Caravan
inspiration
40 days pilgrimage to Konya, Mevlana Rumi’s shrine
Every year in spring we hike with a group of hikers from Yalova to Konya. If you are joining, this page will give you a good idea of previous hiking caravan experiences.
Jeannette Voorbij
What a vibrant, beautiful city!
Jeannette is a journalist and reported our daily adventures like no other. Together with their hiking group husband Fred, Loes and Annette, they added the best we could wish for to our hiking caravan in 2022. Enjoy her Polarsteps, which give a good insight into the daily caravan life.
Right on time at Schiphol, at half past 9. There was a huge queue at our desk, but it went well. After 2 hours we were through customs and there was time for a quick coffee.
Have a safe flight with lots of whining kids.
Recorded Turkish liras at Sabiha Gökçen Airport and arranged a luxury taxi van!
What a vibrant, beautiful city! Our eyes are watching! Our hotel is located right next to the mosque of Eyüp Sultan. Sedat and Iris picked us up and the six of us had dinner and then got a short sightseeing. Now also in possession of a Turkish SIM card and an Istanbul public transport chip card.
If it works out, tomorrow to the first-morning prayer at 5 am 😀
Walk in the footsteps of history. From Istanbul with its busy port and teeming colourful streets bustling with modern-day advantages to storied history found throughout the mainland, through quiet forgotten hamlets, to the great poet and philosopher, Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi’s tomb in Konya, Turkey.
Sufism is a mystical Islamic belief in which Muslims (and many others) seek to find the truth of divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God. A religion of love based on poetry, music and practising various esoteric contemplative practices; the most important: dhikr: private prayer.
This walk is a personal pilgrimage. Allow yourself to be lost in the moment, alongside your fellow pilgrims. Let them, nature, the people be the lamp that lights your path.
Hosgeldiniz. You are welcome.
In 130 B.C. the Han Dynasty (China) opened up the Silk Road with the West, and the routes remained until 1400 A.D. when the Ottoman Empire started boycotting trade and closed them.
Caravan’s moved throughout the desert on routes bound for exotic destinations. These caravans connected Europe alongside the Mediterranean and into Asia, Africa, Persia.
Lunch at a little creek on the way to Güneyköy
If the light is in your heart, you will find your way home.
I know you’re tired but come, this is the way.
Some cutting marking and waypoints are made
Meet the flowers
Loes our flower lady
Loes our biology hiker
The flowers in spring are making us so happy, and Loes added so much more joy to the spring flowers and plants. She wrote beautiful stories about the daily hikes and surprised us with information about what plants and flowers we met that day! Meeting people, plants, and flowers thanks to Loes we now know at least their names.
Sufi hiking
caravan blogs
The hiking caravan in 2022 was a great success. The hikers gave the Sufi Trail a soul, and for the first time, we hiked the complete 40 days with a group. We had sixteen hikers to start with and ended with a group of nine in Konya.
The group was colourful and all the hikers left their traces on the route and on their blogs. You can read their stories in the blogs below. They are mostly in Dutch, but can be translated in the browser with G translate.
Jeanette Voorbij
Journalist
Jeannette and her husband Fred are amazing people, and we are so lucky they were with us. Fred was the penny cash keeper and Jeannette made us sit on the tip of our phones to read her next story. The articles are amazing captures of the daily life of the Sufi hiking caravan. A writing artist…and a great photographer.
Hugo and Heleen
Adventurers
Meeting this couple is like meeting adventure, their quick pass and quick intellect is running all over the trail. They found little pearls of tracks. And my o my the can write unbelievably good. They already wrote a book about their hike towards Istanbul on the Sultans Trail. It’s a real honour to have them in the hiking caravan.
Iris Bezuijen
Sufi Trail lover
After making the route, the true mission has to happen, the hiking spirit needs to be given to the path by who else the hikers. A constant big smile of being in the hiking caravan dream, and blogging every day not to forget how fortunate we are.
Loesje
Biologist
What a joy to have Loes on board. She was very carefully categorizing all the plants and flowers, and what a sweet, strong hiker. She cheers us up with hand-picked bouquets and is collecting somewhat strange objects sometimes.. True biologist
Marcel Schuurmans
Pioneer
Just before the hikingcaravan started, pioneer hiker Marcel Schuurmans paved the way. We followed and met each other in Konya. He has a great blog giving a day-by-day impression to eventually Jerusalem.
Annette Cazander
Tree climber
The lady is called the diesel motor of hikers. She is a high-end hiker, watching us all from the top of the tree. She brought all her friends to the hiking caravan. Very modest and very strong. Lovely reads…
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