Safety Trips for Traveling in Turkey

I love to travel. Like, really, really love it. And I love writing about it almost as much as I love doing it. I’ve written about the best views in Lisbon, typical after-dinner liqueurs in Italy, and the most charming small towns in Wisconsin. I’ve also written about my hometown of Chicago as a destination for various guidebooks, publications, and apps.

So much travel means that I’m usually doing it on my own, as schedules and time off can be hard to coordinate. As a solo female traveler, I do think about safety when I’m making plans and when I’m abroad, although beyond taking the usual precautions, I don’t worry about it too much. Even the advisory from the U.S. State Department about travel Turkey—put in place after a devastating series of terrorist attacks in 2016—didn’t dissuade me from visiting the country, which was long on my bucket list. But when the president of Turkey announced the military would invade Kurdish-controlled areas of Syria the day before I was to leave, I had some concerns. Should I cancel? Should I change my plans to go to a rural area in the middle of the country?

I did ultimately decide to go and had a great trip with zero problems. Upon my return, I wrote about safety tips to keep in mind when traveling there for World Nomads. Despite the current political situation, I still highly recommend Turkey as a destination. I only got to scratch the surface of this amazing country—I hope to go back to experience more of it.