bad travel stories

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Think you have a bad travel story? These 13 tales are worse.

These novels follow nightmare trips, from an African safari with a high body count to a Caribbean holiday wrecked by an earthquake.

Sky-high gas prices, traffic jams at national parks, rail strikes, canceled flights, and lost luggage —can this summer’s travel get any worse?  

Yes, it can. At least in fiction. As long as writers have been spinning out prose, they’ve reveled in sending their heroes to postcard-worthy places that aren’t as dreamy as they seem.  

“There’s something darkly fascinating about bad vacations—all the effort that goes into planning, the idea of getting away from your stresses and being able to relax, only to have everything go horribly wrong in a place where you may not speak the language, are unfamiliar with the laws, and have no way of getting help,” says novelist Greg Herren, executive vice president of the Mystery Writers of America . ”There’s escape in these books.”

Think Homer’s Odyssey , where the Greek isles morph into a monster-filled maze for a returning Trojan War hero, or Agatha Christie’s 1920s Egyptian cruise whodunit, Death on the Nile . More recently, novelist Lucy Foley ( The Paris Apartment , The Hunting Lodge ) takes her attractive young characters somewhere equally attractive and lets the bodies pile up.  

This summer, as you’re wondering if your misdirected bags are having way more fun than you are, turn to these novels to help you get through it.

Hellish journeys

Great Circle , by Maggie Shipstead, 2021 Amelia Earhart -esque aviator Marian Graves sets off to circumnavigate the globe via the North and South Poles. But storms, dwindling fuel—and doubt—plague her daring journey. Woven through this quest is an epic family drama that jets from the wilds of Montana to gritty World War II-era London , buoyant with ambition, resilience, and a decades-spanning romance.

Portrait of a Thief , by Grace D. Li, 2022 A quintet of Chinese-American college students turn museum visits in Amsterdam and Paris into art heists in Li’s anti-colonialism caper. Attempting to return antiquities to China from countries which previously looted them, the unlikely criminals run afoul of Interpol and, sometimes, each other. The nail biter also dives into what it means to exist between two cultures.

The Anomaly , by Hervé Le Tellier, 2021 You won’t complain about the turbulence and the cramped middle seat on your next transatlantic flight when you read about what happens to the passengers on Air France 006 from Paris to New York , in this mind-bendy novel. Let’s just say none of their lives are the same again. The consequences of that fateful flight range from murder and divorce to fame and career-defining success.

The Forgiven , by Lawrence Osborne, 2012 After a boozy lunch in Tangier, British couple Jo and David Henninger drive into the Moroccan desert to a decadent party at a friend’s weekend compound. On a dark, dusty road, they accidentally hit and kill a local Berber youth, setting in motion a chilling tale of haves and have nots, of guilt and redemption. Osborne summons the Sahara’s ominous simplicity and a rich cast of characters from the boy’s bereaved father to the drug-addled party host. (A movie version starring Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain was just released.)

The Lioness , by Chris Bohjalian, 2022 Lion attacks. Millions of stinging ants. Kidnappers with elephant guns. The wide-open spaces of the Serengeti are fraught with peril and beauty in this bloody tale of a 1960s Tanzanian safari gone wildly wrong. Centered around an Elizabeth Taylor-like starlet and her entourage, the travelogue starts out with glamour (there’s a generator-powered ice maker and many chic outfits) and quickly slips into a man-versus-beast horror story.

( Learn why bad trips make for great memories .)

Two Nights in Lisbon , by Chris Pavone, 2022 An American woman on a quick weekend trip to Lisbon with her new, much younger husband, wakes up in her plush hotel to find him missing. The ensuing mash-up of spy thriller and travelogue takes place in the gritty, pretty streets of Portugal ’s seaside capital, replete with the scent of cinnamon-y pastel de nata tarts and the click-clack of its vintage cable cars.  

Beach vacations gone bad

Saint X , by Alexis Schaitkin, 2020   Schaitkin uses multiple narrators to tell the story of a wealthy family whose teenage daughter disappears and dies during a vacation on an unnamed Caribbean island. The event reverberates for years with both the girl’s younger sister and the resort worker accused of murder. In the end, this dazzling debut novel is less a missing person mystery and more of a musing on how luxury tourism obscures a place’s true culture.

The Garden of Broken Things , by Francesca Momplaisir, 2022 Distressed over her young son’s behavior at school, a Haitian -American mother takes him back to her Caribbean island birthplace to emphasize how privileged he is. A devastating earthquake follows, throwing the family heritage trip into a nightmare of destruction and death in a country “that had come to expect disasters descending from the sky.” Momplaisir’s prose is as sharp as her insights, and while this is no feel-good tale, it’s a moving examination of family ties and poverty.

The Disaster Tourist , by Yun Ko-eun, 2013 In this satirical eco-thriller, Yona Kim works for a dark tourism company which takes visitors to zones ravaged by hurricanes, floods, and other natural disasters. When a predatory colleague threatens her job, she flees on a business trip to review the company’s least popular tour package—a yawn-inducing desert island in Vietnam . But what initially seems like a chance to boost her career quickly turns into a moral crisis, entangling Yona in a plot to orchestrate a headline-grabbing global catastrophe risking hundreds of lives—including her own.

( Here are 13 thrilling real-life stories of journeys gone wrong . )

The Ruins   by Scott Smith, 2006 In this horror/sci-fi parable, hiking to an undiscovered Mayan temple in Mexico ’s Yucatán jungle sounds like a bucket-list dream for four American tourists. But deadly run-ins with arrow-wielding locals and sinister vines plague them in a tense read that suggests wandering off the beaten path—or touching sacred antiquities—isn’t worth the Instagram pic.

Rotten road and rail trips

Nevada ,   by Imogen Binnie, 2013 Dumped by her girlfriend and adrift in a boozy haze, trans woman Maria Griffiths steals her ex’s car and wheels it from New York to Nevada . Along the way, she becomes an unlikely mentor to another trans woman and discovers both the brighter and seamier sides of downtown Reno and early 2000s Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The Boys,   by Katie Hafner, 2022 Anyone who has ever felt ill at ease on a group tour will relate to Ethan Fawcett, a young father ferrying his twin sons on a guided bicycle trip through Italy’ s Piedmont. His oddball children—and awkward attempt to retrace his honeymoon route (sans estranged wife)—make him unpopular with his fellow travelers. But there’s humor and hope in these misadventures amid plush hotels, libidinous guides, and ancient churches.

This Train , by James Grady, 2022 On a passenger train hurtling between Seattle and Chicago , Grady riffs on Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express with a slew of characters (a coder gone wrong, a corrupt billionaire, a wannabe widow) and crimes (a heist, a killing) in tight confines. Though set in the present day, the thriller’s descriptions of rundown Amtrak stations, shady criminals, and lonely Western landscapes smack of classic noir.

Related Topics

• ROAD BIKING
• TRAIN TRIPS
• NATURAL DISASTERS AND HAZARDS

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Here are 20 of this summer's worst airline horror stories — from lost wedding dresses to a 13-month-old booked on a different flight than her parents

• Summer 2022 has seen mass travel return to close to pre-pandemic levels after two years of decline.
• But as airports and airlines readjust, passengers are facing mass delays and lost luggage.
• Insider rounded up some of the worst horror stories from travelers hit by the summer's flight chaos .

1. Qantas booked a 13-month-old baby on a separate flight than her parents from Europe to Thailand. The family was stuck in Rome for 12 days until the next available flight. They spent over 20 hours on the phone to Qantas' customer helpline.

Read the full story here .

2. Delta Airlines staff forgot to put a passenger's wheelchair on his flight from New York to Dublin. The man spent two days on vacation without his wheelchair — he even thought about flying back home to collect a spare one.

3. Air Canada revoked an employee's flying privileges after her daughter complained about poor customer service when boarding a flight with the airline.

4. A woman lost her luggage worth $1,000, which had her jewelry and wedding dress inside, when flying from Lisbon to Dublin via Frankfurt. She had to buy extra clothes for her honeymoon, she told Insider. Her maid of honor also lost her baggage but located it with an Apple AirTag.

5. A Delta flight was forced to make a U-turn over the Atlantic Ocean after the crew found out there was a fuel imbalance. The plane had to return to New York's JFK airport.

Read both stories here and here .

6. American Airlines told a passenger to collect his bag himself, despite it being found 4,000 miles away in London Heathrow airport.

7. American Airlines canceled a 10-year-old passenger's connecting flight but failed to inform her parents. Her mother said she was traveling alone and was crying on the phone.

8. American Airlines told passengers to get off a plane they had just boarded after a 5-hour delay because the pilots had timed out. A pilot who has worked at the airline for 23 years told Insider that pilots "absolutely hate doing this to our passengers."

Read the full story about the flight here, and an American Airline pilot's testimony here . 

9. Passengers had to wait on a plane with limited air-conditioning and food-and-drink services for six hours. American Airlines said the delay was because of maintenance issues and weather conditions.

10. Passengers onboard a British Airways flight received an email in the middle of their flight saying their connection had been canceled. To top it off, some passengers lost their luggage.

11. A maid of honor traveling to her sister's wedding in Greece says Air Canada lost her bridesmaid dress and turned her trip back into a four-day "nightmare." A pilot friend ended up flying her home through a thunderstorm in a four-seater plane over Lake Michigan.

Read the full story here.

12. A teacher and firefighter from Colorado only made it to their honeymoon cruise in Italy after an American Airlines crew member gave up his extra stand-by ticket. An Air Canada delay caused them to miss their layover and lose their luggage.

13. A mother-daughter vacation booked in 2019 and pushed back two years due to the pandemic was thrown into disarray after Delta delayed their flights two days. They received their baggage 32 days later.

14. A senior manager at a travel logistics firm with an $11,000 flight to a work conference in Europe says Air Canada "begged" 25 people to get off the plane because it was too heavy to take off. Then they lost his bag.

15. A 34-year-old with fibromyalgia and lupus told Insider she was "abandoned" in her wheelchair by Air Canada after her flight was canceled. Fellow passengers had to push her and other travelers with disabilities through the airport, she added.

16. A couple in their eighties got stuck in Mexico and ran out of heart medication after their flight was canceled twice.

17. A family of four missed a $5,500 Disney cruise purchased as a birthday gift for their children after Air Canada cancelled their flight. Instead, the family spent the holiday weekend in multiple airports sleeping "on benches," they told Insider.

18. Air Canada sent a passenger's cats from Toronto to San Francisco without him – and then told him to go pick them up. The airline will no longer allow pets to travel in the baggage compartment until September 12, 2022.

19. A man who was kicked off a Hawaiian Airlines flight over an "invalid ticket" after boarding a plane to Maui with his daughter, took his frustrations to TikTok as part of a viral cautionary tale.

20. An Air Canada passenger who deliberately took only a carry-on to avoid luggage chaos says she was made to check the bag anyway, only for it to go missing.

• Main content

50 Of The Worst (And Most Hilarious) Travel Fails People Ever Experienced

Let’s be real here; travel fails make some of the best travel stories. They’re stories we want to listen to where everything goes wrong. Typically, these stories involve missed buses, strange illnesses, and chaotic transportation experiences to bucket list destinations .

We compiled 50 of the most hilarious travel fails from around the world for your entertainment. You’ll find stories about crying babies , awkward-angled pillows, and travel photos that are so bad, all you can do is laugh.

50. Crying Baby

“I was on a long trip with three transfers and was somehow next to a crying baby on every single flight” (via jimmyfallon ).

Flying is already stressful enough. When you add a crying baby to the mix, it makes it that much worse. Imagine sitting next to a crying baby on a long haul flight? No thank you. Not only that, but imagine it happening three consecutive times? That’s some bad luck, and one of those travel fails that’ll make you never want to travel again.

49. Massage Went The Wrong Way

This is one of those travel fails that make you cringe. Lying down for a massage is an experience you’d hope would be a good one. Unfortunately, massages can end up being disastrous like this Reddit user experienced. The masseuse licked their foot and they ended up hiding in their hotel the rest of the week. That’s one way to ruin a vacation .

“I was on a pleasant vacation to the Bahamas when I decided that I wanted to get a massage because I had been in the ocean a little too long and my back began to ache. Then I thought that it’d be pretty good to go to a spa and get that done- as it had 4.7 stars with Google Reviews. I ended up leaving mid-massage and hiding in my hotel for the rest of the week because the masseuse licked my foot. Never again” (via BillionDollaBean ).

48. I Swear It’s A Neck Pillow!

Seeing this would cause you to take a double or triple take. It looks like this woman has a giant hole in the back of her pants. Fortunately, she’s only holding her beige neck pillow the wrong way. Next time you’re shopping for pillows, make sure you go for a bright green or blue one so this doesn’t happen to you (via Food Fun Travel ).

47. Beach Boys

“Early 2000’s, we were first in line for our SW flight out of Vegas when these older guys with Hawaiian shirts cut in front of us. My friend leans over and was like, “Who do they think they are the effing Beach Boys?” And, that’s how I met the real Beach Boys” (via haats528 ).

We’ve all made a joke like that time and time again. It’s rare that the joke you make is actually true, like what happened to this Twitter user. Lucky for them, they ended up meeting the real Beach Boys. What an awesome outcome.

46. How Beautiful

Arriving at the Grand Canyon, only to find it’s shrouded in clouds, is one of those things we pray won’t happen to us. Most people that visit the Grand Canyon have a great experience unlike this Reddit user. Their first time seeing the Grand Canyon was ruined because it was concealed in a layer of clouds. At least it’s still beautiful in a way (via Mr-Xela-48 ).

45. Bad Connection

“Rental car couldn’t connect to our phones via Bluetooth and didn’t stop trying. We spent the entire road trip listening to a nice robot lady say “I’m sorry, I can’t find you” every 10 minutes” (via BakeRoss1988 ).

Radio static is annoying enough, but listening to the robot lady say “I’m sorry, I can’t find you” every 10 minutes might even be more annoying. This is one of those travel fails that make you want to pull over on the side of the road, throw your hands in the air, and give up.

44. Paper Organizer

“On my second flight ever, coming back from Japan, I fell asleep during the 14 hour flight. I wake up to find paper laying all over me. The business lady that was sitting next to me used me to organize her papers while working on her laptop as I was sleeping” (via RobertBird37 ).

The audacity. Talk about invading personal boundaries. Not only is that not okay, but it’s also incredibly rude. As one of the most random travel fails on this list, we’d hope that most people wouldn’t do this, and would have the social knowledge to know that you don’t use a random sleeping stranger to organize your documents on an airplane.

43. Grand Tour

“When I was on holiday me and my family booked something called a “grand tour.” It was 4 hours of us sat in a poorly air conditioned bus whilst some dude tells us about pretty much any rock we pass. We did stop every once in a while at some random places in the middle of no where. Most boring day of my life” (via Jamoos123 ).

We’ve all had a boring travel experience here and there. This Reddit user shares one of the most boring travel fails on this list, where they went on tour and pretty much stared at rocks for four hours. They must have been ecstatic when the tour was over.

42. Ferry Ride

“Thought it would be a great idea to take a ferry from Wales to Dublin and back to save a few bucks. What I wasn’t counting on was the wind being too rough for us to dock so I spent 3.5 hours on the floor trying not to puke while we violently swayed in the Irish Sea” (via StuffKRISwrites ).

This doesn’t sound like it was worth the few bucks this Twitter user saved. Unfortunately, they spent a majority of the ferry ride on the floor, trying not to puke. As bad as it sounds, this is one of those travel fails that make a great story in the end.

41. First Time

It’s great when a pilot can have a sense of humor, especially when it’s at the cost of someone other than ourselves. This Twitter user was the butt of the pilot’s joke when they admitted they were scared because they were flying for the first time – and the pilot said it’s his first time too. As bad as that sounds, this is definitely one of those travel fails that make your first time flying quite special.

“My first time flying I was petrified, I met the pilot and told him I was scared. His first announcement was we have a new flier on board today. Don’t worry, it’s my first time too” (via teesa1980 ).

40. Big Ben

“I finally got to see Big Ben” (via chadillac86 ).

Big Ben, under construction. At the very least, this Reddit user wasn’t alone. There were probably tons of other people that also shared this experience , as one of the most heartbreaking travel fails on the list. Hopefully they were still able to enjoy London.

39. True Crime

“Was listening to a true crime podcast on a train ride. When I got to my stop I realized my headphones hadn’t been plugged in. It had been playing out of my phone the entire time” (via eddielovestoast ).

Maybe the other passengers on the train thanked this Twitter user for the entertainment. This is one of those travel fails that might’ve had a great outcome, even though it’s pretty embarrassing.

38. Accidents Happen

“We hit some turbulence and a ventriloquist dummy fell out of the overhead compartment and started rolling down the cabin. People thought it was a child in a suit and bowtie and started freaking out” (via MovieNerd15 ).

Even though this is pretty terrifying, it’s quite hilarious. Not only did a ventriloquist dummy fall out of the overhead compartment, but everyone thought it was a child rolling down the cabin. This is probably one of the most fortunate travel fails on this list considering it could have been a lot worse.

37. Smarties

“I always brought smarties with me on planes to keep my 3 young kids busy . A man across the aisle from me was holding a screaming toddler and looking desperate. I handed him a pack of smarties. He immediately ate them himself and said “wow, thank you” (via karenconway21 ).

It’s pretty hilarious that this man thought the Smarties were for him. Most of us would have assumed it was for our screaming child, but it looks like the man needed them more than the child did. These are the types of hilarious travel fails that keep us coming back for more.

36. Bad Timing

This isn’t something you see every day . Apparently, this was this Reddit user’s mom’s first time in Paris (via OstidTabarnak ). We’re all wondering why the building is on fire. At least the mom got a selfie in front of it, and has a memorable story, to say the least.

35. Airport Ride

“Hitched a ride on a cart transporting people across airport. I was lazy and had no idea those are only for people who actually need them. Mom and son in cart covered for me and told driver we were all “family.” If you see this, hi airport family!” (via Wichitakat ).

Hitchhiking to save money is one thing, but hitchhiking in an airport? That’s unheard of. This Twitter user stepped up their game and decided to hitch a ride on an airport cart. Luckily, she found the right passengers who covered for her. She could’ve boarded with total snitches. That would have been one of those travel fails that might’ve taken a turn for the worse.

34. Shoes Off

This is one of the most disgusting travel fails on this list, and is something we hope would never happen to us. Not only is it rude, but it’s pretty gross. Has this guy ever heard of hygiene?

“ I was on a plane that was almost empty, but this guy decided to sleep on the middle row and took off his shoes….i cannot describe the smell, I wanted to scream. ETA: it was a 12hs flight so yeah ” (via Neonexus-ULTRA ).

33. Scary Parade

“Was in Germany for Fachnacht, basically Grimms Fairy Tales/Halloween come to life . At a parade and was told “if you get kidnapped, don’t worry they will bring you back” I was terrified, spent the parade thinking I would be taken by creepy German witches and wolves” (via Jess_icaBrown ).

This doesn’t sound like something anyone would voluntarily sign up for. Not only is the idea of getting kidnapped terrifying, but getting kidnapped by German witches and wolves is scary. It makes it one of the creepiest travel fails on this list.

32. Trip To Italy

“So me and my family were planning on going to Florence, Italy and my grandma bought the tickets. We had about a week before we left and we noticed she bought tickets to get to Florence, Kentucky” (via D1llyD1lly02 ).

This is so cute that it’s forgivable. That poor grandma. This is one of those travel fails that make you want to give that grandma a big hug for trying her best.

31. New Profile Picture

This Reddit user’s Machu Picchu photo is so bad, it’s hilarious (via Mr_Tom_Yabo ). At least they’ve found their new profile picture with this travel fail. At least we can be certain they saw a lot more while visiting Machu Picchu than this photo shows.

30. Reindeers

“At a camp in Northern Norway,I take out a reindeer plush toy from my bag and exclaimed to my guide ‘I love reindeers’. My guide ‘We do too, your soup had reindeer meat'”(via OdiousOpinions ).

That’s not something you want to hear after pulling out your reindeer plush toy, especially after having already eaten the soup. Hopefully this Twitter user enjoyed their meal, and this was one of those travel fails that helped broaden their taste palette.

29. Not Again!

“My first visit to NYC many years ago, while showering at the hotel, the entire ceiling came down and filled the tub. I narrowly escaped. And when I called the front desk to complain and get a new room, I heard someone in the background say “Oh no, not again!” (via Jabe373 ).

We probably all have a lot of questions, like why this hotel was allowing guests to stay in a room with a broken ceiling. Not only is it incredibly dangerous, but it’s also a health hazard on many different levels. Let’s hope this was one of those travel fails that benefited the Twitter user, and they got a room upgrade for free.

28. Disney World Allergy

Have you ever been so excited you broke out in hives? Apparently, it’s a thing. This Reddit user shared their experience being so excited about going to Disney World, that their immune system attacked itself and they ended up having a miserable time. This is one of the most surprising travel fails we’ve heard of.

“ When I was 8 years old I got so excited about going to Disney World down in Florida, my immune system began attacking itself. I broke out in hives all over my body and I dragged the entire experience down because I was so sick and miserable. I am literally allergic to feeling an extreme emotion such as sheer giddy excitement lol ” (via Sgt_Frank_Woods ).

27. Still Looks Cool

This is one of those travel fails that’s so similar to the Grand Canyon fail, it seems to happen more often than not. Even though this Reddit user couldn’t see anything, the Gateway Arch still looks pretty cool.

“Visited St. Louis for the first time and was told I had to see the famous Gateway Arch” (via drtythrtybass ).

“I was on a flight from the Philippines to London, about 15 hours. There were seven children under the age of 4 all around me. There was not a moment someone wasn’t crying. Most of the time, it was me” (via Robert_P_Wulff ).

We’d probably cry, too. Another Twitter user shared a similar experience with crying children on a long haul airplane. It seems these children save their tantrums for the worst possible time – like airplanes.

25. A “Friendly” Bite

This isn’t something you see every day. A camel bite to the face just sounds unpleasant, but at least it’s one of those travel fails that make a great story (via Food Fun Travel ).

24. The Devil’s Bridge

“Rented a car and took a 2 hour drive outside of Berlin to see die rakotzbrücke just to discover the water was drained and the whole area is under construction” (via topsecretvcr ).

This is one of those travel fails that just breaks your heart. Imagine spending all that time, money , and effort to visit a place, only to find it’s shut down? Hopefully this Reddit user found something else to do instead.

23. Missing Kid

“When I was 10 my family forgot me at Mount Rushmore during a cross country trip. I took the whole tour on my own and figured I’d meet them at the exit when I was done. They realized I was missing two hours after they’d left” (via theoneclark77 ).

Talk about Home Alone. This family forgot about their 10-year-old kid. That’s pretty shocking, to say the least, and is one of those travel fails you hope would never happen again. At least the family probably felt pretty guilty.

22. Sumo Competition

“In a hostel in Kyoto found out about a big sumo competition the next morning in Osaka. Got up at like 5am and went to Osaka to try to attend, only to find it sold out. There was only one hostel with capacity left on town, went there and it turned out a lot of the sumo wrestlers were staying there. Sat up watching Sumo on TV at a hostel with Sumo wrestlers. Next morning they invited me and my friend to their private practice that was definitely not for the public” (via HowardPrime ).

This is one of the best travel fails on the list. Not only did this Reddit user get to watch Sumo on TV with the wrestlers, but they also got to go to a private practice. This definitely beats the big sumo competition.

21. Rude Uber

“If your @Uber driver calls you before they arrive and says “I’m almost there, where do you want to go?” Don’t tell them. As soon as I answered he hung up and cancelled the trip” (via zacjmclean ).

There are some things you tell Uber drivers , and some things you don’t. Like, your destination, before getting into the Uber. That’s a pretty mean thing for an Uber driver to do. Let’s hope this Twitter user found another Uber ride and made it to their destination safely and on time.

20. No Shoes

“Parents wake me up before sun rise so we can go to Six Flags. I get dressed and brush my teeth and all that and proceed to get in the backseat of the van and immediately fall asleep. I wake up like an hour later and realize we are almost there and that I forgot to put on shoes. My parents were pissed and we had to go buy me another pair” (via mrghostwork ).

This is one of the most innocent travel fails on this list. This kid was so excited, they forgot to bring their shoes to Six Flags. At least they didn’t break out in hives, like the other Reddit user did.

19. The Best View Of Paris

Another incredible view, shrouded by clouds. This husband and wife expected something totally different when they visited the Eiffel Tower for their honeymoon (via theadum ). Let’s hope they were still able to enjoy Paris, regardless of the weather.

18. Coat Bag

“Coming back to Canada in January from Mexico I said to my wife “imagine if they lost our coat bag”. After 3 hours of intense questioning and luggage ransacking they realized I did not say “imagine if they lost our coke bag” (via Travisjpick ).

This is one of those travel fails that you think would never happen, but actually does. Unfortunately for this Twitter user, immigration misheard them and ended up ransacking their backpack in the hopes of finding drugs. Luckily, they made it out okay.

17. All-Inclusive

“Decades ago, on my first international flight: My seat mate took all that was offered to him—wine, steak dinner, cocktails. I declined everything, thinking it would cost a fortune. At the end of the flight I asked him the cost. He said, “My good man it’s all included!”” (via ArthurAlbertTV ).

We can all relate with this Twitter user. We’ve all declined fancy meals or drinks once and a while to save money . Unfortunately for this Twitter user, it was all included. They could’ve treated themselves to luxurious decadence, for free!

16. Shark Attack

“I was beach fishing on Restoration Island in Queensland, Australia. The person who I was with landed a small shark. I was helping hold down the shark while she removed the hook so she could release him. Just when she got the hook out the shark flipped around and grabbed my hand in its mouth. My hand was OK. I felt the true meaning of adrenaline rush and really threw that shark back into the reef” (via ordinaryknitter ).

That’s terrifying! You’d never expect a shark attack to happen out of the water, let alone when you’re releasing a hook. Luckily, this Reddit user’s hand was okay, and they pretty much made it out unscathed.

15. Photobomb!

This is one of the cutest travel fails on this list. It’s not so much a failure as a great travel memory. Meeting a friendly stingray on vacation is pretty rare (via kebulatr ).

14. Cabin In The Woods

As terrifying as this is, it’s quite hilarious. You’d never expect a bear to be knocking on your door. It seems this Twitter user was pretty nonchalant about the whole thing, and found it humorous. This is one of those travel fails that make a great story in the end.

“Rented a cabin in the woods I heard a loud knock on the door, I yelled I’m in the shower! Pounding continued, and yelled I’m in the shower! I come out to see and it was a bear trying to knock down the door! I guess he wanted to take a shower too” (via DannyUnchained1 ).

13. DIY Elephant

As one of the strangest travel fails on this list, a DIY elephant is something none of us have probably ever seen before. When you can’t afford an elephant, just make your own. Add a trunk to a cow, and you instantly have your very own elephant (via Food Fun Travel ).

12. Photo For Reference

“Traveled​ to Wittenberg, Germany in 2011. The door Martin Luther nailed the 95 Thesis to was being restored” (via Trowj ).

This is definitely cringe worthy! At least they had a photo reference to look at, even though, in a way, it makes it worse. It’s not something you’d expect to see, much like the other Reddit user who had a similar experience visiting The Devil’s Bridge. These travel fails keep happening, but they make great stories.

11. The Hotel Next Door

“I got into a taxi and asked the driver to take me to my hotel. He pointed across the street and said “There it is”. I got out and walked to it” (via DaSkrambledEgg ).

At least this taxi driver canceled the ride for a good reason, unlike the Uber driver from above. This is hilarious, and is something we can all relate to. Being in a new city is already stressful enough, so adding an embarrassing experience to the mix makes it much worse.

10. Almost There

Bad travel photos can be so funny that they’re sometimes better than good travel photos. This person missed the sun by a few inches, but it still made for a great picture (via Food Fun Travel ).

“In high school, our marching band, which I was in, got to go to Sea World Orlando to perform. It was my freshman year. Long story short, we were on a bus for 12 hours, got off and I realized no one packed my instrument. So, I played air sax in front of hundreds” (via mikefreeman1012 ).

This Twitter user was able to make light of the situation by playing “air sax.” It’s such a bad travel fail, that it’s hilarious. At least they were still able to join in on the performance!

8. Cheesecake

“Guy next to me on the plane was sound asleep. The cheesecake I was served flipped out of the container when I opened it and landed in his lap. Had to clean it off for him while he slept. He was a bit surprised by the remaining mess on his pants when he woke up” (via haugl76 ).

At least this Twitter user helped clean up the passenger, instead of the other person who used their seat mate as a paper organizer . Still, this is one of those travel fails that are so bad, all you can do is laugh.

7. Beautiful View

Another view, concealed by bad weather. We’re seeing a pattern here. These travel fails, although unfortunate, are funny enough to make a good travel story. Hopefully this Reddit user was able to make the trip a second time.

“Woke up at 230AM to make a 2 hour drive up 10000 feet to see the sunrise atop Haleakala. Have you ever seen such beauty?” (via bradp36 )

6. Nice Trees

“My friend is on vacation in Hawaii, and she asked this man to take a picture of her. He told her, “I got a close up.” Bless this man” (via f43cm0 ).

Even though this is a horrible photo, it’s too funny not to love. At least he managed to get her head in the photo. The trees look great, too.

5. Fast Ride

“Traveling with my parents, my dad took a break reading the paper. Mom was driving. She yelled out, “This guy must be going at least 100.” Dad said who? Mom said” The guy I’m passing!!”” (via mamamarshall2 ).

This mom likes to drive fast – too fast. She had to break 100 mph in order to pass the other driver, which is something you don’t want to hear while in a car as a passenger.

