Tag Archives: walk🚶🏻

This post is about a 17km walk from Kumburgaz to Silivri. It snows heavily, which is great until I fall down some stairs. Something was strange this morning. Whatever was behind the window, it was so… bright. I got up and pulled back the curtains, and there it was: snow. And not just a little […]

This post is about a 21km walk from Büyükcekmece to Kumburgaz. I cross the historic Kanuni Sultan Suleiman Bridge and see a nice sunset. This part of The Longest Way seems to be all about bridges. There was one more of them to cross on my way out of Istanbul, and I dreaded it. On […]

This post is about a 17km walk from Avcilar to Büyükcekmece. It leads me through one of the worst places I’ve ever come through. What a day. I had stayed the night in a small but clean hotel in one of the backstreets of Avcilar, and so my mood wasn’t too bad when I started […]

This post is about a 26km walk from Istanbul to Avcilar. It’s easy, then tricky, then easy again. The end feels like torture. I had a leisurely breakfast, then I used the maintenance elevator to move the Caboose out of the basement. I left the five-star hotel through a door that was being held open […]

This post is about a 13,8 walk in Istanbul. I meet a man who has some answers, then I cross the Yedikule Gate. The other day I received an email from a reader remarking how seldom I’ve been using the word “awesome” to describe things lately. It’s true. My guess is that the Pandemic, my […]

This post is about a 12km walk in Istanbul. I pass Taksim Square and cross the Galata Bridge. Then I take a rest at the Hagia Sophia. One morning my phone stopped working, and I had a message from Turkcell telling me that my time was up. They were right. I had spent three months […]

This post is about a walk over the Bosphorus Bridge. I worry about the Caboose and end up almost getting in the way of the Turkish President. When I crouched down to put the newly repaired wheel back onto the Caboose, I noticed something alarming: the suspension of the wheel was broken. It was unclear […]

This post is about a 33km walk from Polonezköy to Istanbul. The day starts with snow and ends in a traffic vortex. But I am happy. Istanbul. Finally. After all those years of trying to get there, after a global pandemic and a personal diagnosis, I found it hard to believe that it was real. […]

This post is about a 9km walk from Cumhuriyet to Polonezköy. I wonder about some trash in a forest, and then someone asks me if I’m Polish. I wanted to be a bit closer to Istanbul for the final push into the city. So I found a village with a couple of guesthouses in the […]

This post is about a 26km walk from Dogancili to Cumhuriyet. It’s the last time I will walk alongside the Black Sea. I woke up in my winter sleeping bag, breathing little white clouds into the air above me. When I got up the cats were still there, and so was the Black Sea. It […]

This post is about a 20km walk from Sile to Dogancili. I start out getting lost on the coast, then I walk on the highway for a while. After a day spent dodging the rain in Sile, I decided it was time to leave. Istanbul was waiting. Europe was waiting. The Bridge Problem was waiting. […]

This post is about a 22,6km walk from Imrenli to Sile. It rains even harder than the day before. But I am optimistic about something. All my stuff had dried overnight, and they were all warm from the radiators. So I put on warm clothes and warm shoes and a warm hat, and then I […]

This post is about a 14km walk from Agva to Imrenli. It rains all day, but in the end I get good food and a poncho. Three days it had rained without stopping. The pavement was wet, the air was wet, the dogs were wet, everything was wet. When I went to a restaurant to […]

This post is about a 22km walk from Kerpe to Bagirganli. It follows one of the nicest roads I’ve ever been on. It had rained a bit during the night, but I had been warm and safe in a hotel room. When I stepped out onto the road there weren’t and people in sight. There […]

This post is about an 28km walk from Ortaköy to Kerpe. I get lost a few times, and in the end I run into a pack of dogs. When I woke up, my guest was still there. She stretched herself and demanded some more bread, then she left without so much as a goodbye. She […]

This post is about a 30km walk from Karasu to Ortaköy. I end up pitching my tent next to a mosque, and I have a guest for the night. After a day of rest in Karasu I felt a bit better. It had stopped raining, too. So I slowly waltzed out of town, past rows […]

This post is about a 16km walk from Kocaali to Karasu. I hang out with a baker, then I fail to get a Covid vaccine booster shot. Another morning, another empty place. I stepped out of the door and pulled the Caboose onto the street. I moved west and then northwest without talking to anyone, […]

This post is about a 15km walk from Karabun to Kocaali. My feet hurt and I am generally whiny. I end up in a pink guesthouse, though. The whole place was quiet when I left. I didn’t know if it was because nobody was awake or because nobody was there. I walked on a narrow […]

This post is about an 18km walk from Akcakoca to Karaburun. I follow a highway along the coast, and I am angry all day. One thing I did over the past few days when I was down with a cold in a small hotel room that smelled like smoke: I deleted more than half of […]