Rookie Mistakes from a Seasoned Traveler: An Accidental Tour of Istanbul

You’d think that a seasoned traveler like me wouldn’t make rookie mistakes. Think again.

I’m flying to Morocco tomorrow with a one-night layover in Istanbul. I did my due diligence—found a hotel just 10 minutes from the airport for $72, excellent reviews, a restaurant on-site. Perfect. Everything was set.

After what felt like a six-mile trek through Istanbul’s sprawling airport, I stepped outside and was immediately whisked into a taxi. I handed the driver the address of my hotel, expecting him to nod knowingly and drive me there in minutes. Instead, he looked confused. Which confused me—aren’t airport taxi drivers supposed to know all the nearby hotels? He pulled up Google Maps, and suddenly, my perfectly chosen hotel was an hour and 15 minutes away. With an extra highway toll.

By this point, we were already speeding down the highway, and he was asking if I still wanted to go. Panic set in—where had I gone wrong?

Cue the most chaotic game of Google Translate ever attempted at 80 miles per hour.

As he drove one-handed, weaving through Istanbul’s notoriously aggressive traffic, he kept jabbing at his phone, speaking in Turkish, then glancing at me expectantly. Meanwhile, I was desperately trying to type responses without autocorrect turning my attempt at “closer hotel” into something completely unhelpful. Every few seconds, he’d glance down at his screen and shout, “WHAT?” while swerving into another lane. I was convinced we were going to die before I even made it to a hotel.

Through this high-speed, multilingual disaster, I finally managed to communicate: Can you find me a closer hotel?

“Sure, no problem,” he said. And just like that, like so many of my travel experiences, my fate was in this man’s hands.

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A few minutes later, we pulled up to a rather "rustic" establishment. The “front desk” was essentially a podium, and the man behind it greeted me with a brisk, “Give me your credit card.” Something about the way Turkish people speak English makes it sound very direct—even bossy—but I reminded myself that his English was infinitely better than my Turkish, which consists of exactly one word: hello. (I’ve been focusing on my French for Morocco, and my Arabic is non-existent.)

I asked how much. “€120,” he said. But that included dinner, breakfast, and a taxi back to the airport. At this point, I wasn’t exactly in a position to negotiate. I had no idea where I was—maybe it was fine, maybe it was sketchy—but I did know it was loud. At least there was a convenience store across the street.

I was promised a vegetarian meal delivered to my room. “Great,” I said. “And how about some wine?”

“That’s extra.”

I didn’t care. Charge me whatever you want—I could really use a glass of wine.

The man handed me a key and pointed upstairs. I climbed a set of rickety stairs, the railing wobbling dangerously, and stepped onto a pitch-black landing. For a brief moment, I wondered if I would survive the night. But I’ve always believed that 99.9% of people in this world are good, so I pressed on. I fumbled for my phone and used the flashlight to find 102.

My room was approximately 1,000°F—Celsius or Fahrenheit, it didn’t matter. It was an oven. I flung open the window, hoping for relief, and was immediately greeted by the sound of endless traffic and sirens. At least I wouldn’t roast to death.

As I tried to piece together how my “10-minute airport hotel” had turned into this unexpected detour, there was a knock at the door.

The wine had arrived. Thank Allah.

Except it wasn’t a glass of wine—it was a bottle. Not disappointing. What was disappointing was the fact that someone had already uncorked it…and it looked suspiciously like it had been refilled with something that was not the wine on the label. I asked the gal who delivered it if there was a glass I could use. Nope. She pointed to the cardboard coffee cups.

Fine. It tasted like wine. I was going to drink it.

I immediately sent my location to my husband—just in case he needed to recover a body for proper cremation in the U.S.—and sipped my warm, rebottled white wine. (There is no ice in this hotel, I was informed.) And I thought about how, as an American, I immediately got to "I may die. Here is where to find me." Do most people in the world think these thoughts?

As I scrolled my phone, sipping warm wine on my bed, I made a horrifying discovery.

Istanbul has two airports.

I had flown into one…on the west side of the city. And I had booked a hotel near the other one—on the east side.

An hour and 15 minutes apart.

In rush hour traffic.

So now, I had paid for two hotels, and I really wished I were at the other one—the fancy one, the cheaper one. In my mind, I pictured what could have been—sipping a chilled glass of wine while watching the boats drift along the Bosphorus, the lights of the city twinkling as I sank into a plush hotel bed for a restful night of sleep. Instead, I was here, sweating in a questionable hotel room, drinking warm, mystery wine from an already-opened bottle.

Then, from outside my open window, I heard a commotion.

At first, I thought it was just more traffic noise, but then I recognized the sound—the call to prayer. I glanced out my window and realized I was just a block from a mosque.

What I saw next stopped me mid-sip.

People in the street—men, women, shopkeepers—were pausing, turning toward the mosque, and bowing in prayer. Some were on sidewalks, some in doorways, a few right in the middle of the road. The cars that had been honking and rushing moments ago now slowed or stopped altogether. It was as if, for a brief moment, the entire street had synchronized to something bigger than itself.

I don’t know if it was the wine, the exhaustion, or the sheer surrealism of the day, but it felt magical.

Maybe I was meant to be here, in this slightly run-down hotel, on this random street in Istanbul, watching a scene I may never have experienced otherwise, or at least in the same surprising way.

Maybe, sometimes, the best travel stories aren’t the ones we plan.