Sailing the Turkish Maldives on a LUXURY Sailboat

With its crystal blue waters and picturesque landscapes, Bodrum in Turkey is a dream destination for anyone looking to disconnect and enjoy a slice of paradise. To make our experience around Bodrum different, we decided not to book a hotel but instead take our adventure to the sea. So this morning we woke up pretty early for an early morning flight from Istanbul into Bodrum and then from there they took us from the taxi straight to the marina straight into a zodiac and now we are officially on our sailboat for the next four days. We're just waiting for the last delivery to come on board and then we are going to start our sail and adventures. So we are here on this beautiful sailboat thanks to our friends at Yacht Cloud which we're going to tell you a little bit more throughout the video but for now to the island. Tracy in the next few days if you annoy me too much I'm sending you to the dinghy there. So after about two hours of boating, I was going to say sailing because we're on a sailboat but the sail was down the entire time so I guess we're just we're just boating around. So now we are completely on the other side of Bodrum. I'm struggling with the name of that town I don't know why. So this is where we're going to anchor for the night but it is not night time so first I think we're going to have a nice lunch, jump in the water, can't wait to jump in the in the water. I'm hot. I'm really hot. And see what the night has to offer. I'm excited it's such a good time. So we are finally anchored in the bay with three points of anchorage, a massive anchor in the front and then two massive rocks in the back so I think it's going to be pretty calm to sleep tonight. So for lunch we have some fish with a whole bunch of salads and it smells amazing. Every time we think that all the food is on the table there's another plate coming then another plate coming. So Turkey is a country very very rich in history and culture and just on the shore at the bay where we're staying there's a bunch of ruins because all around the country Turkey is known to have old Roman and Greek ruins and I guess those are some of those. We're gonna go check them out I think. So this water has been calling our name ever since we came on the boat. It is so blue and I cannot wait to get in and that is exactly what we're gonna do right now. Now we're gonna go to the beach. I could have definitely swam there but I wanted to bring this camera so I'm not swimming with this. And just like that we are back on board. I think we're gonna go to our room, get a shower and dress up a little because believe it or not it is our wedding anniversary. Yeah. We deserve to look good for each other. So since it's our anniversary when we came on board they did know about it and they met me with flowers. They're so pretty even with little notes so flowers from the crew. Thank you. So the good thing about this is you're kind of treated like it's home and it feels like home. So instead of waiting for someone to come to the bar to refill their wine we're just gonna go to the bar ourselves and refill our own wine glass. Well time for us to go to bed. Tomorrow we will give you a full tour of this beautiful sailboat. Yes and it was a nice surprise to me coming down to we had opened up all the windows because it got quite warm down here throughout the day. But then at night around like 10 o'clock they turn on AC. And now it is the perfect temperature in our suite. I would say it's a suite. This thing we're in the master bedroom. I don't know how we scored this. We'll tell you again more about this tomorrow but for now we're gonna go to bed. Goodnight. Good morning. We slept so good. The boat like I don't even think I felt it move overnight to be honest. The only thing is the AC did turn off at like 11 30 so we just got up and reopened all the windows but then other than that slept fantastic. For breakfast they have a massive spread and it's so good. Everything from like cheese to veggies and fruits olives. It's amazing. There's so many fishes right now you can see them directly from the boat which yesterday you couldn't. So the moment you've all been waiting for a boat tour. However before we get into that I just want to take a second to talk about Yacht Cloud and what it is. So Yacht Cloud is basically an Airbnb but for boats. So from the customer side the things that we're going to be doing is you can book a boat charter. You can be like a yacht or a sailboat but the thing about it is everything is included. The crew is included. All of the food and if you see behind me we're gonna test out this bad boy today as well. This one even comes with a sea view. On top there's kayaks stand up paddle boards. There's so much that comes with the experience it's not just the physical boat itself. So if you're looking at booking one we actually have a code down below that'll save you 500 euro off of your trip which is fantastic because everyone loves to save money and this is a great way to do like your next family trip or your next friend's trip because this one here has five cabins so lots of people you can split the cost and have a fantastic vacation. So this boat in case you forgot is actually Estrela de Mar and you can book this one of course this exact one but let's start at the front. We have an extra zodiac boat there. My thing is there's so many places to chill so if all five cabins were filled you would never be on top of each other. It's amazing. So as you already saw we have a sea view here. Cannot wait to put that in the water and then we have sun loungers here. I think when we