Ayvalyk is a common place for unusual people

Our road trip to Turkey often involved deviations from the course in unplanned places. Ayvalyk turned out to be one of them, where you just can't go if you don't have such a goal, although it appears in the guidebooks as a resort town. In fact, it is a weekend destination for the local population and a real center of the olive industry.

Passing the city itself, we found ourselves on the shore and, I must say, the places here are not trivial – Ayvalyk is surrounded by an archipelago of 23 islands and they are located in the Aegean Sea. The bay itself is surrounded on all sides by pine forests. Geographically, Ayvalyk is located opposite the Greek island of Lesbos, if anything.

It is rumored that Ayvalyk is the best place for free diving on the coast in Turkey. We didn't specifically look for divers, but we didn't notice their mass accumulation either. People on the Internet write that it is better to go straight to the Porridge.

I suspect that if you really want to live in Turkey and you are, so to speak, a renegade who wants peace and quiet, then Ayvalyk, especially closer to the shore, will do. It's kind of secluded here: either because of the small bay, or because of the islands.