7. Knowing you stick out like a sore thumb.
Obviously this isn’t the case in places that are diverse or mostly populated by people of color, but I barely saw any black people in Istanbul. (When we got to the airport for our trip home and I saw a ton of other people who looked like me I wanted to be like, “Guys, where were you?! I could have used your help out there.”) Combined with the fact that we were carting around a huge camera and packed book bag, we were broadcasting the fact that we were tourists. Normally I wouldn’t care, but various people tried to scam us in ways that specifically target tourists, so it was a disadvantage. There were the shoe shiners who dropped their brushes as they walked by in an effort to rope us into expensive shoe shines and the cab driver who way overcharged us, pocketed extra money on top of that, then took us on a terrifying, expletive-filled ride when we asked for our change. Stuff like this happens to people of every race, but I’m sure me being black made the “we’re tourists!” sign over our heads a little brighter.