4. You’ll Always Have The Memories

“120 mile solo hike. Asked an elderly passerby to take a photo for me. I checked it right away but he struggled enough with the touch screen that I didn’t ask him to take another” (via Reddit ).

This is another photo that’s so bad, it’s hilarious. At least he managed to capture him from the head down, and he has some sort of photo for his memory bank .

3. Lost In Translation

Translation fails are some of the best travel fails out there. Visiting a “garden with curled poo” is not something that’s high on our to-do list. We can assume it was more beautiful than the sign suggests, though (via Food Fun Travel ).

2. Airport Twins

“Ran into this guy at a JFK terminal bar. What are the odds we are wearing the same outfit?! No idea who he is. Had to get a pic” (via timhartin ).

This is such a great travel fail that it’s definitely picture worthy. It’s not even like they’re both wearing blue sweaters either, they’re both wearing bright orange sweaters, a color you don’t see often.

1. Taj Mahal

This is one of the most unfortunate travel fails on this list. Similar to the Eiffel Tower and Grand Canyon, this person went to see the Taj Mahal, only to find it covered with clouds. Let’s hope they were able to go the following day!

“Went to see the Taj Mahal this morning.” (via SnowWonder )

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30 Travel Horror Stories You Have to Read to Believe!

Table of Contents

We’ve allma had some truly awful travel horror stories. They’re the ones that you break out at parties to shock and awe those around you. Some might even be so scary you keep them to yourself.

Well, I don’t believe in hiding the not-so-pretty side of travel.

So I asked some of my travel blogging friends to share their travel horror stories with us!

You’ll read about a near-miss with a bear, contracting a mystery disease in Peru, accommodations that don’t exist, and more.

One thing is true for all of these stories: you’ll be glad they didn’t happen to you!

I’ve had my fair share of travel fails and scary travel stories over the years. But some of these are so out of this world that it’s hard to imagine how they kept travelling.

Thankfully these stories have uplifting endings and tips to help you avoid experiencing these vacation horror stories for yourself.

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1. A Travel Horror Story in Morocco

I’ve had many scary travel experiences and travel horror stories throughout my years as a solo traveller.

There was the time I dove into a freezing ocean to swim with wild dolphins, only to come face to face with a dangerous fur seal.

Or the time I spent $400 on taxis in Dunedin due to an invisible bus.

This travel horror story occured when I was spending a month in Morocco during my gap year in Europe .

I’d just enjoyed a few weeks in Marrakech , baking with local women , exploring the city, and experiencing a traditional Moroccan Hammam . But it was time to head off to my next destination: Turkey .

To get to Turkey, I had to go to the Casablanca airport.

Now, I was originally supposed to fly out a week later. I had planned to head to Chefchaouen to visit the Instagram-famous Blue City. But my mom got nervous after experiencing the woes of being a female in Marrakech .

… and I found out it’s especially dangerous to climb the Atlas Mountains in winter, so it wasn’t entirely her fault.

I ended up with three spare days in Casablanca.

They were the longest days of my life.

The city feels post-apocalyptic. Buildings are half built, with crumbling concrete clinging to steel frames. There are streets barren of people and covered in a thick sheen of dust. Even the people look haggard as you pass them on your way to the few attractions in the city.

I was staying in a Best Western by the train station for ease of access to the airport (and because it was all I could get with my credit card points at the time).

There’s a rule in Morocco that everyone tells you: don’t eat uncooked food.

It’s because they wash the produce in tap water, which is known for being very bad for you.

After one extremely trying day, I went to the hotel restaurant for dinner. My tajine came with an unexpected side salad.

Beaten down from the day, fed up with my anxiety, and generally starving, I took a bite without thinking.

I swallowed and realized my mistake.

But it couldn’t be that bad, right? I mean, Best Western is an American chain. Surely their employees use American standards for their food.

Within 24 hours, I had the worst case of rocket butt and explosive vomit I’ve ever experienced thanks to what I’d later learn was a parasite from unclean tap water.

And of course that was the day I needed to fly to Turkey.

It was genuinely the second worst flight of my life (after the time I flew with an ear infection).

I puked in the check-in line up after running through my plastic bag supply. There was nowhere to buy a ginger ale or water before boarding the flight at the airport. The poor stewardess couldn’t understand why I wanted puke bags before we’d even taken off. The man next to me was visibly cringing as far away from me as possible.

But it doesn’t end there!

Once I arrived in Turkey, I thought the nightmare would be over.

Until I realized I was a day early for my Visa.

To enter Turkey, you need a visitor’s Visa that you can buy online for $75. I had done this months earlier when I’d initially planned to arrive in Turkey. I’d even booked it a week early just in case!

It hadn’t even occurred to me to check the Visa when I’d rescheduled my trip. I was certain I’d be fine!

Unfortunately, they won’t let you into the country, even if you’re green at the gills and are clearly about to pass out in front of them.

…come to think of it, that may have been why they didn’t want to let me in the country.

Thankfully, they have kiosks at the airport to buy a new visa. They weren’t working, so I had to wait two hours for someone to fix one before I could swipe my credit card, get a new visa, and crawl into a cab to get to the hotel I wouldn’t leave for three days except to go to the hospital.

Moral of the travel horror story : check your Visas and don’t eat salad in Morocco.

2. The Ultimate Lost Luggage Horror Story

By Kerry Hanson from VeggTravel

Has your luggage ever been lost on holiday? Mine has, several times.

However, the worst time (and the one that still makes me mad!) was at the start of a 6-month solo adventure around south east Asia. I’d just travelled with Singapore Airlines from Sri Lanka to Singapore for the second stop of my trip. Little did I know that my backpack, which contained EVERYTHING I had, hadn’t been put on my flight.

Frantically searching for help, the best the staff could offer me was to go to my hotel and they would contact me when they traced it.

However, as I was backpacking, I didn’t have any accommodation booked.

I just had my trusty Lonely Planet guide and was going to wing it when I arrived.

No accommodation meant nowhere to send the bag, and this was before the days of easy access to  travel resources online .

So, I had to wait. A long time. 5 hours to be exact!

Enough time to lose my mind. When I finally got the call, I was so elated that it had arrived that I signed the papers without really reading them or checking the bag. It was on a trolly, and it looked fine…

BIG mistake.

When I went to put it on my back, the straps were in tatters and I had no hope of carrying 22kg of belongings for another day, let alone 6 more months. Naturally I complained, but I had unknowingly waived my rights by blindly signing for it. In tears and with no other options, I found a shop in the airport that sold a sewing kit and super glue and ‘fixed’ it. I could just about put it over my back, but it had no support, and it was crippling.

I chose to lumber this around for 2 months before I finally invested in a new backpack – which cost 3x my daily budget. The moral of this travel horror story is not to sign something without reading it, check to make sure everything is as it should be and bite the bullet and buy a replacement, even if it does affect your budget .

3. The Airbnb Scam

by Katherine of Tara Lets Anywhere

For my first solo international trip, I booked tickets to Maldives. I was very excited and anxious at the same time. I decided that instead of the backpacker’s favorite Maafushi Island, I’d stay on Gulhi Island. It’s smaller, less crowded, and according to reviews it had a nice beach .

I booked my room there via Airbnb. I chatted with the host about the details and even reserved a boat tour with other guests in advance.

When I arrived in the island, the hotel was closed down.

A local approached me and said it had been closed for 2-3 months already and I was not the first guest to find out this way.

I didn’t know what to do.

I could rent a private boat to take me to Maafushi Island, since public transfers were limited. I could stay in Gulhi and find another hotel. Either way would set me back a few hundred dollars and I was already in a tight budget.

The local guy helped me and we approached every hotel and resort in the island. Everywhere was fully booked, except for the last one.

The owner at Silver Shade Guesthouse listened to my story and he was very kind. He invited me to dinner with his staff later that night. Unfortunately, the story does not end here since I had stomach ache from the unfamiliar food the day after.

I skipped going on the boat tour, but my new host took me snorkeling on the best spots in the island and even showed me the breeding area for baby sharks. He was especially careful to check on me since at that time I didn’t know how to swim properly.

I couldn’t emphasize how kind and generous the Maldivians are. Even though the Airbnb scam was traumatizing in itself, the kindness and hospitality of the locals I’d witness during my trip was enough for me to want to visit there again.

Airbnb eventually gave me a refund, but for some reason they did not remove the listing of the hotel that scammed me.

All in all, it was a story worth telling especially as a precaution, but now I can laugh about it.

Moral of the vacation horror story : Accommodations aren’t always reliable.

4. Peru Pains

by Ilona of Top Travel Sights

The first time I travelled to Peru, I got horrible stomach pains.

It started when we were on our way to Lake Titicaca, and at first, I thought it was just a regular stomach bug. I took some of the medication I had  packed for my trip to Peru , but it didn’t seem to help.

By the time I arrived at my hotel in Puno, though, the cramps had gotten so severe that I could not think about anything else but the pain. I tried to stand up to find a doctor, but I could not even walk anymore.

Fortunately, I was travelling with a friend who hurried to the reception to call an ambulance.

She was told that only doctors are allowed to call for ambulances and that we need to go and see a doctor first. The receptionist never managed to call an ambulance, but at least she called for a doctor who came to the hotel.

By that time, I was lying on my bed with my knees pulled up to my chest, unable to move at all. I had never been in as much pain. On top of that, the doctor only spoke Spanish, and we could barely communicate with him.

After a while, the doctor opened his bag and emptied a handful of vials on the bed. He started looking at them in the dim light of the night lamp, holding them at only a few centimetres from his eyes. None seemed to be what he was looking for – or he couldn’t read the labels well enough to decide which ones they were.

My friend ended up reading the labels for him until they found the right one. He injected a drug, and not even a minute later, a wave of nausea washed over me. I barely managed to pull the bin close before throwing up.

Whatever it was that he had given me, though, it seemed to help. After another injection, this time against nausea, the pain eased a little. The doctor wrote me one prescription for pills to take for a few days, plus another one for a few bottles of Gatorade for rehydration.

It took around two days for me to recover, but fortunately, I was fine afterwards.

Moral of the story : Don’t ignore pains. Call a doctor when you need one.

5. Sick in Cambodia

By Bec and Mark Wyld from Wyld Family Travel

There’s nothing worse than being woken by a noisy husband at 1.30 am…or so you think. Finding Mark laying on the shower floor, water spraying everywhere in our hotel room using the shampoo bottle as a pillow instantly made me worry.

So, of course, I yelled at him ‘What are you doing?’ He had been feeling unwell since leaving Siem Reap and as we had had some cocktails when we were there he thought maybe he had had some dodgy alcohol. He was guzzling water because it made him feel better but this time it was not working and it was bad. I managed to get him off the floor, dried and dressed as I tried to work out what the heck to do. I went down to the desk and asked how I could get him to a hospital. They told me they would get me a tuk-tuk and to bring him down. I hurried back to the room and told him a tuk-tuk was on its way to get him. Being 2.00 am by this stage, in Battambang Cambodia, and in enormous pain, he was not keen on going to the hospital by himself. But what was I meant to do with our kids? I woke our 13-year-old daughter up (luckily we  travel with teenagers ) and told her what was going on, gathered out insurance documents, passports, gave her the unusual instructions about safety and then took Mark downstairs. My heart was racing as Mark wandered in severe pain.

Our tuk-tuk was there waiting and the desk clerk was giving the driver instructions. We jumped in and off we went, Mark, writhing in pain at every bump. The first hospital (the local hospital) we went to was dark and no one seemed to be there so our driver motioned us to get back in, looking panicked and worried. We headed for the next hospital, the international one but once we arrived we were turned away with the driver looking more worried every second. The security guard at the gate said that the hospital was only open from 9-5. By this stage Mark was in so much pain he was really struggling and it was getting scary. The driver pulled up at the first hospital again yelling, I think for help.

People jumped up off camp stretchers everywhere and escorted us into the hospital. They took us to a little room and started treating Mark. Things did get better for a little while and he was admitted to a room where he was given pain relief.

Unfortunately, it became clear that it wasn’t working and something wasn’t quite right. We found out he was being treated for food poisoning and we were pretty sure it wasn’t that. I started contacting a friend who was a nurse, a friend who was a GP and our insurance company who were all over it immediately. A nurse told me by the sounds of it Mark had kidney stones and we needed to get to Phnom Pehn immediately as at this stage we had not been seen anyone in 5 hours.  But I had to get back to our kids to check on them. The hospital was so close I could actually see our floor from the room they put Mark in and I spent the rest of the night as Mark ended up falling asleep staring at the hotel. I walked back and took them for breakfast and to see that their Dad was ok. I then took them back to the hotel where the lady who owns the hotel was worried about us. I left them there again and went back to get Mark who I found wandering down to the front desk. He felt better and still had not seen anyone so he wanted to leave.

We collected his things, told the insurance agency whose agent was frantically looking for us in the hospital but was told there were no foreigners there (we still don’t know what happened there) and took him back to the hotel to rest as he was feeling much better. The next morning we were driven in a private vehicle to Phnom Pehn and as we sat down for dinner, Mark grimaced in pain and we called the tuk-tuk for it all to start again!

Moral of this scary travel story: It can be challenging to figure out international hospitals.

6. The Seasick Birthday

by Cristina of My Little World of Travelling

My partner and I were enjoying a  late summer holiday in Paphos , Cyprus. It was my partner’s birthday and we wanted to do something a bit different, so we decided to book a last-minute boat trip.  We were up nice and early, by the front of the hotel, ready to be picked up for our day trip. After waiting for more than half an hour we were told that there had been a mistake and we had been given the wrong time! But we were in luck. The hotel arranged a local guide to take us to the spot the boat was due to stop next. The guide was very friendly and apologised for what happened. We arrived at our destination and were taken down to the beach where we could see the boat and everyone in the sea enjoying themselves.  A speedboat then appeared out of nowhere and started heading towards us. This was our ride! We climbed aboard and sat on the front as the speedboat headed towards the boat, weaving around everyone in the sea.

As they looked at us and must have thought “who do these two think they are?!”. We felt like we were in a James Bond movie! We had lots of fun on the cruise – music, plenty of delicious traditional Cypriot and Turkish food, drinks and sun. The sea views were incredible – we could see the stunning coastline with popular beaches like Coral Bay, out of nowhere rock formations and luxury houses on cliffs.  One of the best parts of our boat trip was when we made a stop to jump into the sea. I couldn’t resist jumping into the crystal clear water. The water was cold, but I didn’t care much because the feeling of swimming in the middle of nowhere and being able to see fish swim around us was just amazing. So after hours of enjoyment and relaxation, on our way back I started feeling a bit unwell. I had to run downstairs and skip a full queue to go to the restroom.

I was seasick!

I went upstairs, I had a look at my partner and he didn’t look great either. He told me he was sick too. It was a very romantic ending to his birthday!

Moral of the story: Pack sea sickness tablets. …and maybe don’t go boating for a birthday?

7. Pickpocketed in Lima

by Vicki of Vicki Viaja

One of our most adventurous travel stories happened when we were traveling in Peru’s capital Lima. On the way to the district  Miraflores in Lima, we took the metro bus, which is considered the fastest means of transportation in the city. When we got on, we were suddenly pushed hard, although just a few people got on with us. A few seconds later, my husband Eduardo noticed that his cell phone had disappeared from his pocket. Since we usually speak to each other in English, we must have seemed like easy victims to the pickpocket.

What the pickpocket didn’t count on, however, is that we speak fluent Spanish (my husband is a native Spaniard). Without thinking, my husband made himself heard loudly that someone around us must have just taken his phone. Immediately, we got lots of attention. A man next to us pointed out that a middle-aged woman behind him had just made a cell phone disappear into her bag. Of course, that could have been a trick to distract from himself… When asked about this, the lady naturally got angry and left the bus at the next stop. In just a few seconds, we had to decide and jumped out of the bus at the last moment so as not to lose the lady. After heated discussions with her, we kept following her over several stops. The funny thing was that there were always bystanders who told us that the lady was behaving strangely and that we should continue to follow her. When she got back on a bus, I saw the imprint of a cell phone in her pocket for a moment. So we continued to follow the lady.

At the next bus stop, a security guard noticed us and decided to call the police to search the lady. Suddenly, the lady leaned over to us and offered to give us back our cell phone if we didn’t report her. As the police turned the corner, she took my husband’s cell phone out of her underwear (yes, that’s where she had hidden it) and handed it to him.

Dumbfounded, he took it.

Since we already had our phone back when the police arrived, we couldn’t press charges because we had no evidence. But at least we had our phone back.

Moral of the travel horror story : Wear pickpocket-proof clothing ( like this !).

8. Locked Out in Amsterdam

By Sydney of A World in Reach

A few years ago, I spent my spring break exploring Amsterdam with some friends. We spent a week checking things off our Amsterdam bucket list and enjoying a break from school.

The night before we were leaving to head back to the US, we spent the evening hanging out in our Airbnb, enjoying a weed brownie while packing our stuff. When the munchies inevitably kicked in, we decided to order pizza.

When the pizza arrived, my boyfriend and I decided to go get it from downstairs while our other friend stayed in the Airbnb. As we left, we heard my friend exit the apartment to come down with us. No big deal, right?

When my friend left the Airbnb, the door closed behind him. And locked.

Guess where the key was? Inside the Airbnb.

We were stuck in the hallway of our apartment building in the middle of winter with no way to get in. To make matters worse, the three of us were wearing pajamas with no coats, and I was the only one wearing shoes (if you can count slippers as shoes!).

I had a SIM in my phone that allowed me to make local calls, but of course my phone was almost dead. We tried frantically to get ahold of our host so we could pick up a spare key.

Thankfully after about 45 minutes of calling (and lots of tears), we finally reached our host and he said we could pick up the spare key from his home located right in the middle of Amsterdam’s Red Light District.

With no other options, we called an Uber to take us to the district. The driver got us as close as he could to the apartment (most of the street was closed for cars). Since I was the only one wearing shoes, I made the trek through the Red Light District to find the host’s apartment and get the key.

It was a bit hard to find in the dark, and running through the Red Light District in my pajamas was a little embarrassing, but we eventually made it back with the key and were able to get back inside.

Although we weren’t in any true danger, this remains as one of my stressful travel experiences to date. Plus, I learned a lesson from this vacation horror story : never leave your accommodation (even for a second) without a key in your hand!

9. 1970’s Travel Horror Story

by Anne of Packing Light Travel

Imagine an era when passengers boarded planes without passing through security screening. That was my experience when  travelling in the 1970s , but that changed with a flight from Istanbul to Tel Aviv in 1974.

Naively, I had expected to simply walk on the plane much like boarding a bus, similar to what my friend had experienced on his flight to London a few hours earlier.

The first indication that my experience would be different was when an EL AL sign was hung in the baggage check-in area, and a section was roped off for examination of passports and inspection of luggage.

Passport control came first. Each page of my passport was closely examined, with the visas for Iran, Iraq, and Jordan attracting the most attention. These prompted several questions and the involvement of a second officer before a third person was called over to take my passport away for further scrutiny.

Next came screening of luggage. In 1974, this meant physical inspection of each item in my bag and use of a handheld metal detector. While this was underway, the officer returned with my passport and puzzling questions about my visit to Czechoslovakia.

Prior to boarding, men and women were separated for frisking by officers of the same gender as the passengers. It felt thorough, but then, I’d never been frisked before. My camera was removed from my jacket, and I was asked to expose one photograph. This was a costly inconvenience as film and processing were expensive back then and taking photographs required measured constraint.

About 15 metres from the gate, the EL AL plane sat on the tarmac, surrounded by armed officers toting automatic weapons.

A bus pulled up as close as it could get to the gate and passengers boarded in single file. An armed officer guarded the bus and I observed two others on rooftops.

After circling the plane, the bus stopped at the bottom of the steps, and we were quickly herded on to the plane. I imagined one or two undercover commandoes were on board to deal with any threat that could potentially jeopardize our safe arrival in Israel.

Upon reflection, the strict security measures shouldn’t have been surprising. The 1973 Yom Kippur War in the Middle East hadn’t yet concluded, and Israel’s vulnerability to terrorist attacks abroad had been tragically demonstrated by the hijacking of an EL AL plane in Rome and the slaying of eleven Israeli athletes and officials at the Munich Olympics.

Nevertheless, it was such a new experience that a description warranted several pages in my travel journal.    

10. Confronting Australian Spiders

By Victoria of Guide Your Travel

While being on a work and travel visa in Australia, I decided to buy a campervan to save money on accommodation costs which can quickly add up.

The first week I just followed the road without a plan where to go next.

My only concern during that time was, where to sleep at night. I also kept an eye out on different Facebook groups where job vacancies were posted regularly. Since my savings started to become smaller each day, I have decided to take the next opportunity to make some cash .

I ended up as a waitress in an oceanfront bar and restaurant in a small town called Agnes Water.

The first week I camped in front of the restaurant, which my boss allowed me to do. After my shift ended one night at around 10 pm, my colleague and I decided to have a beer at the beach, just 50 meters away from where I parked. When we said goodnight I headed to my van where I had opened the windows before, so that fresh air came in.

When I tried to turn on the lights in the front, I noticed two shining eyes that stared at me.

I turned on the flashlight on my phone and jumped out of the car in a single leap after seeing what was sitting in front of me.

A giant spider was sitting right above my steering wheel.

I immediately called my colleague to ask for his help, but after I described the spider to him, he just laughed and said it’s probably a huntsman spider.

I, still in shock, standing barefoot in front of my van, having no idea what a huntsman is, was told I could just crush it. However, crushing the spider, as big as the palm of my hand, was out of the question, so I was on my own.

I took out my selfie stick and tried to scare away my uninvited guest with it. After a few attempts, I fortunately succeeded. At almost midnight, the spider decided to climb out of the window and then disappear into the nearby bushes.

Since I had no other option but to sleep in the van, I decided to turn the whole car inside out to see if there were any more spiders. After an unsuccessful search, I probably still had the worst night of my life.

Moral of this scary travel story : Close your van windows or risk a night faced with a giant spider.

11. A very wet New Zealand

by Holly from Globeblogging

Twelve years after road tripping the North Island of New Zealand , I went back to do the same on the South Island in December 2019.

Public Service Announcement: don’t visit  New Zealand in December . 

While it is apparently common that NZ is pretty wet in December, 2019 was something else and the island had copped huge amounts of rain. 

By the time I hit Queenstown I had already had my seal swim and glowworm caving trip cancelled due to the weather, and I had been lucky to still take a wet drive on the one road to Milford Sound. All the shops along the Queenstown lakefront were sandbagged, ready for Lake Wakatipu to imminently burst its banks. 

My next planned stop was the Franz Josef Glacier, to which there is one road from Queenstown. It had been taken out by a landslide.

For three days I watched anxiously for updates but finally had to make the call and start cancelling everything for the next leg of my trip and working out a new route back to Christchurch to get my flight home. 

I ended up visiting Wanaka next, which was so badly flooded the lakeside tourist centre was out in the lake, the famous Wanaka tree was half submerged and despite walking around the lake I couldn’t even get close to it!

This was the same time as the volcano was erupting on the North Island, and concerned colleagues and friends were messaging me to check that I wasn’t on that island, knowing full well that climbing a volcano was something I absolutely would do. 

When I returned my car in Christchurch the rental company told me that people had been trapped in Franz Josef for days without power, and were abandoning their rental cars to hire helicopters out.

So while I am still disappointed to have missed it, it was a blessing in disguise I never made it up there!

12. Lost in the Mountains

I loved all my hikes in the Caribbean and never regretted a hike until I got lost on a trail.

When I moved to  Colombia there were many things to do . I hiked to the Santa Isabel Glacier which is a snow-capped volcano. The hike was the most extreme I have faced due to the 4,965 metres elevation which had me gasping for air.

Also, it was raining and about 1 degree Celsius which added yet another obstacle.

I was determined to get to the glacier, but I could not keep up. The guide told me that he had to go ahead with the rest of the team so just keep going, but at 12pm, start going down.

And that was the last I saw someone.

Eventually the glacier came into view, so I paused to take pictures. Then it was 12pm so as I was told, I turned back to start walking down as he said.

After about 15 minutes, I started to get concerned that I was still not seeing anyone, and I was not sure that I was even on the right track. I thought I saw footprints, so I continued to follow them. However, fog quickly blew across and I could no longer see around.

I was afraid to continue in case I had gone off track, if I hadn’t already strayed.

I began calling out for help, but no one responded. I began to panic, what would happen if everyone had already gone? Was I lost?

I sat on a rock and started to cry.

I thought about what food I had and how I would ration it. I thought about what wildlife was out there, pumas being the scariest one mentioned.

I immediately stopped myself and again started screaming at the top of my lungs but still, no response.

It was half an hour later and I still had not moved due to the fog then finally, someone shouted back “hello.”

I could not have been any more relieved! I started to cry again, but this time happy tears that I had been found…by the guide who had left me! Even though his descent was too quick for me, I definitely was not risking losing him again and just followed. Finally, we had made it back to the cars that took us back to our hotels.

My grand advice, which seems obvious in hindsight, is to never lose sight of your guide!

13. Sometimes, Stay ON The Beaten Path

by Shireen from The Happy Days Travels

We’d arrived in Penang in the North of Malaysia to spend a few days eating delicious street food, experiencing the blurring of Malay, Chinese and Indian cultures and going on day trips around the Island.

One of the most popular day trips is  visiting Penang Hill  which is a group of 10 peaks with various things to do including several hiking routes. We opted for the main trail which is a 5km circular loop around Penang Hill. 

The walk was so peaceful with things to see along the way like flora, fauna and wildlife even though there were other tourists and cars passing by. We reached the cafe just off the trail and headed back onto the loop when after about half an hour we realised that it was spookily silent with no tourists, cars or wildlife passing us any more. We tried to check for maps when we realised none of our phones had any signal.

And this was the first time my stomach jumped to my heart.

We made the mutual agreement to walk back by ourselves instead of heading further off the beaten path (that we unintentionally found ourselves on) when we saw one person on a motorbike. We flagged him down for directions. Before asking he said to us ‘you cannot be here, this is a military base’ and we all looked at each other in a telling way.

On our way back toward the cafe, we found a pink sign amongst leaves of a military person holding a gun to a trespasser! Obviously this was a true horror travel story moment with the realisation of what could have happened because we were on the wrong path.

My flight mode kicked on and I walked as fast as I could. Continuing the walk, we also noticed many signs saying ‘dilarang masuk’ which, after a later Google translation, meant ‘no entry.’ 

When we finally made it back to the cafe, we hitched a ride back and I‘ve never been so thankful to make it out of that situation.

Sometimes you should just stay on the beaten path.

14. An Unexpected Bear Encounter

by Rebecca of Whatever Packs Your Bags

You know when someone is talking to you, and you can’t quite make out what they are saying? How about when 30 people are yelling at you and you still can’t quite make it out… and then you do, and the word “BEAR” has never held so much meaning in your whole life.

I should back up though, first things first location, location, location:  Glacier National Park . The views are awe-inspiring, seriously breathtaking.

You cannot take a bad picture here, unless your finger is covering the camera, which only happened a couple times.

Everywhere you look are the most beautiful landscapes, mountains, waterfalls, and lakes you have literally ever seen in your entire life. It feels untouched, even though you are in a national park with hundreds, maybe thousands of other people.

You get caught up in the raw beauty of it all.

The Park Ranger told us Many Glacier was the place to go hiking. Seeing a glacier, since we were visiting Glacier National Park, feels like the thing to do, right?

The Ranger reminded us that you will need the bear spray — don’t forget the bear spray!

We got to the trailhead, for the hike up to Grinnell Glacier, and what luck there was a place to park. We were warned parking can be hard to come by, so we were super excited. We filled our water packs, took a potty break, and headed up the trail.

Then we figured out why there is parking, because in 2.6 miles the trail is closed for bear activity. Super sucks, but we are already out there, so we decided it was best to make the most of it. Maybe the bear will move on, and the trail will open back up?

We made it to where the trail was closed, disappointed and trekked down the mountain side, crossed a cute little 1-person bridge, walked about 10 yards, and took a break by Swiftcurrent Lake.

The boat was taking people across the lake, so we sat down and put our hot and sweaty feet in the glacier fed water.

Everything is going just fine: the water is freezing, the snacks are yummy, the people are yelling… THE PEOPLE ARE YELLING… “BEAR”… AT US!!!!

Adrenaline is pumping, you know how you wonder what kind of person you are in a crisis, well we were about to find out…

(Also, side note to future helpful people, if you see a bear going toward a group of people, just yelling BEAR doesn’t help) 

Not knowing which direction, the bear was coming from, and having the yelling people not specify their left or your left?!!! Not great.

I screamed at the top of my lungs “STOP” with the hand signals to match, then pointed “this way” or “that way”. Luckily, that got their attention, and the answer was this way, now we knew the direction the bear was coming from.

We then had to make a split-second decision. Luckily the blood was pumping because I wouldn’t have chosen to wade through a glacier fed lake 5 minutes before.

We waded across, pushing, pulling, and a little carrying involved to make it to where the lake and a significant portion of reeds are between where we were and where the bear was now. 

I will mention that in all this time we never actually saw the bear, which is a little safer and just a little disappointing.

In the meantime, there was a little crying, a little grateful to be alive, and a little regret for the shoes we left behind and the feet that are now more than a little worse for wear. 

The Park Ranger comes sideling up the path, cool as a cucumber and asks if we saw a bear.

We told him there was a bear, and we left our shoes.

He says, “No worries. I’ll go check it out and your shoes will likely be saved.”

Two of our group head back (with the Ranger of course) and get the shoes. They also meet up with a guy who videoed the encounter.

