Seventy-five-year-old Craig Burns came to Türkiye from Los Angeles, United States, and settled in Sinop with his wife, Arife Üçüncüoğlu Burns. His interest in Turkish cuisine, along with Sinop’s quiet lifestyle, natural beauty and cultural character, as well as his wife’s roots in the city, influenced his decision to move there.
Burns and his wife arrived in Sinop toward the end of 2021. The couple moved to the city permanently in 2022 and began their life there. Having lived in Los Angeles for many years, Burns compared the crowds, heavy traffic and fast-paced lifestyle of the U.S. city with Sinop’s more tranquil character.
Sinop’s tranquility and family ties stood out
Burns valued Sinop not only for its food but also for its more peaceful daily life, natural surroundings and cultural fabric. His wife’s Sinop roots were one of the factors that supported his decision to get to know the city and build a permanent life there.
Burns also compared Sinop’s climate with that of the Seattle–Tacoma area in the United States. He said Sinop’s calmer character represented an important contrast for him after Los Angeles’s fast-moving lifestyle, adding that he liked the city’s natural beauty and pace of life.
He shares his interest in Turkish cuisine through videos
Burns, who says he is retired, makes videos in which he visits different restaurants and tries Turkish dishes. He considers Turkish cuisine more natural, fresh and varied than American food, and says regional flavors in Türkiye are not limited to a single city but offer broad diversity across the country.
Burns is particularly fond of the walnut and yogurt varieties of Sinop mantı. Among fish, he says he prefers bonito to anchovies, assessing his culinary experiences in Sinop alongside the city’s everyday life.
Burns’s story of settling in Sinop was covered on January 13, 2026, and was examined more broadly on September 17, 2026 through his food and lifestyle preferences. The story shows that some foreigners may see Sinop not merely as a place to visit, but also as a permanent home where family ties, retirement, the natural environment, tranquility and local cuisine come together.
