Just a couple of days ago, Rob and I returned from an amazing vacation in Turkey. This vacation was not our typical travel scenario because we booked a guided tour rather than gallivanting around a new country on our own as we usually do. We booked the 13 Day Turkish Treasures package through Gate 1 which included a loaded itinerary as well as most of our meals. Here is a brief breakdown of our experience:

The Good

This vacation package was super affordable and there is NO way we would have been able to see as much as we did had we not booked through Gate 1. We stayed in Istanbul, Çanakkale, Izmir, Antalya, Cappadocia, and Ankara. Additionally, we visited Troy, Pergamum, Ephesus and Pamukkale. Rob and I were also extremely grateful that we didn’t have to do any of the driving. Typically, we are quite comfortable renting a car in a foreign country and navigating the streets on our own. This would not have been the case in Turkey. Many thanks go out to our amazing bus driver Jason (whose name was not actually Jason, but something much longer and Turkish)!

The Bad

Rob and I are definitely used to doing things at our own pace while traveling and there were plenty of times during this trip when our tours moved much slower than we would have liked. But when you have a group of 40 people to accommodate we understood that it would have been impossible to please everyone when it came to tour speed. It was a bit frustrating at first, but we did our best to just go with the flow. Luckily, we had a wonderful group of people to share our travel experiences with and most of them didn’t seem to mind the slower pace of things. So Rob and I worked on our patience skills during the guided portions of our trip and then we were happy to relax and join our travel mates for drinks at the bar at the end of a very long day.

The Ugly

Because we saw so many different cities, that meant there was a LOT of time spent on the bus to get to each new location. Early wake-ups and departures led to a lot of this…

Doing the guided tour thing was a bit of an adjustment for us since it is not what we are used to, but overall it was a terrific way to see the country! While we didn’t have as much time as I would have liked in any given city, I am quite happy that we were able to see so many parts of the country because there is so much more to Turkey than just Istanbul. I took more pictures on this vacation than on any other trip in the past so stay tuned for lots of upcoming pics. Until then, here are just a couple more.

Leave it to Rob to make us look like little satans using minarets from a place of worship!