sail today I would really like to chill here instead of the back. Up top we have stand-up paddle boards, kayaks. Now let's keep going. So coming into the back of the boat this is where we've been having our outside dining area so all of our meals so far except for supper last night was inside the cabin and then we have a beautiful chilling area in the back as well. On this side of the boat is actually where you can get into the water and that's where we got in yesterday. And to complete the outside back area we even have a bar here and yes our captain is here as well. Correct me if I'm wrong I call this the galley. I don't know if this is called a galley but that's just what comes to my head. We had supper inside last night because it was really windy so a lot of things was blowing away but if it was raining or any type of bad weather inside here is where you want to be. On either end we have bedrooms so on this end we have two bedrooms and then if we come over here we have the kitchen down below with three bedrooms on this end and again the captain can steer from inside this area. Now what you've probably been dying to see or what I'm always most curious about are the rooms inside. So like I said this on either side are copy-paste so let's show you in one. Inside here we have two twin beds and each room has their own ensuite bathroom and I think that's kind of the question I had like do you have to share a bathroom or anything but not only does it have a bathroom yes you have your toilet there but you have a shower here too and let me tell you this shower is bigger than some of the hotel room showers that we have had. It's fantastic but yeah copy paste let's go down into the master bedroom where we're staying. It's huge it's hotel room size so queen not even a queen a king size bed there we have a little seating area all along the walls there are so many places to put your clothes and like even hangers full-on dressers which is amazing we have obviously lamps there these open up for some airflow so that's what we've been doing kind of throughout the day. In here we have our shower and sink and then because you don't want to have the toilet in there because sometimes toilets can smell we have it in here separate opposite ends um separate room for the toilet and yeah it is fantastic I wish the sun wasn't as hot because we even have little sunroofs it's amazing. So if you decide that renting the yacht for yourself is either too expensive or maybe you don't have enough friends or family to fill it up the other option is you can rent it on like a almost like a cruise basis so this one has five cabins so you could rent out one cabin share it with other people making the price point a lot more affordable as well. And now after spending the night here we are finally leaving the bay I think we're going to a little island somewhere I'm not sure to be honest they don't really told us the plan we just jumped on the boat and uh we're just along for the ride but now we're gonna well where do we do in just chilling there we're just chilling while we move to the next place I think you can do that but also another thing that's included you don't have to think about the itinerary because there's also pre-made itineraries if you don't have specifics you want to do but they're like super good at customizing it too so if you like diving if you like hiking if you like local restaurants like they'll just make it work for you okay good night good night so we just made it to auroch island a beautiful little island surrounded by blue water and an other sailboat apparently it's a very popular spot but like is this paradise it almost looks like the turkish maldives tracy can't wait to get the paddle boards out but for me yeah you know what I want I hate sunscreen it's so cold guys I'm freaking out I've never seen this in my entire life so you know like sometimes in some neighborhoods especially in like the US and Canada like you'll have like the ice cream man that comes with a truck right and it plays that same song whatever there's a guy doing this here on a boat so this is like a very touristy spot I think like for an early afternoon and he just showed up with this orange boat with a massive ice cream cone in the back and I think he's just going from boat to boat and selling ice cream I don't even want ice cream but like I feel like I have to am I the only one thinking that this is the coolest thing ever I'm a child magnum is so good I'm biased hey goodbye man so when it comes to your meals and your drinks whatever you want on board the ship there's actually a preference form that you fill out before coming and when I say a preference form I think that's a very light way to put it this form goes through everything do you like certain foods any allergies any dislikes what do you want for soft drinks what do you want for alcohol like there is everything on that form so you will not be left wanting anything and for us so far the food has been fantastic because we wanted a little bit of mixture of like fish and meats and lots of like salads and vegetable and once again she did it our cook is amazing also the bread is so good here so our morning around auric island comes to an end it was so beautiful so nice perfect weather and now we're just going to move to a different island where uh we're going to go for some jet skiing so excited good thing about renting a boat that already has a great crew is that you don't have to park the boat yourself this thing looks so complicated literally takes three people to do it so props to the captain and his two assistants it's crazy to me that whenever you get