The summer of 2025 has officially begun for us, even though it’s already October. Jokes aside, but it is true that we haven’t even swam in the sea this year. Dipping our toes in the sea May in Piran does not really count. In July, we finally moved into our house, after three long and rather stressful years of renovation. But there was no time to rest, as we immediately started renting out our guestrooms, as the summer tourist season in Kranjska Gora was of course not to be missed from a business perspective. So we kind of sacrificed our vacation and only took a short break in the beautiful Croatian Terme Tuhelj. While we were enjoying our new home, surrounded by this amazing nature, hills and lakes, we still drooled over those seaside summer pics our friends sent us from their holidays a little bit. Well, now most of you are long back at home and our time has finally come. So where are we going? To Türkiye! By car. But in between, we’re going somewhere else. By plane. And before we return home, we’re exploring one part of Greece too. We will be away for quite some weeks. Read more about why we’re heading east again, how we’ll travel, where exactly we’re going and for how long, in the rest of the article.
Why Türkiye (again)?
Last year, when we crossed Turkey in order to reach Georgia and Armenia with our then 3-year-old Mila and 6-month-old Leo, we felt so good in these parts of the world that we immediately said we’ll come again some day. And when we started thinking about where we could travel this Autumn with our Defender, we both agreed to go back to Türkiye! In 2024, we explored the Black Sea coast and eastern and central Anatolia, but this year the rough plan is to drive via Istanbul to Cappadocia, maybe head a little further east and then drive the whole coast back up. But since Lukas (for those of you who don’t know, Lukas is my oldest son, who lives in Germany) has two weeks of school holidays in October, we decided to escape somewhere together in between.
But first we are flying somewhere out of Istanbul. Where to?
We will be traveling around Türkiye with our LR Defender, which has been our faithful house on wheels since 2019. But since living in 5m2 with two small children (now 4-year-old Mila and 1-year-old Leo) and a teenager (13-year-old Lukas) would be a real challenge, we were looking for a destination for a joint vacation somewhere else. Somewhere where we could all easily fly to, that is, Lukas from Hanover, Germany, and us either from Ljubljana, Istanbul, or somewhere in between. And since my aunt and uncle, who is Egyptian, are in the sunny land of the pharaohs at the time, the decision was a little easier. Let’s go visit them and see the pyramids! This will be my fourth visit to Egypt, but I will still see quite a lot of new things. And all three of my children will be with me, which is the most beautiful thing, so I am really looking forward to it.
Let’s go to Egypt!
So, we will first rush towards Istanbul with a couple of overnight stops, leave the Defender safely with our Turkish friends there (thanks Hande and Emir!) and meet Lukas at the airport, who is flying in from Hanover. I booked a connecting flight to Cairo with a stop in Istanbul for him, and for the four of us have only this second flight to Cairo. Keeping our fingers crossed that everything goes according to plan. So we will fly to the Egyptian capital and fly out of Sharm el Sheikh together, after a 9-day adventure trip. We mostly have it all planned out, thanks to Nada & Talaat from Let’s go to Egypt who helped organizing everything. This will not be a classic trip and I know we will see and experience many things that many agencies do not offer. If you are also tempted by Egypt in a different way, then make sure to follow our Placesandnotes and Gremovegipt IG and FB profiles for more (current) information.
… and back to Türkiye!
Lukas is returning to Germany after our Egyptian adventure, we say goodbye in Istanbul, where he continues his connecting flight to Hanover, and we take over the Defender and continue our road trip. And yes, Lukas is 13 years old. He will celebrate his 14th birthday in Egypt. He speaks fluent German, English and Slovenian, has been traveling by train alone in Germany and Austria for several years, and on our joint trips he has already seen a big part of the world, so I absolutely trust him to find his way through the airports and survive those two independent flights without stress.
Once he is back in class, we will begin our Turkish fairy tale without him. And no, we don’t have an exact plan, because there must always be a little spontaneity to make it more interesting. We do want to go to Cappadocia first, especially because it will be the second half of October and the days will be getting shorter and the temperatures will be getting lower. Then towards the south of the country, maybe a little towards the east, depending on time, weather and mood, and along the coast of the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas slowly towards Izmir and the NW part of the country.
Plus a little bit of Greece before heading back home 🙂
In the last days of November we are meeting up with our friends in Greece, and we are going camping in Halkidiki! Yes, these are those three peninsulas, which are sometimes called the three fingers. Believe it or not, I have only been to Athens and Crete so far. Charlie knows the Greek islands well, as he spent many summers on his dad’s sailing boat, lucky him. So we are both really looking forward to Greece, good company, barbecue dinners together and conversations long into the night – it will be a great end to this year’s 7-week road trip.
