The story of you, me and exceptional tours in Dalyan:
Volkan’s Adventures started in the Eastern Turkish town of Tunceli. On a snowy day back in February 1977 when I first opened my eyes to this world.
Born into a government employee family, we moved around to different towns from north to south, east to west every other year until I attended high school. I spent three years at one of Turkey’s most traditional boarding schools. I filled my time with many adventures, the fact that I managed to do this without being expelled, was mostly due to survival skills that I have been gifted with. The ‘wanderlust’ tendencies within my genes has enabled me to travel over forty countries in most of the continents. I have studied, worked and lived in America, Europe, Africa and Asia (Lucky Aussies:). In total eleven years of academic life in American and Turkish universities were not only about living with Choctaws in Indian reservation, following my favourite band around the country, freight hopping or festival chasing, but also got me a double major and a master’s degree. (International Business, Economics and Business Management respectively)
After studying as much as I could before the Turkish military services could get their hands on me, I found another way to avoid joining the army. By working for a multinational textile company, as long as I worked outside of Turkey, I could delay the mandatory military service until I was thirty-three. So that’s what I did. Being a sales manager for a major garment exporter, I got to travel to almost every country and city in Europe, lived in Northern Africa for a while and travelled to Southeast Asia quite often. Believe it or not, I was quite successful at what I was doing.
When the time finally arrived, I surrendered to serve my military services in Ankara (Capital of Turkey). To be honest, those six months spent in an army camp were one of the greatest adventures of my life but that’s another story, which I may tell you on another day.
Having lots of time to think and read, which I have always loved to do, I came across to a Rumi poem called Spring Giddiness and a line from this poem changed my life forever:
“Let the beauty of what you love, be what you do.” – Rumi
Regardless of having all the great opportunities of being a business man in a corporate life – travelling, having a good salary, great title on a business card etc, I was not fully happy. I love people, travelling, reading, telling and listening stories of all sorts and more than all of that, I love my freedom. There had to be a way to combine these passions to become my career and let the beauty of what I love shine through my work.
As soon as I was discharged from the army, I went on a journey to find the perfect place to start my new life. I backpacked from eastern end of the Mediterranean coast to northern end, staying away from the larger resorts. I had never been in Dalyan before so finding this beautiful town at the edge of Mediterranean and Aegean coastline was completely a happy accident.
With the help of other coincidences, I was soon managing a hotel and a bar in Dalyan. It was great experience to meet with new people every day. I have met some of the greatest people during that two years and the best part was going out on spontaneous trips with them. As I discovered new and lesser known spots that either local friends had shown me or I discovered with mere luck, I wanted to show these places to others people. I enjoyed sharing the excitement and passion I have for the landscape, history, culture, food and people of Dalyan and Turkey.
In May 2014, I have left the hotel for reasons that I will write on a separate blog later and continued discovering new places around Dalyan. Meeting with locals in nearby villages, being a guest in their homes and sometimes going out on trips with other guests of Dalyan. Summer of 2014 was the nestling of Volkan’s Adventures as a tour company in Dalyan.
I wanted to do something really exceptional and create an opportunity for those who want to make a real connection with the local life and landscape. I wanted each trip to be an adventure, open to all possibilities, where we would wander together with you. I didn’t want to just provide a service but find and spread love and joy, excitement, happiness, quality, value and hope to everyone I am able to touch through this work.
This is how and why Volkan’s Adventures was established as a Dalyan Tour Company in 2013 and why this page is called “About Us – You and Me.” On every trip we will go together with you, we will enjoy the comfort and trust of having the same reasons to be there: To let the beauty of what we love to be what we do…
With peace and love
Volkan