What makes the ideal skiing destination? High mountains and plentiful snowfall are obviously a must. Modern resorts and well-connected airports also help. Add in famously delicious local cuisine and a lively apres-ski scene, and you’d be getting close to perfection. Now, imagine you could have all that and pay less than £12 a day for your lift pass. Sounds too good to be true. Well, chances are you (or someone you know) may have already been there and just didn’t think of it as a skiing destination.
According to the UN World Tourism Organisation, Turkey was the fourth most-visited country in the world last year, behind France, Spain, and the USA. Yet the vast majority of the 50 million tourists who headed there in 2022 chose to travel during the summer. And admittedly, checking in for a flight to Istanbul with a snowboard bag in tow felt strange when I visited. But there was an icing sugar-like dusting of snow on the tarmac as we landed, and after a short internal flight to Kayseri (in the centre of the country), we stepped out into a full-blown blizzard.
