Turkey
Yörük Plateau
Nomadic herders still carry entire wooden houses uphill to summer pastures above the cloud line.
The wooden house is in pieces on the mule's back, beams and planks lashed to the animal's sides as it climbs above the cloud line. At the top, the family reassembles it on the same meadow where their grandparents grazed cattle. This is yayla — the summer migration that has defined Black Sea highland life for centuries.
The Yörük plateaus of Turkey's eastern Black Sea region preserve one of the last living transhumance traditions in Europe. Each June, families disassemble their wooden yayla houses, load them onto mules, and carry them to alpine meadows above 2,000 metres where cattle graze until autumn. The tradition predates the Ottoman Empire and continues in valleys across Rize, Trabzon, and Artvin provinces. The highlands receive over 2,500mm of rain annually, producing some of Turkey's densest vegetation. Bull wrestling festivals on the plateaus draw communities together each summer.
Solo
Walking the highland trails alone, encountering families mid-migration with dismantled houses on mule-back — this is Turkey at its most unscripted and unrepeatable.
Friends
The combination of highland hiking, muhlama around a campfire, and the sheer strangeness of watching houses being carried uphill makes the Yörük plateaus a trip that defies easy description to anyone who was not there.
- The Yörük tradition of transhumance — moving livestock to high pastures — predates the Ottoman Empire.
- Wooden yayla houses are disassembled and carried by mule to alpine meadows above 2,000 metres each June.
- The Black Sea highlands receive over 2,500mm of rain annually, producing some of the densest vegetation in Turkey.
- Bull wrestling festivals on the plateaus draw villagers from across the eastern Black Sea each summer.
Fresh butter churned that morning, spread thick on village bread beside a wood fire.
Muhlama — cornmeal and cheese stirred together until elastic, the Black Sea highlands' signature dish.
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