In the "travel books" section of my blog, the books of young names are increasing rapidly. There are two reasons for this; firstly, I like to support young travelers and highlight what they do, and secondly, “these youngsters are a great friend”. When young people like diamonds who read, research and develop themselves write books, it falls to me to buy them and read them and share them with my readers.
Remaining Me from the Roads the author of the book, our hero Furkan Kumkaya, giving up being a civil servant at the last moment, chooses to follow his dreams and become a traveller. To save the money he needs to go on a world tour; He writes the book "Roads Left to Me", in which he tells about his travels, the people he met on the roads and touched his life, his story of giving up his job as a civil servant, and he tries to sell it with his own efforts. Although the pandemic caused him to delay his world tour plans a little, he continues his travels in Turkey and the nearby geography.
Who is Furkan Kumkaya?
a little first Who is Furkan Kumkaya?Let me talk about it. Furkan is a young man who graduated from Gazi University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Political Science and Public Administration in 2015, and lives in Sakarya with his family.
Furkan Kumkaya, who loved atlases in his childhood and realized that his greatest passion was to explore over time, realized at an early age that traveling, being active and living stress-free prolongs life. Because he didn't want to, he chose a different path for himself. If we explain in his own words; “Everyone has the right to choose their memories. I chose the hard, painful but smiling ones, not the civil servants.".
If you say how he earns his living if he has given up the civil service; he is currently saving money for a world tour by writing travel articles for some publications, working part-time and with the proceeds of the book he wrote.
I got to know Furkan Kumkaya through social media. In 2020, together with Adem Bekdemir (Instagram name Be Free Buddy), they set out from Samsun with their bicycles and made a journey where they would be at Anıtkabir on November 10, and I was following Adem. I also followed Furkan Kumkaya, wondering about the young man who set out with Adem and undersigned this beautiful project. When I started to follow him, I saw that he was a person who read, questioned and started to add meaning to his life, and I thought that he was one of the beautiful people that social media brought me. However, again, the saintliness of social media shows us very little sharing, unfortunately, I learned too late that he has a book and started to generate income for his world tour by counting his book. I ordered one from his book as soon as I saw it.
The Book That Remains Me By The Ways
After visiting 75 cities in Turkey and 3 countries abroad, Furkan Kumkaya has compiled his travel notes, the story of quitting his job, the stories of people he met on the road and touched his life, into a book called Roads to Me.
His book, Roads to Me, was published in December 2019. The book, which consists of 24 chapters, is 160 pages thick. At the beginning of each chapter, there is a sentence quoted from an author and related to that chapter. Some from Zülfü Livaneli, some from Khaled Hosseini…
Furkan told his stories about his journey in all parts of the book except the opening, closing and sections with photographs. Our writer, who travels mostly by hitchhiking, with his thumb, and makes his journeys at very low costs, tells us different stories of people and travel destinations in different geographies from Ukraine to Şanlıurfa, from Ağrı to the Lycian Way. He conveys to his readers the lessons he learned on the way, the people he learned and most of all the people who got on his way and influenced his life.
Since the publication, promotion and distribution costs of the book are high, he sells the book himself on his social media account and sends it privately signed. Again, I think because of the cost, the book does not have an editor. Although he is not an editor, I can say that he has a fluent language, and I think we owe this to Furkan reading a lot of books. When you read the book, you will see, Furkan is a book lover who never drops a book during his travels. Of course, there are some typos in the book, I marked them with a red pen, if they want to make a new edition, I will take a photo and send it.
On the back cover of the book, there is the following note by Furkan Kumkaya:
“The beauties we see around us have started to disappear one by one for a while. As a whole humanity, we cause irreversible damage to nature, which makes the world livable in order to consume more. I hope it's not too late when you realize that the beauties you plan to see when you retire will still not be there after a while. Every month a new species is disappearing, diseases are increasing and we are going extinct. But the important thing is to have a concrete with the key in our pocket, even in a depleted world, we shut our ears and go about our business. We call them building our future. Isn't it presumptuous to "guarantee its future" for a creature that does not know when it will die? When you turn the pages, you will see the world you missed because you did not look up from your work.”
To support Furkan's world tour, you can contact him to buy his book or follow his instagram and youtube accounts.
- Instagram @furkankumkaya
- Youtube @furkankumkaya
May your path always be clear and you will always come across beautiful people, dear Furkan...