Meet Jordan & Ece
A trip is shaped by the place, but also by the people who bring you here.
For Likya Scholars, those people are Jordan and Ece.
Jordan hosts the villa, shapes the rhythm of the trip, and helps guests move between their own world and the local world of Kaş. Ece guides through Kaş and Istanbul with the instinct of someone who knows both places personally.
Together, they are the reason the experience feels different from a normal trip to Turkey.
Jordan
Jordan grew up spending summers in Kaş because his family owns the villa where Likya Scholars is based.
For him, Kaş was never just a place to visit. It was where he first learned to swim in the sea, where he began learning another language, and where he started to understand what it means to live partly inside another culture.
Years later, he began hosting guests at the villa in a simple Airbnb-style way. People arrived from the U.S., Europe, Istanbul, and other parts of Turkey. He loved watching their first reaction when they stepped onto the terrace and saw the Mediterranean below.
Even Turkish guests from other cities felt it. Kaş was different. The sea, the ruins, the food, the pace of life, and the way the day unfolded all felt unique.
Over time, Jordan noticed that guests wanted more than a beautiful place to stay. They wanted to understand where they were. Where to go. What mattered. Why life here felt the way it did.
One guest asked him to teach her kiteboarding, so he planned a day outside Kaş and arranged the details. She covered the costs and paid him for his time. That was the moment he realized this could become something more structured.
Not just a villa stay.
A hosted way to experience Kaş and Turkey more deeply.
Jordan’s background in yachting and expedition travel also shapes how he hosts. Working at sea taught him that hospitality depends on preparation, timing, safety, and calm problem-solving. A good experience often works because someone is quietly paying attention before anything goes wrong.
That is Jordan’s role at Likya Scholars.
He hosts the villa, reads the group, adjusts the day, handles the details, and helps guests move between their own world and this one.
Ece
Ece is from Istanbul and now lives in Kaş.
She knows the speed and complexity of the city, but she also understands why people come south and slow down. Like Jordan, she has one foot in a larger world and one foot in the quieter version here on the coast.
Jordan met Ece in Kaş through local friends. She was smart, kind, curious, and easy to be around. She had the same energy he wanted Likya Scholars to have: open, thoughtful, relaxed, and deeply interested in the place.
Ece brings something that cannot be copied from a guidebook.
She knows how to explain Turkey in a way that feels personal. Not as a list of facts, but through food, family, streets, habits, stories, and small moments that most visitors would pass without noticing.
For Ece, a place matters because of its history, but storytelling is what makes it personal. When she guides, she adds her own memories and lived experience, so guests are not only learning facts. They are feeling why the place matters.
That is what makes her different.
In Istanbul, she can show the city through the eyes of someone who grew up there. In Kaş, she can show the town through the eyes of someone who chose to stay.
She does not guide like someone repeating a script. She explains like someone who wants you to actually know the history that happened in the places held close to her heart.
Traveling with Jordan and Ece means you are not figuring everything out from the outside.
You are moving through Kaş with people who already know the rhythm of the place. When to leave for the boat? Which road makes the drive feel beautiful instead of long? Where to stop before dinner? When a site needs context before you arrive, and when it is better to let the place speak for itself first.
Some of this is planned. Much of it is instinct.
Jordan thinks about the structure of the day: the timing, the villa, the transport, the group energy, and the small adjustments that make the experience feel smooth. Ece brings the local eye: the story behind a street, the reason a meal matters, the family habit, the cultural detail, the thing you would probably miss if you were walking through alone.
Together, the trip becomes less about being led and more about being brought in.
You still visit the important places. The ruins, the coast, the markets, the old streets, the restaurants, the boat days. But the experience does not feel like moving through a checklist. It feels like someone is helping you understand where you are while giving you enough space to enjoy it for yourself.
It comes down to the small details: the right timing, the right road, the right place for lunch, the context before you arrive, and the slower dinner after a full day.
These are the details that turn a trip into something personal. With Jordan and Ece, you are not handed a generic itinerary. You are traveling with people who know these places personally and care about how you experience them.
What You Feel As A Guest
By the third or fourth day, most guests are no longer simply asking what comes next.
They begin to know the rhythm of the house. They know the road into town. They recognize the terrace at sunset. They understand why dinner is not rushed, why the afternoon slows down, and why Kaş has a way of making people stay longer than planned.
That shift is the heart of Likya Scholars.
You are not just visiting Turkey.
You are being hosted by people who can help you understand it.
The season feels real now. Our first guest of 2026 is here, and the villa is no longer just being prepared. It is being lived in again.
That changes everything. The terraces are being used. The road into town has a purpose again. The days are starting to form around meals, questions, plans, and small adjustments.
This is the part of the year I like most. Before, everything becomes busy. Before summer fully arrives. When each guest reminds us why we built this in the first place.
P.S.
Every trip is slightly different. Some guests stay in Kaş the entire time. Others add Istanbul or another city. After the first conversation, we can send a private proposal page built around your dates, group, and preferred route.
Görüşürüz, see you later,
Jordan
Your host in Kaş
Likya Scholars
