During the past years there has been an increasing trend of people moving to Turkey. Among these there are US Americans, Brits and Dutch and many others coming from developed countries. In the Expat Survey done by an international expats community, Turkey ranked 40th for the overall quality of life. The insights were acquired from real expats.
Naturally, the most popular cities for expats are the biggest cities; Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.
Main reason for moving to Turkey is the low costs of living. Particularly, compared to the countries such as Great Britain, Germany and Netherlands, Turkey had a stable economic growth over the past years. But, yet the prices stayed at the same level making it thus affordable for a comfortable life. Top 3 Nationalities moving to Turkey are US Americans, British and Dutch. Naturally, the Americans and British find jobs where they can make use of their native level of English. These could be teaching, translation or even writing for some of the international magazines.
The second biggest reason for moving to Turkey is the beautiful weather. And actually, one of the biggest perks of living in Turkey is the beautiful weather it has. It has an average temperature of 27 degrees Celsius (80 degrees Fahrenheit) during summer and 4 degrees Celsius (39 degrees Fahrenheit) during winter. This makes it particularly attractive for the people coming from colder countries. Just for a comparison, people of Great Britain face 9 months of rainy weather throughout the year.
Last, but not least, is the diverse Turkish cuisine. Turkish cuisine is among top 10 most attractive world cuisines. More accurately, it’s the third cuisine if we grade quality and variety (right after French and Chinese). Three fundamental elements forming it are ancient nomad life (some recipes are 5 and 6 centuries old), space with different fauna and the flora which spreads over seven geographical zones and heritage of royal cuisine. This is also the reason why Turkish cuisine is a synonym for gastronomic art.
Turkish cuisine is like Mediterranean. Within it, you can find the tradition of a steppe people who led the nomad lifestyle and had a very diverse Mediterranean experience. Basis of the Turkish cuisine is dough made of wheat flower for inevitable white bread (Ekmek), pide, simit, manti and yufka. Diverse ingredients they add to these is what makes it so interesting, tasty and worth of trying.
There are plenty of other reasons why Turkey is a popular expat destination. Of course, depending on the individual these can differ to some extent, but, yet the essence of what’s so special about Turkey remains. Also the beautiful landscapes it offers are nothing like anything else in the world.
When it comes to settling in Turkey as an expat, one of the major problems is learning the language. Many expats find Turkish rather hard to learn. However, you can always find a community of people who both speak English and wants to help you settling in. You can also hire an interpreter to arrange your daily business flow with locals.
