One of the most well-known characteristics of Turkey is the hospitality of its people, and one of the most fundamental attractions for foreigners is the small gestures they experience while visiting Turkey.
Turkey is considered a nation with the most cultural diversity, from cuisines to welcoming, history and language backgrounds.
It’s a common thing to go to your neighbor’s house for a coffee or a little cup of Turkish coffee and enjoy a random chat. Such things are not so popular these days around the world, though they’re pretty much experienced anywhere in Turkey or anytime on a regular basis. Yet when we talk about hospitality in Turkish culture, it doesn’t pause at having tea or coffee; actually, its roots go way deeper into Turkish culture and history.
In Turkey, you’ll come across a lot of things that will make you feel welcome, and maybe one of your old relatives’ homes where you get to try a real home-cooked meal and pastries. Many Turkish family homes, you can smell their cooking right across the street, till this day!
In Turkey, you can find that anywhere, any home you go to, you’ll be invited for a meal. It could be just a simple meal, yet it gives you such a good appetizing feeling, like in the old days.
Such traditions are usually found in a lot of countries but, unfortunately, are not so common in this modern, fast-paced world and in most developed countries, where you may find such things only on the outskirts of major cities.
If you’re on holiday and you have friends in Turkey, there’s no way they won’t invite you to stay at least a night over and experience their modest yet welcoming lifestyle. It could be the simplest things, like offering you, “the guest,” the best seat in the house, the best bed to sleep in, or the goodies such as the fancy “Turkish Delight,” as it may not seem common in a lot of places in the world, but the Turks tend to share their best things with the wanderers who visit rarely or for the first time.
And they save such things for such occasions as well, and they prepare for the welcoming of anyone, like when a country prepares for a diplomatic delegate from another country.
With all those factors and much more, it’s very hard for a lot of foreigners not to feel a sense of belonging to Turkey after even their first visit. That’s one of the reasons why we find a lot of people from all around the globe starting to live in Turkey just based on their first experience with the culture and remaining to enjoy all aspects of this beautiful undying tradition.