We Almost Stopped in Türkiye.
We’re Still Kicking Ourselves.

The US plays Türkiye on June 25, and it’s as good a reason as any to stop deferring.

The American Blind Spot

Here’s the thing about Türkiye for American travelers: it doesn’t suffer from obscurity. Everyone knows it’s there. Most people have seen the photos, the minarets at dusk, the hot air balloons over Cappadocia, the thermal pools at Pamukkale. It sits on a lot of lists.

It just never seems to make the cut when it’s time to actually book.

Part of that is geography. It doesn’t feel like a quick hop the way Western Europe does, even though flight times from the East Coast are comparable to getting to some parts of the US. Part of it is a vague sense that it’s complicated: the geopolitics, the language, the unfamiliarity. And part of it is just that Greece and Italy and Spain keep jumping the queue. They’re known quantities. Türkiye feels like something you need to research first.

What most American travelers don’t realize is that it’s one of the most accessible countries in that part of the world. Over 60 million visitors made their way there in 2025. The infrastructure for tourism is genuinely excellent. The hesitation is mostly habit, not reality.

Istanbul Is Everything They Say It Is

We almost stopped there because Istanbul has a reputation that’s hard to ignore once you start paying attention. It’s the city that literally straddles two continents: Europe on one side of the Bosphorus, Asia on the other. That’s not a travel brochure line, it’s just the physical truth of the place.

The city wore the crowns of three empires, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, leaving behind a tangle of domes, minarets, and markets that still hum with life. The Hagia Sophia is nearly 1,500 years old and still stops people in their tracks. The Grand Bazaar is loud and chaotic and worth every minute. The Bosphorus is best experienced from the water, with Europe on your left and Asia on your right, a sentence that takes a moment to actually process.

Istanbul attracted approximately 18 million visitors in 2025. That sounds like a reason to worry about crowds. It’s actually a sign that the city handles tourism well. There’s room to find quiet corners in a place that size, and the food scene alone justifies the trip. Istanbul has become one of the better dining cities in that part of the world, and it’s not close.

Cappadocia Is Actually That Good

Most people have seen the hot air balloon photos. It’s easy to write Cappadocia off as an Instagram destination, the kind of place that looks better in pictures than it feels in person. That’s not what travelers report back.

Two to three days gives you enough time to properly visit the Göreme Open Air Museum, take a hot air balloon ride at sunrise, and explore multiple underground cities at your own pace. The underground cities are the part most people don’t know about going in: entire communities carved into volcanic rock, some going eight levels deep, built as hiding places during centuries of invasion. It’s the kind of thing that reframes the whole region once you understand it.

The cave hotels are real too, and they’re the right place to stay. Not a gimmick: genuinely atmospheric, and often very reasonably priced compared to what you’d pay for a similar experience in Western Europe.

Pamukkale, Ephesus, and the Case for Going Deeper

The travelers who get the most out of Türkiye are the ones willing to go beyond Istanbul and Cappadocia. Pamukkale and Ephesus make the case for that.

Pamukkale is the travertine terraces: white calcium formations cascading down a hillside alongside the ruins of Hierapolis, an ancient city that once drew visitors to its thermal waters the same way it draws them now. The combination of unusual natural beauty and serious historical depth is hard to find anywhere else.

Ephesus is one of the best-preserved Roman cities on earth. Marble-lined streets, a library facade that’s become one of the most photographed ruins in the world, and enough scale to actually feel what a Roman city would have been like at its height. Good guides bring those ruins to life in a way that makes the history tangible rather than abstract. It earns its reputation without any help.

The Coast That Most Americans Miss Entirely

Türkiye has a Mediterranean and Aegean coastline that doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves from American travelers. Antalya offers crystal-clear waters and ancient ruins alongside the beaches: think the Greek islands, but less crowded and significantly more affordable. Bodrum delivers a similar mix of history, food, and a nightlife scene that draws European travelers in large numbers every summer.

Most Americans don’t know this version of Türkiye exists. That’s a gap worth closing.

The Lesson We’re Still Learning

We had a window to stop in Istanbul and we didn’t take it. No dramatic reason: just a tight itinerary and the assumption that we’d get back there soon enough.

That was a few years ago. Türkiye keeps sitting on the list. The game on June 25 is a small reminder that lists don’t book themselves.

If you’ve been deferring Türkiye the same way we have, this is a reasonable moment to stop doing that.