I travel a lot. My basic routine? Airport to hotel via taxi. And hotel to airport via taxi.

I was scammed once by a taxi driver. I was in an unfamiliar city and waved down a cab to get a ride to the airport. It took forty five minutes to get there. The taxi fare was $75 (before the tip).

In the airport I met with a colleague and he asked me why I was running late, considering the airport was only ten minutes from the hotel. I got scammed. The old “extra long ride, for the moron” trick. It is an easy way for drivers to get a $75 fare, when the normal ride only yields around $20.

Trick me once, shame on you. Trick me again, shame on me. So, I found a fix.

I use my GPS app (my preference is Waze) on my iPhone. Before I get in the cab, I plug the address into Waze and know how long the ride will take, how far it is, and if there is any traffic or construction we need to navigate around.

I haven’t been scammed since. And it really surprises the cab driver, when I say “take the short cut up here on the left, please” when I am visiting Istanbul.