Fun fact the bear wasn’t coming for us. He was using the path and bridge (that was only 10 yards away from where we were moments before). He scratched his butt on the bridge and moved on.

Apparently, bears don’t wanna walk through the cold glacier water, or prickly reeds either. 

We made it back to the trailhead in the fastest 2 miles ever.

Te bear activity sign is revised to 2.1 miles ahead.

Now we know to always trust bear warnings.

15. The Bite is Worse than the Bark

by Rosanna of Rosanna Etc

In summer 2005, just before my 21st birthday, I finished my university degree and booked a celebratory holiday to the Greek island of Crete with my then boyfriend.

We landed at around 6pm and got to our hotel in Gouves really quickly, so decided to go for an evening walk to get a drink.

All of the bars and restaurants ran along a road next to the beach, so we decided to walk along the sand rather than the pavement.

That’s when I saw a dog playing in the water about 50 feet away from us.

I remember remarking on the dog to my boyfriend, as I love animals, but the dog sadly did not feel the same way.

It attacked and ran towards us snarling and barking. As it got closer I panicked and ran away back to the road. I had to climb up a small wall and scraped my shins all up the concrete, and that’s the last thing I remember.

I was then hit by a man riding a moped travelling at speed down the road. I do not remember anything from this point until a couple of days later.

I was knocked unconscious briefly, and then was in a semiconscious state whilst an ambulance was called and I was taken to the private hospital nearby, where all tourists go if they are injured.

I was given a CAT scan and it showed I had swelling on my brain and head injuries. I needed to see a neurologist, but theirs was on vacation so I was then taken to the state hospital instead.

I had more X-Rays that showed my left arm was badly broken and my right ankle bone was chipped. My arm needed surgery and was put in a cast up to my armpit as you can’t go under general anaesthetic whilst your brain is swollen, and I therefore had to stay in this hospital for monitoring purposes.

I have false memories of this whole period, which is something that happens to people who get amnesia. Their brain pieces together ‘memories’ made from stories people have told them about what happened, but they aren’t real.

My real memories start again two days later in a strange hospital ward full of Greek people where the only English the nurses spoke was the word “pain?” and if I said “yes” then they would give me drugs.

Eventually after 2 weeks I was able to leave, and my travel insurance company arranged flights home and assistance at the airports.

I went straight from London Heathrow airport to the hospital, and had surgery on my arm the following day where they had to screw metal plates onto my bones to hold them back together. I still have the metal plates in my arm, plus some pretty hefty surgical scars.

My arm and hand were completely frozen and stiff from being in a cast for so long, and I had to have intense physio to be able to move it again.

I couldn’t cut up my own food, or wash my own hair for weeks and also suffered from PTSD. I had flashbacks of the dog attacking me that triggered panic attacks.

The whole experience really set me back and for a long time it felt as though it really defined me, seeing as it had occurred at a point where I had been about to embark on the next chapter of my life as an adult and suddenly I was stuck, waiting to heal.

Thankfully, after time and therapy I was able to move on from this bump in the road (please excuse the pun) and now I barely think of it, except to win conversations about “what’s the worse thing that can happen to you on holiday”. 

Moral of the story : not all street dogs are friendly.

16. Getting Mugged at Knifepoint

by Julia from The Cure for Curiosity

We’ve all heard those travel horror stories about how “unsafe” some cities are. Rio de Janeiro,

Brazil is definitely one of those cities.

Surrounded by favelas and infamous for its high crime, beach goers are told to beware of mass lootings and robberies, and taxis run red traffic lights at night as a safety measure.

Unfortunately, no amount of warning or safety precautions could have kept me from falling victim to the crimes of Rio.  

One evening around dusk as I was walking down the main road of Ipanema, one of the wealthier and safer areas of Rio, with a friend, there was plenty of life buzzing around us. Then, as we continued our leisurely stroll down the populated road, you could feel the atmosphere change as a group of young men came racing down the sidewalk single file.

This separated me from my friend who ended up positioned behind me, and the last youth stopped in front of me, shoved a knife in my throat, and started yelling at me in Portuguese. 

Now, my Portuguese is non-existent, but I do understand knives, so I stayed still as his friend grabbed my cross-body purse and ripped the leather straight down the side and off my body.

Happy with their accomplishment, the guy with the knife took off running and his friend with my purse went to follow.

As it turns out, Brazilians must not play much American football, because the guy with my purse had it held in his hands rather than protected against his body, so I reached out, grabbed it straight from his hands, and took off sprinting down the road.  

Feet pounding on the pavement and heart pounding in my chest, I ran past crowds of people yelling after these same young men who had hit multiple victims on the same road.

Fortunately, I was training for a 70.3 mile Ironman and knew my running was decent, but it didn’t keep me from worrying about getting stabbed and bleeding to death on the roads of beautiful Ipanema.

Once I could tell no one was following me, I ducked into a store and waited for my friend to catch up before calmly crossing the road and continuing on our way to our hostel .

I was lucky in that I was able to steal back my purse and nothing was truly lost besides my sense of safety and the physical purse, but not everyone is so lucky. Follow all safety precautions you can and know what to do in case of an emergency, like what to do if your purse is stolen abroad . 

17. Terrorist Attack in Barcelona

by Emma of The Checklist Chick

My craziest travel horror story took place on my first solo trip in 2017 to Barcelona . What started out as a day of exploring the sights, turned into the sinister scene of a terrorist attack.

I was staying in a hotel along La Rambla, the 1.2km pedestrian street in central Barcelona, where one afternoon soon a terror group would drive a van down the street mowing people down, killing 13 and injuring at least 130 others.  

Earlier that morning I started my day wandering around La Rambla before deciding to book an afternoon sightseeing tour to see La Sagrada Familia and Parc Güell, which I secured the last spot on.

Had I not gone on that tour, I probably would’ve been there when it happened.  

On the way to the last stop, our tour was cut short. We were told we could no longer continue the tour due to an incident and we were to disembark, and not go back to La Rambla.

This made me very nervous, as I was alone, lost in a foreign country, not being able to speak the local language and was told I couldn’t go back to my hotel.

Thankfully, a lovely family on my tour let me accompany them until we could get back to our hotels.  

We spent the afternoon trying to find a café or restaurant still open. We wandered with food and waited at the police barricades until we could get back.

We finally found a Chinese restaurant open with food and Wi-Fi, where we heard the news and that some of the attackers were still at large.

After trying to contact home, unsuccessfully (it was the middle of the night in Australia), we walked around to the other end of La Rambla to see if we could reach the safety of our hotels from there.

After hours of waiting, the police started escorting people back to the hotels deemed safe. I was escorted back around 10pm, when by then, the embassy and my family were trying to contact me.

I mostly stayed in my hotel for the last two days of my trip, aside from getting food and water and paying my respects at some of the many memorials that popped up along the street.

I flew home safely with a crazy story to tell my friends and family.

After this trip, I am much more careful when travelling, and actively share travel safety tips with fellow solo travellers.

18. The Strike that Cancelled Millions

By Gabby of the Office Escape Artist

I got laid off in 2015 and decided to use this new free time (which I fondly called “Funemployment”) to backpack through Europe.  My last destination was  Budapest, Hungary , where I was going to spend a few days before flying back to the United States. I was on a nighttime river cruise when I overheard some Americans talking about the “really bad Lufthansa strike.”  Since my flight was going to be in a few days, I didn’t think it was going to impact me. 

Surely a strike wouldn’t last days, right? Unfortunately, I was wrong.  That conversation happened on the first day of the strike, a strike that ended up lasting 7 days, impacting over half a million passengers and canceling over a million airline tickets. During this strike, any Lufthansa flight connecting through Germany (which is basically all of them) was canceled. 

I kept getting re-booked only to be re-canceled. 

Thankfully my hostel was super accommodating and let me continue to extend my time there on very short notice – but that was just one more thing to stress about. When I finally had enough, I tried to log into United – who I had low-level status with – to try and negotiate a return trip.  I was using the hostel computer, which meant it had a Hungarian keyboard. 

Did you know that keyboards were different for each country?

I had no idea. Trying to just log in was a struggle. 

After getting the Premier Help Desk, I tearfully told the agent that I was a solo female traveler and just needed to get home.  She ended up rebooking me to go from Hungary to Brussels to Chicago to Denver. … Unfortunately, my layover in Chicago was only 40 minutes, so I missed that connection. But after 28 hours of travel time and a 4-day delay due to the strike, I finally made it home!

Moral of this scary vacation story: Don’t underestimate strikes!

19. The Booking Nightmare

by The Fearless Foreigner

My year teaching and living in Russia was full of memorable moments. One of the most memorable actually took place when I was trying to get back to Russia from NYC during holiday break. 

I was making the most of my last day in the Big Apple and wasn’t too concerned about the forecasted snowstorm. I headed to the airport as usual, taking public transportation.

The subway line had a detour and wasn’t running on its regular route. As a result I had to exit on a fairly deserted and snowy Brooklyn street hoping that a taxi would drive by.

I didn’t have a US phone plan and had no way of calling a taxi.

Just as I was going to give up, a taxi arrived and the driver seemed very surprised that my flight wasn’t canceled. I assured him it wasn’t. 

We arrived at the airport late, but I was happily surprised to see no lines for security. I waited in the check in line for quite awhile before I realized we were waiting for hotel vouchers and not boarding passes.

Of course they ran out of vouchers and claimed every hotel in NYC was full. Unlikely story, but this was the real start of problems with Aeroflot Airlines.

As wifi wasn’t picking up in the airport for some reason and I had no cell data I was in quite a pickle. I hemmed and hawed about sleeping at the airport . I tried to buy a sim card from a vending machine. Luckily I knew the city well and eventually asked a taxi driver to drive me to one of the nearby airport hotels. 

Upon arrival the hotel was booked, but they were kind enough to let me use their wifi to book another hotel.

The real problem came with getting a taxi, everyone that the hotel called wouldn’t come. Each one I would reserve on Lyft would cancel after 10 minutes. By the time a taxi finally agreed to pick me up it was almost 2am. 

Once at the hotel, my booked room wasn’t available anymore. Remember that card I used to try to buy a sim card? It was flagged as fraud and because I used it to book my hotel room they had canceled my booking.

It took an hour, but they finally got me a room. 

As Aeroflot wouldn’t reschedule bookings online I had to be up bright and early the next morning to return to the airport. For the next two days I was in lines to reschedule my flight. It was the most disorganized mess you could ever imagine.

It was more than 3 days later when I arrived in Russia.

Moral of the story : Check if your flight is cancelled before you go to the airport.

20. The Horrible Hotel Cancellation

By Jess of Tourist to Travellers

Every year my husband and I look forward to spending some time away in a foreign land, exploring a different culture, basking in the history of the place, trying new cuisines , and meeting new people along the road.

One thing we have learned from our travels thus far is that no amount of planning can prepare you for what’s in store when you step out.

Back in 2016 when we planned our very first big budget trip to Turkey , we were all gung-ho and super excited. We were in for surprises from the very first day we landed in Istanbul.

Somewhere in the middle of the trip when we were in a beautiful place called Kas, a night before we were to arrive in  Oludeniz, Fethiye  we received a call that shocked us. The hotel manager of the hotel in Oludeniz called to inform us that our reservation was cancelled as the hotel management had changed and the new management plans to shut the hotel temporarily. 

Having paid for the stay beforehand we were scared whether we would receive any refund. Where would we stay?

This incident alone would not have scared us but having my wallet stolen on the very first day in Istanbul followed by this made me burst into tears.

The manager informed us that he would meet us at the bus stop the next day in Fethiye. Luckily for us he was true to his word. He not only came to pick us up in his own car but he also put us up in a 5 star hotel right on the Oludeniz beach at no extra charge to us.

We were so happy that something that upset me a lot the night before turned into a boon the next day thanks to the kindness of a stranger.

Moral of the story : Sometimes you need to cry out the frustration to find a solution.

21. The Train to Nowhere

By Ellie of Soul Travel India

Towards the end of my 6 week solo travels around Rajasthan – the largest state in India – I was leaving Jaisalmer in the far north west.

Famous for its camel desert safaris and crumbling sandcastle-style fort, I’d been disappointed by Jaisalmer, which had turned out to be full of the more than usual number of hard-core tourist touts and fervent would be local  Romeos  who would not take no for an answer.

My initial plan to stay for a week got cut to a couple of days, and I happily booked my train out to leave and head back to Delhi.  Trains in India  take hours, and often depart and arrive in the middle of the night. So the usual advice of travelling during daylight hours for solo female travellers sounded good in theory, but was impossible to follow in practice.

Arriving at Jaisalmer station at 11pm for my midnight train, my rickshaw driver asked to see my ticket and what train I was getting. I ignored his request, but told him my train, before he proceeded to tell me how bad that train was and that it was very unreliable.

I rolled my eyes and strolled off – suspecting yet another “come and book another train from my friend’s travel agency” story. I happily sat down on the station platform, surrounded by other travellers.  30 minutes passed when an announcement came on. “we are sorry to announce that train to Delhi is delayed by 11 hours.”

Bugger. That was my train.

11 hours late?! That meant it would be due to roll in the following morning at 11am, and I had a whole night ahead of me.

I counted my options. I couldn’t go outside and get a rickshaw by myself back into town, as it was pitch black and completely unsafe to do so alone at that time of night. I browsed hotels on my Booking app, frantically looking for ones that looked good and trying to call them to make a booking and get a pickup. No-one was answering.  As the clock ticked closer to midnight, I eventually went into the station to ask about “retiring rooms” (basic hotel style rooms which are rented out at stations in India). They were all full.

At the ticket office, when I asked about other friends, the clerk shouted “general” to me for another train to Delhi. At the time I had no idea what General class was, but I didn’t want to find out.

Eventually, seeking help from the station master, I was told to stay inside the station, where there were people sleeping on the floor and around, and that I’d be fine.  I wasn’t so sure. In one corner, a group of drunk soldiers returning home sporadically burst into song and started punching each other. In another corner a large family lay out their sleeping bags on the floor.

I got as close to the women as I could.  It’s fair to say I didn’t sleep a wink. As soon as the morning light came, I booked myself into the nicest hotel I could find to sleep for a few hours, and try again on another train.  My train never did show up at all. I left Jaisalmer the following day via another route, and met the most amazing group of travel companions that I am still in touch with today. 

Moral of the story : Double check the type of transportation you book.

22. Road Trip from Hell

by Alanna from Periodic Adventures

My boyfriend and I have been together for 10 years, but during our first year together, we took our first vacation…which did not go as planned.

Since we’re both from  Los Angeles , we took a road trip through California and planned to hit Yosemite National Park and Lassen National Park. It was a 5 day trip in August to see the highlights then return home.

We took my trusty steed – my 2000 Toyota Camry – and started off without a hitch. We spent a day in Yosemite where we saw redwoods and the epic Tunnel View with Bridalveil Falls, El Capitan, and Half Dome in the distance.

Next, to explore Lassen National Park, we decided to set up base in Corning, California , a very small town that’s typically just for passersby.

At the time, there was a forest fire within Lassen National Park, but prior to our trip, you could still go to some parts so we carried on. However, when we drove to the park from Corning, we were passed by waves of firetrucks.

It felt like a bad omen.

Soon, my  oh so  trusty steed started smoking, perhaps in solidarity with Lassen National Park.

Luckily, there was a mechanic nearby.

He said it was likely the transmission but if we just refilled the transmission fluid frequently, we’d be okay.

We turned back to Corning to be safe, filling up with transmission fluid twice along the way. As we took the highway exit for Corning, my car died.

We had to have it towed to a local mechanic in Corning, who said the transmission was shot.

So here we were in the middle of summer, stranded 7.5 hours from home.

In the end, we spent 4 days in Corning, walking to the bowling alley and swimming at the hotel waiting for rescue. My mom drove up to take us back home and after my car got fixed, it was shipped back to us at home.

What an adventure!

Moral of the story : Get a second opinion on your car’s engine issues.

23. A Series of Unfortunate Events

by Tiffany of Pennies, Places, and Paws

I love traveling in the spring because it is not as hot (we do a lot of camping and hiking), it’s more budget-friendly, and there tend to be fewer people.

Unfortunately, spring also brings rain and occasionally floods. 

Last spring, I had planned a trip traveling all around Kentucky and had pre-booked all of our cave tours and campsites. My husband and I were super excited about our 7-day adventure.

Of course, it ended up raining every day of our trip.

By the 4 th  day, we began hearing about floods throughout the state. Multiple attractions including some cave tours were being shut down in the area due to flooding. 

Our cave tour for the next day was scheduled at Lost River Cave right when they opened. We drove the 2 hours just to arrive as they called my cell phone to tell me all tours were going to be canceled that day.

We were a little bummed out but I was prepared with several backup plans to our itinerary.

We also learned that one of our campsites for later in the week was also going to be closed and our reservations were canceled. We quickly reviewed our other options and booked a different campsite for that night.

Battling some minor frustrations over the inconveniences of the morning, we decided to replace our canceled cave tour with the Stateline Whiskey Tour which had 2 of the 3 stops en route to our campsite for that evening.

We were going to save the third and final distillery stop for a future vacation because it was just across the border in Tennessee . 

When we arrived at the 2nd distillery, we discovered that we had gotten a flat tire. This distillery was in Amish country and the closest tire place was at least 30 min away. 

We were able to put our spare tire on just in time for the distillery tour and tasting to begin. After the tour, we called several places in order to find a shop that had the right size tire in store. (Most stores were telling us that it would take at least a day to get the correct size tire in.)

We found a Discount Tire 40 minutes away in Tennessee that had one in stock. 

As luck would have it, this was near the 3 rd  and last distillery of the Stateline Whiskey Tour. We were able to get a new tire and finish the whiskey tour which made having to change our plans yet again at least mostly worth it.

When going on a road trip I highly recommend going over this  Road Trip Car Checklist . Because we were properly prepared, we were able to quickly make the needed adjustments to our itinerary and not be forced to wait for someone to help us with our flat tire.

24. Cruising During Covid-19

Recommended by Peta and Jonas of Exit45 Travels

What was it like  cruising during coronavirus ? We have been asked this question by many people so here is our experience:

We boarded Costa Victoria late in February 2020 in Mumbai, India for a month long repositioning cruise ending in Venice. A couple of weeks prior to flying out to Mumbai, we heard concerning reports of Covid cases confirmed in Italy and other parts of Europe. 

We contacted our travel agent and Costa on several occasions to ask for an update on whether our cruise would be going ahead as scheduled and what safety precautions would be taken at embarkation. All news was positive and we were confident the cruise would not sail if there were concerns over safety.

Upon boarding Costa Victoria on Day 1, we were really looking forward to our month-long cruise including 3 full days in the Maldives, Petra in Jordan, and Dubrovnik and Split in Croatia.

Ship life on the day and evening of embarkation was cheerful and festive. 

Unfortunately, it was on Day 2 that we heard our first lot of bad news and alarm bells started ringing.

The Maldives Authorities had contacted Costa and said they would not allow the ship to port if there were any Italians on board, as Italy was now quickly becoming Covid-19 hotspot No.1.

All Italian passengers were forced to disembark.

Of course, we felt for all the Italian passengers, but at the same time those of us still on board were thankful to Costa for making such a tough decision so the rest of the passengers could enjoy The Maldives.  

This feeling was short lived as we received a notification on Day 3 that The Maldives had refused the ship entry. From this day on, each evening we would arrive back to our room with letters from Costa advising ports were being cancelled, and alternative ports taking their place.

The cruise itinerary was not at all the cruise we had booked, but we made the best of it and still enjoyed the ports we did get to see. 

Our last day on land was Day 13 in Salalah, Oman and this was also when all on-board entertainment ceased. We were not allowed into any ports from this time forward and spent many days floating at sea while arrangements were made for our disembarkation.

On Day 24, the order came from the Captain that we were in lockdown in our cabins and were under no circumstances allowed to leave our rooms. We remained locked in our cabins for a further 7 days until finally disembarking in Rome and then being escorted by armed guards to the airport. 

The experience was very memorable, but not one we would like to repeat any time in the near future.

Moral of the story : Pandemics are no joke.

25. The Language Confusion

by MacKenzie of Rainbow Travel Life

I was coming down off a glorious  trip to Barcelona  and Madrid, cruising down the streets of El Centro, Madrid with my rolling Ikea luggage (yes, I looked as ridiculous as I sound).

I was on my way to the next glamorous destination – Lisbon – and my hostel was less than five minutes from the metro. From there, it would be an easy hour train ride to the airport.

Except it wasn’t.

I arrived at the station and immediately beelined for the train Google Maps told me to take. Except when I got to the platform, it was closed. T

here was a sign with directions on how to take a different train/route.

Unfortunately, my Spanish was basic, and I couldn’t understand where I was supposed to go. I spent ten minutes trying to reroute, scouring the internet – anything I could think of. Google was now saying I’d miss my flight.

It wasn’t updating the closed train, but it could tell me I wouldn’t make my flight? Thanks a lot, Google.

At this point, I had to forcibly breathe and remind myself panicking in a foreign country , alone, with a dying phone and a plane to catch, would get me nowhere. Once I calmed down, I turned and – “AHA!” – a help desk! With no one in it… I wandered to another help desk. Also empty.

I walked back and forth between the two desks, but no one ever came.

At this point, I was desperate. I needed to get to the airport. I don’t know what possessed me, but I went up to the next person who read the sign – and they could read it!

They were also going to the airport, and suddenly we were off! But I watched the clock tick down and I just knew – I wouldn’t be making my flight.  I walked away from the check in desk in a daze. I found myself bawling in the bathroom, utterly ashamed. Dozens of thoughts swirled in my head, and I did the only thing I could think of – called my mom. 

It was 3am in the US, but her phone was on for me – just in case. She answered in a panic, and my crying didn’t help.

Aftering calming me down, my wonderful parents bought me a new ticket to Lisbon. And after a few minutes, I was off to the check in desk, not quite recovered but moving forward anyway.

There are so many mistakes and ways many of these things could have been prevented – travel insurance is a big one, but so is relying less on technology, being more open to asking questions, and recognizing that mistakes will happen no matter how well seasoned you are. No one is exempt from screw ups, mistakes, or hiccups in life.

26. Learning to Plan Contingencies

by Martha of May Cause Wanderlust

My vacation story is like one of those horror movies when you know what’s going to happen; you can see the bad stuff coming, but can’t stop it from happening!

I had been meticulously planning a trip to a dream destination (to Peru, where I was going to  hike the Inca Trail ). But what I didn’t plan well was the flights.

I was flying from London to Lima via Amsterdam with a connection time of only 55 minutes.  It crossed my mind that this might not be enough time.

But I told myself the airline wouldn’t sell a flight with a high chance of missing the connection. Right?

When take-off from London was delayed, the sense of dread set in. 

Other passengers spoke to flight staff, who made calls to find out their connecting gate numbers, so they could head straight there when we landed.

Great, I thought: that will help me too!

But I couldn’t get the attendants’ attention to ask if they could do the same for me.

When I eventually did, they said it was too late, they could no longer make any calls.  Argh!

We landed 30 minutes late, so I got off the plane as quickly as I could, rushing past other passengers. I found out where my gate was and I realised it was the other side of the airport.

So I’m running through Schiphol, which happens to be the 3 rd  busiest airport in Europe – and huge!  I have to pause to use my asthma inhaler, but I keep running!

Finally, I get to the gate with 5 minutes to spare, so I think I’ve made it!  BUT the gate staff tell me that they can’t let me onboard.  I can see the plane, but I’m too late to board it. 

I had one of those The Graduate moments, hands on the glass, screaming ‘noooo!’.

I realised that instead of spending the first 24 hours of my dream trip in Lima, I’d be spending it at an airport hotel (some soulless place off the motorway; not even in Amsterdam!). And not only that, but I would be without my belongings, because it was too complicated to retrieve my bag from the system.  

So the lesson is, allow more time for connecting flights than you think you need – and always pack some essentials and a change of clothes in your carry-on, just in case! 

27. Why You Need the right proof of vaccination

By Adam McConnaughhay of CartagenaExplorer.com

My wife and I had planned our honeymoon in Jamaica, a place we had both never been and wanted to see.  

We knew one of the requirements to enter Jamaica and board the flight from Colombia was having proof of having the Yellow Fever vaccine, which we both had.

Or so we thought.  

Turns out my wife’s vaccine record was only acceptable for domestic use, not international travel.  The airline would not let us board our flight from  Cartagena  to Montego Bay.  Our flight happened to be very early in the morning as well.

Our only option was to wait several hours and go to the health office after they opened to have her vaccine documentation transcribed from the little white piece of paper to the little yellow WHO book that was required.  

Fortunately, we were able to get a flight to Kingston later in the day and still reach our destination in Port Antonio, although we did have to pay quite a hefty difference in cost.

We ended up still having a terrific time in Jamaica, but definitely learned the lesson to make sure you always have your travel documents, whatever they may be in order.  

Not to mention, be sure to keep those little yellow vaccine booklets safely guarded!

28. Getting Dengue Fever in Indonesia

by Sanne of Spend Life Traveling

I finally made it to Bali.

The island had been on my bucket list for a while so I was excited to get there and explore as much as I could.

Ubud was our last stop, where we stayed in a cute but very basic hotel. No air conditioning, simple rooms, an open-air lounge / breakfast area, and a lot of mosquitoes.

I love trying local street food, which we did wherever we could find it, and we walked a lot, in the heat. So when I started feeling a bit sick I wasn’t surprised.

Probably a minor heat stroke or maybe a mild case of food poisoning.

My time in Ubud was unfortunately up, my friend flew home and I flew to Bandung, the capital of West Java.

I remember feeling exhausted. But hey, it was hot in Bali, and traveling can wear you out.

In Bandung I was meeting my family, who flew to Indonesia to attend my uncle’s wedding. And, since my family isn’t into roughing it when traveling, I met them in a comfortable 4-star hotel.

And that is when I collapsed. I literally, and I’m in my 30s so this is a little embarrassing, fell into my mother’s arms. I just felt so tired!

So, in the comfortable air conditioned hotel room I fell asleep, looking forward to feeling like myself again the next morning.

But that didn’t happen. The next morning I couldn’t get out of bed. Walking felt like someone was sticking needles into my feet.

The hotel staff was incredible and got a doctor to come to my room, to run some tests. 

Dengue fever was the diagnosis.

Well ok. I’ve lived in the Caribbean and know quite a few stories of people who had dengue fever. A few days in bed, feeling extremely tired and unable to do anything.

I can deal with that, especially in a comfortable hotel, surrounded by family!

Well, no. Apparently there is a type of dengue fever called dengue hemorrhagic fever, which is a lot more serious and potentially lethal.

And unfortunately that’s what I had.

Although I didn’t know that yet. I insisted on just staying in bed, because I was convinced I’d feel better soon.

The next day I definitely didn’t feel better and the hotel staff, thankfully, convinced me to take another blood test. The results weren’t good and I was taken to the hospital.

I remember getting out of bed, determined to walk out of the hotel myself. But I literally couldn’t walk. It hurt too much. So, I was put into a wheelchair and taken to the hospital.

I spent 5 days in the hospital initially getting worse, with the doctor’s faces looking more and more serious.

But then all of a sudden things got better. The blood tests I had to do twice a day finally showed improvement and I started to feel a little stronger again.

My Visa was about to expire and I had no idea if a hospital stay was a valid reason to overstay a Visa. So, with some convincing I got my doctor to discharge me and I flew home the next day. 

But it took several months before I felt completely back to normal! 

And yes, I now know that dengue fever really isn’t something to take lightly.

If you go to Bali or anywhere else where there is dengue fever, be careful, use plenty of mosquito repellant and cover up when you can!

29. Malaria on Mount Bintumani

By Alissa of Exploringwild.com 

The nausea started a few minutes after summiting the tallest mountain in  Sierra Leone . Then the fever kicked in.

As I slipped and slid down the steep path behind the local guide, all I could think about was reaching the village where my luggage – and an emergency malaria test kit and treatment – would be waiting.

In the village I pitched my little tent and collapsed inside, zipping the door closed against the ring of staring children. I squeezed a few drops of bright red blood from my pricked finger onto the test strip and waited.

A solid pink line gradually appeared and confirmed I had malaria, the West African variety, known to kill within 24 hours.

I was at least a day away from medical care. I popped the first of the three treatment pills I’d been carrying since Uganda and passed out in a feverish haze.

The next morning, a lovely group of American NGO workers offered me a seat in their Land Cruiser on the way back to civilization. I gladly accepted, avoiding a long and bumpy ride on the back of a motorbike.

The journey still took all day and included a flat tire, but at least there was air conditioning and good company.

Back in Makeni they took me into their house and invited me to stay until I felt better. After months of traveling solo amidst the unfamiliar cultures of Africa, the social and cultural connection was medicine for my soul as well as my health. The malaria treatment worked, and in three days I was ready to continue my journey toward Liberia. 

Though I had felt awful, my new friends agreed my malaria case was relatively mild.

This is probably because I was already taking prophylactics (which are not 100% effective) and started treatment right away.

Test kits and treatment are available at any local pharmacy in sub-Saharan Africa, and I’m so glad I thought to buy them before traveling to a remote area.

For the millions who die from malaria each year, the story doesn’t end nearly so well. As a traveler it can be uncomfortable to have privileges and access that local people don’t. I was fortunate to recover fully, make new friends in the process, and gain new awareness of a preventable disease that affects so many people around the world.

30. When Water Sports Go Wrong

by Lara of The Best Travel Gifts

It was a beautiful sunny morning. I had just finished my free (and delicious) breakfast at the hostel at San Pedro La Laguna (Guatemala), and I was loving my solo trip through Central America.

