In this post I’ll cover both what we did in Trabzon and what you can do if you head there yourself. We flew to Trabzon in December 2017 with my friend Enes Beşinci. We booked the round-trip on Turkish Airlines. Having an airport makes getting in and out really easy. The airport isn’t far from the city centre either. Of course, a taxi will hit you hard on price — there are city shuttles during the day, you can take those. Our hotel was in a specific spot and we landed at 1 a.m., so we just took a cab.

I honestly don’t remember the per-person rate at our hotel, but it wasn’t huge. It was a 3-star place with breakfast included; let’s say around 45 TL per person per night. We dropped our bags at the hotel and headed straight out — to explore Trabzon’s streets in the middle of the night. Over the next two days we wandered the streets and visited the museums. I’ll skim those parts since you should really go see them yourself, but for context: one was a museum about Trabzon from its past to today, another was about Ottoman sultans, and a third was the house where Atatürk stayed in Trabzon. Apologies if I get details wrong — I’m trying to recall a trip from a year and a half ago. To cap it off, we took a tour bus up to Ayder Plateau in the snow, and not a soul in sight. Unreal beauty.

After that, since Enes is from Trabzon, we crashed with his relatives. We had a really nice time. You know those tea fields you see in films, with the houses tucked among them? Yeah — that’s exactly the kind of place we stayed. One night, after the night prayer, they took us up to a small hut next to a hilltop mosque. It was a lovely atmosphere: the mosque’s imam, Enes, Enes’s relatives, and tea brewed right there on the stove. Two of our days went by like that.

Then came the part of the trip I’ll never forget: UZUNGÖL. We rented a tiny chalet — one that goes for 800 TL a night in summer — for 150 TL a night, and stayed there for 2 nights, 3 days. Unreal. The view? You could sit across from it all day, and if you’re a designer like me your creative side will light up. Going in winter instead of summer made me genuinely happy.

That was the short version. You can listen to the audio at the top for the full story, and the photos sprinkled in between should let you picture the whole trip. An unforgettable 7 days for me. Highly recommended.