This journey offers a new way to explore Mediterranean archaeological sites, not through crowds and checklists, but through the quiet joy of missing out. Contrary to the well-known phenomenon “fear of missing out” or FOMO, the joy of missing out defies the fast-paced rhythm of the modern city. 

What better place than the beautiful Mediterranean archaeological sites of Türkiye to discover the glee of stillness? Across the coast and mountains, each site tells its own story of stillness, presence, and time.

To keep the spirit of the Turkish Riviera alive, along the Mediterranean coasts of Türkiye, an itinerary shaped by stillness unfolds. This journey moves between mountain heights and coastal edges, from Sagalassos to Patara, guided not by maps but by the angle of light on ancient stone. The traveller isn’t chasing experiences, but slipping into moments.

First, Sagalassos Archaeological Site sits quietly and vast in the quiet valleys of Burdur. The air is thinner, the past more present. Time holds still among the ancient fountains. Every step feels like trespassing on a long-held pause.

The Termessos Archaeological Site in Antalya, one of the Lycian cities, is defiantly isolated high in the hills. Besieged by Alexander the Great in 333 BCE, it was never conquered. Wind replaces voices, pine shadows cover the paths. A theatre holds its silence. Nothing interrupts the quiet but breath.

Perge Archaeological Site opens the way, a site of columns and morning dust, its streets unfolding in a precise, almost mathematical order. No signs, no hurry. Just stone and space. Stillness settles quickly.

Phaselis Archaeological Site offers sea and shade, a harbour city where the water once meant trade as much as travel, and one that later became part of Lycia’s network of allied cities. Arched waterways stand beside clear waters. Here, you can swim straight from the site, stone and shoreline meeting without a pause.

And then Aperlai Archaeological Site, half-submerged: a small Lycian port that in antiquity shared civic bonds with its neighbours through the League’s sympoliteia arrangements. No narration, just water above walls. The remnants blur into the sea, memory into salt. Even the silence here feels ancient.

Olympos Archaeological Site lives in the region’s myth and memory, a place where ancient stone and thick forest breathe in the same rhythm, once part of Lycia despite its reputation for seclusion. But those who rush through only see trees and stones.

The remnants here lie scattered among trees and dim shafts of light, their presence softened by time and foliage. They demand slowness. The traveller stays the night in a wooden cabin, where the electricity flickers and the air carries a scent of burnt fig and seaweed. The river splits the path.

In the Arykanda Archaeological Site, even the birds seem unusually quiet. A Lycian city built into the mountains, it holds its theatre along a cliffside, gazing down into a deep valley. The air feels held in place, as if the valley has learnt to keep its own quiet. The sun crosses the sky like a slow hand brushing across an old cheek.

Patara does not conclude the journey, but expands it. Dunes stretch around timeworn archways, where the formality of ancient civic life slowly dissolves into wind and sand. The traveller walks along quiet stone roads, past council chambers and public baths, and into the Lycian League’s assembly hall — an early room built for representation, debate, and vote.

Beyond the remnants, the place keeps widening: Patara is also tied to the birth of St Nicholas (Santa Claus), long before he gathered his later legend. Nearby, the sea hums along a protected beach where caretta caretta turtles return to nest, and even the shoreline feels governed by seasons rather than schedules. It is not arrival, but continuation — of distance, of quiet, of what remains when everything else has passed.

There’s a kind of arrival that comes only after a week of purposeful disappearance. Not the satisfaction of accomplishment, but the quiet sense of having tuned into something deeper than a travel plan, a rhythm older than language. This isn’t nostalgia. It’s not escapism. It’s recognition.

There are no souvenirs. Only dust on shoes, salt in hair, and silence carried home like an invisible relic.

Joy, it turns out, doesn't demand more. It asks for less — and gives everything. This is the essence of JOMO: the joy of missing out — not in retreat, but in return. A return to place, to breathe, to what the Mediterranean archaeological sites still hold in their bones.