Not quite the beginning of a typical horror story right? (Unless you’ve already checked the photo then you might have an idea of where this story is going).

On this beautiful morning, me and two guys decided we were going to jump on the Blob that was on the lake in front of the hostel.  It’s this thing where one person jumps on one end of the Blob and then launches the other person into the water.

Except, they never had a chance to jump.

Because as soon as I landed I noticed something was wrong with my back.

Luckily, I could still feel and move my toes, which I took as a sign that I wasn’t paralyzed yet. But I was still laying on a big air bag, on a lake, and with something not feeling alright with my back.

Miraculously, a group of men was able to get me on this wooden shelf and on the shore safely. I say miraculously because they were in boats, canoes, and on this air thingy that moved around. If I had fallen in the water or if I had accidentally made a wrong move…

Well, I don’t even want to think of what might have happened.

I was taken to a hospital about two and a half hours away, through mountains and hairpin turns.

After an MRI scan, they told me I had a compression fracture in my T12 vertebra and that I needed surgery, immediately.

Long story short, I had the surgery there. They placed some rods and screws to stabilize the fracture.

And again, luckily, everything went well.

Obviously, I was still in a lot of pain. I had also lost a lot of blood and needed a blood transfusion after the surgery. But the surgery had been successful.

I consider myself blessed for the people who were around me that day and for the fact that at the time of writing this (about two and a half years after my jump), I am actually training to run a marathon!

Moral of the story : Avoid blobs. Or at least find out if there’s proper jumping procedure.

Tripping Up Podcast

Want more travel horror stories?

Check out my podcast: Tripping Up!

Tripping Up is a comedy travel podcast that celebrates the times when travel goes off the rails.

I’ve chatted with travel writers, podcasters, and bloggers about their vacation horror stories. Together, we’ve laughed our way through hippo attacks, losing contacts in the middle of a mountain climb, getting caught at Everest during an earthquake, and much more!

Join me on Tripping Up, where you’ll also find out what weird souvenirs people have collected in their travels.

Find Tripping Up wherever fine podcasts are given away for free!

Travel Insurance

No one wants things to go wrong on their trip, but sometimes accidents happen – as you can tell from these scary vacation stories.

When things don’t go to plan, have Safety Wing on your side. You don’t need the added stress of dealing with medical bills, lost luggage, or delayed flights when things are going awry. You need a travel insurance provider you can trust to get you through the stress and be accessible 24/7.

Whether you need short-term, long-term or budget-friendly coverage, Safety Wing has your back.

I’ve always been able to rely on them when I’m sick abroad, have had flight cancellations, or had something lost/stolen (these things do happen!). I even used them to help me out when I have my travel horror story experience of getting a parasite in Morocco.

Find out how much it costs to protect your trip today with Safety Wing travel insurance.

Wrap Up of Travel Horror Stories

Whew! I’m glad not all of those scary travel stories came from me.

Sometimes travel really can go horribly wrong. But that’s not a reason to stop travelling.

For every travel horror story and lost piece of luggage, there are 10 amazing stories of seeing wild penguins , skydiving , or visiting a miraculous place.

I sort of love the messy moments of travel. Those are the times that help test your resilience and prove that you’re stronger than you think you are.

Plus, they make amazing cocktail party anecdotes!

Do you have a travel horror story? Share it with me in the comments!

Related Posts:

• How to Find a Doctor While Travelling
• The Time I Spent $400 on Taxis in Dunedin
• 10 Mistakes First-Time Solo Travelers Make
• Benefits of Travelling Alone: 20 Pros and Cons of Solo Travel

Pin this for later!

Nina Clapperton is the founder of Nina Out and About. She has lived in 18 countries in the past 10 years, explored more than 30 countries, and has done most of it solo. A Canadian native, she also shares her favourite things to do in the True North. She helps over 100,000 people per month plan their expat adventures and Canadian trips.

Want to move abroad, but don’t know how to start?

Get an expert’s tips & tricks, pick which country to move to – and do it.

These 40+ Travel Horror Stories Are Making Us Want to Stay Home Forever

One of the most fun things you can do is get out into the world and explore it. But, it’s not all beautiful pictures and stunning sunsets when you’re traveling. Being away from home and our comfort zone means that a whole lot of things can go horribly wrong. While we love a good travel story, we like a bad travel story even more. We’ve compiled a list of stories of people’s worst travel experiences. These definitely make us appreciate staying home!

Leaving Things Behind

Sometimes, it just feels like bad luck follows you on a trip. Forgetting things is something that many people do when they’re traveling, and that is why they double-check everything before they exit the door of their home.

If he had had this checklist, he might not have spent so much money on cabs to ensure he had everything he needed to get to where he was going. It probably would have saved him time and a lot of anxiety, too!

When you travel with kids, there are many more things to check off your list. Because of this, people find their first trip as a family to have a few horror stories attached. This family had one of the worst ones for sure.

Finding out that your luggage was still at home seems crazy to us. But, then again, without sleep and all the extra stuff to consider, it might be more common than one might think.

Right On Time

One of the hardest things to do is determine your timing when it comes to getting to the airport. Some try to get there super early, and others want to get there moments before the plane leaves. So, figuring out how to plan your time can be very challenging.

This couple clearly didn’t have it on point, and we’re sure that the next time they’ll figure it out. After all, you can’t get to the airport when your flight is about to leave!

Cutting the Line

Kids don’t always understand the rules of what can and can’t go into their luggage. They get really excited about sharing things with family members, so sometimes, questionable things get stored away in that baggage.

We’re not sure why this kid thought bringing a pair of scissors to their grandma’s house was a necessity, but clearly, their parents had pretty strong feelings when they had to get pulled to the side as they went through security!

Travelling Without a Passport

10 Reddit Travel Horror Stories That’ll Keep You Up At Night

Many would like you to believe that the scariest stories are full of vengeful spirits, but anyone with a passport can tell you what really makes a person tremble with fear…

Who doesn’t love a scary story? You know the kind; ones that make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, your heart rate quicken and your palms sweaty. While some people would like you to believe that the scariest stories are full of demons, demigods, and vengeful spirits, we know better than that.

Anyone with a passport can tell you real scary stories.

A few of the classics include Tale of the Lost Luggage, The Thing On My Bed: an Airbnb Rental From Hell, Rosemary’s Passport…Has Been Stolen , and my personal favourite, The Silence of the Disgruntled TSA Agent.

So in celebration of all things scary, we’ve hand selected  the best travel horror stories from the Reddit community that will have you sleeping with one eye open!

1. When Bad Directions Attack!

So my sense of direction is pretty horrific and there was a time I was in a very remote part of Austria (Grünau) and wanted to go meet up with some friends at a lake. I grabbed a bike, and set off, map in hand. All was going well until I realized I was in a really, really remote part of the town, and pretty soon realized I was also on an incline. My poor sense of direction and my infantile relationship with maps inadvertently led me up a mountain.

I was 2.5 hours into my voyage, there was no sign of any life around me, the noises got stranger, and there was definitely no lake in sight. I looked at my map wondering how it could deceive me and where our relationship took a wrong turn (pun intended). Then, I turn around and BOOM, I get a flat tire. It was getting darker, I was shitting bricks by the second, and any moment now, something was going to jump out and eat me alive, because of logic.

I eventually stop caring that my bike will collapse on me and start riding it down a very rocky trail at a pretty fast pace just hoping to get out of there as fast as possible. Safety hazard, absolutely, but again, logic.

Several minutes later, I finally see a highway, so I get back on a known trail and just a few kilometres up, I see the sign where I missed my turn for the lake. After my 2 hour detour, I had no desire to be near anything wet as I was already soaked from exhaustion, so tried to get reception to call and see if anyone could pick me up. Eventually, I was able to track down some elderly Austrian men who could see my dilemma and gave me their phone, and a large pint of Austrian beer to save the day.

Story by Gloria Atanmo, The Blog Abroad , originally appeared in HuffPost

2. Nightmare at Check-In

I was traveling to Spain with my ex-boyfriend, and we were connecting in some small Spanish airport to get to the even smaller city we were going to for a comics convention (we were guests). I ALWAYS just use my iPhone for boarding passes, but after running full throttle through this tiny Spanish airport to get to the gate for our tiny plane, they wouldn’t let me through because it wasn’t a “real” boarding pass.

So we stood there and quite literally watched our plane fly away as the gate person just stared at us. Then, we got fucked around with for about three hours trying to figure out when the next flight was. I swear they were doing it on purpose – we had to walk back and forth from kiosk to kiosk multiple times. At this point, I hadn’t slept in about 20 hours and I was trying so hard not to go all bitchy American.

Finally, we managed to get new boarding passes, but our flight wasn’t for six hours. So we met an old English gentleman and got wasted at 11 am.

Story by Reddit User walnutwhale  

3. The  Friendly Stranger

I was 18, and it was my first time travelling alone. I went to Argentina for 3 months. My first week in, and I’m wandering around Buenos Aires. At the time I knew enough Spanish to get by, and a man approaches me and asks for directions in Spanish. I tell him that I’m not from here. He then asks me if I am a tourist. I say yes, and he seems delighted, quickly telling me that he is too. He offers up the idea to explore the city together. I, alone in the big city, agree.

We start walking together, and he seems like a really nice guy. After about an hour, he says ‘tengo hambre’, I’m hungry. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and it’s about 1, so we go to a nice restaurant. He tells me I have to try the steaks and red wine. I’m not much of a wine fan, but he convinces me. We are there about an hour, and the bill comes. It’s 140 pesos. He pulls out 100 pesos. I try to pay for my half, but he only lets me pay 40 pesos. He tells me I can get the beers later. We continue on our little adventure and eventually come to a bar with outdoor seating. The waitress brings out a litre of beer, and we relax. Soon enough, another litre comes out. We finish the second litre and leave this bar. Then I wake up 8 hours later, missing my debit card, iPod, cellphone, and travel guide.

Story by Reddit User Peter176

4. An American Tourist in Paris (and only Paris)

So last summer I went on a petite Eurotrip of Western Europe with two friends of mine. Our first destination was Paris. On our last night there, we spend the night drinking at the Garden of Tuileries with our Irish hostel mates. We end up getting pretty blasted, and my friend becomes unattached from his bag for about two minutes. After these two minutes, he realizes he put his bag down and rushes back to where we were to go grab it, only to realize that it’s gone. Completely gone.

Along with the 250 Euro he just extracted from an ATM, his debit card, his passport, his Eurail pass, and pretty much everything else important in his life at that time. Again, this was the night before we had to hop on a train to Amsterdam. We end up having to stay a couple of extra days to help try to recover the damage, etc. Of course, this turns out to be July 4th weekend as well, meaning the U.S. embassy wouldn’t open until the following Tuesday (I believe it was a Friday night the event occurred). In the end, it was cheaper for him to stay in Paris and have us complete the Eurotrip than for him to come along with us. Plus it would take him another two weeks to get another passport reissued.

Story by Reddit User Fuhiapplesyum  

5. Flight of the Living Dead

On Lufthansa flying to Germany, I was relaxing listening to my music and suddenly a woman stands up a few rows ahead and starts screaming and pointing. I sort of flinched and took my headphones off trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Then a couple of other people stand up and move away from the middle row of seats were I eventually figured out that a man was unconscious and his wife right next to him was completely frozen. Then the flight attendant comes and completely overreacts, slapping him and yelling scaring the cabin. A couple more flight attendants arrive and carry the (still) unconscious man to the food prep area and call for a doctor over the plane intercom.

Thankfully there was a doctor on board and he assessed the situation. An hour later the man walked out of the food prep area and sat back down in his seat. He was checked on periodically by the doctor. After we landed I saw the man that was unconscious and I asked him how he was doing. He replied “everything is ok” and walked away just fine. Amazing.

Story by Reddit User Lilodude

See Also: The 10 Most Haunted Places on Earth

6. Let the Right One…Take You to the Border

I landed in Kenya the day a coup started. Ended up stuck in the hotel for 3 days. We kept waiting for things to calm down enough to get out of town, but it never did. Eventually, the concierge let us know that the guy who did the hotel’s laundry had a brother who was running a minivan to the border at 4 am.

So we put our complete faith in this person we had never met. He was incredibly nice and got us to the border without incident. It was a bit of a hassle trying to re-plan the trip on the fly in Tanzania, rather than do all the things we planned in Kenya. But it was still fun.

Story by Reddit User Hemlockecho  

7. Orange Juice: Portrait of a Ruined Flight

I spilled a litre of orange juice on myself about 3 minutes into a ten hour flight from Tokyo to Vancouver. I sat in a puddle of sticky orange juice for the entire time. Then after a really rough landing (I get bad motion sickness), I puked on myself in the aisle waiting to de-plane. In hindsight, this was probably worse for (1) whoever sat beside me and (2) literally everyone trying to get off the plane.

Story by Reddit User Banterbandit

Travel to: Vancouver from Toronto

8. Dawn of the Very Drunk

I left Oktoberfest at 11 pm with my friends and took the subway towards our campsite. I got off the train to go get something. I got off the wrong stop at 1 am, lost my phone, didn’t know where I was, didn’t speak German, and didn’t know the address of the place I was going. I was drunk btw, but I managed to find a hotel concierge who was kind enough to find the address of the place I was staying and I taxied it back. Returned at 4 am.

Story by Reddit User Kanji_sasahara

9. Tale of the Disappearing Hostel

Recently a friend and I stayed in the Amazon jungle near Iquitos (Peru) on a camping trip. After five days out in the wild, I was ready for a nice warm shower and a good nights sleep in a decent bed. The hostel was a set of floating buildings right on the river. We decided to go for dinner out in the city. It started to rain incredibly hard. I have never seen rain come down harder than this. We waited it out for a couple hours and enjoyed a few beers. Once it stopped we went back to find out that our hostel had dislodged from its anchor and floated out and pretty far down the river. The only remaining building was the reception office. I guess the hostel owner didn’t see us leave for dinner.

They thought that we were in our rooms and called the police to go pick us up. When they didn’t find us in our room they started to search the river with spotlights and every boat they could spare. Needless to say, the police and hostel owner were relieved to see us walk up completely dry and alive.

Story by Reddit User   Safetybreak

See Also: The 11 Most Haunted Places in America

10. The Turkish Bathroom Project

In Turkey, a lot of the public toilets have attendants outside that you have to pay some small amount of money to in order to use them. We were out one day and my dad wanted to use the toilet, so my dad handed the money to the woman outside, and went to go in.

Except, this woman wasn’t a toilet attendant. As the realization of what my dad thought she was spread over her face, she started screaming “You think I am a toilet attendant? YOU THINK I AM A TOILET ATTENDANT??? RAAARRGHH!!!” in broken half German half English and started chasing him down the road waving her handbag at him.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are just about dying from laughter and a very confused German man comes out of the toilets wondering where his wife has gone to.

Story by Reddit User  TheAngryGoat  

Terrifying stuff right? If you’ve been left shaking with fear like me, then let’s do the online equivalent of leaving the lights on and look at some tours that won’t leave you stranded without your wallet in the City of Love or chasing after a stray hostel in Peru.

Do you have a killer travel horror story you want to share? Let us know in the comments!

Jackie is a travel-addicted Canadian who currently resides in Vienna, Austria. When she’s not writing travel guides or reading her new favourite book, she’s planning her next weekend getaway somewhere in Europe.

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My Top 9 WORST Travel Experiences

Do you ever read about my travel experiences and think, “Blimey, his trips are so smooth and straightforward. How does he do it?”

Let me tell you something: All my trips are FAR from perfect!

And that applies to almost every other travel blogger out there too. We write about how incredibly wonderful our experiences are. And the truth is, yes – they ARE amazing, but as with all great things in life, there is plenty of struggle behind the scenes too.

In all of my personal blog posts documenting my experiences abroad, I try to be honest and write about the shitty stuff that happens as well as the awesome. This is because I want you to understand the reality of traveling from my perspective as a 30-something-year-old deaf guy. It helps to tell my story and makes it unique.

And most importantly, I want you to avoid making the same mistakes that I did, to ensure you make the BEST of your travels.

Planning your trip? Use my favorite resources!

🏨 Accommodation: I recommend Booking.com ✈️ Flights: for the cheapest flights, I use Skyscanner 🚗 Rental Car: I recommend Discover Cars 🛡️ Travel Insurance: for the best deals I rely on SafetyWing

And despite all my bad experiences (including some near-death ones), I wouldn’t change ANYTHING . The good always outweighs the bad, and I have 9+ years worth of the most amazing memories I could ever wish for!

In this post, I have compiled a selection, in no particular order, of some of the worst travel experiences I have ever experienced so far, in just six years of traveling.

Disclaimer: This post in no way criticizes the places these incidents happened. Some of these incidents are common – for example, the bag theft in Vietnam – incidents like these occur all over the world, including in London and New York City. Falling ill in India was my own mistake and could happen in any developing country. And that mosquito bite? I was simply unlucky.

Covering all the bad things that happened to me while traveling over the past decade.

#1. Missing my Flight Home

In 2014 after a visit to Schweinfurt in Germany, I was at Nuremberg Airport, awaiting my flight back home to Birmingham early one morning. However, I was sitting in a cafe and completely lost track of the time.

The boarding gate was making its final call and the staff had called my name out across the tannoy system telling me to make my way to the gate immediately, but unfortunately, that literally fell on deaf ears as I didn’t hear it.

So by the time I got to the gate, it was too late – everyone had already boarded the plane and to my despair, I watched from the gate as the door closed shut on the plane, which meant nobody else could board the plane.

I was shocked and annoyed that I’d missed a flight for the first time. I had to book a new flight, which costed around €200, and it wasn’t scheduled until 24 hours later, so I had to stay in Nuremberg for a night.

At least I took the opportunity to spend a day in the quaint city of Nuremberg. And since this incident, I started making use of Special Assistance for most of my future trips.

I wrote this useful guide on tips and advice for deaf and disabled people thinking about traveling abroad.

#2. Missing my Connecting Flight to India, Twice! (and Lost my Baggage)

I missed another flight in December 2014 when I traveled to India with a stopover at Istanbul Airport. But incredibly, not only did I miss my second leg flight, I was rebooked with a new flight departing 24 hours later only to MISS THAT FLIGHT too!

*Hear me out: unlike my previous missed flight, this one was of no fault of my own.*

Firstly, the flight from Birmingham to Istanbul was delayed by well over an hour due to poor weather, which meant I was almost certainly going to miss the connecting flight in Istanbul. So I informed the staff at Birmingham airport in advance, and they assured me that someone will take care of me as soon as I land in Istanbul, to ensure I get a new flight ticket and be onward with my journey.

So, as predicted, my second flight took off from Istanbul as soon as I landed there, and so I was issued a new ticket. But the next flight wasn’t due until 24 hours later, so they booked me into a hotel for the night. The only problem is, the hotel was quite some distance away, in the city center, so I had to obtain a visa to leave the airport, to get to this hotel.

The following day, the airport bus arrived at my hotel late, and worse still – the traffic was absolutely dreadful. It was total gridlock on the roads, and by the time I arrived at the airport, my flight was about to take off!

I had to explain this ridiculous situation to the staff once again, and nobody could believe what just happened.

So, once again , they issued me with ANOTHER new flight ticket, for a flight taking off – yep, you guessed it – 24 hours later. And so they put me in ANOTHER hotel for the night. BUT, this time, they made sure I was in a hotel right within the airport. So there was no way I was going to miss my flight for the third time.

That wasn’t the end of my troubles though.

When I finally made it to India – my luggage didn’t appear on the carousel. I spent ages waiting at the luggage area while everyone else collected their bags and there was nothing left on the belt, so I had to report to the staff that I’d lost my luggage.

It turns out, my luggage arrived a day earlier than I did. I had to identify my bags in the enormous lost property room, and you can imagine I was relieved when I was finally reunited with my stuff!

#3. Scooter Crash in Goa

On that same trip to India in December 2014 I was in Goa to see in the New Year. Whilst there, my friends and I hired scooters to travel around.

We were riding about an hour north to Anjuna beach, and were slowing down towards one of the crowded roundabouts on the route.

As soon as I stopped, another rider came up too fast behind me on his scooter and crashed into the back of my bike. And as the crash took me by surprise, the impact caused me to tumble over on the left side, as the scooter was a bit heavy.

Luckily though, I walked away from this crash with just a graze on my foot, as I was wearing flip flops (*reminder to self: I should probably get a tetanus jab*).

Did you know: there is a spa just for elephants in India! For more crazy and interesting facts about India, click here.

#4. I once got Electrocuted in Mexico

In the summer of 2014 I had a literal, near-death experience whilst staying in a hostel in Playa del Carmen, Mexico.

I went to take a shower one night and it was dark, so I was touching the wall trying to find the light switch. And all of a sudden, there was a bright flash and I felt a burning pain shoot right up to my elbow from my finger.

After the initial shock, I saw the wall and realized I’d just been electrocuted . The switch panel was hanging loose, and there were exposed cables sticking out everywhere!

I reported this to the receptionist who was very calm and casual when I explained what just happened. He then came down to have a look, and all he did was hastily cover up the loose cables with some black gaffer tape!

Seriously though, I had a lucky escape. I guess it was a good thing Mexico’s electricity grid output is weak, as I doubt I’d live to tell the tale if this happened back home from 240-volt sockets!.

Edit: I forgot the name of the hostel, so luckily for them I have saved them the embarrassment of being named and shamed.

Top Advice: Get Travel Insurance

You could say this near-death experience was a wake up call for me to ALWAYS take out travel insurance wherever I travel now.

You might be thinking,  it was just a freak accident what happened to me..

What’s the worst that could happen to you?

Well, you could suffer appendicitis and require emergency surgery. You could easily have your bag or camera stolen (this happened to me). A family relative could fall seriously ill or pass away, and you wouldn’t be able to afford the urgent flight back home.

For my travel cover I always use SafetyWing. They are one of, if not, the BEST insurance providers out there.

SafetyWing Travel insurance: simple & flexible

You can buy and claim online , even after you’ve left home. Travel insurance from SafetyWing is available to people from over 130 countries. It’s designed for adventurous travelers with cover for overseas medical, evacuation, baggage and a range of adventure sports and activities .

Planning a vacation in the Yucatan? Despite my accident, I had some of the most amazing adventure experiences there. Here’s my 2 Week Yucatan Itinerary Guide.

#5. Delhi Belly In Dehradun

During my second trip to India in January 2015, I came down with the dreaded ‘Delhi Belly’ – an illness that befalls many, but not all, who visit India.

Considering that India is one of the most challenging places a traveler can visit, and, bearing in mind I was living there for six months, a few days in January was the only time I EVER became ill in all my time in India.

It happened after I ate a plate of boiled eggs from a street vendor outside the gym. One evening after a workout with a mate, he suggested we have some chicken broth and eggs to top up on protein. I made the mistake of eating the yolk of five eggs – whereas my mate only ate the egg-whites. Lesson learned.

So that evening at my host’s home, I suddenly began to feel unwell and got hit with a severe case of diarrhea. Yuk!

Luckily, my host’s wife looked after me while I was sick – giving me natural remedies which made me throw up. And two days later, I was feeling much better.

#6. Robbed by a Biker Thief

In January 2018 my partner and I were traveling in south Vietnam, having just seen in the New Year in Ho Chi Minh City. On our last night in the city, my partner’s bag was snatched by a thief on a motorbike.

These incidents happen everywhere, unfortunately, not only in Vietnam. In fact, there are notorious biker thieves that prowl around central London and rob passers-by as they ride on the sidewalks , in broad daylight.

Over in Ho Chi Minh City, it was dark when the incident happened, at around 7pm, and it happened very suddenly, right in the middle of the road as we were crossing it.

We were completely taken by surprise and were overcome with dread when we realized what just happened, yet it was too late to do anything as the biker and the thief sped away into the night.

Naturally, my partner was very upset, as the contents of her bag included her iPhone, some cash, and some ID cards, though thankfully, NOT her passport.

We immediately reported the incident to the police who took a statement, but we realized soon enough, that there was absolutely nothing they could do about incidents like this, in a large city of over 9 million people.

Moreover, my partner’s bag was quite thin and light, with loose leather straps which made it vulnerable to rip, and therefore a very easy target. So we learned our lesson that night: if we have to bring our belongings with us, always keep them in secure and strong, tightly-fitting bum bags that can’t be ripped from us.

Security Tip: Since this incident, every time I go traveling I always wear my Zero Grid Travel Security Belt – a hidden money pouch that’s incredibly useful for stashing away my cash so even the smartest pickpockets don’t stand a chance.It comes with an adjustable, non-metal buckle too. Purchase yours from Amazon

Safety and Security Gear for your Travels:

Below are some more top security travel gear that I would recommend for traveling anywhere in the world – and would not leave the house without these.

Anti-Theft Travel Purse

If you’re after the ultimate theft-proof purse, I highly recommend the Anti-Theft Travel Purse – it consists of five measures of theft prevention including:

• Slash-resistant straps: straps with stainless steel wire inside, protects against grab-and-go thieves
• Slash resistant fabric: the whole bag is made with a slash-resistant mesh barrier inside for extra layers of protection
• Lockdown straps: the strap lock secures bag to a stationary object, protecting against grab-and-go thieves
• Locking compartments: locking zipper pulls that prevent pickpockets from getting into your bag
• RFID blocking pockets: protects against electronic identity theft with RFID blocking card slots and pockets

PacSafe Bag Protector

Another great security option for wherever you travel, the PacSafe bag protector will store all your valuables and secure it to a stationary item in your hotel/airbnb.

Bring a Small Lock

Be sure to bring a small lock for any hostel stays wherever you go, so you can securely store your valuables in the lockers provided.

#7. Missed my Flight (Again!) to Hong Kong

*Why do I keep missing my flights?! To be fair , this incident was also beyond my control. *

In December 2017 I embarked on a flight to Hong Kong via Paris, from Birmingham. The weather at the time was very cold and it was quite icy outside, which had impacted the public travel systems all over the UK and as a result, my train to the airport was delayed and I was pretty late arriving at the airport.

This was the least of my worries though because I soon found that my first-leg flight to Paris was delayed by two hours.

By the time I arrived in Paris around midnight, my connecting flight to Hong Kong had already left, much to the anger and frustration of my fellow flight passengers.

I have been in this situation before (when I missed flights to India) – so I was quite calm and knew that patience was key.

However, I was rather surprised by how furious the other passengers were. These were grown-ups, literally shouting at airport staff, and scrambling to jump in front of everyone else in the queues for new tickets at Paris Charles De Gaulle airport.

I just stood back and watched them make fools of themselves. It was unbelievable. Sometimes, shit happens. Just be PATIENT and relax! Our flight WILL go ahead. We will be put into a hotel for the night. None of this will cost us an extra penny.

There is really no need to take it out on airport staff who aren’t responsible for the actions of mother nature.

Related post: Top 10 Things To Do in Birmingham, UK (by a Local)

#8. My Arm BLEW UP From a Mosquito Bite

Yeah, so this was a bit of a freak accident that resulted in my earning an arm like Popeye’s.

During my second visit to the Yucatan in Mexico, I received numerous Mosquito bites, but that’s nothing new as I got bitten a million times from my first Mexico trip, and actually – almost every tropical place I’ve been to – whether it’s Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, I’ve been bitten by Mosquitos (I mean, who hasn’t?)

Except during this trip, I had this ONE bite on my elbow, which at first, was no different from the other bites, but it turned from a red swollen lump, into a small white bubble.

When I arrived back in the UK, it was still there – a month later. And then one day, I decided to pop it. The fluid in the sac leaked out, so I casually wiped it, and I never thought anything of it, maybe because I didn’t realize it was an old Mosquito bite.

But then, the area around the mark, on my elbow, started to go red again, and it began to swell. And it swelled really fast. I applied some brandy to the area to try and disinfect it, and it was seeping, so I was squeezing more fluid out.

But it got worse. The stinging from the brandy was nothing compared to what came next. The swelling became gradually more painful. In fact, it got to the point where it became so painful I could not even sleep at night – I would literally wake up clutching my arm, writhe around on the floor, and clench my teeth so hard to stop myself from screaming in agony.

The small lump had expanded so much that my entire forearm literally BLEW UP, so it looked just like Popeye’s arm!

I sought medical help soon after and was able to clear up the infection on a round of antibiotics. The doctor told me I was VERY lucky the infection wasn’t higher up my arm, as that could’ve been critical. Instead, it spread downwards due to the swinging motion of my arms from walking, hence the weird Popeye look.

Click here to read how I easily saved over $1000 in just ONE month for my travel funds

#9. I Once Received the WRONG Visa Stamp

I was due to fly back home from India in the summer of 2014 and as I entered the immigration checkpoint at Delhi airport, something odd happened.

The border guard was looking at my passport visa with suspicion and then asked me what date I arrived in India. I explained that I was only here for a week, but still, he was checking my passport photo and visa, with suspicion.

He then called up another guard who arrived and they were talking about my visa (I couldn’t make out what they were saying or what even was wrong). And then they pointed the stamp in my passport, which I received on arrival in India a week earlier.

I didn’t understand what the problem was. But then I took a closer look at the stamp and I read the small date imprint. It says ‘2013’. Shit.

Why on earth did I receive a visa stamp with 2013 on it, when my visit was in August 2014? I was just as dumbfounded as the Indian border guards were.

Yet surprisingly, they ushered me through immigration without another word.

It turns out, they made a mistake by stamping a year-old old visa stamp in my passport when I first arrived! When I checked the stamp again, they appear to have hastily smudged the date out and written, ‘Arrival confirmed on 15-8-2014’.

I was slightly relieved, and was able to board my flight, except I was due to arrive in Moscow for a transfer flight to London. I was seriously hoping this visa doesn’t draw suspicion by the Russian guards in Moscow, as I was seriously beginning to worry they’d throw me into a gulag .

