CountryBest April – June, September – November

Turkey

A country split across two continents, and the better half of Istanbul is the one tour buses skip.

Istanbul takes most of a first visit and most of it stays on one side of the Bosphorus. The food is better on the other.

Places in Turkey

A landscape of volcanic rock and cave houses, best seen without a balloon overhead.

One city on two continents, and the ferry crossing is the best cheap thing to do in it.

The Aegean coast's quiet province — Bodrum gets the yachts, the rest of the coastline gets to keep its water clean.

A chef couple's open kitchen in a quiet Kadıköy apartment block, working through offal most menus skip.

A marble Ottoman hammam built in 1741, still washing visitors under the same vaulted domes.

A 16th-century Mimar Sinan hammam beside Hagia Sophia, restored to twin-domed marble symmetry.

Cave houses in Uçhisar restored over two decades by a French architect, with a kitchen in nearly every one.

A blue-tiled Ottoman dining room above the Spice Bazaar, serving since 1901.

Twenty-two rooms on a private stretch of Aegean coast, reachable only by boat.