I started Hidden Anatolia back in 2010 as a RocketHub project, in the hopes that it would help me do some travelling throughout Türkiye and discover more about this beautiful country that I call home. The RocketHub aspect of the project failed (as did RocketHub itself, at least in that iteration - it's no longer a crowdfunding platform), but I didn't let that temporary setback keep me from seeing as much of Türkiye as I possibly could.
Thirteen years later, I have visited 41 of the 81 Turkish provinces, and I'm still going strong. It's impossible for a journey through Türkiye ever to be complete, but I've decided from here forward to consolidate my content elsewhere and bring Hidden Anatolia to a close. The site will remain online as an archive, but future publishing will be moved to my primary website and social media accounts.
Why now? When I first began the project, the top goal was to go see Hasankeyf, one of the oldest inhabited settlements on earth. I kept putting it off for various reasons (it was a big trip and life kept getting in the way), but in early 2019 it became clear that if I did not visit imminently, I would miss my chance forever, as the entire 12,000-year-old town was soon to be submerged under the waters of the Tigris. So I got on a coach and made the journey to the province of Batman, seeing several other provinces along the way, and I had the immense privilege of visiting and photographing Hasankeyf before it was gone forever.
Now that I've shared those photos here (yes, my publishing queue on this site was several years long), it feels like this is a natural place to wrap things up, at least under the Hidden Anatolia name. That doesn't mean I've stopped travelling or taking photos, though - if you want to continue seeing my travel adventures and other photography, you can follow me on Instagram, or check out my sadly-neglected website, which I'm aiming to overhaul later this year.
Many thanks to everyone who has subscribed, liked, and commented here over the past thirteen years. I hope to see you elsewhere in the online universe.
-M