super crystal clear water like I can see to the bottom right now and it is at least four times my height at least but when the water's still I can see straight down crazy I've been waiting for this literally since we arrived I'm so pumped because you guys know I'm a child I say it all the time but it's true that was super fun as expected plus Tracy drove a city for the first time good job you did good you did good now shower time and dress up it's not no longer our anniversary but it's still to be honest something I wasn't prepared for is how great large and hot the shower is like we're on the boat and this is like as good as at home it just turned all the lights off and there's like the zero light pollution here because we're in the middle of nowhere beside an island last night there was a bit of a haze but not tonight tonight the stars are so gorgeous beautiful yeah just that is worth coming on a boat in the middle of nowhere yeah everyone thinks we're crazy because they think it's cold it's not really that cold um but we're gonna sleep outside tonight under the stars because there's a beautiful breeze I don't know we just want to so why not we're just really trying to mix it up and get the full experience this is it it's going to be our bed for tonight and just as a point of reference like this is like where we have our meals outside so I think we're gonna sleep just fine the stars are beautiful the wind is perfect yeah we're gonna report on the situation in the morning good morning the sun is about to rise and it's beautiful guys I don't know if you're ready for this well that was quite beautiful it almost made me wanna wake up early every morning well probably won't but you know every time I do it I really appreciate it most people are still sleeping including Tracy went back to bed real quick after a sunrise so I think I'm gonna do a little bit of work because I can't go back to bed oh I can hear the anchor going up that means we're moving I think we're gonna go have breakfast on the other side of the island where the the cave and all the activities are so right now on the island we're here and I think we're so for breakfast for our protein portion we have scrambled eggs with she calls it like Turkish chorizo and it is so so good first time seeing our shoes in three days because we're going on a hike so this morning before checking out the hot springs and everything else we're gonna go all the way to the top of this mountain to see a beautiful view of this place that's gonna be great it's just about two kilometers up two kilometers back down it let's start our hike from what I understand we might see a crater at the top or it's just a good viewpoint we don't know yet so like I said yesterday because it's the same island we're just on the other side this morning it's called black island and my understanding of it don't quote me on that but this was obviously a volcano very very long time ago and this is what while there's a massive grasshopper that just landed on this as I was saying this was a volcano a very long time ago from what I understand it is still active obviously because there's hot springs and because there's a lot of volcanic rocks around this is why it's called the black island I think so we made it to the top and there is like a very old structure which is pretty cool the view is 360 and amazing now I'm just trying to like walk through the ruins and try to find this crater if it even exists it's not super easy but we'll see what we can do well I still didn't find the crater I mean it could be like on any of like the tops of these little hills so maybe I'm not gonna be able to see that but I mean the view from here is fantastic so you can see Bodrum right there it's only about six kilometers from the island and you can see like all the beautiful sailboat all along the island as well which is like stunning that's us right there this one so from the top we're gonna see you guys back down for the hot spring it is worth it though yeah come up here it's stunning you ready for youtube magic one two three how did we get here well obviously we walked 20 minutes and uh you guys didn't see that so anyways at the base of this hike there's actually a thermal spring here um I would say pro tip go earlier in the morning it didn't make sense for us to go in before a hike and then get sweaty but now coming back there's a lot of people here but it looks really beautiful and even the sign says there are so many health benefits to it so let's jump in so according to the sign the thermal water comes from volcanic rocks so it must still kind of be active behind there if it's still getting hot for up to 32 degrees celsius okay so in front of us there's a massive cave we're gonna be careful because i did bring the big camera because i forgot the gopro on the boat but we're going in everyone's looking at david crazy which fair enough because he has a camera but let's go oh it's warm in here it's not very deep right now if i can if i could stand up i would have water like my hip but it's very low it's getting like very hot and humid here but in there it gets huge so it's actually pretty cool in here i thought it was like an opening but it's actually light because it is fully closed when it gets pretty low i really thought it was just gonna be like a little hole but it opens up it's pretty cool well that was super cool i'm a big fan thank you thank you so much thank you you're welcome i forgot my shoes look how blue the water is it's insane there are just so many massive yacht around bouldering like it is insane but the good news is like uh on yacht club you can kind of rent