And yep – you guessed it – the Russian immigration guard not only noticed something dodgy with my passport, he actually whipped out his monocular and proceeded to scrutinize my visa for quite a LONG time!

Several moments passed, my heart was racing and sweat began to drip down my face. And I could feel the stare of people behind me in the queue, which made matters worse.

And, AT LONG LAST, I was handed back my passport without a word said. Thank goodness!

So, those are my worst travel experiences so far! I hope this post doesn’t put you off traveling! Have you had any bad experiences abroad?

Further Reading

• How to Find CHEAP Flights (+ FREE Cheatsheet)
• How to Plan a Vacation (+ FREE Travel Checklist)
• How to Quickly Save $1000 for Travel in 1 Month

Download your FREE 20-page Travel Planner Guide

And get access to all my best budget travel tips, checklists, additional freebies, and more.

Book Your Trip: Top Tips

🏨 Accommodation: I recommend booking.com ✈️ Flights: for the cheapest flights, I use Skyscanner 🚗 Rental Car: I always rely on Discover Cars 🛡️ Travel Insurance: for reliable and trusted cover, I use SafetyWing 🗺️ For all my best travel tips & advice , head over to my Travel Tools

Thank you for reading My Top 9 WORST Travel Experiences

Now you know what to do to avoid these awful situations on your next trip, ensuring it goes smoothly!

If you enjoyed this post, share it on Pinterest so your followers can enjoy it too!

Billy Read is the owner and author of BRB Gone Somewhere Epic, a travel blog that helps travelers discover unique destinations and travel experiences on a budget. With more than 10 years of global travel filled with accidents, Billy aims to help readers avoid making the same mistakes as he did, and make the most of their epic trips.

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Travel Resources » Travel Safety

Ze Wandering Frogs

Hike, kite, dive – adventure travel with a french twist, unimaginable travel horror stories: when travel goes wrong.

Travel is supposed to fun. Depending on your expectations, that time can be exciting, relaxing, chill, oker anything in between. But sometimes, travel goes wrong. And it does, additional challenges can turn the unfortunate events into travel horror stories. From being in remote destinations, lack of shared languages, differences in health care levels, to administrative hurdles, and other inherent travel factors, all these hurdles can make the actual problem even worse.

We asked fellow travel bloggers to share their own travel horror stories. Some will make you laugh; some will make you cry. Be ready for bone-chilling reading!

A Long Bus Ride to Laos

This happened during a bus trip from Vientiane to Luang Prabang, Laos. We were told it would be a 12-hour trip. I settled in with a book on my iPad.

We stopped at a side-of-the-road place that looked like a picnic shelter. Mealtime, one hour break. Stretch the legs, get some lunch… later on, I see three locals with black, greasy hands working on the bus with the hood up. Not a good look.

Hours passed. We’re under shelter and there’s plenty of food and water, so it’s just annoying at this point. What was supposed to be a 12-hour trip was quickly turning into a thing that might end up arriving in the middle of the night…

The bus eventually got fixed a few hours after lunch, and we were back on the road. After hours of being on a bumpy dirt road, we come to a stop — a tree has fallen, and a dozen men from vehicles on both sides are hacking at it with machetes… They eventually chopped it into movable pieces and moved them off the road.

We arrived after nearly 17 hours, around 2 am, and chose the first-world, one-hour flight back to Vientiane.

By Chris Backe at  Worthy Go  |  Instagram

Bus Ride to Laos – Photo Credit: Chris Backe at Worthy Go

One Night in a Tijuana Jail

It was Halloween, 1995. A group of friends and I decided to travel to Mexico for some boozing and fun. Midway through the night, the team decided to locate some illegal substances. After successfully finding and partaking in these substances, we were accosted by a local store security guard who called the local Tijuana police.

Upon arrival, 2 out of the 4 of us (including me) were arrested and taken to a local holding facility to be processed. After a brief appearance before what we think was a magistrate, we were whisked away to a local jail. While waiting to be processed at the jail, we, being the only two white people, were informed by a friendly prisoner that they were going to put the gringos in women’s part of the jail so we wouldn’t get raped and killed. Wait…what!?

We were in full-on panic mode and fully sober now. But he was right. We were placed in a private cell in the women’s part of the jail where we were to spend the night. Our wingmates, in adjacent cells, were prostitutes.

At this point, we did not know what the future held. Would we be released the next day? Ever? We could do anything, so we just waited. A few hours later, we were escorted from our cell to be released and were greeted by our other two friends who’d NOT been arrested. They’d gone back to the States, found someone who spoke Spanish, got some cash, and had been driving around TJ looking for us. After spending several hundred dollars and a gold watch, they were able to find us and get us released.

We were overjoyed and literally kissed the ground after crossing the border into the US. Haven’t been back since. And don’t plan to. The moral of this story? Don’t do illegal stuff – especially in a foreign country. This travel story could have been a lot worse than the terrifying night it was. We were fortunate to come away with what is now a funny story and not much worse.

By Jeremy from CBoardingGroup.com  |  Twitter  | Facebook   

Mother Falling from an 8-Foot Cliff in Jamaica

I screamed a noise I didn’t think I was capable of making as I watched my 65-year-old mother from an 8-foot (2.5-meter) cliff.

We were in Jamaica on a mother-daughter trip celebrating my 40 th- birthday. The place we were staying was a bit off the beaten path but had everything we wanted – including being waterfront. However, this waterfront property didn’t have a sandy beach, but instead a cliff where you could scramble down the rocks into the water. Since there was little else around, we decided to walk along the cliff (it was all field on the other side, so it didn’t seem dangerous), to find new swimming spots.

At one point, the rock wall that was the cliff disappeared, and there was a small-ish gap of a few feet you either had to take a very big step across – almost a jump – or climb down and then climb back up.

Oh yeah, my mom also had a broken collar bone, so climbing wasn’t the best option for her.

Once I was on the other side, I helped her across the gap, no problem. However, on the way back, the angle was different. I quickly realized she wasn’t going to make it across so I let her drop onto what I presumed would be sharp rocks and her inevitable death.

Fortunately, she happened to land in the only patch of water that could safely catch her. She had some scratches and a broken finger, but by some miracle didn’t hit her head or have any super severe injuries. Despite this traumatic experience, she is still keen on traveling – albeit with fewer risk-taking adventures.,

By Jennifer from The Rainbow Route | Facebook | Instagram

Jamaica Coast – Photo Credit: The Rainbow Route

Butt-Frostbite in Tibet

On our honeymoon, we ticked Tibet off our bucket list. We traveled east of Lhasa and then headed out west, the further west we went, the colder it got. We were well prepared in our clothing for the freezing temperatures, just not so much the toileting in such climates. Squat toilets are a given throughout Asia, no surprises there; nor that in some cases there was simply a hole in the ground with no walls around.

What was a surprise, was that the locals were so intrigued by a gigantic foreign woman, they must have found watching me go to the toilet, somewhat entertaining? It seemed that I never had enough time to ‘go’ to the toilet without privacy. It had become the norm for my husband of 6 weeks, to hold a sarong up in front of me on the side of the road so I could squat.

One day, on our way to another remote village, we found a rocky spot where I could get myself some privacy; I thought I’d won the lottery – a rock formation that looked just like a toilet. I proceeded to ‘go to the toilet’ with success, in my own time, with no one around. Once I was finished, I made my way back to the vehicle, feeling a whole lot better, except for the fact that my butt-cheeks were rock hard, literally. I had frostbite on my bum from sitting on rocks in subzero temperatures. I applied first aid as best I could in a remote village of Tibet, it was painful, and when we reached Kathmandu, the next major city, I had to see a doctor. It had blistered, turned purple and scarred – it took months to recover fully, but it finally did.

Travel Tip: Don’t sit on rocks in subzero temperatures for extended periods.

By Erin from Love to Travel, Stay-Eat-Do | Facebook | Instagram

Robbed at Knife Point in Pamplona

My  travel horror story  happened several years ago. I went to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls. I was backpacking and going wherever my mood took me, so I didn’t make an accommodation reservation.  Pamplona is not that big, and thousands of people descend upon it for the weeklong festival. Needless to say, all of the accommodations were fully booked months in advance. They did have an enormous room for storing luggage at the train station, so I decided to do what plenty of others were doing and leave my luggage there and sleep in a park. The city had its own plans and watered the parks with sprinklers throughout the night to prevent people from getting too settled.

After two nights of almost no sleep, I decided to try a park a short walk away from the center of town. I managed to get a few hours’ sleep, but when I was on my way back into town around 5:00 am, walking along an empty street, a group of young people came up to me out nowhere. I immediately had a bad feeling. They quickly surrounded me; one of them pulled a knife out and demanded that I give them my money. This was in Spanish, but it was very clear what they were saying. Stupidly I started shouting for help (in English) and tried to run away. A guy grabbed my fanny pack and slit the strap with the knife, then they all ran away. They got my cheap camera and a train ticket. Fortunately, they didn’t get my passport, cards, or most of my money because that was all stashed in a money belt hidden inside my pants.

There are most definitely some lessons that I learned:  book accommodations in advance for popular events, don’t sleep in a park, don’t walk the streets alone late at night or early in the morning and always keep your valuables hidden underneath your clothes (and get travel insurance  – I was able to claim for my stolen camera)!

By James at Travel Collecting  | Instagram | Facebook

Sleeping on the park in Pamplona – Photo Credit: Travel Collecting

Seasick in Panama

I had been in  Panama  for more than a month. I was on a long term backpacking trip across Central and South America, and I was ready to move on to the next country, Colombia. There is no land border between Panama and Colombia, so unless I’d take a flight, the only way to cross would be by boat. I had heard that the San Blas islands were marvelous, and the Kuna Yala one of the last remaining indigenous communities in the area, so I was keen on doing the boat crossing. Besides, I thought of myself as a real adventurer.

Pity that I had not considered the possibility of getting seasick on the boat.

The minute I got on, I knew the experience wouldn’t be nearly as wonderful as it was described to be. There were 10 of us on a 40-feet (12-meter) boat. Too many, if you ask me. Space was constrained, to say the least. But I decided I wouldn’t mind.

After all, as soon as the boat started moving, I had to mind on something completely different: my terrible seasickness. It was so bad that I could not stand. It was so bad that when the others put on sunblock, I’d get sick. It was so bad that I couldn’t take the smell of their tuna and tomato sandwiches without having to relieve my stomach. It was so bad that even on a sunny, hot Caribbean day I shivered as I was so cold, covered as I was with my sleeping bag.

It took us 12 hours to get from Portobelo, our departure point, to the first protected bay, near the island of Porvenir, in the San Blas archipelago. 12 hours of hell. Although it was pitch black, I announced that I’d get off there and then. I asked the captain to please take me to shore on the dingy, and I’d look for a room in one of the two hostels he said there were.

As soon as we made it to shore, two or three locals came towards us. One of them was the Chief of the island. He said we didn’t have permission to land. I told him it was an emergency as I was sick, and could I please sleep at the hostel. He said I had to leave; all hostels were full. I begged him to let me pitch my tent under a tree somewhere. He started quoting articles of the Kuna Yala Constitution I had been breaking. I asked him whether there was not an article that stated that you should help those in need.

I finally got through to him.

He made me pitch my tent. It was dark, I could barely stand on my feet, but I did it in no time and crawled inside. Nothing else would bother me. I was safe then.

Then it started raining.

The day after, I caught a speed boat to Carti and a 4×4 back to Panama City, where I boarded a flight to Cartagena. I never set foot on a sailboat since then. The only thing I have left from that trip is a sunrise photo that I managed to take before fleeing.

By Claudia from My Adventures Across The World  |   Facebook  | Instagram

Alba da Sogno a San Blas in Panama – Photo Credit: Claudia at My Adventures Across The World

Our 3-Year Old Wandering in Uruguay

We were exploring the town of Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay. It was a picture-perfect day. The sun was shining, there was a light breeze blowing off of the ocean, artisans were selling their wares in the town square, and from the Street of Sighs, a Spanish guitar was strumming tunes that perfectly matched the glorious day. As my family wandered into a sandwich shop for some lunch, we noticed things were a little quiet. D, our 3-year-old, was no longer with us.

Annoyed at first (he is a bit of a wanderer), I stepped outside to call to him. But there was no answer. So I walked around the building, and still, there was no sign of him. That is when the panic started to hit me. Through 10 countries, we had never had an issue with our kids wandering off for more than a minute. But this time seemed different.

I called to my wife Christina and my 5-year-old, C. Together we began calling out and running through the town square searching wildly. Nothing.

I went over to the artisan market and began showing people a photo and asking, in my broken Spanish, if anyone had seen him. They all came to look at the photo, and one by one, they all left their stalls to help look. Christina and I separated to search through different alleys. For 15 minutes, seemingly everyone in the town was wildly calling his name.

By this time, I was feeling crushed. Nothing in the world could have prepared me for how completely empty I felt as thoughts of the worst situations began creeping into my mind. It was then that I saw Christina and one of the artisans walking toward me. Beside them was a tiny little man with a great big smile on his face.

He had heard that Spanish guitar and walked two blocks to hear him play. I grabbed D and pulled him into my arms. I’ve never held onto someone as tight as I held on to him.

By Kevin from Wandering Wagars | Twitter | Facebook

Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay – Photo Credit: Wandering Wagars

Forced Solo Trip in Morocco

Everyone probably knows the situation when you start planning a holiday with friends, and one after another, all of them drop out. This happened to me – but unfortunately only a week before our scheduled and booked trip to  Marrakech Morocco! All of my friends suddenly came up with last-minute university work. However, I couldn’t cancel my flights anymore, and I was actually looking forward to the trip.

For a few days, I was pretty desperate and didn’t know what to do. Until I finally decided to move ahead with the trip, even if it’s by myself. At this point, I never traveled solo before, and I was very anxious and scared about the situation, but I just didn’t want to miss out on it just because of the unreliability of my friends.

Long story short, I boarded the plane to Morocco all by myself, had a great time with fun people I met at the hostel and never felt lonely just for a minute. Right after the trip, I booked my first longer solo-backpacking trip (Southeast Asia for two months), and until this point, dozens of solo adventures followed and ultimately led me to the start of my travel blog!

By Patrick from German Backpacker | Facebook | Twitter

Sunset over Morocco – Photo Credit: German Backpacker

Hotel Scam in New Delhi, India

It was my first hour in India, in its massive capital city of New Delhi . While I had made arrangements with my budget hotel to pick us up from the airport, I was disappointed to find that they had not made it. Armed with only a screenshot of some directions since my SIM card wasn’t working yet, my boyfriend and I made our way onwards to the metro- our only other option. Everything was moving along nicely- until we walked out of the station, that is.

The area we had gotten off didn’t seem easy to walk in, and with our massive backpacks, the cheap rickshaws begging for our service seemed like a better way to get back. Or so we thought. The rickshaw driver first brought us to a gate being guarded by heavily armed police. They insisted that the budget area we planned to stay in, Paharganj, was closed due to “violence” and “riots,” and if we wanted to pass through, we would need clearance from the tourist agency. So we drove along to the agency, feeling a bit confused but without a map or phone service we figured we couldn’t do much but take their word for it. In hindsight, we were the perfect victims.

The official-looking “agency” reiterated that Paharganj was in fact very dangerous, closed and, was the only place where cheap accommodations existed in the city. They gave us two options: book a night at a very expensive 5-star hotel or continue to our next destination in the mountains with their taxi service. We chose the latter and ended up getting a driver who literally fell asleep at the wheel 4 hours in.

Within a week, we soon learned the reality of what had been a massive scam. Paharganj is always open and particularly dangerous. The phone calls the agency made had been faked. And the price of our perilous taxi ride? They up-charged us nearly 300%! Although these scammers made me lose a bit of trust in people and gain some anger, the dozens of incredibly friendly and helpful Indians we met after made up for it and then some.

This incident didn’t derail me from returning, (I’m actually in India as I write this) but I wouldn’t leave the airport again without some type of cell service or offline map- if only we had been able to use Uber, this horror story could have been completely avoided.

By Samantha from Intentional Detours | Instagram | Facebook

Scombroid Poisoning in Bali

It’s been a real blessing to never had allergies. I always brushed it off as something not so serious. My thinking completely changed when I was in  staying in Bali  and got a terrible reaction. Scombroid poisoning is a weird word that I had never heard of in my life before. It occurs when you eat fresh, canned, or smoked fish that has a high level of histamine after improper processing or storage. Basically if fish is frozen and unfrozen several times, it goes really bad. Particularly the black part by the center. My travel horror story in Bali started out as a romantic sunset barbecue with my wife on Bingin beach. We went over to select our fish, it was barbecued to perfection, and we washed it all down with a Bintang beer.

As we left, I started feeling itchy and flushed. We got back to our villa, and it got a little worse, we narrowed it down to sunburn. My wife took a shower, and on the return, she found me on the floor – skin red as a tomato, eyes totally bloodshot. It’s the same as having an allergic reaction even though you’re not allergic to anything. The villa reception luckily offered us a ride to a hospital in Nusa Dua, where I was put on a drip for around an hour.

After this scare, we understood how important it is when traveling to know where your nearest hospital is and how to get there. Even though we had the right medication in our medical kit, we didn’t know what to take, so the hospital was the only option. If the villa staff refused to drive us, we would have been screwed because we were staying really off the beaten track. Another tip, keep the receipts for insurance.

By Callan from Once in the Lifetime Journey |  Instagram  |  Facebook  

Bingin Beach – The calm before the storm – Photo Credit: Once in the Lifetime Journey

Seven Stitches to our 7-Year Old in Costa Rica

Traveling with children and ensuring their health and safety is an enormous responsibility for parents. You need a constant, heightened sense of awareness, and this can be mentally exhausting. We do all we can to keep our children safe; we practice safety scenarios, use safewords, and the children carry identification lanyards. Plus, we always do a ‘safety sweep’ of any accommodation or vehicle we use, such as checking for exposed wires, loose windows, working seat belts, etc. And then something unexpected happens.

Getting out of the shower in a bathroom in  Costa Rica , our 7-year-old son slipped and badly cut his head on the edge of the tiled shower tray. I will never forget the thud as his head hit the ground. It sickens me even today. As with any head wound, there was a lot of blood, and it was clear that he urgently needed stitches on his head. We managed to arrange a taxi to drive us the one-hour journey to the nearest open clinic where our little boy had two injections into his head, followed by seven stitches. We will always be grateful for the wonderful help we received from our accommodation. We had to clean his head wound daily and a return a week later to have the stitches taken out. Our son now has an impressive ‘Costa Rican scar’ on the back of his head. It could easily have been so much worse if he had suffered skull damage.

I was very shaken by this accident as it made me realize how you can plan and prepare for any eventuality and you can still not fully protect your child. The tiniest thing can happen that can change everything.

It also made me realize the risks of traveling to a rural area with no language skills!

By Sinead from Map Made Memories

Witnessing a Knife Attack in Chile

About 15 hours out of a 24-hour ferry ride from Puerto Chacabuco to the beautiful island of Chiloe, Chile, we headed to the restaurant to meet with the other backpackers after an afternoon on the deck admiring the beautiful the Chilean fjords and looking for marine mammals.

A few games of cards later, a movement of panic-filled up the room instantly. One of the girls was standing with a guy behind her, his hands around her neck. He was choking her. After a brief moment of incomprehension, a few men jumped up and managed to free the girl while also attempting to restrain the attacker. It’s only then, we noticed him twirling a knife in the air trying to reach anyone close enough, but fortunately, they managed to kick the weapon away.

While a group of men attached the attacker to a pillar, a couple of girls and I ran to find the victim and see if she needed any help. As I found her, I asked if she was hurt. She mumbled she didn’t think, but as she raised her shirt, we saw blood dripping from the side of her chest. One of our friends held her and applied a piece of clothing to the wound, and the rest of us went looking for help asking passengers and crew to find a doctor.

Throughout all this confusion, the crew behaved very badly, shouting at us insults and accusing “the foreigners” of drinking on the boat and causing the fight… The crew and captain finally understood that we had nothing to do with the fight except trying to save our friend from that man nobody knew. He had sat there for a while, staring at the card game and not talking.

Thankfully for the girl, the attack happened only one hour away from the town Melinda situated on an island. At the harbor, the police boarded the boat and arrested the attacker. Two doctors transported our friend to the clinic on the island where she was cared for. The attacker was judged a few days later in Chiloe and placed in prison immediately.

This was a very moving event which reminded us to be a bit more aware of our surroundings – something we had kind of forgotten in Patagonia where we felt so safe.

By Tales from The Lens | Instagram | Facebook

Ferry to Chiloe – Photo Credit: Tales From The Lens

Breaking my Leg in Thailand

On our last trip to Phuket, Thailand, I slipped down a small step into the shower stall and managed to break my leg! Not that I knew it was broken at the time, but the horrific ripping sound I heard and the fact I couldn’t move even a millimeter without intense pain told me something major was wrong.

This happened in the evening, so my husband talked to the hotel reception about getting a doctor. Due to the nature of the injury, they recommended going straight to the hospital instead. As I have young children who were in bed and I couldn’t get myself to the hospital alone, I had a long night lying in bed trying not to move at all.

The next morning, we headed to the international hospital in Phuket. They took an x-ray, but it was difficult to do right as I couldn’t straighten my leg at all. I needed an MRI but couldn’t get in.

We rung our travel insurance who put us on the next flight back home to Australia for more tests. They were great. I was able to speak to an Australian doctor for advice, and they flew me in business class home so I could be more comfortable. Back home, I found out I had broken a bone in my knee and caused ligament and other damage too.

This completely ruined our trip, although the pain of that was eased by travel insurance. Seven months later, I am still recovering, but it has not stopped us traveling at all. Don’t ever travel without travel insurance! Freak accidents can happen!

By Sharon from Dive into Malaysia | Instagram | Facebook

Kamala Beach, Phuket in Thailand – Photo Credit: Sharon at Dive into Malaysia

Surviving Dengue Fever

It was my worst fear; getting seriously sick during a solo journey. I’d been terribly sick on a trip before, but that time my travel mate helped me tremendously. And I couldn’t even imagine taking care of myself back then. Needless to say, when on my latest adventure, the diagnose Dengue rolled out of my blood test, I jumped straight into a nightmare.

It started with a light fever and nausea but quickly led to immense body pain and fatigue. Visiting the local hospital, at least 90 minutes from my residence, was a challenge not to take lightly. When the doctors –after more specific testing- told me I didn’t have the deadly serotype; dengue hemorrhagic fever,  I was obviously relieved but completely exhausted.

It took about a week of suffering, deliria, extreme weight loss, and regular check-ups before I felt good enough to start thinking about traveling again. Taking the long 14-hour overnight bus journey to the capital city –and proper hospital care- nearly killed me as I couldn’t even walk the stairs of my hotel without assistance. That the staff welcomed me with fresh fruits and sliced bread still feels like a blessing today!

After experiencing Dengue and facing my worst fear, I can only say; by all means, protect yourself from this mosquito-borne disease. It’s not only super challenging to battle the disease, but it can actually kill you. To recover from Dengue completely will take several weeks, sometimes even months. So it’s definitely a trip-waster. Check your travel destination for Dengue and always use a mosquito repellent to keep those tiny killers on a safe distance. Ideally, one containing DEET. Additionally, wear long sleeves and trousers and sleep under mosquito nets always.

By Priscilla from  Discover World Places

Bus Crash in Myanmar

Recently I jumped on an overnight bus from Yangon to Mandalay in Myanmar . I paid for the most expensive bus in hopes that this meant a more comfortable and overall safer bus journey, but it didn’t matter in the end. Around 4 am, I woke up to the bus hitting something hard and then steering out of control. The front right side of the bus hit the back of a large pickup truck and then went out of control crossing three lanes of tracks as well as the median and a steel barrier.

When we tried to exit the bus, it was clear that the entire front corner of the bus was crushed inwards. Unfortunately, a person was sitting in this place, and he was also crushed.

The rest of us were fine (minus a couple of bruises), and we exited the bus through the emergency exit. A few people tried to pry the man out, but it was no use. We had no choice but to wait for emergency services to arrive. When they did (over an hour later), it was too late, and the man had passed. It was a hard situation to be a part of.

This made the rest of my trip to Myanmar extremely hard as I had a fear of traveling by bus. Bus travel is the main way to get around in Myanmar, so I found myself heading to locations I could reach by train instead.

The truth is, accidents happen. They can happen anywhere in the world – but they are more common in countries where strict safety rules are not enforced. Taking buses during the day (as opposed to the night) minimizes risks as it is less likely the driver will be fatigued and visibility is better. And the best advice of all, book a bus that has seatbelts whenever possible and WEAR IT!

By Bailey from  Destinationless Travel | Facebook | Instagram

Bus Crash in Myanmar – Photo Credit: Destinationless Travel

Hospitalized for 7 Days in Prague

I’ve been backpacking around the world for four years, and the biggest scare I had was when I was hospitalized in Prague, the Czech Republic for seven days. I took a flight from Scotland to Prague and felt extremely ill when I landed. I went to my friend’s house and immediately asked him to call the ambulance. I was running a fever and had a red rash all over my body.

The medics arrived and put on full-body suits before putting me in the ambulance, which made me think I had something very contagious like meningitis. They took me to the Intensive Care Unit, and doctors started attaching catheters and IVs to me. The doctors didn’t speak a lot of English, so I still had no idea what was wrong with me but trusted that they would get me better. After two days, I was transported to another room, and no longer needed intensive care.

The language barrier was tough because I felt okay and wanted to go home, but I had no idea how long I’d have to stay in the hospital. The bed was very uncomfortable, the food was inedible, and there was no wifi or a way to stay entertained. Luckily, I had one local friend who visited me each day at the hospital. After seven days, I finally was released and happy the doctors got me better. Also, the hospital was very affordable and only cost US$700. If I were home in the USA, then I would’ve been bankrupt with no insurance hospitalized for that long.

By Kesi from  Kesi To and Fro  |  Instagram |  Facebook

Grounded by an Erupting Volcano

It was nearly the end of our family holiday in the Algarve in Portugal, when the news broke about the Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupting in Iceland. All UK flights were grounded, and people were left stranded all over the world. Mark was due back at work on Monday, and if he didn’t work, he didn’t get paid, so we had to get home!

All the phone lines for ferry companies were inundated or even closed down due to the high demand. And this was back in 2010 when internet cafes were usually the only way to get online on holiday. I finally managed to find a different phone number and actually spoke to a person who found us five spaces on an early morning sailing from Calais to Dover. It gave us just 48 hours to get there.

We could rent a car in Portugal and leave it at Calais, but the fee would be an eye-watering £1,500 (1,850 US$) for two days’ hire of a little Skoka Fabia.

We squished all of the luggage into the tiny boot and the three boys in the slightly bigger back seat. Unfortunately, I hadn’t got my driver’s license with me so that Mark would be driving the 1,400 miles (2,300 km) on his own. Meanwhile, I navigated with a fold-out paper map, instead of having the luxury of Google Maps plotting the course.

And there’d be no stopping off in hotels overnight or relaxed meals with a glass of wine. We stopped for a couple of hours at San Sebastian, and a few more hours in a truck stop somewhere near Le Mans.

Finally, we arrived at Calais ferry terminal late in the evening before our ferry home. Mark was exhausted, and the boys were bored after two days in the back of a car. We still faced another night’s sleep in the car before we could head back to the UK. But at least we had places booked on a ferry, unlike many of the people sleeping on the floor in the terminal.

Since then, I always book ‘catastrophe cover’ so our costs will be covered if we have a similar experience. And I always take an extra credit card with plenty of credit to cover this kind of eventuality.

Oh, and after all of that, we arrived back just in time to hear that UK airspace had reopened. If we’d just waited a few more days, we could have flown back!

By Sally at Sally Akins

Algarve in Portugal Before Being Stranded Photo Sally Akins

Boat Rescue in Thailand

The universe listens. If you sincerely wish for something the universe will eventually provide. You should, therefore, be very careful with what you wish for. We learned this the hard way on our overnight trip to Cheow Lan Lake in Khao Sok National Park, Thailand. We had been backpacking Southeast Asia for a couple of months already and started to get very comfortable with the road. As a result, we were longing for more adventures, more surprises, more thrill. And boy, did we get all of that!

Having spent a wonderful weekend in Khao Sok National Park floating bungalows, it was time to hit the road and get back to civilization. A strong tropical rain was delaying our departure. While blissfully waiting for the rain to pass, we noticed the little slow boat which was supposed to take us to the shore started sinking. Although the boat was rapidly rescued, the seed of fear and doubt had been planted. We still laughed when the staff informed us we needed to travel on that boat in the middle of the storm, but the laughter was a nervous one. Is this really happening?

Oh yes. Five minutes after departure, the boat engine stopped. Then smoke started coming out of it. The engine was on fire. In the middle of the storm. The engine next to the can of fuel supplies. On the lake infested with king cobras. Oh dear. Are we going to die? Is this one of those sad stories people are going to read in the news about? We screamed for help. Hysterical laughter broke out as, completely terrified, and in shock, we contemplated what might happen to all of us.

Luckily, we were not meant to die that day. Eventually, we safely made it to the shore, albeit overdosed on adrenalin. Hey, we got exactly what we’d asked for.

By Darja from DeeGees Travel | Instagram | Facebook 

Airbnb Scam in Paris

My wife, 10-month-old son, and I climbed six flights of stairs with all our bags to our Paris Airbnb. The young guy was nice enough to help us bring our bags in but then once we were inside the apartment (that didn’t look much like the pictures) he says that we have to pay him cash because he can’t get money from Airbnb due to local bank issues. We said, “no way!” and he said, “you can’t stay here unless you pay cash.”

