The online travel magazine for travelers, artists, and vagabonds alike. For those who live outside the box; those who refuse to accept mediocrity as the norm; those who know that life is what you make it; those who want to experience it all.

April 6-April 12, 2026—Turkey

Morning arrived crisp and alive. After packing, we rolled into town for some bread, labneh, and steaming hot çays, then set off. As we were pedaling along a dirt road through kilometers of agricultural land with rows of shiny red strawberries stretching beside us, we met a young family who handed us a bag of freshly picked fruit. We sat with them for a while, enjoying juicy berries and soft conversation. With stained and sticky fingers, we carried on a few more kilometers and set up camp at another olive grove, this one near a highway just before Aydin. I fell asleep to the tune of Strawberry Fields Forever in my head.

The next day, we made it to the city tired and dusty, rented a place, and let laziness take over until morning.

We got on our bikes late and stopped for a quick bite to eat at a café in the city’s main park. Santi noticed that the family at the next table was staring at us, at our bikes, at our trip Instagram page. He was right. The lady came over with her phone’s translation app, asking: “Do you need anything? Be our guest." I thought the “Be our guest” part meant something like “Welcome to our country." I replied with: “Thank you, we are fine." She looked at her phone, a little annoyed and sat back down. We ate our cheese and tomato toasties and continued to communicate with them. The older woman finally said: “I want you to be my guests at my home."

We spent the next three days with them. They fed us like royalty, took us around the city, brought us coffee while we worked online, and shared çay around an evening fire in their yard. We tried to help out with small things around the house and I helped Esra open an online shop to sell her beautiful art.

By May 11, it was time to carry on our journey. As we packed our bikes, the whole family joined in. Toprak passed us our panniers, Çinar wiped dry mud off our rims, Esra picked fruit from her fruit trees for us, and grandma stuffed our bikes with food she had prepared. We hugged grandma tightly and pedaled off with Esra and the boys joining us for the first few meters.

We gave our last heartfelt goodbyes and tight hugs to the family, wishing to cross paths again and stay in touch. After a last wave back, we followed the road to Nazilli, an easy forty kilometers or so. 

On the way, we got offered more strawberries, a truck pulled over to give us bottles of water, and a gym owner invited us in for coffee.

We arrived in town and booked a cheap apartment in a pansiyon, made some food, and took it easy.

The next day started with some maintenance on our bicycles, tightening our handlebar baskets with some more zip ties we found on the road and recycled inner tubes. A man on a bicycle approached us, asking about our trip. We spoke for a while and he pedaled off. Just as we were heading out, he reappeared and offered us tea and breakfast. We sat at the restaurant terrace with him, eating menemen and bread, sipping çay, and talking through the translator app. He said that he dreams about one day doing a trip like ours but his circumstances won’t let him. "Or maybe I am just good at finding excuses," he confessed.

Just before we left, the curious waitress who had been lingering around our table, mesmerized by our lifestyle, gave me the blue-beaded necklace she was wearing. “For you to remember me,” she said.

Bellies and hearts full again, we continued east. The route unfolded along dirt paths and across shallow streams until we found camp in a dreamy olive field dotted with wild flowers. That night, lying awake beneath the stars, my mind kept trying to make sense of all the warm hospitality we had received in this country. I couldn't crack it.

March 31-April 5, 2026—Turkey

Morning came around in Athens, cold and moody, luring us to stay put a little longer. We packed anyway, trying to remember how all of our things once fit seamlessly into our dusty panniers, moving with quiet hesitation and dragging out every moment until departure. Our ferry from Piraeus to Çesme was only scheduled for 8 p.m. that evening.

Once the bikes all saddled up and out the door, we headed to a café with the tenants from our sublet for the past month and a half, who returned that morning. By 3 p.m., we finally took off and pedaled our way to the coast, half wondering how the hell we were able to cross the European continent this way, half eager to see what will come next.

* * *

Neither of us had ever been on such a grand ferry for a long crossing and in our cabin, we felt fancy for a while, then, nausea gradually crept in. We slept it off. By the time we docked at our transit island, light still tucked behind the horizon and air so crisp you could crunch it, we were good to go.

After a 30-minute ride on a much more modest vessel, we were in our promised land.

From the bike, everything looked the same: trees woody and green, pavement solid and worn, sky in its usual location, rain still pouring and cold. Only here, when we arrived to our destination for the night, strangers handed out free food and drinks, locals welcomed us with black tea and fried dough balls drenched in syrup, and their hospitality exceeded anything we had experienced so far.

After this festive welcome to Turkey, we pedaled a few more meters to Tolga’s place, his home overflowing with cats. In every corner something was unfolding: a cat drank from the leaky kitchen faucet, two wrestled across the living room carpet, one licked Tolga’s face as he spoke to us completely unfazed, another ran away with a fork in his mouth, ... Between the art-covered walls and the constant feline chaos, the place felt like a funhouse.

