Talking Turkey

I’ve always learned from others and gratefully accept advice rather than enrolling in the school of hard knocks. Enjoying travel as I do I use other people’s experiences to create MY bucket list. Two places that I hear repeatedly that I ‘must see’ are Turkey and Greece. Both have been on my top 5 list for quite some time. So when I was approached with the opportunity for a trip to Turkey, Petra and Greece it was an easy answer.

Mark is a professional tourist. When not travelling the globe he resides in Hot Springs Village and he is always planning for his next trip, or two or three. Mark is an expert in finding travel deals similarly to the astute housewife wielding her overstuffed coupon organizer. I've seen the news programs where a coupon savvy shopper comes out of a grocery store with two baskets full of groceries and after using all the coupons ends up getting money back instead of having to pay. Well that is Mark, but instead of ending up with rib-eye and new potatoes. he’s flying first class to some exotic destination in Asia and staying on the top floor of a boutique hotel for the price that most people pay for a round trip ticket to Chicago in coach.

Mark called me recently out of the blue. "Trevor do you want to go to Turkey?" "Of course!" I replied without hesitation. "Well good, then I'm booking it now." "WHOA WHOA!" I exclaimed, "This is the first Iv'e heard of it. I need details! When is the trip, how long would it be, where exactly would we go, how much will this cost? I can't just book a trip like that, I have a business to run." There was a slight pause and I heard some papers rustling. "Let's see, it would be about a month", I let out a slight gasp, that long of a trip is always hard on me and my business. I already suspected I was going to have to turn this down. "We are leaving the end of September" he continued. This trip was getting worse fast, Sept-Oct are my busiest times and I had lots of stuff already planned so this was certainly not going to work out. "We will have to take 9 different flights and will be staying in Hilton hotels which include breakfast buffets and evening executive lounge privileges which include food and drinks" Oh my Lord! I gasped. I would miss a month worth of income, have to pay out a salary to someone else and pay out of pocket for that kind of accommodations, yep, this trip was definitely out of the question. Mark was still rattling off the list of trip amenities and destinations on the agenda. “And the best part of it all” he concluded, “the entire trip is only going to cost $125”. “SOLD!” I exclaimed, and the trip was on.