Upcoming Travels: Backpacking to Turkey and Iran

The time has come for me to indulge in two of the oldest empires of the Middle East and two very beautiful countries (I haven’t been there as yet, but am saying this based on what I see, read and hear). This will be my first trip to Turkey and Iran and I plan to stay for roughly one month in each country. The idea is to stretch my visa as much as possible. The initial plan was to take the Trans-Asia express train from Ankara to Tehran, but because of unrest at the border, I have decided to fly this time around.

I have been planning this trip for a long while in my head and I am very happy that I am finally doing it. It took me a while to get the Iran visa, which needed a lot of work and ended up being my most expensive visa ever. Thankfully, the Turkey visa was straightforward. With the visas out of the way and the tickets done, I am all geared to fly into Constantipole and be closer to the erstwhile Roman, Byzantine, Latin and Ottoman empires.

I generally don’t make plans or itineraries, but I do have an idea of the geography that I am going to cover.

In Turkey it would be Istanbul, Cappadocia and Central Anatolia, Antalya and the Mediterranean Turkey,  Ephesus and the South Aegean, North Aegean and European Turkey.

And in Iran, it would be Tehran, Esfahan, Persepolis, Shiraz, Yazd, Western Iran for some cold mountain time and the Persian Gulf.

Since, I have time on hand, I will go with the flow and chalk out itineraries as it comes. I am very excited about exploring both these countries. I hope I will have lots of photographs, stories and experiences to share with you all. More to follow…