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Balyolu and The Honey Road have been featured in many articles and interviews! Here’s a selection of them:
** these articles are in Turkish

Balyolu is featured in National Geographic’s Explorers Page
Balyolu (The Honey Road), is on the National Geographic Explorers Site! Please scroll down and find it.

National Geographic’s Best Explorers Moments of 2012
Cat Jaffee is featured in National Geographic’s Best Explorers Moments of 2012
Balyolu (The Honey Road), is on the National Geographic Explorers Site! Please scroll down and find it.

Women’s Adventure – Crashing Wedding and Beehive in Turkey’s Wild Northeast – Jul. 30, 2012. By Catherine Jaffee
We open the hive and at least 100 bees hit my face like bullets. As the bees dart for my exposed hands, I curl my fingers, feeling flesh swell against the crunch and hum of stingers and bee-wings.

wowElle – Catherine Jaffee’s Balyolu powers tourism and women empowerment with honey in Turkey – May 16, 2012
Balyolu (The Honey Road), pronounced “ball-yole-ew”, ( a play on “Ipek Yolu” which means “the Silk Road” in Turkish ) could be even termed a metaphor for the adventure that took Catherine Jaffee from Colorado to the steppes of northeastern Turkey and launch a social venture called Balyolu, that built an industry around hyper-local tourism and helped empower local women to thrive in a whole new niche market – honey tasting. In short, Balyolu is the first honey tasting rural business incubation walking adventure of its kind, led and inspired by village women in Turkey and Asia Minor.

MTV Voices – Inspired Beeing May 5, 2012
Catherine Jaffee wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing when she quit her job and moved to Turkey in favor of becoming a nomadic beekeeper… but the results were nothing short of sweet.

Elephant Journal – Want to Know the Meaning of Life? Ask a Village Beekeeper – May. 28, 2012

Elephant Journal – Bumble Beeing – How To Survive above 3000 Meters – Apr. 28, 2012. By Catherine Jaffee

Elephant Journal – Crashing Wedding and Beehive in Turkey’s Wild Northeast – Apr. 19, 2012. By Catherine Jaffee

Elephant Journal – Food Wars: How Toxic Honey Became the First Culinary Weapon of War – Mar. 10, 2012. By Catherine Jaffee

Catherine Jaffee’s Profile on Elephant Journal

 Balyolu on Hurryiet.com **
Catherine Jaffee, çocukken ve daha sonra da okumak için iki kez geldiği Türkiye’ye aşık oldu, Kars’a yerleşti. Burayı seçmesinin nedeni şehrin ünlü balı. Karslılar da onu bağırlarına bastı adını Buket koydular. Coloradolu Catherine nam-ı diğer Karslı Buket şimdi yeni memketine yurtdışından bal turları düzenlemeye hazırlanıyor

 YouNoodle – Global Social Venture Competition GSVC 2012
Balyolu The Honey Road, builds unique beekeeping jobs and professional trainings for the increasing number of women in rural Turkey without formal employment and education opportunities, & connects them to global markets through honey tasting tours.

 Istanbul Bulletin – Balyolu Launches First Honey Tasting Walking Tours in Rural Turkey

Balyolu (pronounced “Ball-yole-ew”), is the first honey tasting walking journey of its kind. This journey is a seven-day trip in Northeastern Turkey that is led and inspired by local women who are training to become world-class beekeepers & rural entrepreneurs.
The purpose of the trip is to explore the unique tastes and diversity of Turkish honey, the ancient nomadic travel routes of Northeastern Turkey, and the artisan culture of rural communities in the region. Tickets and limited edition products from the program are currently on-sale on Kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/260601899/walk-the-honey-road-with-balyolu.

 The Guardian – Adventure Holidays in Turkey
Close to the borders with Georgia and Armenia, the area around Kars is known for its cold winters (see Orhan Pamuk’s tense, dream-like novel Snow – in Turkish, Kar, the word for snow) but also for its natural beauty and its honey. Balyolu, a community-based tour company set up by NGO entrepreneur Cat Jaffee, takes you on an eight-day rural tour along the Honey Road that promises village stays, soaring mountain views, abandoned churches at Ani, and an insight into the lives of the women who harvest the region’s gorgeous organic honeys. Your fees fund precious new opportunities for local communities.

 EurasiaNet – Turkey: A New Project Taps into Honey’s Tourism Potential
Tasting organic wildflower honey, sleeping in yurts and long walks through eastern Turkey’s pristine countryside – each one of these on their own sounds like an enticing activity. But Balyolu, a new tourism venture based in eastern Turkey’s Kars, takes the brilliant step of combining all three into one package, while along the way helping local women earn an income.

 Akşam – ABD’den Kars’a uzanan ‘Bal Yolu’ **
”Bal Yolu” projesiyle ilgili AA muhabirinin sorularını cevaplandıran Jaffee, arılar ve balın, Colorado’da tarımla uğraşan bir aileden gelmesi nedeniyle hayatının merkezinde olmasa da, hep bir parçasını oluşturduğunu dile getirerek, ilk ve en sevdiği kitabının da Arı Maya olduğunu söyledi.