By that time, it was 6 p.m., and we were exhausted, so we reluctantly paid cash for one night. Big mistake. The bed, shower, and lights were broken, and there was yelling and screaming all night. We didn’t feel safe at all. The icing on the cake was when we called Airbnb, and they offered to put us in another place, but that place happened to be hosted by the same scammer in the same building!

To avoid this happening again, I recommend never booking with someone who has zero reviews and only book places with at least fifty 5-star reviews. Anything less than a 5-star average will likely lead to a problem. Communicate with your host before you arrive and make sure there is nothing fishy. Lastly, never transact outside of the Airbnb platform .

By Asher at Asher Fergus son |  Facebook  |  Instagram  

Airbnb Scam in Paris by Asher Fergusson

Hurricane in St. Lucia

Most people go on their honeymoon expecting things to go smoothly as a successful start to their marriage.  Our honeymoon in St. Lucia certainly started off that way, until it turned into a travel horror story for us. Hurricane Tomas hit St. Lucia near the end of our trip in October of 2010.  While it ended up being downgraded to a tropical cyclone by the time it hit St Lucia, you wouldn’t know it from the destruction it caused. Given its location, hurricanes are rare in St. Lucia, and it doesn’t have the infrastructure to support natural disaster. We woke up the morning after the storm hit to fallen trees and debris all over the property, along with damage to several other buildings. The worst of the damage was experienced throughout the island, with several deaths from landslides, and no running water or electric across most of St. Lucia.

Our flight out of St Lucia was not only canceled, but the main airport was in shambles.  Once it was up and running, the roads to get there were still closed from landslide damage. With the help of our travel agent, we ended up having to leave from a small island hopper airport. After an overnight stop in Antiqua, followed by flights to Puerto Rico, Atlanta and eventually Pittsburgh, we made it home. We made it back four days later than planned, with US$500 in telephone bills in a country that doesn’t support toll-free numbers (In addition to many other, unplanned costs.) We rarely use a travel agent, but with access to the internet at the time, I’m so glad we did! This trip reinforced the importance of travel insurance for costly vacations and having at least one extra credit card as a backup for unplanned costs.

By Amanda from  Toddling Traveler  |  Instagram  |  Facebook

My Not-So-Great Camel Trek into the Sahara Desert

Wait until you get to Chinguetti in Mauritania , the overnight camel trek in the Sahara will be so much more authentic.

That’s what I said. To myself. Because I didn’t want to be one of those people who go glamping and then hollowly proclaim how a comfy trek into the desert changed my life. Besides that, glamping in Morocco was out of the budget range.

First off, the camel driver spoke no English, and barely any French. So communication was nil.

At our stop for lunch, he tossed a baguette at me, and a small can of tuna. Then he made a lazy-ass version of nomad tea. I mention the lazy tea because I know the foam code, and he was making it pretty obvious that he didn’t like me.

In this grand scheme, I hadn’t realized that the distance to the nomad camp was almost 10 miles (15 kms) each way. When my back started hurting, I’d get off the camel. When my legs grew exhausted from walking in the sand, I got back on the camel. Back and forth, until we finally arrived at the nomad camp.

After a babbling, exhausting introduction to a family that didn’t understand a word I was saying, I collapsed in my tent. (The white one on the right in the picture). Dinner was a flavorless plate of rice, and with no communications, I could do nothing more than observe. I didn’t mind that. I like to learn.

However, bedding down at 8:30 pm ultimately led to me seeing a bazillion stars – as I was hiking out to pee on the side of a dune at 2:00 am in the very cold desert night.

The ride back the next morning was equally grueling.

Yes, I got my truly authentic camel-trekking-overnight-in-a-nomad-camp experience in the Sahara Desert. It didn’t change my life. There were no revelations. The universe did not tell me its secrets.

But I do have one piece of advice – take the short camel ride.

By Trina from Team Hazard Rides Again |  Instagram  |  Facebook

Nomad Camp near Chinguetti in Mauritania – Photo Credit: Trina Marie Phillips

Expired Visa in Thailand

One of the most stressful things that have happened to me on my travels was in  Thailand . I had been working in the country for eight weeks, and I had a full business visa, so everything was above board. However, when I checked in for my return flight back to the UK, I was told that my visa had expired and if I wished to depart, I would have to pay a hefty fine.

Despite explaining that this couldn’t be correct, there seemed very little I could do.  Things got worse when I found an ATM, but none of my five cards seemed to work in the machine.

On returning to check-in and phoning my company, a lengthy conversation took part with Emirates, the outcome being that immigration must have stamped my passport incorrectly upon entry into Thailand.

I now had to try and explain this to immigration, not an easy task.  I was taken into a small room, and all I can say is my heart was pounding. I’ve seen these types of situations on tv where people get held at immigration for reasons beyond their control, and now it was happening to me.

Cutting the story short, thankfully, the issue was resolved in 45 minutes.  An official came and explained that they would have to delete my entry into the country, then re-enter me and then they could stamp my passport as departed. So they literally crossed out the original entry gave me a new arrival stamp and then stamped it with left.

I’ve never taken any notice of what passport stamps say in the past. My business visas usually take up a whole page in my passport so I would have thought the type of visa would be evident to an official.

However, mistakes obviously happen, so now I make a point of checking the stamp before leaving immigration. If you look closely, you’ll see it gives the last possible date of departure as well as the time you arrive.

The whole ordeal was incredibly stressful, and part of me wonders if it is a scam, as I would have paid the hefty fine if the cash machine had given me the money.

By  Passport and Piano  |  Facebook  |  Pinterest

Rough Cruise in New York City

We went on a cruise near the end of the year that departed from New York City. The weather was less than ideal, being that it was in the middle of the winter, but that was the only time we could travel that year. During the trip, the wind was so strong and rocked the cruise ship so much that we could barely walk straight. People were getting seasick, including my husband, which made eating the gourmet French cuisine that we craved so much prior to the cruise an impossibility.

During the night when the cruise was cruising at full speed, the waves were so big that we felt like we were on one of those drop tower thrill rides. At one moment, we would be lifted up by the wave, and then without any warning, the ship would drop and hit the ocean. Therefore, nobody was getting any sleep.

After this experience, I definitely will think twice and check the weather conditions before I book another cruise. Oh, and pack lots of motion sickness remedies.

Betty from Mombrite | Pinterest | Instagram

NYC Cruise – Photo Credit: Betty at MomBrite

Moneyless in Thailand

No money, no problem. That’s what they said.

While I was traveling in South East Asia starting with Thailand, my bank suddenly changed its procedure to access money abroad. And now, it didn’t spit cash in the time I needed it most.

In the previous years, I had no problem withdrawing money from my ATM whenever I’m abroad. I tried it in India, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and had no problems getting money. I’ve long accepted the fact that I’m a magnet of mishaps and have tried all possible ways to counteract it.

So I know beforehand that this might happen to me. Good thing I bought a spare ATM/Debit Card from another bank. At a time where people just stare (or laugh) at you on your misfortunes, the spare card was my saving grace.

To those who are about to embark on that big dream travel destination, make sure you have multiple ATMs and a few friends who will bail you out in case something horrible happens.

By Grasya at Grasya.com

Rats! I Smell Smoke  

Surviving three months of colicky infant, hubby, and I took a spontaneous vacation to Hawaii. The baby was now happy to sleep anywhere in her stroller/crib, and we knew how to find cheap accommodation quickly. How hard could it be?

Arriving in Honolulu at 10 p.m., we began searching for a room. By 10:30 p.m. we had accommodation, twice as expensive as anticipated, but it was only for one night. At midnight, the elevator directly outside our room developed a bad case of emphysema and began wheezing steadily as it delivered the first in a series of party animals.

Baby slept.

At one a.m., the air conditioner crapped out, and by two a.m., when the stifling room temperature became too much, we opened the window.  Car horns and emergency vehicle sirens drowned out the elevator, although they didn’t cover the couple arguing in the next room.

The baby slept on.

Bleary-eyed the next morning, we scanned the local newspaper searching for beach cottages. Bingo! The sprawling, decades-old North Shore bungalow had character – white paint peeled off the screened-in veranda and the brown carpet was a little threadbare – but it was quiet.

That’s when the argument started. I wanted to pay for the rest of the week; hubby only wanted to pay for one night. I fumed, not so silently. Hubby relented. He’d seen a cat coming out of our bungalow… with a rat in its mouth.

By eight p.m. we had our money back and were on the road again, heading straight towards Waikiki’s high-rise hotels, baby sleeping soundly in her car seat. We got a room on the 38 th floor.

When the fire alarm sounded at midnight, we stared at each other in disbelief. Ten floors down, smoke began wafting into the emergency exit stairway. Panic started spreading among the growing numbers of guests fleeing the building. Clutching baby closer, we scurried down the remaining flights of stairs.

Standing on the street, we listened to the chatter. Candle… open window… curtains… sprinkler system… fire’s out.

We’re thinking, next time, we’ll book ahead.

By Megan from Time Travel Trek | Twitter | Instagram  

Beach Babe at Hanauma Bay on Oahu – Photo Credit: Megan at Time Travel Trek

Robbed in Havana

I was just embarking on a backpacking adventure with no return ticket. I was aiming for a 3-month trip, but my trip first ended after almost two years in Latin America. I’d just arrived in Cuba and had spent three wonderful days in Havana . I got to know this Colombian guy in the hostel where I stayed, and we decided to head to our next destination together. This really benefited me, as I didn’t know a lot of Spanish and getting around on the cheap is easier if you speak the language.

We were told we could catch a bus further up the road from where we were. It started to get dark and this boy, probably about 18 years old, came up to us and offered to show us where exactly the bus stop was. When we reached a bus stop about 5 minutes later, the boy ripped my daypack out of my hands and ran. We threw our big backpacks off and started to run after him, but soon realized it would be impossible to catch him. He was gone, and with him, my passport, phone, camera, travel papers and so on. At this point, I was freaking out.

After gathering myself for a while, we jumped in a taxi and asked them to take us to the closest police station. We later found out they definitely didn’t drive us to the closest one, but that didn’t really matter at the time. We spend half the night with the police, at two different police stations. They found out that there was a Norwegian embassy in Havana and I got the address so that I could go the next day. They even made a digital sketch of the robber and helped us find affordable accommodation for the night.

The next day I went to the embassy and started the process of getting a new passport. Luckily I had travel insurance that covered all my loses and got to continue my travels. This experience didn’t stop me from being adventurous and continue my solo travels, but I definitely learned to be less naive.

By Julie at Why Not Ju  | Instagram  | Facebook

Cuba Vinales – Photo Credit: Why Not Ju

A Nightmare of a Hotel Stay in Pittsburg, USA

My husband and I were traveling with our 4-month-old son. It was our first time traveling with a baby, so we were stressed and tired. We traveled by plane all day to get from California to Pennsylvania. Because of flight delays, we ended up arriving at the Pittsburgh airport in the middle of the night. Once we arrived at the hotel, we checked in. I had verified that the hotel had a pack-n-play available, so we didn’t bring ours. However, the person working overnight didn’t have access to the room where the pack-n-plays were stored. We were told tough luck on getting on that night. By this time, it was about 2 am, so we ended up putting our son to sleep on the floor with a play mat under him. Thankfully, he was still young enough that we didn’t have to worry about him rolling or crawling away.

Well if that wasn’t stressful enough, we woke in the morning to the sound of rain. Rain isn’t unusual in Pennsylvania, but what seemed odd was that we were hearing it from our hotel room door which opened into a hallway. Curious we opened our door to find it raining into the indoor hallway right outside our room. Upon further investigation, we discovered that it was also raining in the closet, and the bathroom ceiling was leaking. We didn’t stay around long enough to find out what it was raining inside.

There wasn’t much we could do to avoid the ceiling leak besides choosing higher quality hotels. However, I now always call the hotel the day of arrival to verify that there will be a pack-n-play in the room for us, which has prevented this problem from occurring again. I use a  Family Travel Planner to make sure that I don’t forget again.

By Lauren from My Favorite Job Title Is Mom | Twitter | Instagram

Passports Stolen (and Food Poisoning) in Tenerife

It was our first day in Tenerife , we’d hired a car and had grand plans to explore the island. We’d just been up Mount Teide in the cable car and were falling in love with the incredible volcanic landscapes. It was a short while later, during a quick stop in a layby at Montana Blanca to take some photos, that it happened.

Our car was broken into, and all our belongings stolen from the locked boot, including cameras, money and our passports. It was broad daylight, and there were lots of other cars and tourists around. Nobody saw anything; these thieves were professionals. It was the only possessions they took, no-one was hurt, yet we felt violated. And then the panic set in as we realized we couldn’t get home without our passports. So we spent the rest of our trip making reports at the police station, filling out applications and driving all the way up to the British Consulate in Santa Cruz to collect our emergency documents a few days later.

It was touch and go whether they’d process them in time for our flight home (and if we missed that, we wouldn’t be able to head out to Kenya as planned a couple of days later). Oh, and we both had food poisoning on top of all this. We eventually made it home (and to Kenya after a frantic dash to the UK passport office in Glasgow to pick up new passports at great expense), but that wasn’t the end.

Filling out the insurance claim was a nightmare, and disappointingly, we only received a fraction of what our losses were worth, resulting in us being out of pocket by about £1500. Not a trip we’ll forget in a hurry, and we’re never going to leave anything in the boot of our car again.

By Heather at Conversant Traveller | Facebook | Instagram

Montana Blanca near Mount Teide on Tenerife – Photo Credit: Conversant Traveller

Poop in Sipadan, Malaysia

A quick lesson you learn, when you travel often, is to manage your expectations. Being flexible and rolling with the punches has turned many potentially lousy trips into an adventure. Ideally, this is our travel mantra, but sometimes you just end up with an experience that is a complete bust.

The first time we traveled to SE Asia together, we country hopped for about 6-weeks. The trip was really fun for the exception of a short stay in Sipadan, Malaysia.

The only goals for Malaysia were getting sun and swimming. The only accommodation we could find was an Airbnb listing. The listing advertised beautiful tiki bungalows over crystal blue waters. The number one reason we booked with them was that we were told you could dive directly from our bungalow and snorkel for free.

Many countries, and islands, of course, deal with their waste in different ways. We have been all over the globe and are not fussy when it comes to things like this. Sipadan however, was a nightmare. Their toilets were just giant holes over the water that we were advertised to snorkel in. The bathrooms smelled worst that any public toilet I’ve ever encountered and stunk up the whole room.

The water surrounding all the bungalows, that was advertised for diving and swimming, was infested with human waste. I do not judge a country by their lack of infrastructure but swimming straight from our bungalow should have never been advertised in the listing.

With poop infested waters and a room that smelled just as bad, we were not very happy. We decided to cut our losses and get the first boat out… two days later.

The one positive note is that every trip we have taken since; any hiccups don’t seem as bad. If we miss a flight or lose a bag, we say “at least we not on poop island .”

By Briana at  A Dash of Life | Instagram | Twitter

Train Ride in India

A few years back, when I was new to travel, I faced a bad situation on a train journey in South India. I had a very annoying man sitting right opposite to my seat and had to interact with him inevitably. He started out doing harmless pun like gulping down my entire water, having food from someone else’s plate, laughing while listening to songs and such silly things. But at night, he started bugging me by asking personal questions. When I did not respond kindly, he started telling me about himself.

I was so scared that night as he was right next to me in the middle berth. I could not sleep even a wink. The next day as soon as the train stopped at my destination, I literally ran away. This is a reserved compartment, and you usually have to stick to your seat for the entire journey.

Unfortunately, as a solo female traveler, you will need to be very careful in public transportation because even though most men are decent, some rowdy elements make the entire journey horrible. If you have the option, try to book in a ladies coach. Or even try to swap seats with a generous soul so that you can sit with other women.

By Priyadarshini from Glorious Sunrise  | Facebook | Instagram

Train Ride in India – Photo Credit: Glorious Sunrise

Pumping Nightmare in Paris

My husband and I were gifted a free trip to Paris, France from his work company when our first baby was six weeks old. At six weeks postpartum with my first baby, I was NOWHERE in the condition to be going on such a huge trip and traveling so far from my newborn. My body was still very much recovering, my hormones were all over the place, and my baby was exclusively breastfed, so I had to pump enough breastmilk for him to have while we were away and I also have to pump on his schedule during our travels.

At his age, I had to pump every 2-3 hours ALL DAY LONG and on EST, which was quite a large time difference from the local time in Paris! I pumped breastmilk all over Paris . At the Louvre. During the Moulin Rouge show. In the disgusting public bathrooms.  I also had to set the alarm and wake up all throughout the night to pump my breastmilk on schedule.

Now that I’m done having children, I feel I deserve a re-do of our Paris experience! It was such a nightmare to be dealing with pumping and storing the milk and having to cope with all the hormones I was experiencing while also trying to soak in such an incredible travel opportunity.

A free trip to Paris was too good to pass up, and while I don’t regret going, I will never forget the nightmare of a pumping mother traveling to Europe at six weeks postpartum!

By Emily from Journey of Parenthood |  Instagram  | Facebook

An Allergic Reaction Left Me Looking Like I’d Been Beaten Up

Back in 2008, my new boyfriend asked me if I’d be interested in going to Silverstone to watch the Grand Prix with him. Formula 1 and motorsport, in general, weren’t my idea of fun, but I liked the sound of a weekend away, so I agreed.

It was July, and very hot when we arrived at the track. I caught the sun during the day but wasn’t burnt as such. That evening, we arrived at our hotel and ate in the hotel restaurant.

We went to bed as normal, but when I woke up on Monday, my face was swollen beyond recognition. I literally looked like I had been attacked in the night. My eye was swollen shut, and so red, it looked bruised.

The looks we got from the hotel staff as we checked out were awful. They were looking from me to my boyfriend as if he had beaten me up. I found myself explaining that though I’d had an allergic reaction to the bedding as I assumed they used biological detergent. The hotel receptionist slipped me a note asking me to text her if I wanted her to call the police as we were leaving. I was mortified, as was my poor boyfriend.

Once we got home, I went to the doctor who agreed it was a severe reaction. I was prescribed strong antihistamines, which left me too tired to drive for a week. Thankfully the swelling and redness went down within a few days, and I am happy to report my then-boyfriend has been my husband since 2010! Needless to say, I always pack my own pillowcases when we travel now!

By Tina at  Girls Gospel  |  Facebook | Instagram

Allergic Reaction – Photo Credit: Girls Gospel

Drunk in Osaka, Japan

It was one of my first trips outside of the United States, and I ended up at a bar in Osaka that had “all-you-can-drink” alcohol for two hours. I like a good deal, so naturally, I drank a lot of alcohol very quickly to get “full value” out of the experience. After two hours of drinking, I left my friends at the bar to go outside and get some air.

As soon as I walked outside, I blacked out!

When I opened my eyes, it was two hours later, and I was walking around in an unfamiliar alley. My hand was in pain, and I felt like a zombie. People were yelling at me in Japanese. I took a moment to take in the situation and noticed that I knocked down A LOT of bicycles with my hand. The alleys in Japan are narrow and have bikes parked along with them.

I quickly make my escape.

I stop a cab and ask them if they can take me to my hotel. The cab driver did not speak English. I closed the taxi door and continued walking. With no phone or sense of direction, I just keep walking and walking.

Another hour of walking and I somehow found my way back to the hotel! My friends were there awake and worried.

What I learned from this experience: Don’t get super drunk even if it’s a good deal. But if you do, make sure you get the hotel business card, so you have the hotel address.

By Daniel at Blorg | Facebook | YouTube

Robbed in Osaka – Photo Credit: Daniel Blorg

GoPro Left by the Side of the Road

Our trip to Mallorca was ill-fated from the start. We stepped off the plane, expecting to step out into the balmy warm, Spring temperatures Mallorca is known for. Sadly we arrived in the middle of a thunderstorm – and that set the tone for the rest of the trip!

By far, the most stressful moment of our week in Mallorca was at the end of a long day of shooting. Normally, we try and finish at a sensible hour but, due to the horrendous weather, we’d decided we needed to cram as much into this one day of good weather as possible. As a result, our cameras and GoPro were jam-full of gorgeous footage of Mallorca bathed in sunshine.

Only, as the sun sank lower in the sky, I suddenly realized that I didn’t have the GoPro! Where was it?

With a sinking feeling, I suddenly remembered that I’d had to take it off the mount to switch cameras. So… yes, I must have left it by the roadside at the bottom of the mountain we were now at the top of…

As anyone that loves to take photos can imagine, I suddenly felt sick. Would someone have taken it? It had been at least two hours since we were at the bottom of the mountain… We raced down – and yes, thankfully there it was! Sitting patiently on a concrete block by the side of the road!

I have never been so relieved in all my life! Lesson learned: less haste, more speed!

By Clare from  Epic Road Rides  | Facebook | Instagram

Child Scare in Hong Kong Theme Park

Our first family overseas holiday was to Hong Kong, and the kids were 5, 7, and 9 years old. We were about a week into our holiday, and I had started to relax and get used to local people approaching the kids and wanting to talk to them. We were at Ocean Park , a massive theme park on Hong Kong Island. Keira my 7-year-old was walking on the edging of a garden bed. I saw an Asian male run upside her and lift her down and was about to apologize for her walking on the garden when he turned and ran off with my child.

Keira was stunned and was looking at me over his shoulder, I was panicking as we were walking at the rear of our group and it was noisy, and I wasn’t sure I had got my husband’s attention. In a split second I decided to ran after Keira, the man ran for about 260 feet (80 m) and handed her to a group of mainland Chinese tourists who wanted to take some photos with her.

Once I realized what was happening, I started to settle down. I was relieved they only wanted photos as it could have been much worse. When my husband realized what was going on, he wasn’t as forgiving. While we were trying to get Keira back from the ‘just one more please’ ladies, I turned around to see they had grabbed my son and were taking more photos.

Unfortunately, we had to be a bit aggressive with them as they had frightened the kids, but they didn’t seem to notice that and were following us and taking more photos. My husband eventually politely but firmly asked them to stop taking photos. It was all harmless in the end, but I, for one, got the fright of my life.

By Sally at Our 3 Kids v The World |  Facebook  |  Instagram

3 Kids vs. World in Hong Kong

Lyme Disease

I love national park travel – any outdoor travel, really. I love hiking, camping, and exploring all the natural wonders the US (and the world!) has to offer. Do you know what else loves the outdoors? Ticks.

My travel horror story has followed me around for ten years, and now, I’m obsessed with educating others so they can avoid the same pain. I’m talking about Lyme disease, which I contracted from a tick bite after a hiking trip at a US national park. Long story short, I’ve dealt with the fallout ever since. It’s not been pretty, and I don’t wish it on anyone!

So, fellow outdoor travelers, please take precautions — but definitely, don’t stop exploring! The steps you can take to protect yourself are relatively simple:

Tuck pant cuffs into your socks when you’re hiking – not the most fashion-forward thing in the world, but it helps keep ticks from getting inside your clothing. Wear long, light-colored attire, so the little critters can be easily spotted and removed from clothing when you’re done hiking.

Cover yourself with bug spray. (In general, I’m a pretty anti-chemical gal… but, having experienced Lyme, I’ll take the DEET any day.) Then, check your entire body and take a shower soon after every hike. You’ll have to look closely because Lyme ticks are as small as a pinhead, but if you find one, remove it from the head (don’t squeeze its body!) with tweezers  only .

I’ll never stop exploring the world’s natural wonders and encouraging others to do the same. But my exploration and encouragement now come with a list of safety precautions!

By Mary from  MB Sees   Facebook  |  A Reluctant Mom   Facebook

Hotel Fire in Antwerp, Belgium

As I woke up to the smell of smoke, I thought to myself, how romantic, the couple next door is burning candles in the middle of the night! But when I opened my eyes, and the room was flooded in the orange light of sirens. Something was clearly wrong, and the couple next door had nothing to do with it. The mellow sound of the fire alarm in the distance was a clear indication of it. I instantly jumped out of bed and woke up my husband. We were on the 7th floor of a hotel in Antwerp, Belgium.

While my husband got dressed, I turn into the female version of Flash – I put on my clothes and packed our luggage, grabbing every one of our belonging in passing (all the way to the €0.30 toothbrush!). The next thing I remember, we were rushing down the emergency staircase. It wasn’t until we arrived in the parking lot where the other guests started to gather that I realized the insanity of my actions. Most of the people there were in PJs, robes, and some didn’t even have their shoes on.

Luckily, nobody got hurt, and the fire was contained to the kitchen. An hour later, we were allowed back to our rooms. Understandably, no baked goods or warm dishes were served for breakfast in the morning. Kids, do not try this at home or any hotel room! Ever! I have to say years have passed, but I remained sensitive to the smell of smoke to this day. My nose is better than a fire detector! On a side note, there are SO many  quirky things to do in Antwerp , and you should definitely visit this beautiful Flemish city.

By Laura from Travelers Universe |  Instagram | Pinterest   

Antwerp by Travelers Universe

Stranded in Romania

“Well Romania has dirt cheap flights, should we go there?”

While Romania isn’t exactly a top “Girls Trip” destination, especially when toting along with five small children, my friends and I all decided to give the country a shot, and the crazy cheap Ryan Air flights made it all that more appealing. As frequent travelers, despite the fact that two of us were pregnant, that we had five kids under 5, and that Ryan Air had been striking all summer, we decided to give it a go.

However, as we waited at the gate, just minutes prior to boarding, an announcement (In Romanian) came overhead. As everyone around us groaned and got up, we knew it wasn’t looking good.

Instead of landing back home in a few hours, we found ourselves stranded in a small town in Romania that literally had zero hotel rooms left (since Ryan Air was striking left and right apparently, leaving dozens of flights canceled).

After a long night of town-hopping in a taxi, we finally found a late apartment still taking bookings, only to see that there were no flights out for days… if at all. So, grabbing all five little ones (5 under 5!), we all found the closest train station and began what was the longest, most convoluted train ride home possible.

And, as if being seven months pregnant in July wasn’t hard enough, both my son and I got a stomach bug, that we then had to deal with in the small confines of Eastern European trains!  It was as if we just couldn’t catch a break! However, at the end of the day, we knew we only had one option; get home….somehow! It wasn’t pleasant. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t convenient.

But in those instances, all you can do is grab your luggage and say, “Let’s figure this out.”

By LeAnna at  EconomicalExcursionists.com  |  Facebook  | Twitter

Camping Nightmare

Back in 2006, we booked a last-minute camping trip to Bakewell in the Peak District on August Bank Holiday. I left the booking to my Husband (mistake #1) who booked the last campsite he could find with availability on the top of a very big hill. We took our new tent which we had purchased from eBay at the bargain price of £150 (US$190) for a 9-man (I know, what did we expect?) We wanted space to spread out with Will, our 5-year-old at the time.

We pitched the tent easily and were impressed with our efforts until we saw the black clouds rolling in, and the wind began to build. Sure enough, a night-long storm came in, and our new tent began to ‘dance,’ we tried to stay positive and played card games and hoped for the best. That’s when it started . . . Drip, drip, drip . . . The tent began to leak. Our brand new pots and pans were spread out around the tent to catch the drips which turned into actual running water.

As the wind grew stronger, the poles began to bend, and the tent was blowing down onto us, we became more wet, more tired, and more frightened by the minute. In the end, we retreated to our VW Transporter – at least we knew it didn’t leak, but it certainly rocked in the wind. By morning, the tent was still there, just. It looked like it had seen better days. It had certainly seen it’s last day with us. We drove into Bakewell to the Millets Camping Show and bought a Vango Diablo 600 which served us well for many years.

The moral of this story? Bargains are not always what they seem!

By Sabina at Mummy Matters  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  

Camping Pre-Nightmare – Photo Credit: MummyMatters

Catcalls in Sri Lanka

It was in 2016, as I was walking along the shores of Unawatuna beach with my boyfriend – I couldn’t help but notice all the malicious stares and catcalls I was receiving. Yes, I was wearing a bikini just like everyone else on the beach, but it wasn’t too skimpy. I even have a sarong wrapped around my waist. We’ve been traveling around Sri Lanka already, and this is the first time that we have encountered this.

In the evening, while we were having dinner, I saw a drunk tourist girl with locals swarmed around her, she was with a female companion who was also equally drunk, as I watched closely, I saw one of the locals touching her while his other hand inside his pants (he was masturbating over this – we know because of the movements). I tried to stop it and call the girl’s attention, but there were too many locals surrounding them that she couldn’t hear me. There were no police or local authorities around. After the local got off, they left the two tourists.

I still get nightmares because of this because being a female traveler, this is the last thing that I want to happen to me. I also wish that those two tourists will take care of themselves because something worse could have happened to them. And I don’t mean to generalize, but because of instances like that, locals may think that what they did was absolutely normal.

By Chel at Chel Inumerable |  | Instagram  

UTI in Madrid 

About a year ago, I had visited Madrid for the third time, and everything was perfect up until two days before my flight back home. I woke up and could feel it coming; a woman’s nightmare which is, of course, UTI. At least I didn’t have to face any embracement because the woman I had been staying with was out of town and I was alone in the apartment.

Obviously, I couldn’t do anything during these last  two days in Madrid , but I was lucky enough to have the proper medicine. About one year before my trip to Madrid, I had visited South America, so I had some subscribed generic antibiotics at home. I normally don’t take this type of pills when I’m traveling to Europe, but this time, I had them with me. After taking the first pill, I already felt better and wouldn’t have survived the flight back without the antibiotics.

