I first visited for my 40th birthday, 13 years ago. I was married, had young children and was getting a few days off from the daily business of keeping small people alive, fed and reasonably clean. The children were with their grandparents, and my then husband and I set off for a birthday treat.
I remember it as a wonderful trip. Istanbul was the furthest east I'd ever travelled, and everything felt exciting, unfamiliar and just a little bit exotic.
We stayed in a lovely hotel on the European side and from our window the city stretched out below us, a jumble of buildings, minarets, traffic and people. There was lots of hustle and bustle and I couldn’t wait to explore.
We visited all the main sights: the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace and the Basilica Cistern. We wandered around Sultanahmet, gawped at the architecture and soaked up the atmosphere. We visited the Grand Bazaar, which was like a small town, then Egyptian Spice Bazaar, with its mountains of spices, Turkish delight and things we couldn't actually identify.
Naturally, we bought Christmas presents for our kids and our 12 nephews and nieces. This involved a great deal of haggling, which is an essential part of the Istanbul experience. I approached it with enthusiasm, convinced that every purchase was a triumph of negotiation.
Whether we actually got a bargain is another matter. The shopkeepers may have been laughing all the way to the bank, but at least we came home with some presents and a few stories.
We even visited Istanbul's oldest hammam, where I was scrubbed clean by a large Turkish man, which nobody had warned me about. He spoke no English and scrubbed me with the energy of someone sanding a door. I left pinker, lighter and a layer thinner.
Everything felt fresh and fascinating. I was discovering a new place, and for four days I was entirely absorbed in it. I loved it, and I've always wanted to go back.
Same Istanbul, different life
Fast-forward to October 2026, and here I am again.
Except I'm no longer 40, I'm travelling solo, and my life looks a lot different. The children are grown, the marriage is in the past, and I've spent the last year travelling around with a backpack, relying on public transport and discovering that I can generally work things out on my own.
I've also travelled much further afield since that first visit. Places that once seemed wonderfully exotic have become less unfamiliar, and I've acquired a greater appreciation for other aspects of travel. Such as finding somewhere decent to eat without paying tourist prices, and locating a seat where I can drink a cup of tea without being expected to buy a carpet.
The buildings haven't changed. The mosques are still magnificent. The palaces haven't gone anywhere. The Grand Bazaar is still a bewildering maze of shops, the Spice Bazaar still smells wonderful, and the call to prayer still drifts across the city.
Other things have. The Hagia Sophia, a museum on my first visit, is a working mosque again, and foreign visitors now pay to see the upper gallery. Istanbul now welcomes nearly 19 million foreign visitors a year, more than almost any city on earth. And some of them, it seems, are standing directly in front of me.
Then there’s the street vendors:
"Hello! Where are you from?"
"Hello, my friend! Come and see my shop!"
"Madam! Just looking!"
And my personal favourite:
“Hello lady! You want to spend your money here?”
I understand it. Tourism is a business, and they are trying to earn a living. But after a while, the constant attempts to engage me become exhausting. Thirteen years ago, I found the bustle exciting. Now I mostly just want everyone to leave me alone. Is this what happens when you get older? Or have I simply become a grumpy old woman?
Probably a bit of both. Though I prefer to call it discerning.
Getting away from the tourist trail
Yesterday, I decided to escape. Not Istanbul itself, just the bit where everyone seems to be trying to sell me something.
I headed for the Asian side of the city, catching an ordinary public ferry from Eminönü to Kadıköy across the Bosphorus. The journey itself was a pleasure: the water, the skyline, the seagulls, and the wonderful feeling of going somewhere without having to pay for an organised excursion.
And then, everything felt different. The restaurants were full of local people rather than tourists. The streets felt more lived-in, less like a backdrop for holiday photographs. I wandered along the waterfront, then through a quiet park, enjoying the simple pleasure of walking without a particular destination in mind.
Nobody was selling me anything. Nobody seemed to care whether I bought a souvenir or booked a tour. People were eating, chatting, meeting friends and getting on with their lives. Istanbul suddenly felt like a city again, rather than an enormous open-air museum with a zillion gift shops attached.
The joy of not having to see everything
Thirteen years ago we raced around the city trying to see all the main sights. I mean, you don't go to Istanbul and deliberately skip the Blue Mosque, do you?
Well, apparently you do when you've already seen it.
This time, I'm staying in a hostel, meeting other travellers and hearing their stories. I'm stopping for tea in cafés and watching people go about their day. I'm happy to wander without a plan, sit by the water or spend an afternoon exploring a neighbourhood that barely features in guidebooks.
I don't feel the need to tick off the major sights again. I've seen them, I remember them, and I don't need another photograph of the Blue Mosque to prove that I was here.
Besides, some of the entrance fees are now eye-watering. Topkapi Palace with the Harem costs about £47, the Basilica Cistern about £33, and the Hagia Sophia gallery about £22. At some point you have to ask yourself whether you'd rather pay a small fortune to revisit somewhere you've already seen, or spend it on several excellent meals and copious amounts of tea.
The sights are absolutely worth seeing if you've never been. They're extraordinary. I just no longer feel that a successful trip means seeing everything.
The city has changed, but I've changed more
Thirteen years ago, I was on a birthday break from family life, travelling with my husband, enjoying a rare stretch of time away from the children and discovering a city that felt new and exciting.
This time, I'm here on my own, in my fifties, with different priorities. I'm less interested in doing what I'm supposed to do and more interested in doing what I actually enjoy. And I'm certainly less inclined to spend an afternoon haggling over a souvenir I don't need.
That's one of the unexpected pleasures of travelling later in life. I'm much better at telling the difference between something I'm genuinely interested in and something I think I ought to be interested in.
Should you go back?
If there's somewhere you visited years ago and have always fancied revisiting, I'd say go. Just don't expect it to feel the way it did before.
You might find the place has changed beyond recognition. Your favourite little café may have become an expensive restaurant, or the quiet beach you remember may now be full of sun loungers and people selling inflatable flamingos.
Or you might find the place is much the same, but you're seeing it through entirely different eyes. You don't have to recreate an old holiday. You don't have to revisit every restaurant, climb every tower or follow the route you took with the people who were there last time. You can make new memories, based on who you are now rather than who you were then.
I’ve also got much better at giving myself permission to change my mind. Yesterday I sat down in a café, looking forward to a cup of tea and some baklava. Then I read the menu. The baklava alone was over £10. I stood up and walked out. The younger me would have been too embarrassed to leave, and would have sat there and paid.
For women who have spent years organising family holidays, accommodating partners and putting other people's preferences first, there's something satisfying about this. You get to decide what a good day looks like. And if that means abandoning the sightseeing, and the overpriced baklava, for a quiet café on the other side of the Bosphorus, that's entirely your business.
