I swapped my apartment for a month for an all-inclusive five-star hotel in Turkey – here’s why I’d love to live there full-time (and the things I missed most about Britain)

A worker who swapped his British apartment for a five-star all-inclusive hotel in Turkey for a month – because he discovered it would be cheaper than his home life in Britain – said he had ‘lived a dream’ and could happily move there full time.

Josh Kerr, 24, spent 28 days in the Port River Hotel and Spa in Antalya on a trip that cost £944, compared to the £950 a month he pays in rent and bills at his Manchester apartment.

When he returned home on Saturday, he said he would trade his flat for permanent hotel accommodation if he could work abroad full-time, despite missing Bacon and Irn-Bru in Turkey.

During his stay, the creative strategist worked remotely from the hotel, logging onto his laptop in the ‘blinding sun’ and spending his lunch break with a dip in the pool, a game of table tennis or a stop at the beach for a game of football.

“It didn’t even feel real for the first few days,” he told MailOnline Travel.

‘It’s a premium way of life, for such a low cost. The fact that I didn’t have to cook anything for the past month was great. My apartment doesn’t have five swimming pools that I can take a dip in at lunchtime either. When I think about it, I have to go back to Turkey as soon as possible.’

Josh said he was ‘sad’ packing for his flight home on Saturday and didn’t want to leave the 20 degree Celsius weather after hearing the rain forecast in Manchester.

The first thing he did when he got home was ‘prepare a full English breakfast’, saying: ‘Pork isn’t served in Turkey so I definitely fancied a bit of bacon towards the end’.

However, he was anything but lacking in food at the resort, where breakfast, lunch and dinner were included in his stay.

“The all-inclusive was great, you could get whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted,” Josh said.

‘There were so many options that I kept changing what to eat every day.

The best part, though, was definitely the rotisserie chicken and gravy, which made me feel right at home.”

He has also adopted a local tradition that he hopes to continue at home.

“Wherever I go, I always try to embrace the local culture, and in Turkey it is culture to drink a Turkish tea after every meal,” he said.

‘By the end of our trip we were drinking that stuff more than the locals, it became part of our routine too. I’ve already started looking at Turkish teapots.’

Josh was invited for the trip through On the beach after he shared the price of a month’s hotel stay on TikTok, pointing out that it was cheaper than his rent.

Bosses at the online travel agency got in touch and challenged Josh to do it after his clip went viral, racking up more than a million views in 24 hours.

He checked in on February 17 and spent the weekend exploring the area before continuing his normal work routine from the hotel on weekdays.

Describing a typical day in a hotel, he said: ‘Every day started with breakfast, a glass of orange juice and then some eggs on toast was my habit.

‘But with Turkey being three hours ahead of Britain, I had so many options on how I would approach our day.

‘I had to work in the UK and the flexible time allowed me to start anytime between 7am and 9.30am, which meant we couldn’t start work until 12.30pm. So some days we would get up early and head out to explore the local towns and some of their markets. Other days we just went straight to work.

‘I used to log into work in the sunshine and stay there until my laptop died. It’s safe to say that everyone who was on Teams with me hated me last month when they saw me sitting in the blazing sun.”

In the evenings Josh enjoyed exploring the nearby town of Side, relaxing with a cocktail in the hotel bar and occasionally visiting the hotel nightclub.

His highlights included having access to “all the food he wanted” – especially Turkish mezze, bread and dips – and never having to tidy his room, thanks to the hotel’s daily maid service.

And he was pleasantly surprised by the amount of culture and history in the area, with ‘ancient ruins over 2,000 years old just a 10-minute walk away’.

The only downsides were paying for the hotel laundry service to wash his clothes and braving the cold water of the pool.

“Being winter, the outdoor pools were like an ice bath, so I had to channel my inner Wim Hof,” Josh said.

‘But even that wasn’t a problem because they had a heated indoor pool if I wanted to take a dip. Another small problem was that the juices were not freshly squeezed and were more like cordials – but like I said, very small.”

The advantage of visiting out of season was that the hotel was ‘not too busy’, but ‘well busy’.

Josh summed up the experience, saying it was “incredible” and he’s already planning his next month-long hotel stay in Vegas.

Moreover, he says, it is “reasonably accessible to anyone who can work anywhere.”

He added: ‘You could put your flat or house on a rental site and, given the prices that city center apartments charge in Britain, for a weekend stay, you could use this money to pay for your trip.

‘If you kept switching countries every month, that would be great. Country hopping and experiencing various five star hotels.

“Of course there are home comforts that you would miss, but you would make up for that with new cultures that you can dive right into.”