Expand your emotional horizons with air travel

Inner PORTRAIT

Flying is the ultimate form of purposeful travel; there is no opportunity to turn around or linger en route. Whether short hop or long haul, air travel crosses borders. Real travel connects people across the globe and provides a gateway to the most profound and lasting experiences. It acts as a statement of intent: I want to be somewhere else, feel different, try something new. When Turkish Airlines sent four novice flyers on their first international trips to contrasting destinations, the reasons for travelling were as varied as the emotional responses that they evoked. For seasoned Monocle travellers, those first-flight memories might have long faded, yet these stories act as a simple reminder of the emotional rush of that first takeoff and the transformative power of a purposeful journey. The experiences of the four travellers have also been developed into a unique digital art project by innovative Istanbul-born artist Refik Anadol. For Inner Portrait, Anadol and his team gathered intimate real-time data from the participants, including heart rates and brain activity. That data informed the swirling shifts of abstract colours and textures on the immersive screens of the final installation, which debuted at Art Basel 2024. The irony, of course, is that while the Inner Portrait project utilises cutting-edge digital technology, the final artwork acts as a very poignant reminder of the raw human emotions and physiological responses that only air travel can truly provide.

Travel is about more than just getting from A to B. A flight transports hundreds of passengers, yet it also delivers adventure, discovery and growth.

Distance: 5,250km

Selfoss, ICELAND to Petra, JORDAN

Flight time: 7 hours 50 minutes

Bjossi
Iceland is very familiar to Bjossi, who has worked as a truck driver since he left school, travelling across the country’s wild, rugged terrain for up to 14 hours a day. “Driving around Iceland is the best job in the world,” he says. “I’m not sure the earth has another place like Iceland, it’s too beautiful.”

Travelling further afield has not been an option for Bjossi, as his love for his wife and four children meant that he always wanted to prioritise providing for them. “My whole life, I’ve been working hard,” he says. “Now, stopping working, enjoying myself and doing something different is new for me.”

While nervous about stepping out of his comfort zone later in life, Bjossi swapped the cool climes of Reykjavik for the heat of Petra in Jordan. As he explored the intricate architecture which was carved into the ancient city’s rose-coloured cliffs by the Nabatean civilisation, he felt a profound emotional shift. “All the doors are open in my heart, ready to receive everything I can,” says Bjossi. “Since I left Iceland, I feel like I’m getting closer to my family, they’re all in my mind. After this we’ll be travelling a lot.”

Flying to Jordan with Turkish Airlines has given Bjossi a new perspective on air travel. “To explore your mind and feelings, you must leave your country and live a different culture, a new experience,” he says. “Everybody should do it. I see that now.”

Distance: 16,250km

Sydney, AUSTRALIA to Cappadocia, TÜRKİYE

Flight time: 20 hours 5 minutes

Sahar
Life in Sydney changed dramatically for Sahar when she was 12 years old. As the eldest of six children, she took on the responsibility of caring for the rest of her family after her father became ill. “My world became a cycle of going to school, working, coming home and making sure everyone was ok,” she says.

Sahar would interact with the customers at the arcade where she works, but her world was feeling very small. When the pandemic lockdowns restricted her movements further, she developed connections online without ever meeting her new friends in person. Travel provided an opportunity for this avid writer to change her daily routine and step away from her computer.

Sahar’s visit to the megalithic structures of Göbekli Tepe and Cappadocia, the Turkish region famous for its hot-air ballooning and cavern-like architecture, left her awestruck. “I never thought I would ever see a sight like this,” she says of Cappadocia. “I’ve only ever seen it in books. This is something that people have made. That reality doesn’t really hit you until you are standing there and looking at it yourself.”

Reflecting on her trip, Sahar says that swapping the high-tech comforts of Sydney for the historic sights of Türkiye has made her braver. “When I get back to Sydney, I want to broaden my horizons by meeting people,” she says. “There is so much more that I can write about if I just open my eyes a bit more.”

Distance: 4,750km

Limuru, KENYA to Istanbul, TÜRKİYE

Flight time: 7 hours 15 minutes

Esther
As a little girl, Esther would watch the planes fly over her family’s tea farm in Limuru, Kenya. She told herself that one day she would be travelling on one of them. “Now it’s my time to have this adventure and I’m excited,” she says. “There is this saying, ‘If you travel far, you meet yourself.’ You discover traits that you did not have.”

Born on the farm, Esther has spent her life there with her large close-knit extended family, always wondering how people live in other parts of the world. “In Kenya, it is the woman who usually sells in the market,” she says. “I wonder on the other side who sells in the markets? Who buys in the markets? I wonder how their tea tastes.”

This curiosity to learn about other cultures took Esther from Kenya’s dry season to a city surrounded by water. After a seven-hour Turkish Airlines flight where she shook with excitement, she landed in Istanbul and her joy was apparent as she began to explore her new surroundings.

Wandering through the markets in a city that bridges Asia and Europe, the young Kenyan met vendors, tasted Turkish delight and investigated the different types of tea for sale. “The people are amazing,” she says. “Even if they are saying hello in a language that I don’t understand, there are other ways to communicate. With this experience, I have discovered I am ready to explore the world.”

Distance: 16,000km

Acre, BRAZIL to Tokyo, JAPAN

Flight time: 32 hours

Tuikuru
Tuikuru lives in the Amazon rainforest, one of the most ecologically important places on earth. “The forest for me is everything,” he says. “It’s where I live my spiritual connection, where I seek food to support my family. The forest always protects us with its spirit. Our tribe never moves away.”

Despite this strong connection, Tuikuru knew he must briefly leave his tribe to preserve his home. “Technology and the world have evolved,” he says. “It’s no longer enough to just live here, protecting the forest. We must take the message to the world, talk about the importance of the forest.”

To this end, Tuikuru made four flights with Turkish Airlines from his isolated village to the world’s most populated city. “I have never travelled outside Brazil,” he says, noting the stark contrasts. Tokyo has 37 million inhabitants and is famous for its high-density living. By contrast, Tuikuru is one of 10,000 Yawanawá, who are the legal guardians of more than half a million acres of Brazilian rainforest.

In the intensity of the world’s most populated metropolitan area, the Amazon village native found common ground during a visit to a temple. “I felt a very, very strong spiritual connection with the monk,” says Tuikuru. “When we were talking, he spoke his language and I spoke mine, yet something made us understand each other.”
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