 Aspen Business Journal
A Roaring Fork Valley native has started a travel business that combines social awareness, rural entrepreneurialism, a hot agricultural trend, and a unique international destination. And it’s something she hopes will change the world—or at least a small part of it.

 Egitim Ajansi**
Koç Üniversitesi, UC Berkeley Haas İşletme Okulu ve Columbia Üniversitesi işbirliğiyle Türkiye’deki sosyal girişimcilerle buluşan Global Social Venture Competition’da (Global Sosyal Girişimcilik Yarışması-GSVC) yarı finale kalan projeler belli oldu. Yapılan 16 başvuru arasında yarı finale kalan, “Bal Yolu” ve “Pak Enerji” 2 Mart 2012 tarihinde Londra’da gerçekleştirilecek Bölgesel Final’de yarışacak.

Food Tripper – Walking Turkey’s First Honey Route
The purpose of the trip is to explore the unique tastes and diversity of Turkish honey, the ancient nomadic travel routes of Northeastern Turkey, and the artisan culture of rural communities in the region.

Stratacution – the Sweetest Adventure – Giving Back
When I first quit my job to move back to Kars, Turkey, every person I met would ask me: why would you ever move to a rural place like Kars? At first I could tell by their looks that they were suspicious. Are you here to write a book? Are you here to study politics and the Armenian issue? Are you a spy, an agent, a fraud? With Turkey’s beautiful seas, massive west coast tourism industry, and Istanbul, why why why would you ever go to Kars, and gasp, stay.

Altinkum’s Voices
A NEW kind of holiday – honey-tasting walking tours – is to be kick started in North-eastern Turkey.

Balyolu is the first honey tasting walking journey of its kind. The journey is a seven-day trip led and inspired by local women who are training to become world-class beekeepers and rural entrepreneurs.

TreeHugger – Walk Turkey’s Beautiful ‘Honey Road’ This Summer for a Sweet Taste of Local Culture
The scenic paths connecting small villages in northeast Turkey have been trod for centuries by nomadic herders. This summer, small groups of adventurous travelers will follow in their footsteps, tasting artisanal honey all along the way.

ITCM – Balyolu launches first honey tasting walking tours in rural Turkey

Today Eco – Walk Turkey’s Beautiful ‘Honey Road’ This Summer for a Sweet Taste of Local Culture

MTV Voices Featured Nominee: Cat Jaffee Lives with Nomadic Beekeepers

eat-drink-etc

Todays’s Zaman – Exploring Turkey’s honey trails, empowering women entrepreneurs

KadinlarArasi**

Turkayfe – Balyolu a fine example of social entrepreunership in Turkey

Love The Honey Bees Blog

Global Swarming Honeybees

GreenLifeBuzz Egypt cites GreenProphet

GreenProfet:Balyolu: Turkey’s First Honey Tasting Tour

Barefoot books Blog

SustainUS – Youth for Sustainable Development

karsgen.tr**

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 NG Weekend Show – July 8 – with Boyd Matson and Balyolu

 Blogtalk Radio - Walk the Honey Road with Balyolu – A Food Project in Turkey with Melissa Rosati

 NG Weekend Show – Dec 23, 2012 – with Boyd Matson and Claire Bangser

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Balyolu – The Honey Road  videos are also on our Youtube Balyolu Channel.
These are general videos about Balyolu. To see testimonials click here.

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Click on the image to open a photo gallery.

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In particular, we would like to thank RedMint Communications, our PR partner for helping us get some of this wonderful attention.

Please follow the links to access our media.

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Balyolu is working to produce a whole new cosmetics line for Turkey, with a goal of sculpting products to have 7 ingredients or less. We are working with local women to transform wax, honey, local herbs, and essential oils to hygienically and naturally produce a holistic product that supports local good and you looking good! Products should become available by Fall 2013.

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We are just getting started ourselves, working on acquiring the right licencing, materials, and equipment to get moving with our first group. Please be patient and check back in often about the projects that we are supporting, what we have to sell, and how you can help!

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The post Farming appeared first on Balyolu: The Honey Road.

Did you know that over 75% of the honey in the United States is fake (meaning that it has zero traces of pollen)?
Or that poorly marketed food that is unclear about its origins are on every grocery shelf, from coffee and tea, to olive oil and orange juice?
Do you want to learn more about food while supporting rural communities in Eastern Turkey?
Then stay tuned as we support local village communities in developing new products such as honey, cosmetics, spreads, teas, and oils. And every item that you buy from Balyolu helps us support a new group of farmers in starting a small venture.

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Everything that you find on the Balyolu is as fresh and natural as possible: from foraged local herbs and fresh milk to wild mushrooms and traditional home cooking. Balyolu aims to provide you with incredible food as well as transform the food industry to have more quality and more transparency.

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