From Turks to Türkiye: How I Traveled in a Year

The question I am asked most frequently in my line of work: Where should I travel next? It’s an impossible question to answer, of course. Where a person should go depends not only on their budget, but also on their desires. Are you intrepid? Are you comfortable with a plane ride that takes 10 hours? Do you own a passport? Do you prefer a direct flight?

As 2023 seeps into 2024, I’ve been thinking about some of the memorable trips that I’ve had the opportunity to take this year — both with my family and alone. I can’t tell you where to go next, but I can offer up two compelling options for different kinds of travel.

For the Family Set

In April, my two sons, husband, and I jetted off to Beaches Turks & Caicos, where we stayed in a four-bedroom butler villa within the property’s Key West Village. The sprawling property (there are 758 rooms in all, spread throughout several different “villages”: Italian Village, Key West Village, Seaside Village, French Village, and Caribbean Village) features a water park for children, 21 restaurants, four food trucks, a kids club, a spa, and Sesame Street offerings, like a resort-wide parade at week’s end. My young children were particularly fond of the Sesame Street breakfast (an add-on to the all-inclusive), which allowed them to enjoy a meal with some of their favorite television characters.

Our villa, attended by two different butlers, featured a pool, refrigerator stocked with drinks, and plenty of space for lounging — both indoors and out. The attentive butler service ensured that we had fully stocked cabanas wherever we wanted to sit for the day, as well as cold drinks, tasty extras (like shrimp cocktail on demand), and dinner reservations, which are necessary during high season.

But the brilliance of Beaches, butler service notwithstanding, is that you don’t have to lift a finger — or reach for a wallet. Parents and kids can swim up to any pristine pool bar and order a drink. The manicured grounds don’t betray even a trace of the swarms of people that you see at other all-inclusives. Glassware left to die in the sun? You won’t see that here. Stray towels left on errant chairs? Not at this hotel. The staff-to-guest ratio is astounding, and it makes for an astounding experience. Quieter areas include the Key West and Caribbean pools, for those looking for areas that offer the benefits of the all-inclusive resort with fewer people.

On our final night at Beaches, we dined at Kimonos, a teppanyaki-style restaurant that thrilled my children. Seated around a flat-top with other fascinated guests, we watched as our ebullient chef-host made chicken, shrimp and beef dance. The room was filled with singing and the clink of cocktails, and it was impossible not to applaud as the occasional tuft of fire rose up from the kitchen’s stage. What else were we here for, after all, besides a very good time?

For the Solo Traveler

I turned on my heels a month after returning from Turks & Caicos and headed for Bodrum, in Türkiye, a beachgoer’s paradise abutting the Aegean Sea. For six nights, I enjoyed a resort draped with bougainvillea and honeysuckle — as well as unparalleled water views.

At Susona Bodrum, LXR Hotels & Resorts, a 70-room resort that opened in 2020, I was free to roam through gardens and private pathways, down, say, to the bespoke private beach, where, on a hot May afternoon, I enjoyed a private picnic: fresh strawberries, sparkling wine, salads made with gusto. After a sun-drenched nap, I lowered myself by ladder into the clear blue waters of the sparkling sea.

One experience that no solo traveler should miss when in Türkiye is the hammam, and Susona Bodrum, LXR Hotels & Resorts’ Spa Soul offers an authentic hammam experience. A marble interior greets guests, who are treated to an hourlong soak, scrub and steam. It was among the more memorable moments of my visit.

But to understand Bodrum is to understand its food. I started each morning with a long breakfast at Ezi, the hotel’s primary restaurant, where a broad balcony overlooked the sea. There, I ordered the classic Turkish breakfast: olives, gozleme, breads with homemade jam, cucumbers and tomatoes dressed in local olive oil, cubes of tender cheese, and scrambled eggs. Tiny plates emerged from the kitchen, as if by magic. After breakfast each morning, I walked from Ezi to the infinity pool, which overlooked the Aegean, a symphony of blue on blue. Who wouldn’t want to call this place home for six nights, or — dare I say it — longer?

Back at home, as summer appeared in the Northeast, I thought about these trips: disparate, different, both far-flung in different ways. In travel, we are always making choices, about where to eat, or how to vacation, or about what scenery we prefer.

But we don’t necessarily have to choose one path over another. One trip may be right in one moment — the sun blushing pink over the creamy sand of Turks & Caicos’ aquamarine waters, for instance — and another entirely perfect a month later. You can search high and low for the perfect vacation, but you’ll never find it, because there is no such thing as a perfect vacation.

If you were to ask me where to go next, I’d tell you only this: Go wherever the mood strikes, and then book another trip, and go there, too. Go to Turks & Caicos, book the villa, the one with the private pool. And then marvel at Bodrum’s native mandarins and plump olives, the wild pink bougainvillea growing up the white buildings and the artichokes on every menu in May. Just go.