Cappadocia in Turkey is still a touristic place, but it’s also a big place, so it doesn’t feel crowded. Most people coming to Cappadocia do so to enjoy the famous hot air balloon rides, which is not a budget activity at all.

Although I did choose to spend (more money than ever) for this, I also enjoyed very much the rest of my stay in this beautiful region. It was definitely the highlight of my stay in Turkey, combining wilderness, beautiful landscapes, interesting culture and very friendly people.

Here is how to spend the perfect budget weekend in Göreme, the central town of Cappadocia:

DAY 1

Once you’ve put your bags down, head for the open air museum. I recommend you go as early as possible to avoid the rush of tourists. If you arrive in Göreme late in the morning, wait for lunch time to go, it will guarantee you a more tranquil visit. The entry is 20 TL to see all the churches.

On the way to the open air museum (or back), stop at the pottery store. You can go in and admire the work or take your time outside looking at the horses. Either way, don’t fail to take notice of the very famous wish tree, a tree covered with the eye symbol that you can see all over Turkey (above doors, in cars, everywhere). It’s for good luck, so this tree is the ultimate lucky charm.

For your late lunch, discover traditional Turkish food at Fat Boy, a restaurant in the center, where you’ll find big sit down meals for 15 TL. You can also try out the nargile here for 20 TL, although if you do I would recommend you come back at night. It doesn’t make you high at all, it’s just more appropriate. Also, be prepared to spend at least an hour on that thing, it’s the turkish way and they just go on forever.

With your belly all full, take it slow and enjoy a walk around the city and a talk with the shop owners. If you’re really nice and are hesitating on buying something, they might invite you in for some Turkish Tea. If they do, don’t refuse, it’s really rude.

If you still feel adventurous in the afternoon, go look for the hidden church. All I’m going to tell you is that you should go towards the open air museum and take the road climbing up with the sign “Sakli Kilise” (no, not Khaleesi, be serious for once). Get all the way to the top, walk along the path. Then, when you have the cliff on your right, look for a flight of stairs hugging the cliff.

I don’t want to say too much because the whole point is to find it. I’ll just say this : for your safety, wear good shoes, and also bring a torch. It was closed when I found it, apparently it’s closed most of the time, but you can still see the paintings through the bars if you bring some light. At the little shop before the road that goes up, they told me that most people come back without finding it, so you can imagine how proud I felt that I (Me ! Of all people !) was able to find it !

Around 6 pm, depending on the time of the year, walk to the sunset point (on the right when going towards the open air museum, ask anyone) and watch the colors on the valleys.

After the show, discover the city again by night. There’s a lot of restaurants so there’s live music pretty often. When hungry, follow the dried up canal in the opposite direction. There’s two women sitting on the ground making traditional gozlemes. It’s 10 TL a plate and they’re adorable.

As usual, I encourage you to use Couchsurfing, as staying with locals is the best, cheapest and greenest way to enjoy a city. But if you didn’t find a local to host you, I really liked the Shoestring Cave House, a family run hotel with a dorm bed for 10€ (delicious breakfast included).

DAY 2

It’s up to you if you want to wake up before dawn to see the balloons go up. I didn’t, to be honest, but I’m sure it’s something to see !

After a good breakfast, put on those hiking shoes and go. Walk along the dried up canal towards the open air museum and turn left where there’s some ATMs. Keep going straight past the rental bike shop and you’ll see soon enough a big stone slab indicating the path you’re on. These will take you through the Pigeon Valley all the way to Uçhisar. It’s a one hour walk and pretty easy at that (I saw a family with young kids on the path).

I don’t know if that info is going to be useful, but when I walked this trail there was a broken stone slab right at a fork in the road. The right way is RIGHT. (Want to guess which way I tried first ?)

Ten minutes before Uçhisar, you’ll see a little café and farm lost in the valley. It’s a pretty amazing place run by a really nice man. He showed me pictures of Cappadocia under the snow and all his electronics are run by a solar panel, how awesome is that ? So I definitely encourage you to stop there for some Turkish Tea on the way.

Once you’ve arrived in Uçhisar, keep walking all the way to the top and buy a ticket to the “castle” (6,25 TL, with a student reduction if you have a card). After climbing around a hundred steps, you’ll find yourself on top of the rock formation that dominates all of Cappadocia, and you’ll be able to enjoy a 360° view of this amazing and strange landscape. I’ll even tell you a little secret : they’re seeing the same thing from the balloon.

Take the time to enjoy the view then walk down and discover Uçhisar. It was completely empty when I went there, although I could see from the number of little shops that it can be very touristic. It’s a nice city with cobbled streets and pretty views on the valley. When you’re hungry, go get a traditional pide at Sakir’in Yeri (around 10 TL).

To hike back to Göreme you have two options : to go back the same way you arrived or to hike the Love Valley (you’ll understand the name once you get there). The Love Valley is a little bit longer than the Pigeon Valley but even more easy. Ask in Uçhisar for the start of the trail and it will bring you back next to Gorëme’s open air museum.

