Artvin is what you find when you drive an hour past where most people stop. The province pushes up against Georgia, the climate flips wetter than anywhere else in Türkiye, and the result is a landscape that looks like a different country folded inside this one.
There is a reason Artvin is on every Turkish photographer's shortlist and very few foreigners'. The roads are slow. The flights land down on the coast at Rize-Artvin airport and the drive in is winding. The reward is forest density that you cannot find anywhere else in the country, two famous black lakes that lived up to the hype for us, monasteries that have been here since before the Byzantine name change, and villages where the everyday rhythm has not been remade for the tourism economy.
The eleven stops below cover most of a long weekend. Take them as a loop from Artvin city, with overnights in Şavşat and Borçka to break the driving. And if you want to see these places in motion before you go, there are a few of our own films from the region further down the page.