By Or from My Path In The World | Instagram | Facebook

View of Budapest – Photo Credit: Tanama Tales

“Hoteless” in Greece

Last summer my partner and I spent ten days in Greece. We traveled in and out of Athens and three islands (Sifnos, Santorini, and Mykonos). Because we began the trip with my best friend and his Greek parents, we booked the trip in stages. We spent one night in Athens and then Sifnos with him and his parents. Next, we went to Santorini with him and then Mykonos as a couple. Finally, we spent  two nights in Athen  together before flying home.

Planning was also done in a scattershot way. My friend’s parents booked the Athens and Sifnos hotels and our first ferry. I booked the remaining hotels and our flights, while my partner booked our remaining ferries. Complicating things more, we also did the planning long distance (we live in Denmark, they live in Washington, DC).

Because of the confusing way that everyone had a piece of the planning — we never booked a hotel in Athens for our last two nights. We drank most of the day in Mykonos, made our flights to Athens. n arrival, we looked in our emails for a hotel reservation confirmation, and neither of us found one. Of course, we panicked, but we were luckily able to book one online last minute at 1 am. Regardless, it was scary.

When we arrived at the hotel, the receptionist said, “all of our check-ins have arrived.” We then explained that the reservation was made 30 minutes ago and he checked us in. We now keep a very detailed google doc to record all of our travel planning in a shareable live itinerary. Lesson learned the hard way.

By Derek from Robe Trotting  | Facebook   | Instagram

Derelict Apartment in Budapest

On our last day in Budapest, we booked a hotel room close to the Great Market Hall. On the given direction, at around 7:00 a.m., we encountered the closed door of a residential building even though the booking site stated the place had a 24 hours reception. With the help of a restaurant owner, we found out the person in charge was going to be in the area at around 1:00 p.m.

The “hotel” ended up being a derelict apartment on the 4th floor. The person in charge greeted us and told us straight to our face that there was no space for us in the apartment. He offered us to sleep on the hall floor for free. No kidding! We left and spent hours looking for a place to stay.  The situation ended up being a waste of time and money. We spent the last day of our vacation in complete stress.

Back home, I reported the situation to the booking site. They returned the money paid and opened an investigation. Even though I do not agree with the findings (a mistake on the property owner), I learned several valuable lessons.

First, a hotel is obligated to help you find alternative accommodation if they cannot honor your booking (big booking sites require this). Also, take a close look at the accommodation amenities and photos. You may find discrepancies. Reading the fine print at the bottom is important too.

Make sure you read several pages of reviews even if the place is rated above average. On the 4th page of reviews of this place in Budapest , I found somebody that experimented the same situation as us.

Engage in electronic conversation with your hotel (or apartment) a couple of days before arrival.  Ask pertinent questions. Lastly, have all hotel contact information at hand.

From Ruth at Tanama Tales | Pinterest | Facebook

Car Crash in India – Photo Credit: Our Overseas Adventures

Crash in India

India is a spectacular place that enthralls and challenges in equal measure. In fact, many travelers to this amazing country will come home with stories of things gone wrong, which luckily are often quite entertaining in hindsight. Our story was set on India’s notorious roads. We were spending two weeks with a driver seeking out the highlights of Rajasthan – palaces, forts, temples, beautiful cities, and incredible food. We loved everything, apart from driving.

Our reasonably priced driver came highly recommended and was a lovely man and in all probability a decent driver. But from very early on we were a little nervous in the passenger seats of his Ambassador (a 2004 built car based on a 1953 platform). He would drive around roundabouts the wrong way and then have to drive on the wrong side of a dual carriageway for a couple of kilometers before he could duck onto the correct side of the road. And one day he drove into an open manhole – not really his fault, but we still needed some help from passersby to get out.

But we were most nervous overtaking trucks. Our car, with a top speed of 80 kph (50 mph), would drive at full speed up to the back of a truck (top speed 40 kph/25 mph) and then at the last possible second simply pull out to pass, regardless of oncoming traffic or blind corners. This strategy worked brilliantly for a number of days until the time one truck inexplicably braked when we were about 2 meters (0.7 feet) behind it, and before we had had a chance to pull out into the oncoming traffic.

Our driver braked heavily, causing the nose of our car to dive and bury itself under the rear axle of the truck. Once the crash was complete, the truck sat on top of our bonnet, three-quarters of the way up to the windscreen.

About half an hour later we were back on the road, having jacked up the truck, backed out the car, stood on the front bumper and kicked in the bonnet so it would (mostly) shut again. Half an hour or so after that, with not a single word said in the meantime; our driver told us solemnly that these things happen in India. “It’s not my fault; it’s not the truck’s fault; these things just happen.”

From Kylie at  Our Overseas Adventures  | Instagram | Facebook

Hospital Visits in Myanmar

During a 7-month trip to Asia, a lot can go wrong. Therefore, we didn’t worry too much when my partner suddenly got hemorrhoids short before crossing the border to Myanmar. After a 14-hour bus ride, we spent under a broken and way too cold AC, however, not only he started feeling worse, but also I seemed to get sick. So, while we were at Inle Lake, we tried to find a doctor who could help him. At our guesthouse, the owner described us the way to the hospital. But after arriving, we started to wonder whether this was actually the right place. The reception was unoccupied, while medication and syringes were freely accessible on the desk. At the end of the corridor, we saw two women cutting vegetables on the floor. However, when we tried to approach them, we were cut off by two growling stray dogs passing through the corridors of the hospital.

After about an hour, finally, a nurse arrived, but she decided to completely ignore us as she attended everyone else in the waiting room. When we approached her (assuming it might be a language-issue), she told us in perfect English that we could not be treated there while she was filling syringes that had been lying around without any kind of wrapping without using gloves or washing her hands. – Maybe it was better to leave in the first place.

She gave us the address of a private clinic on the other side of the city. But even there nobody could or wanted to help us. Instead, we were given the address of another hospital, which was about an hour away by taxi. During the trip, I felt worse and worse and started to get a fever. However, the third hospital was far better equipped than the two before and had a much better quality and hygiene standard. Read the whole story  here .

By Vicki at Vicki Viaja | Facebook  | Instagram

Hospital in Myanmar – Photo Credit: Vicki Viaja

What about you? Any incredible travel stories to share that turned your trip into a nightmare? Let us know, we would love to hear from your experiences!

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Patricia - Ze Wandering Frogs

Bonjour! I am Patricia Pagenel, the founder with Bruno Chartier of this adventure travel blog - Ze Wandering Frogs, where we share our travel tips and personal experiences from traveling in 50+ countries. We have been on a world trip since 2016, looking for exciting new adventures. Our work has been featured on Viator, National Geographic, Huffington Post, and ASEAN Tourism. Find out more about Ze Wandering Frogs in our About Us, our Portfolio, and Partners that worked with us. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube to explore the world with us and start planning your own itineraries.

July 20, 2019

26 Comments

January 6, 2023 at 7:08 pm

Wow, stories really scary and nice to.

January 9, 2023 at 9:45 am

Yes, some of these stories are crazy scary!

September 10, 2020 at 6:44 am

I was afraid that something like this could happen to me on one of my trips. Nice post.

December 1, 2020 at 5:26 am

Murphy’s law, right? As long as we can laugh about these stories afterward…

October 10, 2019 at 9:46 am

Glad you shared your experience with us!

November 18, 2019 at 1:28 am

Glad you enjoyed this article!

September 24, 2019 at 3:45 pm

I worked for a travel assistance many years ago and I heard a fair few horror stories, some ending in death… I have to say that using drugs in Mexico and ending up in jail in Tijuana, out of all places… is a pretty sobering story… Yes, don’t do anything illegal, especially not drugs! These travellers were lucky that they were placed away from the main ward, and without money being extorted! It’s a shame they can’t go back to Mexico, I’m sure there are other things to see and do there…

September 26, 2019 at 5:44 am

Yes, way too high a risk! You must have indeed heard some sobering stories during that time. Things can change so fast, you are safe one second, and in trouble next. I always keep that in mind when we travel, tends to keep on edge so often. Safe travels!

August 29, 2019 at 8:57 pm

Over the years, I have experienced numerous hiccups and misshaps with my travels — many due to letting down my guard, or simply being clueless. Others, challenges that came up through no fault of my own other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time — reason I never travel anywhere without both travel insurance and evacuation coverage. These are some amazing tales to be sure. Lessons to be learned in each. Perhaps it is the British blood that runs through my veins, but I also somehow find humor in almost any mishap … “tragedy plus time = humor” my wife likes to say. Often it is true.

September 22, 2019 at 6:34 am

Indeed, you can be as careful as possible, the wrong time at the wrong place is always an unfortunate possibility. Travel insurance is a must, we also carry a satellite GPS system for when we go trekking in remote places. I love your wife’s say, very British indeed! Safe travels!

August 25, 2019 at 10:21 am

Oh my goodness! What crazy stories. It is really easy to gain a false sense of security while traveling but you should never feel too safe and always have your guard up! I can’t even imagine having thought I lost my child! What a nightmare!

October 10, 2019 at 7:47 am

Think this is something valid everywhere you are. These days, things can happen so quickly even in your home town. But it can be even more dramatic when you are far away, in places you might not speak the language.

August 25, 2019 at 7:46 am

Wow, Mom falling off a cliff in Jamaica… Thats really scary, glad she fell in the old part of deep enough water and came away with only scratches.

August 29, 2019 at 12:36 am

Indeed, that story could have taken an even worst turn! Any crazy story on your end?

August 16, 2019 at 12:08 am

woh … These are your stories are very horror. I do’nt have these type of horror stories by the way it’s helpfu for those who travel alot and they also avoid these type of incidents after read your article …

November 18, 2019 at 1:40 am

Indeed, we are always learning new ways of staying safe, whether it’s traveling far away or simply close to home. Stuff can happen anywhere. Safe travels!

August 7, 2019 at 12:08 pm

Wow. I don’t do drugs and definitely wouldn’t even attempt it in a foreign country. Those guys are so lucky that not all of them got arrested so that the ones that didn’t could go and get some help. That could have turned into a really ugly story if it wasn’t for the fast act of their friends. I’m sure they are all friends for life now!

August 9, 2019 at 10:48 pm

Indeed, the story could have had a way different ending. Some countries like Indonesia take drugs very seriously, which can lead to the death penalty.

August 7, 2019 at 6:39 am

Oh, god! The Butt-Frostbite in Tibet is the worst, it’s my worst nightmare!

August 9, 2019 at 11:06 pm

Totally a highly inconvenient consequence!

July 24, 2019 at 1:28 pm

Hi Patricia, I liked this post. Here you have shared the Unimaginable Travel Horror Stories of different people. Travel is uncertain, you know that. But the post really shares the different experience of people who are loving to travel. Thanks for this collection of experiences.

July 26, 2019 at 11:50 pm

So many stories to share! Travel is never dull, that’s for sure!

July 23, 2019 at 12:38 pm

When I visited Laos, I was going back and forth about whether or not to drive or fly between Luang Prabang and Vientiane. Due to time constraints, I decided to fly. I’ve been wondering what the bus ride would have been like ever since.

July 26, 2019 at 11:49 pm

Indeed, it seems that the flight wins over the bus, though it does make for a good story to tell, once you have arrived!

July 22, 2019 at 10:45 am

Wow some of these stories are really scary especially going to a foreign jail, getting robbed with a knife and losing your child! Fortunately I don’t have any horror stories from traveling just sprained my ankle a couple of times.

July 26, 2019 at 8:27 am

Indeed, some of these stories are crazy! Spraining an ankle is no small issue, can definitely turn your travels into hell! Hope the ankle is better now 🙂

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How to Write a Bad Travel Story

Lisa Ellen Niver January 27th, 2013

By Lisa Ellen Niver

  We asked David Farley for permission to share his article from World Hum: How to Write a Bad Travel Story . We hope it inspires you to read, write and share your stories with us! Join in our Travel Writing Contest : Free Entry, Cash Prizes and a Raffle for great travel books!

Despite popular belief, becoming a travel writer doesn’t always require moving to a village in Provence or restoring a villa in Italy. In fact, it doesn’t even mean you have to write good travel tales with a deep sense of place and an intriguing angle or storyline. See, you can simply write bad travel stories.

Here are a few tips on how to do just that.

● Let’s start with the intro, or, as it’s called in the biz, the lede. The lede in a bad travel article should usually open up with you, in general, and you and your husband Larry, in particular. Example: “My husband Larry and I marveled at the lush landscape surrounding the cottages at our overnight lodge, even though it was winter in the Southern Hemisphere and dry season in East Africa.” Your goal here is not to write an intriguing, attention-getting lede, but to mention Larry as soon as possible. Goal achieved!

● Try not to have much of a point. In some travel magazines and newspaper travel sections editors like articles to have something called an angle—a perspective—and normally it should be as fresh and unique as possible. The “nut graph,” an oddly named anatomical literary part, comes toward the end of an article’s intro and states the focus of the article. It tells the reader where this article is going and it helps you, the writer, craft a piece that stays focused. But in this case, you don’t need a nut graph. Instead, craft a narrative that involves a play-by-play of everything that happened on your trip.

● Use as many clichés as possible. Are you writing about Mumbai or another city that has a large gap between the wealthy and the poor? Then you’re obligated to refer to it as a “city of contrasts.” In fact, this useful cliché could apply to all cities. And be sure to pepper your articles with: “ quaint ,” “ charming ,” “rustic,” and “cute” to describe villages. And don’t forget “unspoiled gem” and “breathtaking view.” Also, comparing one country to another—as in “Croatia is the next Italy,” “Montenegro is the next Croatia,” or “Albania is the next Montenegro”—is always a good idea.

● Tell, don’t show. Sure, you could write something like, “We traipsed across the chunky cobblestones of the village’s only lane, flanked by half-timbered, thatched-roof houses, and we could smell the morning’s first offerings from the village bakery.” But why, when you could just as easily write, “The village was quaint and charming”?

● Don’t concern yourself with what is called “exposition.” As Thomas Swick wrote in his essay Roads not Taken , “It is not enough simply to describe a landscape, you must now interpret it.” And by that, he means you put the place into a historical context to corroborate the point of your piece (which, as mentioned above, is unnecessary). This is what exposition does and it’s usually interwoven between scenes and dialogue (all of which you shouldn’t have, either). Swick need not be listened to. Making sure that the reader is both entertained and educated is not your problem. Travel writing is all about you (and your husband, Larry).

● Speaking of solipsism, it’s important when you’re on the road and gathering information and experiences to write about, that you talk to as few people as possible. Remember: We only want to hear about you (and Larry)—not the locals. Quoting people is for real journalists, not travel writers. Which brings up another characteristic you should not fall trap to: curiosity. It killed the cat. Don’t let it kill you.

● In your conclusion, don’t worry about ending your piece with an effective jab or about making sure the ending captures the point of the story. Travel articles should end with a nice cliché: a vow to return, for example, never fails. Here’s an example from my own private cellar of bad travel writing, originally published in the travel section of a large daily newspaper: “… despite mixed results about the new Berlin, it seems that locals have created an infectious buzz about the city. I know I caught it, because as soon as I got to the airport, I started making plans to come back.”

● Don’t read good travel writing. It’s true that reading good writing can make you a better writer, but it will only serve to make you frustrated. Don’t read The New Yorker or Granta. Likewise, don’t read any “how to” books on travel writing, especially the best one, Travel Writing , by Don George. Neither should you consider joining a writing group or taking a writing class.

See, it’s easy to be a bad travel writer. And if all else fails, there are still several villas in Italy in need of restoration.

About the Author : David Farley is the author of An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church’s Strangest Relic in Italy’s Oddest Town and co-editor of Travelers’ Tales Prague and the Czech Republic: True Stories . His writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic Adventure, and New York, among other publications. He teaches writing at New York University.

Please comment below and enjoy these related articles

Lisa Ellen Niver

Lisa Niver is an award-winning travel expert who has explored 102 countries on six continents. This University of Pennsylvania graduate sailed across the seas for seven years with Princess Cruises, Royal Caribbean, and Renaissance Cruises and spent three years backpacking across Asia. Discover her articles in publications from AARP: The Magazine and AAA Explorer to WIRED and Wharton Magazine, as well as her site WeSaidGoTravel. On her award nominated global podcast, Make Your Own Map, Niver has interviewed Deepak Chopra, Olympic medalists, and numerous bestselling authors, and as a journalist has been invited to both the Oscars and the United Nations. For her print and digital stories as well as her television segments, she has been awarded three Southern California Journalism Awards and two National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards and been a finalist twenty-two times. Named a #3 travel influencer for 2023, Niver talks travel on broadcast television at KTLA TV Los Angeles, her YouTube channel with over 2 million views, and in her memoir, Brave-ish, One Breakup, Six Continents and Feeling Fearless After Fifty.

3 responses to “ How to Write a Bad Travel Story ”

Perfect, Larry and I am quite good at writing a bad travel stories. We especially enjoy detailing the charming and quint little stories or our day to day routine. Gotta go get another one started now.

Seriously, great article, thanks for sharing it.

Thanks for reminding me of David’s piece. As an agency that deals only in travel – and deals with the vast litany of great and “bad” travel writers, we need to remember to laugh once in a while. And as the son of two newspaper editors from the old world, know when many are not cut out for this wonderful thing called writing. The piece is now glued to my wall so I will laugh the next time I get a reference clip from a “bad” travel writer. -Elliot

Elliot, Thanks for your comments! I am glad we could bring some humor to your day. Where will you go next? Lisa

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Bad Travel Days Make Good Stories. Here’s 8 Of Ours!

Listen and Subscribe on:  Apple Podcasts ,  Spotify ,  Google Podcasts

Rod: Welcome to the Jetsetting Family Travel Podcast. I’m Jess. And I’m Rod. And while we usually try to cover the positive aspects of travel, today we are talking about our bad travel days.

Jess: We, I feel like overall we’re very, very fortunate to not have anything catastrophic happen on our travels. But we did have some moments where things just either didn’t go as planned or it was just an awful travel day in general.

And I feel like it’s always good to know the good, the bad, the ugly if you’re planning to full-time travel, because not every day will be perfect.

Rod: Yeah. So we put together these eight stories that we’re going to go one by one. Some of them I don’t, I don’t know if there’s any lessons learned from them, but I, some of them for sure there are.

So without further ado, let’s get started and here comes our first one. This one wasn’t too horrible.

Jess: I don’t know in the moment. It felt bad, but it was, it was like a blessing and a curse all at once. Because I always say when you’re traveling you should research if there’s any local festivals going on, and we did not do that.

Lesson learned. Yeah, so let’s, you should do that.

Rod: So let me, let me fill you in on the situation here. This was 2019. We took a trip to Peru and we actually have a couple of stories about our trip to Peru, which is really interesting and coincidental. But this one in particular was to a town called Ollantaytambo and it’s a very culturally rich Inca archeological site.

And when we showed up there, it was also the weekend of their biggest festival of the year. So a lot of these Inca tribes and Peruvian communities would come to Ollantaytambo and they would perform traditional musical performances. They would get dressed up in a lot of cultural attire. And the festival itself, I thought was pretty cool.

Jess: Yeah, I felt really, really lucky that we got to witness it. I feel like we got to see people from all different areas of kind of that more rural area of Peru come together. We got to witness their parades. We got to see some of their ceremonies, and so overall, I actually am really happy we went during that time because we got to see things that we would’ve never witnessed.

Right. The downfall was, and I don’t know if it was primarily the location we were in, or if it would’ve been the same regardless, but the band that played the music for this whole festival, and this festival’s like three days straight, and when I say three days straight, it’s not like it’s eight to four.

It’s like a 24-hour full, 24 hours full on event for three days. So it’s like a three day. All-day, all-night event. And the band that played the performance, their practice area was directly outside our window.

Rod: For our Airbnb. So while we were trying to get to bed at like what, 10, [11:00] PM all that we could hear right outside of our window was the sound of drums.

And flutes and maybe some guitars, but it was a sound that just repeated over and over and over. And yes, there’d be little breaks here and there, but I don’t know if they brought like other bands to come in and perform in this area. It was just like tented area that was in the street. And there was just constant music at the same tone, with the same sounds over and over.

Jess: And yeah, I think had it been like a concert where there were like different songs being played, it wouldn’t have like driven me as crazy. But it was the same song for three days straight. 24 hours a day. Like it started to just be like, this song is going to haunt me in my dreams for the rest of my life.

Like it was. So, it’s hard to describe because it’s like, oh, it’s just a music. But it sounded like the trumpet player was in my ear playing this song. Yep.

Rod: Oh my gosh. It was just, they would just repeat over and over and over again.

Jess: Over and over. And the kids couldn’t sleep because it was so loud and. I mean it was just rough and I, I don’t know because the town is really small and it’s really beautiful and if you can go to Ollantaytambo you should definitely go.

But I don’t know if it would’ve been any quieter because like these parades processed through this town. Had we been elsewhere, I do think we were at. I don’t know. It was negative That we’re staging. Yeah, were at like their practice. Like I think the bands would come in and practice to follow their little group and they were like right there.

And the thing was is, I don’t know, we’re pretty cheap, so I don’t know if we would’ve looked into changing hotels, but the reality was is everything in that town was going to be booked because that weekend, yeah, it was a festival weekend. We were lucky to even have a place to stay. So we kind of just knew like.

We had to just suck it up.

Rod: Yep. So we did. We lost some sleep over it, but still had a good time in Ollantaytambo and eventually made it to Machu Picchu from the Inca Rail train there. So overall positive experience, lesson learned. Look into when festivals are happening and I don’t know if there’s a way to really be able to tell if you’re going to be directly affected by it, but just at least have awareness that that’s happening.

Jess: Yeah, because that, I mean, no sleep for three days was rough, especially because it was like a long flight getting there. We were trying to adjust to the altitude and just like none of us could sleep. Right, right. But another Peru story is after going to Machu Picchu, we ended up going to Cusco, which a beautiful city.

I actually would love to go back and explore. Oh yeah. More. I feel like we didn’t have enough time there. The architecture was wonderful. Peru’s really well known for their food. Just a lot to see. Something to know in Peru. One, the altitude guys is game changer. So. We didn’t get sick. Thankfully, none of us got sick.

The kids were rock stars. Rod and I were great. But you feel it.

Rod: Yeah. It’s like what, 12,000 feet high.

Jess: Yeah. So like, if you’re going to try to run or something, or you’re going to hike, you’re going to feel fatigue and exhaustion. Well, we didn’t realize one. Our Airbnb in Cusco, something that we always preach now.

Always, always ask what floor you’re on, and if it’s a high-up floor, is there an elevator. Lesson learned?

Rod: Yep. In this situation, we arrived at our Airbnb. It was an apartment building. I. And we realized it was on the fifth floor with no elevator. So here we are with our three full luggages, all of our backpacks.

Tired kids trying to get up five sets of stairs to get up to our apartment and, oh man, that was, that was rough. I, I think I felt like I was in pretty good shape, but trying to haul all of this luggage up to the fifth floor was, really, really difficult. It was so bad. I was out of breath after the first one.

I was like, Ooh, I have to go do this four more times, or whatever.

Jess: Well, it was funny because we’re like, okay, well we made it up here. Awesome. You know, it won’t be that bad now. Like we, we’ll just spend a couple days here. We don’t have to carry the luggage up and down when we’re coming in and out. And on the last day it’s at least downhill.

Well, on the last morning, I’ll never forget, like Rod is the one who gets up early and wants everything packed and ready. And I am kind of like, we’ll somehow make it and. It drives Rod crazy because I am very laid back in the morning. Oh, we in, I’m in the last minute possible. I’m always like, oh, it’ll be fine.

And Rod’s like, get it together. Well anyway, so Rod’s organizing bags, getting everything ready and I look out the window and I was just like, oh crap. Because there was some random market, which probably would’ve been, it’s like a Saturday market. Really, really cool. Had we not been trying to catch a flight, but like I look out the window and look as far left as I can look and as far right as I can look, and this market just seemed to be going for miles and it was like blocking the entire street.

So like the taxi, who was going to pick us up out front? There was no way they were going to come in, I don’t know, even eight blocks of us, right? Because it was just dense tents taking up this entire street. So I’m looking and I’m like, oh no. I have to tell Rod that he has to not only get all of our luggage down, which I was happy to help, but this luggage was really heavy.

Yep. But now we have to carry the two kids through. I mean, it was the most chaotic market. It didn’t seem like it was a touristy market. It seemed like a local market. There was like a lot of produce. There was a lot of like used shoes even it seems like, I don’t know, they just had a lot of stuff being sold.

A lot of locals were there and I would’ve loved to peruse it, but we were kind of like, we needed an extra hour probably to be able to get to this taxi cab because getting the kids and the luggage and Rod and I weaving through, I mean like the tightest spaces you can imagine for like blocks and blocks and blocks and blocks to try to get to a clearing to get a cab was rough.

Rod: Right? That was, that was so rough. Uh, shoulder to shoulder traffic weaving in and out. Thankfully we did find a taxi eventually that stopped and took us to the airport. We did not miss that flight. But the story continues.

Jess: I don’t know why Peru has Yeah. That,

Rod: that was a pretty, I don’t know if it was a nightmare day, we made it through it,

Jess: But that was one of our tougher travel days.

I mean, we’ve had worse things happen on our travels. We’re going to keep going down the list, but right. So next, on this trip, so we make it to the airport

Rod: and Yeah, and we are, we are flying from Cusco to Lima, having a short layover in Lima, and then we are going from there to Reno, Nevada. Through Dallas? I think so.

It was a really long trip. Anyway, it was

Jess: going to be like an 18-hour day or something. Ridiculous. Yeah. So we left

Rod: the Cusco at like [5:00] PM We arrived in Lima. Our flight in Lima to Dallas was at midnight because it was a red eye. So we, we made it there without incident. We got to the airplane. Got all checked in, seated in time for the flight at midnight.

And usually what we do with the kids, especially on our red eye, is we’ll give them a natural melatonin. That way they can sleep better and then they can wake up refreshed once we, you know, go get in the ground in Dallas. So we gave them their melatonin, the kids fell asleep, and we start to drift off to sleep as well.

So midnight hits. That we got a note from the pilot that they’re looking into some issue and, you know, hopefully they’ll be taking off within the next hour. And it’s like, all right, well let’s just go to go to sleep and hopefully by the time we wake up, we’ll be in the air so everyone’s sleeping.

Then we get another notification at two o’clock. Hey, we’re still working on this. This is a maintenance issue that we’re having people to come in from because it was [2:00] AM. And you know, the, the maintainers were coming over to take a look at it.

Jess: Like [3:00] AM They’re finally like, everyone needs to get off this plane.

And I’m like, okay. Now my kids are exhausted because we gave them melatonin at the wake. We are exhausted at [3:00] AM because we just had this crazy travel day of going, I don’t know, just getting to the airport in Cusco. We flew to Lima. And then it gets worse because then they’re like, everyone needs to turn in their passports.

And I’m like, what?

Rod: Yeah. So the reason why is because we checked out of Peru through immigration. When we got into the international terminal, we got our passport stamped and everything. So since we, there was no other flight for us until probably the next day, we had to reprocess through immigration. They had to bring somebody because immigration was already closed to admit us back into Peru.

And then we had to get into a line to rebook our flights.

Jess: Oh my gosh. Guys, I think between like getting off the plane, we have two exhausted kids. They give you all of your luggage back because you have to go through customs. It took us like an hour and a half probably to get through immigration and customs and then we’re like, oh my gosh, I’ll just get to a hotel.

And then we just see the endlessly long line to rebook our flight. And I just wanted to cry at this point, like we’re carrying the kids, like, we’re like, I don’t know, I, we just get to that point where I rarely do this when I travel, but when I’m so exhausted, I just am like at my wits end. I have no patience left.

And I remember thankfully, and I try never to pull this card because I don’t think people who travel with kids deserve like a zillion perks. But due to the fact that Peru is so high altitude, there were very few children on this period. It was us and another family. Family. I think they had three kids. Yeah.

So it was two families with kids. And I remember looking at this long line, we’d waited like an hour already. And I finally went to the front and I said, look, I rarely ask for this, but there are two families with kids here and I’m pretty sure, maybe it’s wrong of me to think, but like 40-year-old adults can hold it together better than these two and three and four year old kids.

Like, can you just prioritize us and get us a hotel? And thankfully they did. They pulled us and the other family aside and they got us a hotel. But even with me asking and advocating for the kids to do this, which I kind of felt bad about, because there was a lot of people, we probably cut. We didn’t get to a hotel till seven 30 in the morning.

Yep. So we like boarded the flight. At, I think it was like [11:00] PM. And we are pulling into a hotel at [7:30] AM and haven’t left the city like it was so frustrating.

Rod: And on top of that, it was Father’s Day Sunday now. So we got to spend that Father’s Day. We slept from what, [7:30] AM until [4:00] PM Oh my gosh.

It was, so when we have to check out of that hotel again. And, and good. Do it all over then do it all over again to took, to take the next midnight flight over on another red eye to get to Dallas and then to Reno. But we eventually made it.

Jess: And it was hard because we, in Reno, we had a job, a big job for us.

It was, yeah, tourism, tourism board with travel Nevada tourism boards for content creators pay really well, but they’re really important jobs. You want to make a good impression. And I had planned to fly, thank God, to travel Nevada, to have one day for the. All of us to rest before the job started. And now it was like a ticking time.

Like we have to get there for this job to start. But we started that job exhausted. Thankfully. I still think we did a great job, but I remember getting to Reno, like we got off the plane and we’re like, our first meeting’s in like an hour. Oh my God. I just wanted, that was rough. It was rough, but

Rod: I think adrenaline pulled us through just because we got to do a road trip there.

It was super cool.

Jess: It was amazing. I’d love to go back and work for Nevada again.

