Travel Prep – Field Trip Notebook

Guide to Hiking Inn-to-Inn on the Lycian Way

Detailed itinerary with lodging for your self-guided adventure
on Turkiye’s Turquoise Coast

*This is only Day 1 of hiking out of Ovacik. So much more awaits you.*

For 26 days in April, we hiked 243 miles on the Lycian Way in southern Turkiye. It’s a deeply rewarding hike and might be the best adventure we’ve ever had. We hiked it inn-to-inn, meaning we had a place to stay every night and did not bring any camping equipment.

Here’s the key thing: it is completely doable to plan and execute this hike without paying a company to set it up for you.

This guide includes our full itinerary, including where we stayed and how to reach tiny mountain lodges that don’t have websites, plus packing tips and insights for a successful long hike. Read on to get started on your own inn-to-inn Lycian Way adventure.

Making Space for Abundance

(If you came here from No Sidebar, thank you and welcome! I love comments. I also write postcards from, well, wherever we are at https://launaatlarge.substack.com/.)

Recently I heard someone use the word abundance to explain why minimalism is not for her. I want a life of abundance, she said. Such a beautiful, positive word. Me too, I thought.

I can see what she means. She’s not the only person I’ve heard speak of minimalism like this, as the opposite of abundance and all that word implies of ample everything, handfuls of plenty, big bouquets of living large. It gave me pause to consider that these two words might be on opposite sides of a spectrum. And yet here I am with very few possessions in the minimalist life I have chosen. How do I square minimalism with a yearning for abundance? Is it true that they are mutually exclusive?

And We’re Off

The stuff is sold off or given away. The U-Box is packed and shipped with the few possessions we still own. Our carry-on suitcases are packed, the house is rented, the friends are hugged, the kids are grown, the two beloved, ancient little dogs have both lived out their long lives.

It’s time to go.

How to Let Go of Your Stuff in Just 33 Easy Steps!

1. Create a motivation and a deadline. Sell or rent your house, buy a non-refundable one-way airline ticket to Bulgaria, etc. Do not skip this step!

2. Clear some time on your schedule. More time that you think.

Decluttering? Start Big

We’ve been selling and giving away our things for over a year now, and we’re almost done. The renters for our now too-big house will be here soon, and the few possessions we have left will fit into a small storage container.

The Slow Art of Letting Stuff Go

We’re giving away our things, and it’s taking time.

So much time.

*Regarding having no possessions, this sloth is way ahead of me.*

On the Gravitational Pull of Things

The plan is to travel. Our children are grown, and we’re coming up to our last day of working full time. To get out there, we’re renting out this house and unloading its contents, ready to step into the next season of our lives with lighter luggage.

So, we must deal with things.

I walk through the rooms of our suburban house and inventory the objects, organize them into stacks, plot their disbursement. Sometimes, in a burst, I’ll unload a great deal at once. Sometimes, objects persist.

For example, this gargoyle.

Last Hack You’ll Ever Need for Dangling Backpack Straps

Fellow traveler, there can be a lot of small nuisances on our journeys, but dangling straps from your backpack does not have to be one of them. Travelers trade home comforts for the joy of the journey, so the things in that bag–and the bag itself–take on outsized importance.

This shirt is good enough.

“How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and that one is what we are doing.” – Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

I’m not buying new things. My husband and I are deliberately sloughing off possessions. This task is hard enough without bringing in anything new.

But awesome travel stuff has its own siren song.

Dopp Kit

I’m carrying less these days.

My dad used to travel with a leather case for toiletries. The case itself was handsome and sturdy, but perhaps its greatest appeal was that it wasn’t big. What would fit in there? Just a few things. The essentials. He called it his Dopp kit.