10 Mistakes First-Time Visitors Make in Istanbul (And How to Avoid Them)
Istanbul doesn't punish you for arriving unprepared. It welcomes you warmly, feeds you extraordinarily well, and shows you things you'll spend years trying to describe. But there are a handful of mistakes that first-time visitors make, almost universally, that cost them time, money, or the kind of experience they actually came for. After years of traveling to Istanbul and watching friends make the same errors, I've put together the definitive list — so you can skip the learning curve and go straight to the good part. Mistake #1: Staying Only in Sultanahmet Sultanahmet — Istanbul's Old City — is extraordinary. The Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, the Basilica Cistern: these are not overhyped. They are genuinely among the most remarkable things human beings have built. But Istanbul is not Sultanahmet, and spending your entire trip within its boundaries means missing the city that Istanbullus actually live in. ✓ Fix: Spend your first two d...