I’m a 21 year-old college student, currently studying in NYC at Fordham University at Lincoln Center. I originally hail from Knoxville, in East Tennessee. The motivation behind writing this blog is, like so many motivations, multifaceted. On one hand, I just wanted to share the wonderful experiences I had in Turkey, not only with the sights and such, but the Turkish people, who are truly great. Secondly, there is a dearth of American tourism in Turkey, and more generally in the Middle East. It seems as though many people consider Turkey a Middle-Eastern country, and although this may be true of the far east of the country, it is certainly not true of Istanbul or even Central Turkey. This was one of many things that surprised me over the course of my trip, which btw, was my first time out of North America.
In recent years, America has seen global public opinion of it plummit. I feel a significant way to counter this is to increase American tourism, particularly to the areas of the world in which we are least liked. While I’m not neccessarily advocating going straight to Egypt (a somewhat dangerous proposition), I feel as though Turkey is a ’safe’ place that would broaden Americans’ horizons with regards to Moslems, the Middle East, and travel outside of Western Europe and the Mediterranean. As I see it, it is merely a matter of sparking interest and playing up the positives; such as the fact that Istanbul alone is an incredibly cultural experience, easily on the same level as many other European capitols, but can be done for a fraction of the price, particularly if travel is in the off-season (late fall to early spring).
A little more about myself before I end this. I study economics and philosophy, two subjects which I would highly recommend anyone who has the opportunity of college to take at least basic courses in each. Philosophy sharpens the mind and teaches how to live while economics, essentially, is the study of organized, modern society; how it operates, grows, and continually becomes more complex and stable, all while making people’s lives better than they were a generation ago. [sidenote: anyone taking exception to this had first better learn about comparative advantage and compound interest before commenting on this). Also, I worked for a year as a political operative with a Democratic campaign for New York State Attorney General, before quitting so I wouldn’t fail out of school. I currently work for a company which sells macroeconomic database packages. Yeah, I sold out.
