The dissemination of steam and print technologies in the nineteenth century led to intensified communication, accelerated interaction, and rapid travel. Transformation in technologies of print and travel –such as travel by train, steamboat– as well as the construction of bridges and roads in the modern city led to a changed perception and experience of space. Nineteenth-century Ottoman literature was quick to absorb this changed perception in a rapidly modernizing print culture. Particularly, the leading Ottoman novelist, publicist, and essayist Ahmet Midhat’s (1844-1912) fictional and non-fictional works reflected a prominent spatial and geographical consciousness. I argue that the subjective renderings of space in Midhat’s works channel the ways his readers perceive space by way of a cognitive mapping of the world in narrative. The geographical consciousness that permeates Midhat’s works underpins the relation between the transforming perception of space and the constitution of modern Ottoman identity. ¬ Spatial and geographical consciousness is accompanied by travel in Midhat’s fictional and non-fictional works, such as his essays, novels, and travel books. Travel serves as an effective narrative strategy to flesh out the processes through which an individual finds his or her own place in the world. In this paper, I examine Midhat’s use of travel as a metaphor that unifies material space and metaphorical space for his readers to encounter the unfamiliar by way of vicarious travel. I will conduct a tripartite comparison of Midhat’s three essays: his seminal essay on travel, which was published as a preface to Mehmet Emin’s travel book (1871), his preface to his travel book Sayyadane bir Cevelan (A Hunting Trip) (1890) and his preface to his encyclopedic travel book, Avrupa’da Bir Cevelan (A Tour in Europe) (1891). By close reading the terms and concepts related to travel and spatial consciousness in these three essays, I seek to illustrate travel as the foundation of world making strategies in Midhat’s larger oeuvre.