5 types of tourist in NYC. Funny because it's true. (Jon Keegan)
So in my research about traveling in Barcelona, I came across a somewhat funny article called Barcelona Clothes and Dress Code: Tips on How to Blend in With the Locals. The primary reason for this article is to keep tourists safe from scam-artists and pickpockets, but I would argue that those people would be targets anyways no matter how you dressed them up simply because they obviously lack something vital as a traveler: common sense.
People spend all this money buying money-belts and fancy traveling gear when you could simply just dress and act like a local, as much as possible. Obviously this isn’t possible everywhere in the world, but it’s certainly possible in a worldly cosmopolitan city like Barcelona that’s full of foreign expats. For example, I live in New York City — a city that tourist guides will tell you is dangerous. Don’t do this, don’t talk to these people, don’t stop here, etc. Yet somehow millions of people live in this city without ever getting pickpocketed their entire life, yet a tourist manages to in the few days they’re here. Amazing odds, really. 
Like most of these tourist women do in their hometowns, I carry a purse every day, and like they probably are back home, I’m very careful with it. Yet somehow these visiting ladies come here wearing a fannypack because they’re suddenly a tourist. If you wouldn’t be caught dead in something at home, why would you wear it in a cosmopolitan world city suddenly because you’re a visitor?
Being a tourist is a state of mind! We’ve found that if you don’t act like one then most people won’t treat you like one, especially not thieves — cause really, why bother with the person who MIGHT be a savvy local expat when you could harass the tour-package couple with their map hanging out of their back pocket?
Tags: fashion, sigh tourists, Travel Advice
Ahaha, I remember when I took a bus trip to NYC as a teenager and we got notices basically saying, “Beware wallet snatchers, you’re in New York City!” that left me worrying about how dangerous NYC must be, but by the end of the day, after not letting myself be too concerned and just acting natural while using the same common sense I use in my rural hometown, I felt safer and more comfortable there than I tend to feel anywhere west or south of New York (not to say that the Midwest or South are dangerous or anything, but that’s about where culture shock really starts kicking in for me). Since then my mom and I have tried getting to NYC as often as we can and we always return a bit more baffled at the ideas that it’s a “rude” or “dangerous” place.