Cappadocia, the place in Turkey, where you can find many balloons flying through the air. It is a tourist hotspot, everyone wants to see it! How to find alternative accommodation, which is even for free?
Staying for free in Cappadocia!
What is Cappadocia?
If you are looking on the map, you are finding Cappadocia in basically the middle of Turkey. With a lot of dry land and mountains around, it is far from everything. Kayseri is the biggest city with around 1,5 million citizens, but besides that, there is not really a known big city nearby.
It has many unique mountain foundations all over the place, where people used to live back in the days. Now Hotels and Restaurants took the opportunity and were building their businesses inside the rocks.
What is Cappadocia known for?
As already mentioned, it is known for its mountain foundations, it is like a life back in the old days, where you are able to live in a cave, without needing to miss any sorts of comfort.
It is an area where you can do many things, going for hikes and exploring the region, driving in nature with the quad or taking out a horse for a walk. The most famous things of all are the hot air balloons though.
In the morning, when good weather exists, dozens of hot air balloons are able to be seen in the sky. You are able to enjoy it from the ground, or inside a balloon, which is quite expensive, for this is in a different article more time to discuss.
Cappadocia is, generally speaking, one of the most expensive places to go in the whole of Turkey. It is a tourist hotspot and of course people want to see it and spend money on the activities. With social media it got even bigger, most people I know have it on the bucket list and with that, they are not alone and to be fair it is amazing.
How to stay for free in Cappadocia?
A place, this touristic in Turkey, how should that be possible to be free? Usually my answer to this question would be staying with locals, or even camping, but not in this case!
When arriving in Cappadocia, it was quite cold, because it was March. We didn’t find a host for this city, because it’s most likely a hotel or hostel business. With the challenge of spending no money for four months, in Europe and Turkey, it was time for a different solution.
We could have put our tent somewhere up and it would have been fine, due to not many people living there anyway, but we wanted to be inside somewhere.
While walking through nature, we thought of just going into a cave! We were walking and looking for the best cave for this adventure. After climbing some mountains, we actually found a little cave.
She went in, to find out if it’s safe and okay to enter. For that it was necessary to climb through a little window, which was not as easy as it sounds.
The entry was around 1,5 m above the ground, we were putting backpacks in and started to put the air mattraces out. It was really dusty, so not moving so much was super important, to feel good.
It was cold, but slightly warmer than outside, which was great, but still important, to use the warm sleeping bag.
Not much sunlight was able to enter the cave, which was sad, but nothing to do about it. During the day, we were trying to explore the region, but we didn’t want to do so much, because we finally had a place for us and had to take some rest as well.
Living as a caveman/woman
Living in the cave was amazing. Of course it was not even slightly as in the hotels, where you would have a comfortable bed or a nice shower with great food. It’s just a cold cave out in nowhere. But the good thing was, it was ours for the moment. We were able to watch movies on the tablet and just enjoy the peace without the internet.
Of course not everything was great. For example, when we needed to go to the toilet, especially during the night it was not enjoyable. You needed to climb out of the cave, while you were nicely comfortable in the cave. Being now out in the cold and dark, just to pee. It was like a punishment, needing to leave.
In the morning, with some water we got, we were cooking some tea and other food, to stay alive somehow. But it was generally speaking a really good experience. In total we were for six days in caves, during two visits. Just once we were able to see the balloons and that was just by luck. Because in winter, most of the days, there are no balloons flying.
Summary
Cappadocia is a nice region, with beautiful landscape. With the location far off from everything, it is still a tourist hotspot, for everyone, who wants to visit something special. The balloons and everything are amazing. Also the hotels and restaurants are looking nice from the inside.
It is also worth a lot, for many people, otherwise they would not visit. But just because a place is expensive, that doesn’t mean that it needs to be expensive. It is always somehow possible to find a way around that, follow this blog, for more stories like this.
I stayed in total a week for free in Cappadocia, you can do the same.
Also, when you have any questions about all topics, about traveling, just write a comment, or text at different channels as well.
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