To all travelers who have planned to visit Turkey this year:
Let me speak to you not from headlines, but from the ground — where real life continues, tours operate, and travelers experience this country every single day.
Turkey is safe. Your journey is safe. And operations continue exactly as planned.
The current tensions in the news are concentrated around the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz — a completely different geography, far removed from Turkey. The destinations you are visiting — Istanbul, Cappadocia, Ephesus — are located in the western and central parts of the country, thousands of miles away from any conflict zone.
Turkey is not part of this war. On the contrary, it plays a balancing and mediating role in the region. As one of NATO’s strongest members, with a well-established state structure and security network, stability here is not accidental — it is built and maintained.
Here is the reality on the ground:
• Major American tour operators such as Rick Steves Europe, Gate 1 Travel, Insight Vacations, Globus and Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) continue all Turkey programs without interruption.
• The U.S. State Department has not issued any travel restrictions for central and western Turkey — where all cultural itineraries take place.
• We remain in direct communication with the U.S. Embassy, monitoring developments closely.
• Cruise travel continues exactly as scheduled. Mediterranean cruise itineraries covering Greece and Turkey remain unchanged, with Istanbul and Kuşadası actively welcoming ships. The 2026 cruise season has already begun, hosting major operators such as Viking and Celebrity Cruises at Turkish ports.
Thousands of travelers are here right now — walking through ancient cities, sharing meals, taking in the landscapes — safely, comfortably, and exactly as planned.
Turkey has been welcoming travelers for centuries. This is not new for us. This is what we do — and we do it with confidence.
If anything changes, we will act immediately. Until then, there is no reason to cancel, postpone, or miss this experience.
And let me leave you with this:
History has always moved around this region — empires rose and fell, borders changed, headlines came and went.
Yet through it all, travelers kept coming to this land — to stand where civilizations met, to witness beauty that outlives politics, to experience something timeless.
That has not changed.
Don’t let distant headlines take away a journey that has been waiting for you for years.
Turkey is not just open.
It is steady. It is strong.
And it is ready to welcome you — exactly as it always has.
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