Shifting Back to Türkiye In the Midst of Insanity

This post has been updated due to a broken link.

In the working world, it is tradition to take stock now and again of your workplace, your sales, your clients, and of course, your profits (or losses) for the prior year. Part of the review must include others in your workspace (competitors, if you will) or others doing things you wish to do.

Last week, I fell into a gigantic rabbit hole that led me on a massive wander around the online world. While some writers on Substack discuss their travels and moves to other countries, very few talk about Türkiye and what it is like to move and live there full-time. While I found many folks who talked about visiting Türkiye and gave travel tips and impressions, they do not live there.

Several expats have YouTube sites that display their lives in various parts of Istanbul. These people tend to be younger and have very different lifestyles than I aspire to now that I’m no longer practicing law and have a travel list as long as the wall is tall.

Regular news journalists and other commentators follow the current political environment in Türkiye. While I am an attorney, I am not a journalist, and although I have extensive views about the current plight of my countries (the U.S. and Türkiye), I will keep those opinions to myself. If you wish to let me know when you are in the area, we can meet for coffee, and I’ll unload on you. But not here. No one wants to hear my rants.

We have all read the posts insisting that you will not change when you get to your new country, that your problems will follow you there. Others argue that you will undoubtedly change, and your life will be drastically different/improved/whatever. I’ve shown in my prior posts,1 and I believe most emphatically, that moving to a different country changes a person, even though we all have different outcomes of that change.

Even with all the current political insanity, Türkey is home, for better or worse. And I’ve moved there and have applied for citizenship.2

Americans’ lack of cultural and geographical knowledge, particularly of my new country, hit home on a recent trip when a friend asked me what living in Türkiye was like. Could I say or do anything I wanted? How was I restricted? Were there things that I wished I could do but couldn’t? I was surprised at the direction the questions continued to take. I assured her I wore western clothes and life was like any other sizeable western city with millions, with a few differences. No, I don’t wear a veil, and no, I don’t go to mosque. I don’t think she believed me.

I’m about to shift back to Türkiye and look forward to gardening, dogs, chickens, the new horses, and sheep. The travel side of me has a hundred (yes, 100) places in Istanbul alone that I intend to explore. Along with that shift will come a new Substack that discusses, with my usual photos, life in a small city apartment and our off-grid farm out in the countryside and all that entails.

This site was intended to cover travel, but I’ve veered off track a time or two. Even if you want to read only travel posts, you’ll hear about what’s going on with my novels, as those characters reside in my head and occasionally want to come out and play in the places I go. But otherwise, I’ll keep this space confined to travel.

This site, focusing on travel, will continue to be free.

So I welcome you to Arbutus Hill Farm in Türkiye, muddy dogs and all.