Travel Photographer | Turkey with Koda Sail

I discovered the travel company, Koda Sail, earlier this year when I traveled to the Maldives on a one week island hopping tour, and I had SUCH a great experience, that one trip in 2023 wasn’t enough! So this summer, I went on their one week sailing tour around Turkey, and I even got the chance to photograph it for Koda Sail! Combining two of my favorite things in the world: photography and travel, I hopped on board our boat in Fethiye, Turkey, and waved goodbye to land for a majority of the next 7 days!

The trip I chose was called Lycian Dream, which follows a western route of Turkey along the Mediterranean Sea, starting in Fethiye. On the first day, we wandered around Fethiye before our tour started. Turkey was already so welcoming and charming, it was already off to a great start. Including finding the most delicious frozen watermelon drinks, highly recommend. We shopped, ate food, and of course, bought pool floats to bring on board. Another essential if you book a sailing tour! We boarded our boat, took off, and got to know the rest of the travelers! We had 13 on board, and I was the only American! Which I loved. I think the best part about travel is making international friends and experiencing new cultures with them, while also learning about each other’s cultures! We had a GREAT group, and our first “family dinner” on board blew us away. That may be the best part: every meal is cooked fresh for you on board by a local chef, and every meal is seriously 10/10. Not only do you get 3 full sized meals a day, but there’s also “tea time” around 5:00 every day with snacks, coffee, and tea. As well as a full bar on board for drinks to purchase! You just run a tab for the whole week and you pay at the end, super simple, and good prices!

Each day consisted of new views, new bays, multiple swim stops, delicious meals, adventurous hikes up mountains that always resulted in epic views and totally worth the sweat, and a whole lot of laughter with your crew and your group. Some of my favorite parts were: the opportunity to go paragliding off of a 6,000 foot mountain (a very specific leap that over 60,000 people travel to Turkey for every year), swimming in a blue lagoon, swimming up to Cleopatra’s Bath Bay – submerged ruins of an old Hamam, walking around the town Marmaris and enjoying a night out with our group including the most beautiful rooftop bar, spotting turtles in the wild, taking a family mud bath, an evening at the beach, a cooking class on board with our amazing chef, lots of wine, and watching the sun set at St Nicholas Island.

Turkey was a place that I knew very little about going into the trip, and it absolutely blew my mind. I loved it even more than I expected to, and I think my favorite part was waking up each morning on the boat, and walking upstairs to see what view I would be seeing this time. I loved all the different bays, the towns, the FOOOOD. And I am so grateful for my group, and our guide, and our boat crew. I can’t wait until my next trip with Koda Sail!