Our guides

Excavated at Arykanda and Kaunos and surveyed across Lycia and Pisidia before he ever guided. Since 2019 he has written and presented over 140 episodes of Anadolu Arkeolojisi on TRT 2.

Has taught at universities in Turkey, Syria and Europe, and interpreted professionally in German. No patience at all for the shopping-stop version of Ephesus.

Wrote Turkish Odyssey in 1997, the first full cultural guidebook to Turkey by a Turk, now a three-volume set. He has chaired the national guides' federation and lectured at the Smithsonian.

Thirty years of guiding and twenty-five of them licensed, across Istanbul, Ephesus and Cappadocia. He studied under the professors who built the discipline in Turkey.

Licensed in French at twenty-two, and writing about Istanbul ever since: books, radio, national television. He was walking guests through Fener and Balat in the 1990s, when almost nobody else was.

Twenty-eight years on the Aegean, from Ephesus and Hierapolis to Aphrodisias and Perge. A native German speaker, so nothing is lost in translation, including the jokes.

Lived in New York, Tokyo and London before deciding Istanbul was the city worth staying in. Reads it through Jung and Rumi as readily as through dates, and knows exactly where the light falls.

Twenty-five years in, and still refuses to treat sites as separate stops. Even a short day gets tied back into the whole of Anatolia. Guides in Urdu as well as English.

Helped shape the idea of The Other Tour in 2010 and has been part of it since. Guides in Italian, has run Anatolian itineraries since 2007, and knows every meyhane worth the walk.

Was an arts correspondent, then managing editor of Gezi / National Geographic Traveler, before she ever guided. Her master's was in Christian iconography, and Byzantine Istanbul is her ground.

A doctorate in ancient history, fieldwork at the sanctuary of Apollo and Leto, and underwater surveys at Kelenderis. She has led expeditions for National Geographic and still walks the Lelegian Way.

He's also a teacher and academic translator

Grew up on this coast and still guides it on foot. He takes the forty-minute climb to Tlos rather than the drive-by version, and walks sections of the Lycian Way most operators never reach.

Degrees in archaeology, art history, Islamic theology and psychology, plus a yoga teacher's instinct for pacing a day so nobody is exhausted by the third site.

Excavated at Zeugma, reads Ancient Greek and Latin, and still guides the groups of the professors who led those digs. Also the person to ask where to eat.

In Cappadocia since 2004 and licensed since 2010, with a hospitality background before that. The guide we send when the group spans three generations and the afternoon is hot.

Most guides describe an excavation. Betül worked one: two years beneath the Bosphorus on the Marmaray dig, cataloguing Byzantine harbour walls and Neolithic layers as they came out of the ground.

Twelve years of building the day around whatever the guest actually came for: photography, food, birds, or a quiet valley. Works in Spanish as easily as English.

Reads Cappadocia's fourth-century rock frescoes the way most people read a page, and has mapped the region's food routes just as carefully. Also the guide we send with diplomatic groups.

A thousand books on history, mythology and architecture at home, and a tarot deck in his bag. He reads Istanbul's myths as seriously as its dates.

Cappadocia born, twenty years in tourism, and a working musician throughout, so he treats a tour as a performance and often ends the day playing. Guides in Russian as well as English.

Her master's traced how travellers have moved through Istanbul, from nineteenth-century explorers to now. Warm and unhurried, and one of the few we send confidently with children.

A double major in Korean and History, a master's on top, and a real command of Christian iconography. Guests joke that his eight-hour tours run to twelve, because he won't cut a story short.

Brings photogrammetry and 3D modelling to archaeology, so a ruin gets reconstructed rather than described. He has guided documentary crews and foreign ministers, and interpreted at UNHCR summits.

Follows the Jewish, Armenian and Greek Orthodox threads through Balat and Fener rather than pointing at the facades. Spends his days off on other guides' tours, still sharpening.

A tasting walk with Buse means kokoreç, döner, liver skewers and roast lamb, at pace. One cruise passenger who joined by mistake gave up her Basilica Cistern ticket to stay.

Grew up in Cappadocia and is midway through a second degree in archaeology, so what she reads in the excavation reports reaches guests the same season. Also certified for valley hiking.

Istanbul born, but the Black Sea is where she comes alive: misty highlands, mountain villages, and tea that arrives before you have sat down. She knows the families.

Dug at the Tepecik-Çiftlik Neolithic site and still publishes on archaeology. She also speaks high-level Korean and some Japanese, rare enough here to be worth asking for.

Spent ten years accompanying groups across Turkey before she ever took the licence, so she learned the rhythm of a travel day from the inside. Calm, unhurried, and best on a food route.

The only guide here licensed for Eastern Anatolia: Ani, Akdamar's tenth-century Armenian church, İshak Paşa Palace. Eight years in tourism before she began guiding.

Took a four-year guiding degree taught entirely in English, specialising in ancient cities. Works without a raised flag, and describes guiding as talking about a book you're in love with.

His licence covers the Marmara region only, and he treats that as the point: depth over breadth, down to the tea gardens and the stories behind street names. Guests have invited him to their weddings.

The guide to ask for when someone in the party uses a wheelchair. He says plainly that he will push it, and means it. Started at sixteen selling shoes in the Grand Bazaar.

A certified yoga instructor who builds unhurried days with real rest points, which matters on Ephesus marble in August. The only guide here who works in Portuguese.

Carries a tablet of visuals he made himself, from geology diagrams to animated iconography to archive photographs of the valleys, so you watch the fairy chimneys form rather than hear about it.

Raised a short walk from the Ephesus ruins, and can read the inscriptions at the Prytaneion. Links Ephesus to Priene, Miletus and Didyma so the Ionian coast arrives as one story.

One of the few here whose licence covers all seven regions, so she can stay with you from Istanbul to Cappadocia to the coast. Still cheerful at the end of a long day.

Five generations of his family have lived in Istanbul, and he guides it in French with the precision a Galatasaray schooling leaves behind. He also translates books.

Reported on Turkey for the Washington Post for eight years before taking the licence. Raised near Chicago by Turkish parents, so she knows what needs explaining and what doesn't.

A francophone guide with real nuance rather than fluency alone, and in Istanbul since 2000. Fethi vetted her himself after another guide on the team put her name forward.

Worked up through hotels before taking the licence: waitressing, front desk, reservations, then a year with Hyatt in New Orleans. It shows in how quickly she reads what a group needs.

Kadıköy born, licensed nationwide, and unusually easy to spend a long day with. He is the grandson of a Turkish consul general, and it shows in the manners.

Antalya born, and came to guiding through years in hotel operations, so when a road closes he is already three steps ahead. Greek mythology and Alexander are his ground.

London-born and dual-national, so his English is native rather than excellent. He'll move from Byzantine wall-building to last weekend's derby and make both feel like the same conversation.

Guides the whole Marmara region in English or Spanish: Istanbul, Bursa, Edirne, Gallipoli. Paces a day like the writer she is, with a photographer's eye for where to stop.

Istanbul born and raised, and the guide guests most often describe as feeling like a friend who happens to know everything. Runs the cat tour and the Kadıköy street-art walk.

Grew up in Istanbul's Jewish community and guides inside the Ahrida and Yanbol synagogues, heritage he belongs to rather than researched. Owns six guitars and firm opinions about meze.

A certified specialist in the Seven Churches of Revelation, which makes him the guide for biblical itineraries through the Aegean. He also knows exactly where to eat afterwards.