By Lorenzo Olivieri.
I was around 11 and it was my first international trip. The cruise, a moving palace built of steel, was touching the major cities of the Mediterranean and there I was, buzzing excited as only an 11 years old boy anxious to see the big world outside can be. My parents didn’t trust the safety of Istanbul so they hired the guide advised by the cruise company. The guide was a middle aged woman with short red painted hair who brought us to bazaars where she was earning kickbacks to bring tourists. Soon we were trapped in the storage room of a rug shop with a large number of cruisers where a fat greasy dealer was pulling kilometers of dusty rugs. I was almost falling asleep when the wife of the dealer appeared all smiles with a tray of tiny glasses. “Çay?”
That first sip was a revelation – sweet, sour, an aftertaste apple aroma – it hit me like no beverage did before. Nothing like herbaceous mild brews I drank so far back at home. Under the curtain of packaged tours, looking out from the window of the bus, I could feel a vibrating, pulsating, chaotic city. Istanbul had me hooked for life.
Years later, I’d realize that rug shop was my first taste of travel’s great paradox: We chase ‘real’ experiences, but often find them in the least expected places. My baptism in travelling happened in a dusty backroom of a tourist’s trap during a cruise carefully sanitized of any adventure.
There is a tension in how we travel today: list of do’s and don’ts to appear like a local, how to be a traveller and not a tourist, places to go and places to avoid. We talk too much about travel as a task, a conquest—checklists, hotspots, the doing of places. A competition to prove we didn’t fall for the tourist traps, that we visited the right place in the right way.
But here’s the truth: You are a tourist. And that’s okay. Are we taking away from the joy of travelling? Is our quest for authenticity creating new forms of elitism?
Be aware of your privilege. You are visiting a place where people live. Be respectful, be mindful that what for you is a special occasion is everyone’s everyday life. Don’t treat a place like a playground.
Get lost on purpose. The city’s soul lives in the streets between the landmarks. Don’t come back with a photo, come back with stories. Sometimes the most human moments happen in the places we’re told to avoid.
Stop apologizing for being a tourist. Curiosity isn’t a sin. Ask, discover by yourself, make mistakes. Laugh about it. The locals do.
Since that first visit I took every chance to come back to Istanbul. I’d never buy myself a ticket for a cruise – a place where every discomfort is eliminated, every fun is staged, every desire anticipated – but I’ll be always thankful to that first trip, for all its staged traps, cracked open a door of a sweet, sour taste, showing me the golden rule of travel: Let the world surprise you.
Istanbul ruined me in the best way. It taught me that the soul of a city isn’t found in its postcard-perfect landmarks, but in its dark alleys, where you will find the best food, the most honest conversations and the real landmarks, your fellow humans.
This article is part of the practical work carried out by the students of the Master’s in Travel Journalism.