And here you go, a perfect budget weekend not in a big city, the first of many ! I hope you’ll enjoy your stay, I still think of Cappadocia as a piece of paradise.

I had, but only as a picture in a book. I just thought of it as a typical turkish thing I wanted to see for myself, in the same way I wanted to eat some baklavas. And that’s why I had planned a short stop in Konya when visiting Turkey, because it’s the only place where I could witness a dervish ceremony for free.

Shame on me, I know. But, if you’re one who already knows all about Rumi and Sufism, please try to understand that, as a french girl who had never visited a muslim country, I had just never been before in a position to learn about all of that.

But that’s what travel is about, right ? To learn about others and to try and see the world in a new way.

For those of you who, like me not that long ago, still don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, let me enlighten you. Let me tell you why Konya, who was supposed to be just a short stop on the road, is just amazing.

When I arrived in Konya, I sat down in a park next to my travel companion of the day and took out my guidebook, trying to figure out what we could do while waiting for the evening and the dervish ceremony.

“There’s a lot of museums” I said with a wince, as reluctant as ever at the idea of trapping myself indoors with a lot of tourists.

“Where is the one with the tomb ?” My friend asked.

I frowned at my book for a minute then pointed out a name at her.

“You mean this guy’s tomb ?”

“This guy ?” She repeated after me incredulously. “It’s Rumi.”

In short order, I received a crash course on Rumi, the guy whose ideas and poems inspired so many people, the whirling dervishes themselves and a good part of Sufism, the mystic dimension of Islam.

Still blushing guiltily at my own ignorance, I agreed to visit the Mevlana Museum, where this guy’s tomb was.

As I progressed through the garden all the way to the tomb itself, I slowly started to realize how much it meant to some of the people surrounding me. How much Rumi and his teachings had influenced their lives. I could feel how emotional the crowd in front of Rumi’s tomb was, how deep it went. One woman was silently crying, smiling peacefully, her eyes riveted to the traditional turban on top of the tomb.

I could see people from all nationalities with that respectful expression on their face, making me even more curious. Who was this guy who could transcend all beliefs and countries with his teachings ?

I toured the entire museum, reading every explanation board carefully, piecing together the story in my head. I asked : “Why is this so important ?”

“Because he only preaches love.” I was answered.

That was it then. Through art, through his poems, through music and dance, Rumi was saying that the answer to everything was love. That to love something was to find god.

I started reading some of his poems, and the meaning, transcending religion and faith, got through to me immediately. I forgot that he was talking about a god, understanding it through the lens of my own beliefs.

I do believe that we are one, that as soon as we understand each other, we can love each other, and that love is the solution to everything. And although in this particular poem Rumi seems to talk only about humans, I feel from the rest of his work that this love is extended to all things, be it other living things, or just an action, a thought, a dream.

I feel so fortunate to have discovered these teachings in the ideal setting. That evening, the dervish ceremony had a whole new meaning, way more profound than what it would have been if I hadn’t talked to anybody that day, bypassed the museum and sat down in the open air stadium where the ceremony takes place knowing just as little as I did when I left home.

I thought Konya would be just a curiosity to see, but it in fact became the number one place I would recommend to a traveler coming to Turkey for the first time.

When was the last time you had such a big learning experience while traveling ?

The Mevlana Museum and the ceremony are both free. The ceremony takes place every sunday at 7 pm, ask any local and they will point you in the right direction, it’s in walking distance of the city center.

It was not 4am yet but my eyes were wide open. I couldn’t sleep at all that night, I was too excited. In a few hours, I would be soaring above Cappadocia’s lunar valleys in a hot air balloon for the first time of my life.

I dressed quickly and silently, trying not to wake up my cave bunkmates, then went outside, muffled in my sweater, dancing from foot to foot in restlessness.

One by one, the numerous hot air balloon companies stopped in front of the hostel to pick up the morning’s passengers. They ran out from their rooms, zipping their backpacks, shrugging into their coats.

I waited, knowing that my company was one of the last, enjoying the silence and the fresh air of the night.

When at last the Royal Balloon driver arrived, I didn’t even let him set foot in the courtyard but strode toward him. “It’s me !”

The bus left us at the general quarter. We were sorted by balloons and directed to the cash desk, where I realized that I had left my money in the bag sitting on my hostel bunk right now. Not even surprised by my forgetfulness anymore, I smiled, apologized and promised to give them the money on the way back.

One hearty breakfast and one bus ride later, I was shivering outside along with my twelve people group, watching several men direct a huge flame of gas into the big empty fabric that would take us to the skies.

At last it was time, the balloon was up and I climbed into the basket, not graceful in the least. The balloon pilot, wearing white gloves and a mustache, just like I always pictured it, sent short blasts of gas into the balloon until, smoothly, the basket left the ground.

I watched the ground recede in awe. I thought I would be at least a little scared, but instead a few lines from Peter Pan came to my lips. “I’m flying !” I sang under my breath, smiling like an idiot.

Cappadocia’s valleys sprawled out under us, while all the other balloons also floated up everywhere, creating this image I had seen so many times before.

