In my childhood I remember how I was so excited to watch travel programs on tv or lose myself in the pages of travel magazines and encyclopedias. I guess growing up in a little touristy town in west Anatolia, having the chance to get in touch with different cultures in this international environment hightened my influence for traveling. All my life I have carried this impulse to travel and explore the world. And eventually traveling became one of the highest source of inspirations in my life.

My first solo backpacking experience was in 2008 to Europe when I had the chance to visit eleven countries that time. But ‘my travels that began in October 2017 and have been going on since then’ are the subject of this work.

All my life, I have had an inner instinct, an inner impulse, a willingness to search and learn what the existence, this life, myself is all about. This search of Being was subtle in the past but it became more and more visible in time and took an extensive place in my heart. So spirituality is one of the two main ingredients of this work.

When I say spirituality I don’t mean religion. Spirituality is a way of living a conscious life. It is the art of entering into one’s silence by the practice of deep inner listening. When we begin spirituality things go into question, putting us in the edge of discovery in the unknown. Spirituality doesn’t truely begin until we start to relinquish grasping onto the known so tightly (what we know, what we think, all the self definitions and the narrative of the mind). Spirituality needs an inward willingness to enter into the mystery of being. Without this, it is just a bunch of words and ideas.

When we give our attention and ourselves to the depths of this listening, the quality and the meaning of our lives change dramatically. ‘Every being, myself and life matters’ is one of the core expressions of spirituality. It’s about what we care and value in life. When we give our attention to what we truely value in life then we are on the path to reach our fullest potential.

I would like to stimulate the readers sense of curiosity for inner and outer discovery. I would like to show how traveling and spirituality can serve as the ways that unfold our fullest potential and inner peace gradually. I wish to reach out to the like-hearted travelers, spiritual seekers and practitioners and open the ground for connection and collaboration.

A Zen proverb says; “No seed ever sees the flower”. So I can not foresee where this work will reach. But my highest intention is to touch upon souls and initiate nourishment and wisdom through what has been served to me from life and beyond. I hope to be a mirror and reflect what is seeking to be seen. By this way I intend to serve life for the benefit of all beings. This will be my greatest gift.

The essays in the ‘Destination’ folder cover almost 70 destinations in 8 different countries so far. They include many elements about the nature, landscapes, cultures, traditions and my observations and experiences through them. These pages can be seen as a travelogue, a travel journal, first written during my journeys then edited for publication. It can also be taken as a basic itinerary, helping the readers to plan their travel. But they don’t include all the must-see places but rather the remote destinations mostly. As we all know there is incredible amount of data in the internet that would be more than enough for you. Besides I believe it is always more adventurous to discover the practical things on our own.

The essays involve my inner experiences, explorations, insights, realizations and how my heart and the universe initiated the ways for me to move on to a freer dimension, from dream to a more awake state. They also contain some spiritual practices, perspectives and the teachings of wisdom of different traditions I’ve come across in different countries in my travels.