By candlelight, with Marcello curled on his lap, Tolga told us stories from his time as a geologist in Africa—stories that went from wild camping in remote land to the gold-mining misunderstanding that landed him in jail. Something about permits and sampling rights that escalated far beyond what he could have imagined. He spoke about it lightly, as if it belonged to another lifetime, while Marcello purred under his hand and the room flickered with warm light.

The following day, we were off toward our next WS hosts, a lovely family of four. Umut and Demet introduced us to raki, a Turkish anis-flavored spirit, and we spent the evening eating and chatting. They invited us to stay an extra day due to the relentless rain. We rested, played with little Çinar for hours, and helped finish a sewing project.

When morning came, the sky was still grey but good enough to carry on. It was an easy ride through scattered rain showers and by afternoon we rolled into our first Turkish city: Izmir. We wandered aimlessly for a while before booking a place in a mediocre hostel we paid too much for. With all our things crammed in the Barney-purple room, we enjoyed an evening walk before bed.

We woke around nine-ish to no water in the hostel. I complained to the receptionist, packed up and tried the water again, it was back. We showered and left. Outside, we joined an interminable line leading to a bakery and got some traditional baked goods and two çays before heading to the bazaar. Santi's motivation hadn't fully returned since we got back on the bikes, so when Umut had suggested taking a train past some long, uneventful stretches out of Izmir, he saw it as validation. We took a train to Selçuk and just outside town, found a camp spot among the olive trees. Our first night back in the tent after many months: unpleasantly cold yet delightfully homely.

December 15-March 30, 2026—Greece

By the time the weather morphed into winter, we had arrived in Greece. The plan was to make it to Kefalonia, an island off the west coast, where two furry friends and a housesitting break were already lined up for us. By this point, our bodies and minds were eagerly anticipating the mundane routine of four weeks in a house, taking care of animals, and replenishing our bank accounts by working online. But we still had some chilly kilometers ahead of us before arriving.

Somewhere along the Ionian Coast, we pedaled right into a cycling couple we had met a while back in Albania. A happy coincidence, especially because we had been bitching about our sluggish start that day and were somehow running late... late for what, who knows, but it turned out we were right on time and exactly where we had to be. The four of us pedaled as a pack, chatting on wheels into the evening until we arrived to our last town with the ferry that would take us to our holiday island. We booked a place in Astakos and grabbed some beers and pizzas; sort of an impromptu mish-mash celebration of our meeting again, Santi and my crossing Europe by bike, and their bike trip shortly coming to an end in this country.

The next morning, lazily, we parted ways, them by land, us by sea.

The views from the top of the ferry were spectacular. Nothing but blue water and a scatter of islands of every size. One overpriced café latte and some hours later, we docked in Kefalonia.

As we arrived earlier than planned with our housesit host, we rented a guesthouse for a couple of days in Sami. The town was quiet and the view from our balcony stretched over the mountainous landscape.

The morning came to make our way to the other side of the island. It was our last ride of the year. We pedaled along quiet coastal roads for 60 kilometers or so, and arrived in a small town where we met Yvonne. She let us stay in her mom’s summer house until they left, in a few days. Turned out to be more like over a week because her son got sick, then she caught it, … eventually we moved into her beautiful and oh-so-cozy home.

Life was slow and ordinary, and it was a nice contrast for a while. Every morning, Hendrix the dog woke us gently at 7:00 a.m., time to eat and walk, Mickey the cat stared out the door to be let out, we worked on our projects or taught online, ate, went on another walk around the neighborhood, watched a movie while cuddling the cat, slept, repeat. Even after the housesit gig was up, we hibernated on the island thanks to Yvonne, who let us stay in a studio of hers for as long as we needed.

Santi had to fly out to Rome to renew his passport, and on his way back to the island, he made a friend on the ferry who lived near us with her partner. We spent some good times with the Greek couple exploring the nearby mountain trails, local cafés and eateries, and learning about their culture.

Finally, we traded the quiet island for the iconic “cradle of Western civilization”: Athens. It was the end of February and the weather still wasn’t ideal for being intentionally homeless so we decided to rent an apartment just outside the center. The historical monuments are wondrous and all, but we preferred spending our time wandering our local neighborhood, people-watching, and just being.

Around that time, friends and family were warning us about tensions between the US and Iran and the possible danger zones on our way east. After crossing Turkey, we were hoping to go through Iran and get to know the country and its people that we had heard so many beautiful things about. Instead, we will be heading north towards Georgia and will probably go around the Caspian Sea through Russia. But all that is to be discovered on the road.

What is certain: today, Monday, March 30, 2026—one day before we ride again, bikes packed and waiting at the door—I feel that electric charge in my body, gratitude for the freedom of the open road and the wonder it awakens in my soul. 

Onward into the unknown.