There is a quiet kind of sorcery in returning to a place at entirely different crossroads of your life. You think you are simply booking a flight to revisit an old destination, but the land itself has a way of taking inventory. It catches your eye, measures how far you have wandered, and shows you exactly who you have grown into.
Tonight is our final evening in Cappadocia. As the sun melted into the dust of the Anatolian plateau, the fairy chimneys and hand-carved cave facades across Göreme ignited one by one in warm, golden light. I am sitting out on the terrace at the Mithra Hotel with my mom. The air is cool, the view is downright cinematic, and while sitting on a terrace this breathtaking feels wildly romantic, my date tonight happens to be my mother. Honestly, I would not trade it for anything. Tomorrow morning, we pack our bags and head south toward the turquoise waters of Antalya, a corner of the Turkish coast I have never seen before.
Looking out into the glowing canyon tonight, it hit me: this is not just another trip. This is the third time Turkey has held up a mirror to my life.
Act I: 2009 — The Solo Wanderer
My story with this country started in 2009. I was twenty-eight years old, single, fiercely independent, and setting out on my second solo trip abroad. Comfort was not even on my radar; I did not have the budget for comfort anyway. I was too broke to leave Istanbul, so I stretched every single dollar to buy pure, unadulterated freedom.
I checked into a ten-dollar-a-night mixed quad dorm at a hostel tucked in Sultanahmet. Back then, I did not believe in itineraries because I felt like rigid schedules sucked the soul right out of travel. You just showed up, dropped your bags, and let the wind decide where you were going. Sultanahmet meant I could walk everywhere on foot or hop on the cheap above-ground tram. And the Turkish men were warm, flirtatious, and chivalrous, offering hot cups of çay and rich Turkish coffee everywhere I turned. Sure, they wanted to sell a rug or a lamp, but the warmth felt deep and instinctual.
Hostel living in your late twenties is an unmatched social experiment. Before the room settled, my roommate Sarah and I were sharing bunks with two guys, one from Spain and one from South Korea. The Korean guy snored with an earth-shattering rumble that literally rattled the bedframes. Sometime in the middle of the night, the Spanish guy snapped, launched out of his bunk, and attacked him with a pillow. What erupted was a full-blown screaming match in pitch darkness, one yelling furiously in Spanish and the other firing back in Korean, neither understanding a single word the other said. Sarah and I pulled our blankets up to our eyes, paralyzed somewhere between utter terror and stifling hysterical laughter.
When the dust cleared and the guys checked out, a Turkish artist named Ebru moved in. Almost immediately, Sarah, Ebru, and I became the "Three Musketeers." We ran the city together, dancing into the early morning in Taksim, weaving through mountains of spices and leather in the Grand Bazaar, and soaking in the history. Even after sixteen years of Catholic school, Islamic traditions and culture were not unfamiliar to me through dear friends from Bahrain and Lebanon. Walking among the magnificent ancient domes while the call to prayer drifted through the Sultanahmet air brought a peaceful, grounding soundtrack to my days.
Then came the Basilica Cistern. Descending into that subterranean Roman chill, I stood face-to-face with the giant carved head of Medusa, wedged sideways beneath a pillar in the dark water. As a curly-haired woman who spent her life being told she was unruly, an extroverted Aries, an alpha female, and a young entrepreneur stepping into her own creative authority, that myth struck me to the core. History has always found ways to vilify women who are too powerful to tame. Down there in the shadows, Medusa did not feel like a monster; she felt like a mirror.
Act II: 2014 — The Leader & The Dance
Five years later, in 2014, Turkey called me back. But the twenty-eight-year-old wandering without a map was gone; I returned as a leader at the helm of Groove Trips.
I brought a whole crew of my shimmy sisters, my belly dancers, to experience Istanbul, Cappadocia, and the sun-drenched coast of Bodrum. We lived in rhythm, movement, and feminine expression, staying tucked away in the rock at the Hezen Cave Hotel. But back then, when the chance came to float over Cappadocia's valleys in a hot air balloon, I was too scared to do it. I kept my feet glued to solid ground, watching the sky fill with color from below.
Act III: Present Day — The Full Circle
Now, twelve years after that dance journey and seventeen years after that ten-dollar bunk, I am back in Cappadocia in my late forties. This journey is a pure celebration of mothers and daughters. It is an intimate crew of just four of us: me, my mom, my dear friend and client who went to high school with me at Our Lady of Good Counsel in Wheaton, Maryland, and her mom. This marks her second Groove Trip with me, and on this trip, she checked off her second big bucket list item with Groove Trips, the first being our unforgettable adventure to Cuba.
Before the sun broke today, the two of us climbed into the wicker basket. The burners roared against the freezing morning air, and we lifted off into the silence. For fifty-eight minutes, we floated up to 2,950 feet, drifting beside roughly 120 vibrant balloons painting the sunrise sky. Suspended between ancient earth and endless dawn, I felt an overwhelming wave of gratitude and closeness to God. Seeing that breathtaking masterpiece unfold below us was pure magic. We touched down and popped the traditional champagne, celebrating a flight I was so happy I finally took.
Cappadocia has changed, of course. Göreme has boomed into a sea of camera-ready rooftop terraces draped in kilims and lanterns. At first, it is easy to look at the commercial polish and sigh for the quieter days. But looking down at my own hands, scrolling through the photos I have taken all week, I had to smile. We cannot demand that places stay frozen in time when we refuse to stay frozen ourselves. The world moves forward, and so do we.
And then the universe decided to bring it all home with one final, undeniable 360-degree loop.
Lately, I have been preparing to write my very first children's book. Being back in Turkey, I felt a pull in my spirit and reached out to Ebru, my fellow Musketeer from that cramped Sultanahmet hostel room all those years ago, just to tell her I had landed on her home soil. She lives in Germany now, so we could not share a tea in person, but when we caught up, my jaw dropped: Ebru has spent the last several years illustrating four published children's books.
Seventeen years after meeting as two broke dreamers sharing a room, our creative paths have intertwined again. Ebru has officially agreed to illustrate my upcoming children's book, set to release in 2027. From an unscripted twenty-eight-year-old counting coins in Sultanahmet, to a travel and tech founder curating experiences worldwide and soon-to-be author, to soaring nearly three thousand feet in the sky: Turkey has never just been a destination on my map. It has been the living timeline of my life.
Tomorrow morning, the horizon shifts again. Antalya and the Mediterranean are calling, and the journey continues…
To the next horizon,
Jannelle