short trip just Thursday through Monday, but I managed to see a lot, but there are still many things worth seeing in the country like Bocas del Torro and the San Blas Islands. For a smaller nation Panama has so much natural beauty and from what I got to experience it was very easy to access and as a non Spanish speaker I never experienced a language barrier either. I find trips like these really ideal to escape cold weather and see a new country on a relatively smaller budget than a longer or further away trip. It was also really nice never leaving my time zone so I could really hit the ground running.

Photos:

1. Playa Blanca, Isla Saboga - There are two daily ferries to the pearl islands that depart at 7:30 AM. I was one of the few that got off at this island as it continues on to the more popular Isla Contadora. I’m so glad I picked Saboga because it was so undeveloped and I was often the only person on the beach.

2. Another beach on the island. There are basic walking paths around the island but mostly car free minus a few pick up trucks for supplies so most of my walking was along the shore. I loved the clarity of the water here.

3. There was a major party in the only village on the island. Whole families out cooking and dancing to reggaeton. No tourists at all so I kind of stuck out walking through the town but I’m glad I took this detour.

4. Lunch at La Choza. Food options on the island were very sparse and it was difficult to tell if anything would be open. I found this place ran by a charming couple serving excellent food. It was such a treat finding an amazing meal somewhere so isolated with a tiny population.

5. Santa Maria Basílica in Casco Viejo.

6. I’m not a coffee drinker but many of my friends who do urged me to try geisha coffee which is unique to Costa Rica and Panama. It’s much more expensive than regular coffee at $10 USD a cup but it was worth it for the novelty. The flavor profile is much more delicate and floral than most coffee I’ve had with zero bitterness. This is Sisu Coffee in the old town which I would highly recommend for their beautiful space and delicious coffee. Another great coffee shop worth visiting is UNIDO.

7. Plaza Herrera in Casco Viejo.

8. Casco Viejo but towards the fringe. It was nice to walk around and see the different architecture here but to the west it becomes more sketchy. Locals will tell you to avoid going further beyond this point. I never felt unsafe but I changed directions once I was the only tourist walking around.

9. Casco Viejo again.

10. Modern skyline seen from the waterfront Cinta Costera. There’s a big pedestrian path and bike lane that runs along the coast that has great city views of both the historic center and skyline. There are a lot of vendors out at night and it’s very busy. Less so during the heat of the afternoon but still worth exploring.

11. Metro de Panama

12. Hotel pool and skyline views.

13. Landscape along the canal. It’s consistently rainy inland but during the best parts of the tour I got lucky and it stopped raining.

14. One of the monkeys that came very close to our boat. We saw howlers, white-faced capuchins, and Geoffroy's tamarin monkeys while we were out.

15. Container ship in the canal. They generate huge wakes and our boat was rocked heavily by them many in my group were scared but I thought it was very fun.

16-18. More from the canal. The vegetation was so unique and dense and it was fascinating how curious and human like the monkeys behave. There were also numerous alligators.

19. Exploring Obarrio in the modern part of Panama City. Lots of good restaurants here, I’d recommend Umi, and Casa Stizzoli.

20. Best meal of the trip was Fonda Lo Que Hay. I would say this is a must visit if you’re in Panama. I’ve finally found a tuna tostada that can compete with the incredible ones at Contramar in Mexico City. Aside from Fonda Lo Que Hay, there are also several other cute restaurants and bars in the old town and it’s equally worthwhile walking around at night as it is during daytime. For drinks I’d recommend Capella Rooftop for a view of the whole city. Tasca La Candelaria was also serving up delicious drinks just no rooftop view.

I’m so happy I didn’t cancel this trip, I think the world would be a better place if people in the north booked the cheapest flight somewhere warm they could find for at least one long weekend every winter. Seeing the sun, being warm, and having a change of scenery is so good for the soul and I really enjoyed seeing Panamá.