Our Story

The adventure began in October 2019, when we signed the lease for a long-term rental contract to start in May 2020 on a two bedroom apartment a ten minute stroll from the centre of Dalyan. I wish we’d started this blog then, but I also wish we’d won the lottery last weekend and that didn’t happen either, so here’s some background to get you up to speed.

We’d known for several years that our long-term plan was going to be to spend a large part of our time in Tϋrkiye in the future, and 2020 was going to be the year when we were finally able to start enjoying longer visits, in all seasons, rather than just the usual two week holidays in the summer months. We returned home excited and eager to start getting a real feel for the place we had fallen in love with, then, just a few months before we were supposed to get the keys to the apartment, we found ourselves in the middle of a worldwide pandemic with all flights out of the UK on hold indefinitely.

At first, we hoped that things would have settled down by the time we were due to travel in May, but it quickly became clear that that wasn’t going to be the case. An email from EasyJet cancelling our flights soon arrived, leaving us with a yearly rental ticking away on an apartment we couldn’t get to. We changed our flights to mid-September and hoped against hope we would be on that plane. We then had some good news (kind of) when we contacted our landlord to let him know that we would be there in September, or earlier if humanly possible as flights were now due to restart in July. We were informed that the apartment wasn’t ready as he’d been unable to complete all the work due to the pandemic (it was a new build) and he had assumed that we would want to carry our rental forward to the following year. We were delighted to know we now had the apartment for a full year starting in April 2021, even if it did mean we had to find the money for accommodation when we flew out in September.

When it was clear our outbound flights were going ahead, we booked our return flights for just over a month later. This would be the longest we had stayed there in one visit, so we arranged to stay in a villa with a private pool, rather than a hotel.  A few weeks into our stay, the British government brought in quarantine restrictions for anyone entering the UK from Turkey and panic ensued among many of the holidaymakers who had just arrived. People who had to go back to work and couldn’t work from home were scrambling to find flights back to the UK before the deadline, and flight prices went through the roof. One couple who had arrived just two days before the announcement had to return home immediately as they would have missed their son’s wedding if they had to spend 10 days in quarantine. In a matter of days, the whole place was almost a ghost town with everybody leaving but no new holidaymakers coming in to replace them. The shop and restaurant owners were crushed as the recent wave of tourists finally arriving had been a lifeline for them, and now their business was back to being non-existent again.

We decided to extend our stay in the hope that the quarantine would be lifted by the time we returned to the UK. We changed our flights and ended up staying just over 7 weeks in the end (that villa and pool turned out to be an excellent choice as I don’t think we would have enjoyed that long in a hotel) and actually got a taste of what it might be like in the winter months as many of the shops and restaurants had brought forward their end-of-season closing by the time we left because of the lack of tourists. Sadly, we couldn’t stay any longer due to commitments in the UK (and yes, we still had to quarantine for 10 days when we got back).

I think spending that long there, (and at a time when it was a very different Dalyan to the one we were used to at the height of the holiday season), was what finally showed us that it truly is the place we want to be, not just for part of the year, and not when we eventually retire, but right now. For the first time, sitting on that plane back to Gatwick didn’t feel like coming home. It felt more like we were reluctantly leaving our home, and it didn’t take long after we got back for us to make the decision that we were more than ready to face the challenge of making a permanent move.

So, the next few months will be all about researching things like Turkish bank accounts, tax numbers, residency and citizenship requirements, and medical insurance (those are things we can only do when we finally manage to get out there), the logistics of moving our possessions, getting the house market-ready (yes, we’re selling up and moving completely, not just buying a holiday home) and of course getting rid of as much ‘stuff’ as we can over the next 8 or 9 months (it’s amazing how many things you don’t really need but still hang on to when there’s a handy cupboard or loft to stuff them in!)

We plan to finally be buying those one-way tickets in the spring of 2022. Of course, we’ll miss seeing our family and friends the way we do now, but one thing we’ve learned during the lockdowns is that it’s much easier to stay in touch now (FaceTime, WhatsApp Video, Zoom) than it would have been 20 years ago. And it’s only a four hour flight, it’s not like we’re moving to the other side of the world.

We hope you’ll follow us on our new, exciting, (and admittedly somewhat scary) adventure.  Please feel free to interact on our posts and ask any questions you may have.  If you’re on the same (or a similar) journey, we’d love to connect with you.  And lastly, no advertising posts please (this blog is moderated, and they won’t be approved).