Famous traveler of the 17th century AD, Evliya Celebi is the first and the greatest representative of travel literature. He has visited almost all cities and towns of the Ottoman Empire and took long trips to foreign lands. He traveled for 51 years and covered Anatolia and Rumelia, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Kuwait, Crete, Hejaz, Sudan, Somalia, Georgia, Hungary, Poland, Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Macedonia, Albania, Russia, Crimea and Caucasia. He tried to cover history, buildings, customs and traditions, and the famous people in his writings.
Evliya Çelebi's travel journal "Seyahatname" are in ten volumes. Between 1st - 8th volumes of original Seyahatname, which are in the Topkapi Palace Museum Library, are accepted to be the author's handwriting. Unfortunately, we do not have the original 9th and 10th volumes. After his death, these volumes were reproduced in three copies by calligraphers of the time, and these copies are in Istanbul; in the Suleymaniye Library, the Topkapi Palace Museum Library, and the Istanbul University Library. The Seyahatname remained hidden in libraries until it was introduced to the scientific world by the famous historian Joseph v. Hammer in the 19th century.