And, suddenly, the last touch to that perfect picture, the sun rose, cresting behind a distant valley, his light reaching the balloons and bringing to life all of their bright colors.

The valleys slowly filled with sun, revealing the intensity of their whites, pinks and reds, the rock formations standing out in sharp contrast.

I wanted to urge the pilot to go higher, to go up!

We did, seeing all of Cappadocia under us, the rose and red valleys and the love valley, then went down in the pigeon valley, zigzagging between the fairy chimneys, so close I could have touched them.

I couldn’t believe a whole hour had gone by when the pilot suddenly asked us to get into landing position. We crouched in the basket and I gritted my teeth together, getting ready for the impact. A few seconds later, everyone stood up and I did too, looking incredulously over the edge of the basket. We had landed without me ever noticing it.

I climbed out of the basket and the pilot brought out a bottle of champagne, explaining it was a french custom to drink champagne after a flight, then giving me the cork as a souvenir.

Going back to the hostel, I couldn’t believe I had actually flown in a hot air balloon in Cappadocia. The memory of it was already like a dream.

In Cappadocia, I stayed in Gorëme at the Shoetring Cave House, a family run hotel with included breakfast (which is delicious) and a dorm bed for only 10€. I flew with Royal Balloon for 150€ (booked via the hotel), which included an early breakfast and champagne and biscuits after the flight. We also were given a medal, which frankly I could have done without, while the pictures they took of us before the flight were printed and offered to us for 20 TL, which I found rather sad, since I couldn’t buy them and now they were printed they were just going to end in the trash. Otherwise, the flight in itself was very satisfactory and safe, I totally trusted the pilot.

Where am I ? 

I was lost. LOST.

It sounded so simple when the owner of the hostel had dropped me off at the start of the trail and explained to me how to hike Cappadocia’s red and rose valleys.

« Just follow the path and the markings. »

Fine. But now I was starting to wonder if the said markings really were those spray-painted red arrows I had been following since the beginning.

Maybe they were, but I guess anyone can spray-paint an arrow on a rock. Maybe they thought they would teach a lesson to people like me who insisted on hiking without a guide despite their poor sense of direction.

I looked in front of me. Crumbling rocks.

I looked back. More rocks. I realized then that it might have been a while since I had last set foot on the « official » trail. Those white, dusty, powdery, crumbling Cappadocian rocks had created a path of their own that I had foolishly followed, until the hike had started to morph into a precarious climb.

There’s no way I’m going back, I thought.

It had been slippery enough on the way up. If I tried going down this valley, I was going to slip and break my neck for sure. Plus, there was no guarantee I would be able to retrace my steps back and land on the right path.

On the other hand, I had now almost reached the top of the valley. At this point, I might as well climb the last bit of this « definitly-not-a-path » path and try to get my bearings.

A few sweaty minutes later, I was on a dirt road at the top of the valley and it was official : I was lost. The view, though breathtaking, didn’t give me any clue as to where I was.

I could see the red valley, but completely on the opposite direction to the one I had been heading for this last hour.

On the bright side, I was definitely on a path this time. All I needed now was for this path to turn into a road, stop a car and find the answer to that most pressing question :

Where am I ?

Taking a gulp of water from my half empty bottle, I had that passing thought : “You might want to save some of that”. I scowled at myself : what have I gotten myself into ? These kinds of considerations about water are only for people in movies and books, right ? They’re for adventurous people who are having some serious trouble, not for day hikers like me !

I pushed the disturbing thought away, hoisted my backpack up on my shoulders and, muttering to myself a reassuring « It’s all okay, girl », I started walking left on the dirt road, choosing my direction at random.

Twenty minutes later, I was standing on top of a cliff. The dirt road under my feet leading me only to a jump into thin air. A dead end.

« FUCK ! » I yelled at the empty red valley I hadn’t managed to reach.

Furious and panicking a little at the idea of this dirt path not leading to a road at all, I turned around and walked the twenty minutes back, past my starting point, and on, towards, I could only hope, a real, modern, polluted, familiar and reassuring road.

A few minutes later, I noticed tire marks on the dirt road and literally jumped in happiness, picking up the pace. Night would be here in one hour top, and I didn’t want to be alone on this freaking endless dirt path then.

At last, I saw it in the distance, that thin dark ribbon of reassuring concrete. First it felt like a mirage, then I heard the thundering of a car and I started running, not wanting to miss that opportunity. Who knew how many cars a day took that road through that barren valley ?

Waving my arms like a mad woman, I ran towards where my dirt path intersected with the road, watching the lonely car moving fast, knowing I would be too late, then seeing it slowing down and miraculously stop and wait for me.

Thanking all my stars that I looked like (and was) a helpless woman, I ran the last meters and breathlessly asked the question that had been haunting me.

« Where am I ? »

But it didn’t matter anymore. I was back to society and people.

I went back the next day to hike another valley and almost didn’t get lost, which is as good as it gets for me. I think of my poor sense of direction as a curse and a blessing.

How can you have a real adventure if you don’t ever get lost ?