Advice & Info

This week has been one of sadness and deep reflection for all of us in Turkey. These heinous, tragic attacks are all too frequent and...

Stop ordering on YemekSepeti cause you’re too scared to order over the phone in Turkish. Stop forcing your friends to call you cause you forgot...

Turkey is a fantastic country all year round, very popular amongst tourists around the world for its historic mosques, various street vendors and its...

1) You might have thought it would never happen, but here it is: Istanbul Airport We knew they were building it. We knew they planned...

First Encounter, September, 1964 I arrived at Sirkeci Station on the Orient Express — the real Orient Express, a train that was anything but express...

Writing about the allure of ayran has been on my agenda for over a year now. Every time an expat informs me that they...

There’s a moment in The Time Regulation Institute, the novel by acclaimed Turkish author Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, where the protagonist Hayri Irdal explains the...

Yes, I just did that. Referred to the joke-question we all hear from home: Do they eat turkey in Turkey? Well, yes, yes they...

When I first lived in Istanbul for 6 months in 2013, some of my most memorable days were spent simply wandering the old city...

Have you heard Piri before? It is an audio walking tour app which urges explorers to discover amazing cities. With Piri, you can explore the...

Contemporary Istanbul, the city's premier international art fair, is back for its 18th edition, bringing together art enthusiasts, collectors, curators, and artists from around...

The Arnavutköy branch of Takanik Balık is modestly tucked away, nearly hidden and a bit further from the water than its larger, grander counterparts in...

There are two very good reasons not to cycle in Istanbul. 1) The terrifying prospect of facing the Istanbul traffic with nothing but thin...

With the cooler weather slowly settling in, it is the perfect time to sit down with a cup of coffee and tuck into a...

“Where can I go for a non-chocolate dessert?” Sometimes chocolate is not the sweet you crave. Maybe you fancy something made with honey, fruit and...

For those of you folks cunningly trying to finagle an extended weekend to “celebrate” Easter on account of being “foreign and kinda Christian and...

Oman had long been on my mind as my next quest overseas. The promise of dates, palm trees, sand dunes, bright, open, sun-tainted skies,...

In the first part of this series, I spent the day browsing through Beyoğlu’s record shops. A few days later, once the gloomy weather had...

If you have a nine to five job and a lot of responsibilities to handle, you might prefer to stay in after work or...

From the organization: ASYA DİLEM is an İstanbul/Turkey based Language School for foreigners who wish to explore Turkey and its culture. For this we created...

Thus with a text, I die. If any spark of life be yet remaining amongst Dumbphone owners in this developéd world, it will by...

'The girl on the seesaw is laughing For love is the color this place imparts... Admission is easy, just say you believe And come to this place...

Flight volunteering for Cihangir Cool for Cats and our network of rescuers is easy and will cost you nothing! We will take care of...

The title of my piece belongs to the aphorism of famous Danish author Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875). Andersen said long time ago “where words...