Haman: Bodrum Trip Report: Turkish Delights, PFS Highlights, and the TRUTH about Hans-Hermann Hoppe! (PFS 2026)

by Stephan Kinsella on October 4, 2026

As longtime PFSers know, we have a tradition of posting accounts of the annual PFS meeting on our Press page and usually on the individual annual meeting pages. They include accounts by first-timers and for special meetings or occasions and multiple commentaries by repeat attendees, from Sean Gabb’s always-elegant accounts of the first, and other, PFS meetings,¹ to Doug French’s rhapsodies of the wonders of a Turkish haircut,² to Hans and Gülçin’s retrospectives,³ to my memories of the first PFS,⁴ the Hoppe Festschrift event in 2024⁵ and our defiant rebound from Covid bullshit in 2021.⁶

No doubt some reports of the recently-concluded Twentieth Annual PFS 2026 Annual Meeting will be forthcoming, but I present to you the first so far, by newcomer Adam Haman, of the Haman Nature podcast and substack—⁷

See , a followup to Adam Haman, “NYC Trip Report: Hudson Sucks, Manhattan bustles, PLUS: Epstein Secrets Revealed!,” Haman Nature (Sep 28, 2026).

Bodrum Trip Report: Turkish Delights, PFS Highlights, and the TRUTH about Hans-Hermann Hoppe!

Haman Nature

Adam Haman

Sep 29, 2026

Hey folks! As promised (or threatened?) here’s part two of my trip report:

Part one was about New York City. Part two is about my first trip to Turkey, the seaside town of Bodrum, and finally making it to Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Property and Freedom Society (PFS) annual event.

Turkish Delights

I discovered on this trip that I’d never had Turkish delight. I’d gone “meh” over stuff called by that name — usually dusty rose-scented bricks of who-knows-what from a tin. The real thing, homemade and fresh, is fabulous. If I could get it hand-made on demand, I would balloon up to 500 lbs and not be sorry.

The freshly made baklava was just as dangerous. So was everything else I ate there. Fresh seafood, fruit, vegetables, local herbs galore — all of it was a pleasant surprise to my Standard American Diet.

I would not have guessed that fresh, local Turkish cuisine would impress this much, but it did.

The people were the other surprise. I only saw the Istanbul airport and Bodrum, so I’m not filing a countrywide ethnographic report. But the folks I met were exceptionally friendly, and they spoke more than enough English to make the whole stay an effortless treat.

Istanbul Airport itself is massive and surprisingly (to me) high end. Its enormity was stuffed to the brim with shops, services, and the whole cathedral-of-transit thing. It’s much bigger than New York’s JFK, for example, and just as intent on impressing. It sure worked on me.

Then there’s Turkish Airlines.

I had no idea it was just named the best carrier in Europe for the 11th time and currently sits around #5 in the world. I enjoyed the flights so much that I now have a small ideological problem.

Do I Support Fascism Now? (No.)

The airline I am praising is about half-owned by the Turkish state, which nominates a majority of the board.

Wait. Government control of the means of production is bad — even the half-hearted kind. It perverts the incentives facing workers and managers and smothers the competition that forces companies to excel. Compared to a free market, we should expect worse results from this sort of economic fascism.

But that does not mean the product axiomatically has to suck in every single case. NASA’s greatest hits were at least semi-socialist. That doesn’t make the moon landing unimpressive. Government shouldn’t run the roads, but that doesn’t mean every road has to be a crater — except in California, where terrible roads appear to be mandatory.

In the case of Turkish Airlines the public-private mashup appears to be working. Officials say it’s self-sufficient and not a drag on taxpayers. I didn’t audit the books, though. I just sat on the plane.

Don’t worry, this doesn’t shatter my worldview, but honesty requires this admission: despite the structural problems, Turkish Airlines is easily the nicest airline I’ve flown since the 1990s.

PFS Highlights

Where do I begin? It was exceptional.

First of all, for an American (especially a west-coast one), this is a long and expensive trip. That fact makes the makeup of the speakers and attendees somewhat Euro-centric — and I loved that.

Hearing from and speaking to so many smart and variedly accented people was a rare pleasure. It’s mind-expanding to hear ideas that didn’t percolate in your own backyard. And being there in-person was huge. Some tele-conferenced thing could never match the full experience.

An example: One day I heard lectures about historical left/right political definitions; liberty in an age of paternalism; a fascinating theory about human non-Darwinian evolution; a history of “private” law and security in feudal Japan; and a hilariously depressing collection of mainstream economic misinformation. That same evening, I met attendees from the US — fellow gamblers who knew a bunch of the same poker players I did from back in the day.

That’s a wild mix of heady stuff, all fabulous and fascinating, and all in the same day!

I’ve been to a lot of these types of conferences, and they’re usually great. PFS is a cut above, though. Not close. Hanging out for five days with good people who also read footnotes was an absolute delight. This kind of networking is a rare opportunity these days.

Yes, the flight is long. Go anyway.

The TRUTH About Hans-Hermann Hoppe!

Get ready. This will be difficult for some of you to hear:

He’s great.

He’s brilliant. He’s funny. He’s thoughtful. He’s kind. He and his wife Gülçin put on an excellent conference in a private resort hotel (wonderful food included) located in a beautiful town on the Aegean that people call the St. Tropez of Turkey.

What’s not to love about a guy like that?