similar boats than those if it's your thing so if you want this crazy yacht experience you can do that but for for us i mean the sailboat sailboat is yeah it's the real experience so for lunch pretty much across the i don't know if you call it a bay or across the sea there's a castle there so i think we're gonna just kind of anchor somewhere close so we can have a beautiful view for lunch and then later on we're actually going to get off and explore boulderum some another day another fantastic lunch cooked so we just arrived in boulderum and it's our first time kind of exploring the city now we're like by the marina which is kind of very touristy with all these cute little cafes and boutique and everything but first stop is going to be at the castle there's a little police jeep it's probably the coolest police car i've ever seen i want one so this is the castle in question it's also the museum of underwater archaeology uh you can go in for like 23 bucks and visit around but we're not much of museum people so we're gonna keep walking but here are a few fun facts about this castle so this castle was built in the early 1400 by the knights of saint john as the castle of saint peter this was a transnational effort and in fact all four towers were built by a different country the english the french the german and the italians throughout the years the castle was owned by many different empires until 1960 when it became the museum that you see here today our day was doing wonderfully until tracy saw a pastry shop now we have to buy a pastry apparently so if i'm being honest a lot of dessert places are like pastry shops when they have desserts like that in the window they look really really nice but there's always something off with the taste or they're dry or too sugary or not sugary enough this i have to say is absolute perfection this might be one of the best i've ever had in my life wow that was so worth it so if we weren't staying on a beautiful sailboat and already had a chef on board this would be the perfect place to spend your evening honestly you could probably spend all day here right on the beach i see a couple places with some beach beds but yeah come in for some supper have a couple drinks there's so many bars and restaurants it's beautiful now that being said stay tuned because i have a feeling you're gonna find us back in Bodrum during our time in turkey back to the boat one place i haven't seen is actually the kitchen i'm kind of curious i'm just gonna go down and see oh it's a small but functional i mean look at this full-on like restaurant style kitchen i mean it's bigger than i expected so first of all cheers to a successful cruise here in turkey and otherwise a massive thank you to yacht cloud for letting us experience this incredible sea adventure yeah it was an 11 out of 10 and i think it really made us discover Bodrum obviously in a different way which is something we're always looking at doing now into the nitty-gritty if you want to book this for yourself because i'll be honest when i first thought about it i was like i don't know because let's face it it is a luxury price point but when you are on board you see this space because i was convinced we'd be like toppling all over each other that it'd be really tight in beds it's really not like that it's not and the fact that you you get luxury service right like the crew is just for you you get to decide where you want to go if you don't want to then you just board and let them do it for you fully customizable completely all-inclusive the food was delicious fantastic and everything that you saw on this boat was included including this except for the ice cream man yeah in a boat but i was not included i would truly say like as soon as we stepped foot on the boat it was worry-free neither of us had to think about anything and that's to me what a vacation should be now you might be wondering how much does this cost well i'm gonna tell you this exact boat here in turkey and they actually do cruises in many different countries and they have many many different boats you don't have come on this one but i highly suggest this one it was 3 500 euros per night with that being said you can have up to 10 people meaning that now we're talking about 350 euros a person and if you look at the different nicer like hotel in this area in Bodrum it can be up to a thousand two thousand dollars a night so when you think about it this is actually a better value because everything you saw is included when you go to those hotels you get water that's it and then you have to add your boat tours and you have to add all your food where this again it's all included and like Tracy said this is a much better way to see Bodrum like this is incredible agreed and if you don't have nine other friends but you still really want to do this they even have an option more like a cruise option so that way you can come on to a boat you can book the cabin yeah basically for a reduced price and hopefully make friends for the rest of your life yes right yeah and on top of that we have a discount for you guys if you want to come on a cruise that is set with yacht cloud while you just reserve on their website or on their app and you can save 500 euros by looking down in the description of this video you're welcome so basically all that to say highly recommend doing a trip like this and i am super super grateful that we were able to experience this because it's really changed my mind about sailing are we bold people now maybe oh my goodness it's actually it's better than i thought yeah well until next time see you guys in the next one on another boat