Rod: Yeah. Speaking of Content jobs. Our next story here takes place in Berlin. We were hosted, I think we’ve talked about this before. We have, yeah. We were hosted by the Grand Hyatt in Berlin, and this wasn’t a regular like collaboration.

They put us in this three-bedroom suite. In downtown Berlin, extremely beautiful area. And we were to take pictures not just of the hotel room in the suite, but also of our adventures in Berlin that they can use in their marketing material.

Jess: And this suite guys was one of those jaw dropping ones. We were like, pinch me.

I can’t believe we have this. It was like this penthouse amazingness that was probably several thousand a night. Oh yeah. Super, super nice. And we felt like kings and queens and we’re like living this like. Like, I don’t know, was like excitement. Yeah.

Rod: Until, yeah. So this was a three nights stay. We got there at night, first night, stayed there.

Second day, we took all day exploring Berlin. We went to different museums, different tours. We went walking around, took a ton of pictures, and this was probably at like [6:00] PM. We took a taxi back from wherever we were having dinner to the hotel. And as soon as I get out, you know, the kids were getting them out.

I can’t remember if we had a stroller that we’re getting out and everything. And as soon as I see the taxi pulling away, and we’re starting to walk into the lobby, I’m like, Jess, Do you have our camera? Is it in the backpack? And it’s like, I don’t have our camera. Jess is like, Nope, I don’t have the camera.

So we’re like, oh my gosh guys. Because we were reviewing the pictures that we had taken in the taxi and we just left it on the seat there.

Jess: Oh my gosh. I think my heart sank because I was, in my head, I’m thinking, we’ve lost every photo for this job. We now don’t have a camera. Cause at the time we didn’t travel with the backup camera.

So I can’t even complete the job, and if we don’t get this camera back, I’m now going to owe this hotel for this suite we’ve stayed in that we can’t afford. I mean, yep. It would’ve been probably, it’s like $2,000 a night. So I would’ve owed them 6,000. Plus had to find money to buy a new camera, and I mean, I literally sat in this gorgeous suite that I was so excited to have, and I, one of the few times on the trip, I just sat on the floor and cried.

I was like, I don’t know. We don’t have the money to do this. And Rod was like researching like, where could we buy a new Sony camera? Because Rod’s whole thing was like, if, okay, if we just spend $3,000 on a new camera, we have one more day. We have one day to try to get everything done. So at least we deliver the pictures and don’t owe for the hotel.

I don’t know. It was a hot mess.

Rod: And yeah, we, we kind of lucked out too, because there was a Sony store across the street, street from us. It was already closed that night, so we couldn’t buy it that night. So that whole night we spent talking to the concierge, calling every taxi dispatch line that we could.

We filed a police report. We essentially like went to lost and found at the train station.

Jess: I remember begging the concierge. I’m like, can you downgrade us to your cheapest room? Like I can only afford your cheapest room. And now I have to try to maybe pay for the suite for two nights. Like I don’t want to sleep in the suite another night.

And they were like, no, just stay there. It’s all going to work out. And I’m like, I don’t know.

Rod: Right. Yeah. So we went to bed like so nervous and anxious that night. And when we woke up, I think the, the Sony store opened at like [9:00] AM so it’s [9:00] AM I’m like, all right. Haven’t heard any news from anybody downstairs or from anybody that we called and left messages to.

So I might as well go and like, get ready to, to go to the Sony store and buy a new camera so we can get our day going. And as soon as I’m getting ready to walk downstairs. We get a phone call to the room and it’s the concierge. And he said, hey, somebody came to drop off your camera. It is right here for you, ready to pick up.

Oh man. And we’re like…

Jess: and the funny part was, I mean, I didn’t care at this point. I was so excited. I was so overjoyed. That like all of a sudden, everyone that worked in that lobby was like, I was the one who contacted and got it here. So like Rod’s just like tipping everyone in that lobby.

He’s like, I don’t even care. I think

Rod: We tipped what, like $500 to the different people involved because they were up helping us from security reviewing camera footage to see which taxi might have been to the two different concierge, gosh, staff on different shifts. That we’re trying.

So yeah, we did lose out on some money, but at least we had our camera back. All the pictures were still in there,

Jess: So lesson learned, we have to do it. Ever since this moment, guys, I try so hard every single day. If I take content for a brand, I try to back it up before I go to bed so that at least it’s on my computer.

Yeah, if, if the camera drops in, water gets lost, whatever, I have it somewhere else. And I think now since air tags are so popular, I’m actually going to air tag my camera just so that I have that because a camera is very expensive. Yeah. We have ours now as insured through insurance. Because for us it’s like a huge thing we have to have for our business.

But still, that takes time to process. And when you’re on a job and you’re in the moment, you don’t have time to file a claim and go through the whole process, so Right. Yeah, it was stressful.

Rod: Yep. Stressful. Thinking about more stress. Our next story with it’s two sets of stories, let

Jess: Santi and Yeah. So we, I had been in contact with a family on Instagram called Backyard Travel Family.

If you don’t follow them, you should. They’re New Zealand experts. They’re incredible. And they live on a farm, on a dairy farm, and they invited us to stay with them. And I always love when locals host us. So I was so excited I was going to get to spend time with someone I felt like I had built a friendship with online.

We were going to go stay. No, they weren’t evil and murder us. I’m just kidding. They were amazing people. So, so kind, so, so loving. But quickly after getting there, Santi who has asthma but didn’t really struggle at all during our trip. Starts having like really bad asthma flareups and like they live pretty remote and we didn’t rent a car.

Like they were nice enough to pick us up. So I kind of felt awful because there was a point at the nighttime where I finally told Rod like, he needs to go to the hospital. Like, I don’t know, I don’t feel comfortable with him going to bed. And I, for those who know me in real life, no. I am very calm and don’t worry about anything until it comes to medical stuff.

And then I panic. I’m a very anxious person medically, and I could tell Rod at the time was like, I think he’s probably fine. And I’m like, no, we’re not going to bed. He’s going to the hospital. So I felt bad. I had to ask them to take us to the hospital cause we didn’t have a car. Which wasn’t close. It was like 30 minutes.

Right? 30-minute drive. Yeah. So we drive him to the hospital and I honestly think, like in the US they’re going to give him a steroid. Cause we’ve had this happen before. Not often, but it’s like they’re going to give him a steroid. They’re going to, you know, maybe put him on a nebulizer. We’ll be good to go.

We’ll be home in an hour. We get there and the lady literally looks at me and Santi progressively got worse on the drive to the hospital where I was starting to get nervous. And the lady looks at me and she’s like, if we can’t get his asthma under control in the next 30 minutes, we’re going to have to ambulance you to Christchurch.

Yeah. And I’m like, oh crap. Like I, I am normally very paranoid. I didn’t realize we were at that point. And, thankfully that didn’t happen, but we did have to stay overnight. They made us stay overnight and so I felt bad because like their family’s driving back to the farm. And then in the morning I, I don’t know, I felt like we were being such an inconvenience, but they were so sweet about it.

So all of this is going down with Santi. So we’re at the hospital, he’s having breathing problems, they’re getting it under control. And like that next morning they, they told us at the hospital, actually, you cannot go stay back on the farm. Like he’s obviously very allergic to something. Comes to find out Santi’s severely allergic to horses.

And I think that he’s also severely allergic cow to cows. Cow. Yeah. And so since we’re on a dairy farm with all these cows, like he just couldn’t handle it. But anyway, so we get back to their house and I’m sadly like I am really sorry, we can no longer stay here. Not because we don’t like you guys. You guys are amazing.

But like Santi can’t survive on this farm. And so then they’re taking us to Christchurch to drop us off. We get a hotel downtown and literally as we’re checking into this hotel, my dad calls from the US and he’s like, you need to fly home. And I’m like, what are you talking about? Like, life is good here.

We’re loving New Zealand. Right. And he’s like, they’re about to close the US border. This like, COVID i’s gotten outta control and you need to fly home. And I’m like, well, I just got outta the hospital. No one brought up Covid. I think, I don’t know, I’m not that worried. And he is like, no, you really need to fly home.

And so I think it was the next day.

Rod: Yeah, the next day, that’s when the news started to break of like, oh, the US is considering closing the border says this March of 2020. Right. So that’s when we really, because after that we were going to fly from New Zealand to Hawaii. After spending a few more days in New Zealand and then from Hawaii eventually make it back to, to New Mexico and Colorado.

Jess: So this was like the week that Tom Cruise had Covid? No, it wasn’t cruise. Tom Hank had Covid because he had flown Australia and we were talking to the flight attendant from his hotel or from his flight and she’s like, oh yeah, I was Tom Hank’s flight attendant. And then he got diagnosed with Covid and we were all kinda like, oh, okay, like, and then,

Rod: yeah, so we ended up having to change all of our flights.

We took one of the last flights from New Zealand to Sydney. It was empty. Sydney to San Francisco. San Francisco to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Jess: But on this flight ended up being another one of our most stressful travel moments because when we flew, even when we flew from Thailand to Sydney, like weeks prior, there was a huge health screening.

They checked our temperature. People were like in hazmat suits. It was this whole thing. And they were very clear, like you couldn’t be sick entering the country. We’re like, okay, great. We were fine. So we were expecting the same protocols going back. We experienced that New Zealand to Sydney. Yep.

Well, Sydney to San Francisco was the first time ever that Nora starts throwing up on the plane. Yeah.

Rod: She’s like, my tummy hurts. Oh, and this was in the last, what, two hours of the flight? So we’re like, oh no.

Jess: Oh gosh. I remember like telling the flight attendant, I said, ma’am, I don’t know what to do. My kid’s throwing up, I don’t know if that’s a sign of Covid.

I don’t think so. But we’re about to get off and go through this health screening. Like do we need to stay on the plane? I don’t want to risk getting anyone else sick, but like, what is the protocol here? And I’m texting my dad the second we land and I’m like, dad, I don’t know if we’re going to make it to New Mexico because I think we’re going to be quarantined here in San Francisco.

That literally was our thought. Yeah. We were trying to, like in my head, I’m thinking if. If they only let one adult, like what are we going to do? Would Rod and Santi fly home? And I’d stay with Nora, are they going to quarantine all of us? Like what’s going to happen? And we get off in San Francisco and not one mention of…

Rod: Yeah, even the flight attendant, it’s like, oh, here’s some vomit bags. No worries. Kids get sick on flights all the time. Let’s get off.

Jess: And then I’m like, okay, well this lady’s not concerned. So I go through immigration and customs and I kept waiting for the moment where they’re like, is something wrong?

I’m like, no. No one asked. We weren’t asked. Any health questions. Right. No mention of covid was brought up, which was so shocking because even in Australia they made you so like, gave you these like pamphlets that’s like if you get sick, do not go to a hospital or a doctor, call a number and someone will come to you.

So I’m like, what is happening? But I was so convinced on that flight with Nora throwing up the last leg during the pandemic. I’m like, we are going to get quarantine somewhere. Right? And so then it was a fear of do we go stay at my parents’ house or do we get an Airbnb? Do we quarantine when we get home?

So I don’t know. That whole week I’m sure not just for us, for the whole world was so stressful. But for us, I just feel like with Santi being in the hospital that week and trying to make it home and the kid’s sick, I was like, oh…

Rod: oh, we were a wreck getting back. We, thankfully we had a home with Jess’s parents who took us in and we were able to quarantine there and really take that time to like rest and recover from the hectic New Zealand adventure that we had.

But it was rough. Yeah. We’ll do one more story. And this one happened post Covid is was in 2021 and it is about the first and only time that we have missed a flight. It’s probably my fault. We, I pride myself on like, if there’s anything, I will make sure that we arrive to our flight on time so that we don’t miss it.

I mean, we have had flights canceled and delayed on us. But those weren’t our fault. This one was our fault because we could have arrived earlier. So what was, what happened was we were driving from Naples, in Florida to get to Miami, to fly to The Bahamas. So we had to drive an hour, get to the airport, park the car, and do all that stuff.

And this was in 2021 where it’s still, there were still Covid protocols had to mask up in the airport and everything. So as we were driving in, Jess and I were talking like, all right. In terms of getting lunch, we’re starting to cut it pretty close. We were, I think within two hours of our flight time.

So then we were thinking, all right, my idea was like, okay, let’s just eat at the airport, find something quick there. But since it was like we check into our flight,

Jess: It was still during covid and like there were like tons of masking. I didn’t know how everything was going to work out. I was like, I don’t want to be on this plane with food.

And then we’re supposed to have our masks on. So I was like, no, we need to stop at a drive-through. Yep. Stop at a drive-through. The kids can eat quickly on the way to the airport. It’ll be super-fast.

Rod: Yep. So we go to this drive-through and the drive-through line, even though it wasn’t a long line, the, for some reason it took them forever to make the food and

Jess: We were like stuck. The way it was, the drive-through was barricaded. Like we kind of knew like, we need to get out of this line. We need to go out. Yeah, we a car in front of us and a car behind us. And it was like we couldn’t get out and we were just like, oh my gosh, we’re stuck here.

Rod: Yeah. So we showed up to the airport.

We went and hurried through to the line for American Airlines. And it was still about an hour until our flight took off. So we’re, but we got, we got enough time. We have TSA precheck. We should be able to get through security pretty easily, so we won’t miss the flight.

Jess: It was our fault for not being earlier, but it didn’t help that when we got to the counter, we got like, a sloth of a, an employee like this, this person moves slower than I could ever imagine in my life.

And we really messed up because normally we get free luggage because Rod’s military. And so we were asking about the free luggage, and she’s like, oh, I need to go check on that. Let me ask. So she walks away very slowly, very slowly. She takes like 10 minutes to verify that she can give us free luggage.

And then when she comes back, she just goes, Oh no, it’s now one minute past the time. I can check you in. You’ve now missed your flight. And I’m like, had I known that there was that much urgency, I would’ve just paid for the bags and gone, right? Like I didn’t know.

Rod: Yeah. So we understand the rule that, you know, for international flights you have to check your luggage at least one hour in advance.

And we had arrived with what? One hour and five minutes, which was our fault. Yeah. By the, was our fault. By the time, yeah. We should have gotten in more time. By the time that it was actually time to check the luggage, then it was too late. We even asked to see a supervisor to see if they could make an exception.

There were no exceptions. So thankfully silver lining to this, they were able to rebook us on a flight. So we only arrived two hours late. Yeah. We were able to check our luggage there. We flew, standby on that one actually. Oh, we got lucky. So we checked in our luggage, right. We sat at the gate hoping that there would be enough space for us to, to get on, and thankfully we did.

But, lesson learned, give yourself more time, especially, especially for international flights, which maybe I, I don’t know. That was our first international flight in a while. Really, once Covid had started.

Jess: Right. So, but there’s other things we haven’t talked about. We’ll have to have round two episodes. Right.

There was…

Rod: Well, don’t spoil it yet. Yeah. We’ll just spoil save it for another episode. There was

Jess: Some, I think even some more epic ones that I don’t know why are all coming to my mind at this very moment. Yeah. That I’m like, ah.

Rod: Yep. So part two will be coming soon. If you guys

Jess: like this episode, right, let us know. Part two actually might be more juicy now that I think about it.

Rod: Oh, interesting. All right. Well, you know, if you enjoyed this episode, let us know. As always, feel free to reach out to us: [email protected] , or @thejetsettingfamily on Instagram. If you enjoy this episode too, make sure to subscribe.

That way you get each of the episodes coming every Tuesday to your phone or wherever it is that you listen to your podcasts. Thanks again for being our listeners and for yes, allowing us to share our fun travel stories, whether they’re good or bad. So, until next time, Happy Jetsetting!

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The Unknown Enthusiast

19 Funny and Crazy Travel Stories From My Own Personal Travels (The Misadventures of Traveling)

I love traveling! The new places, cultures, and people! The food! (Oh, the food…) It has the potential to be more than just “time off”; it so often feels like an epic adventure! That is… until something goes awry and your idyllic vacation starts morphing into one of those unexpected or crazy travel stories.

Then you’re scrambling, adjusting, and hoping things don’t go from bad to worse. And yet, sometimes those MISadventures make for EXCELLENT stories later on!

The 19 Funny and Crazy Travel Stories

These are my best and more unexpected crazy travel stories over the past several years of traveling. Some of these are funny stories of cool and unexpected things that happened on vacation. And many of them are crazy travel stories about some kind of misadventure we experienced.

Several relate to some kind of physical illness on vacation. Others are from our own mistakes – things that looking back on, we could have avoided with maybe a little more precaution. And others are just plain ole bad luck.

However, all of them make for a funny travel story now, and are certainly things that we have learned from!

Here are some of the memorable crazy travel stories we’ve experienced while globetrotting:

1. Got an Infection in Iceland

Oh boy, this was a crazy travel story that was definitely stressful. We were doing our big Iceland road trip , and I woke up from a quick nap in our campervan to the unmistakable (I’m unfortunately no stranger to this situation– TMI?) burning feeling of a UTI. Craaaaaaap.

It was particularly bad timing because we were about to go on a 5 hour guided glacier hike , where we would be on a glacier, in a small group, with a harness on. So, no place to pee and definitely no privacy.

I was stressed and literally praying like crazy that I could make it through the hike okay. I went to the bathroom several times and chugged a ton of water to help flush things out as best I could, and then we just went for it. And, I made it through the hike with absolutely no problems (and it was one of the coolest experiences, ever). 

However, within a day it was a BIG problem (the classic UTI stuff of needing to go to the bathroom every 2 minutes) so we stopped in the city of Höfn and found a doctor’s office to get a prescription.

Not my favorite experience ever, but I also definitely feel like a boss for managing that while on vacation. 

2. Puked out the window of our car in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco

I find the older I’m getting the more I’m becoming prone to carsickness (NOT COOL, INNER EAR!)

When we started our road trip through Morocco , we quickly learned that there are basically no straight roads in the whole country, they wind and swing back and forth constantly. Those first few hours out of Marrakech and into the Atlas Mountains I got nauseous – really nauseous.

After moaning for a while, I finally got to the point where I knew I was going to hurl. We were in the tight switchbacks of a rather steep mountain road at that point, with no shoulder and definitely no place to pull off. I ended up rolling down my window and puking out the car while we were going up and through the mountains – the first and only time I’ve ever had to do that!

At one point as my head was still out the window, we passed a road construction crew and the only thing in my mind was “don’t throw up in front of the crew. Don’t throw up in front of the crew.” 

While I obviously felt pretty awful during those couple hours, and no one wants to upchuck out the window of the car, for some reason it was also extremely funny to me, even in the moment. As in a “I can’t believe I’m throwing up in AFRICAAAAAAA! WOOOOO!” moment. I was just super stoked to be on the continent, I guess, ha!

It also helped that even though we continued to have winding roads, once I threw up, I was fine from there on out. Thankfully, this was one of the crazy travel stories that resolved quickly and was a really funny story to me, even as it was happening!

3. Took 9 Covid Tests Solely for Travel

As soon as countries began re-opening their borders to travel following the covid-19 pandemic, Matthew and I were chomping at the bit to explore.

Generally speaking, this period of travel was fantastic – we enjoyed much lower crowds and the accompanying lower prices.

It also meant, however, that we had to take a lot of covid tests. Some countries required testing upon arrival at the airport, some required a covid test to be taken in the US prior to boarding the airplane, and we always had to test for re-entry into the United States.

It was a decent number of tests, but SO WORTH IT. 

4. Car Was Towed in France

While most of the crazy travel stories in this article are just due to bad luck or circumstances beyond our control, this one was definitely the result of a not-so-smart move on our part. This experience happened during our European Christmas market tour, where we traveled through Germany , Luxembourg , Switzerland , and finally France , hitting up a new market every day.

We were trying to maintain a really tight budget on this trip and were looking for ways to save money, so we were always on the hunt for free parking.

In the little village of Colmar , we parked next to a church that had free parking, and was about a 10-15 minute walk from our VRBO. Well, it was indeed free every day, but… on Saturday a local farmer’s market set up shop and the lot was closed. There were signs at the lot saying you couldn’t park there from 6-12am on Saturday, but they were very small and not obvious at all, and so we showed up Saturday morning around 10 to get our car, and found a market there instead. 

We talked to some of the vendors there about the situation and they said it’s actually pretty common to have cars towed because of the poor signage. They were also super, super nice and really helpful with helping me figure out where to go and what to do to get our car back. I was also particularly proud of myself for having that more technical conversation in French!

It took us several hours to get our car back, which involved walking back into town and to the town hall to get some paperwork at the police precinct. This actually took us several hours, because, being a Saturday, a lot of things were closed. It took quite a while to figure out where the police precinct was and how to get in.

Then it was another chunk of time to walk down to the towing company, pay the fine ($120), and collect our car.

We got delayed several hours and definitely did not end up saving money on parking in Colmar, but we were just incredibly grateful that we got our car back on a Saturday in France.

I’ve only heard bad things about French bureaucracy, so while it sucks to get your car towed anytime and really sucks to get your car towed in a foreign country, I’m SO GLAD we came out of that situation as well as we did.

Funny Travel Stories #5. Took Some Hilariously Bad Photos

One of the fun parts of running a travel blog and Instagram account has been learning how to take better pictures. We’re not professionals at all and are still learning a lot!

We take a lot of pictures specifically with blog posts in mind (horizontal, capturing the area more than the people in it) but we’ve also tried to get better at taking cute pictures of me or Matthew and me together.

Usually we end up with a whole bunch of not great photos and then FINALLY one or two good ones, but the most epic fails we had were in the Sahara desert of Morocco . I had seen this awesome inspo picture on Instagram that I wanted to copy and didn’t look too hard – we could totally do it!

View this post on Instagram A post shared by DIANA | Travel Tips✈️💃🏻 (@dwanderess)

We tried for the same type of sand flipping picture. Here’s what we got (my face LOLOLOL):

This memory is such a funny travel story to me – I legit cannot stop laughing at my faces!

6. Inexplicably Bruised My Big Toenails 

What’s funny to me about this travel story is that I don’t even know how I got injured! I’m still a little baffled even looking back at it.

We were in Disney World for a week and I was wearing some cloth sneakers around. The first couple of days were totally fine, but then on day 3 and 4 my toes, in particular my toenails, were really hurting, which seemed… weird .

The very last day, I noticed a little bit of bruising on my toenails. The bruises got darker over the next couple of days and then stayed bruised for the NEXT 9 MONTHS until they finally fell off. 

The whole thing was so bizarre, partly just because I had dark blue toenails for the better part of a year, but mostly because there wasn’t any specific injury to them, and my feet had felt fine walking around those first days!

Crazy Travel Stories #7. Crossed the German Border in an Unexpected Way

Like the story of getting our car towed in France, above, this story also comes from our tour of Christmas markets where we were on a budget and trying to minimize parking expenses.

For this story, though, we were arriving in Basel , Switzerland. Basel is a unique city because its right at the intersection of the borders of 3 different countries: Germany, France, and Switzerland. Basel is really close to both Germany and France – in fact, if you arrive at the Basel airport, different airport exits lead to different countries!

Anyway, if you are driving into Switzerland from another country, there is a 40 franc (about $40 USD) fee you will need to pay as you enter the country. Then, parking in Basel is extremely expensive – as we were researching ahead of time, the least expensive option we could find that was at all close to our hotel was going to be around 30 CHF a night (and we had two nights)

. So we were looking at 100 CHF just to be able to drive into the country and park, so we could spend one full day in Basel!

We were feeling extra frugal at this point, and were just not enthused about what felt like a crazy high cost just to drive literally a couple miles across the border.

Knowing that Basel is so close to the German border, and learning that there are, in fact, free parking lots on the Germany side of the border, we thought – hey, why don’t we just park in Germany at the free lots and then take the free tram across the border?

That was the plan, except we ended up arriving at the parking lot very late – at midnight. There were no more trams for the day.

No worries! It’s only 50 minutes on foot, we’ll just walk!

So, to paint the picture, we are crossing the German border into Switzerland, on foot, at midnight, to avoid paying a fee. The situation hearkened back to many a World War 2 novel I’ve read (except, for the small point that our lives weren’t in danger and the border wasn’t actually guarded. Details schmetails!)

Thankfully, it worked out totally fine, the route felt safe and straightforward, and we arrived at our hotel in good shape after the refreshing late night stroll. It ended up being a pretty funny travel story!

8. Regularly Exceeded our Initial Travel Budget

As someone who kind of makes it “my thing” to travel on a budget and get great travel deals, and I almost always write a “travel budget” post for our destinations (see Colombia , Morocco , Iceland , Rio de Janeiro , Vietnam , and Costa Rica ), it is a little embarrassing to admit that we do regularly end up spending over our budget when we’re in a destination.

I will say though, that I don’t really regret those extra dollars spent (especially since it’s usually not more than a couple hundred, and not like we’re blowing our budget by thousands of dollars), and they are almost always spent on fun experiences we decide to do in the moment. 

A few examples? Well, doing the Patriot Point museum in Charleston ended up being a highlight of our time there, going ATVing in the Sahara was wicked awesome, and parasailing for the first time in Costa Rica , with a running beach start, was so fun and rather unique for parasailing.

These costs were all late additions to our budget and EXCELLENT uses of our money. And okay, okay, this may not really qualify as one of the “crazy” travel stories, but I think its definitely a relatable experience (ha!), and for sure are times when things don’t go exactly as planned.

9. Frequent and Very Long Road Trips

As people who like having control over their schedule, and as a couple who has four kids, we end up roadtripping A LOT!

The amount of time that we spend in the car, and in particular the amount of time we spend in the car with our kids sometimes baffles people! We really think nothing of an all-day driving expedition, regularly doing 15-20 hours in one day.

This summer we did a massive road trip around the US with our kids, which involved over 100 hours of driving time, and 24 hours in the car just to reach our first destination!

We’ve also regularly done international road trips, like our 7 day Iceland road trip (still one of my top 3 travel experiences, ever!), my southern Spain road trip , driving around southern France , and even our smaller Costa Rica road trip . We love getting on the road and checking out new places!

10. Got Tear Gassed in Rio de Janeiro (Our Funnest Crazy Travel Story!)

As far as crazy travel stories go, this one was actually, beginning to end, the COOLEST experience and one I feel extremely lucky to have had.

But let’s set the scene. We’re in Rio de Janeiro and going on a favela tour (an activity I found enriching and incredibly interesting).

While on that tour, our guide was wearing a Vasco de Gama shirt and talking about how excited he was to go to the big game tonight – apparently there was a big rivalry match between two of the biggest clubs in Rio: Flamengo and Vasco de Gama.

We had REALLY wanted to go to a futbol match in Rio since Brazilians love their soccer, and the Maracana stadium in Rio is a pretty big and famous spot for futbol/soccer. However, we had had a really hard time finding information about tickets, or even a schedule, online, and had given it up as not possible.

So I jumped at the opportunity to get information from a local who clearly knew things, and asked him if he could give us any information about how to get tickets for the game.

He immediately invited us to go with him – he said he was going to scalp tickets there for himself anyway and could definitely find 2 more for us. At first, we were like, “Um are you sure?”, but then happily (but cautiously optimistic- would it really work out?) accepted his offer. We exchanged numbers and made plans to meet up at the stadium later.

At the Stadium

When we got to the Maracana stadium about an hour before gametime, there were big crowds of people congregating, singing songs and getting SUPER hyped up before the game, setting off firecrackers, and getting absolutely plastered (ha!).

We met up with our new Brazilian friend and in fact he had gotten us tickets! We were golden! He introduced us to all his friends and in we went. Going in was an experience unto itself, too. We go in with a big crowd of people and as we’re entering someone sets off another firecracker right in front of us, everyone backs up really fast, and we get pushed back and against the walls.

Then we had to find the rest of the group, since we had to go in at different entrances. We were with a couple of the Brazilian friends, who were all really nice to the foreigners they had just barely met that night.

However, it was REALLY crazy because there’s no assigned seating and we were going into the area behind the goals, where the most intense fans sit. Everyone is crowded really close together.

People were standing in the staircases so we had to wind our way up and really squeeze past people. Then almost everyone was standing two 2 deep in the rows – meaning someone was standing on the seat and another person standing on the ground in front of them.

People were super sweaty as we were squeezing past them (but everyone was also really, really nice about it) and beer was literally flying as people tossed their cups in the air as the game started.

Normally, I am not into this kind of vibe, but we were at MARACANA so it was all just part of the fun!

During the match, the fans literally were singing songs nonstop. There were massive flags being waved in our section, and a group with drums playing beats. I’ve been to college and professional sports games in the US and fans are intense here too, but this was a whole different beast of nonstop singing, cheering, and yelling the whole game. We loved it!

We don’t speak Portuguese really at all, so we just clapped and jumped and cheered with everyone and sang along to random words with their songs. It was awesome and just such a fun and crazy travel experience!

After the Game

So then, the match is over (the side we were with, Vasco de Gama, lost to Flamengo, which was pretty much expected because Flamengo is known to be the better team), and we figured we would just walk out and grab an Uber. Easy peasy.

Oh, no no no.

We hung out in our seats with the group for a while after the game to let the crowd dissapate, specifically to avoid most of the troublemakers, because fights can and do break out after games.

Still, as we left, we heard some more bangs, like the fireworks that were going off a lot before the game, but we were told afterwards there wouldn’t be fireworks and that was not a good sign.

As we left the stadium, our Brazilian friends were keeping us close and making sure we stayed together, and they were more serious and intense than anytime up to that point. At the street corner, we found out what the bangs were – not firecrackers, but tear gas that the police were using to disperse some fights and troublesome crowds.

We got the tail end of that tear gas (it spreads a lot), so everyone in the area just huddled and covered noses and eyes for a few minutes. Even not being in a direct hit area, that tear gas stung!

Then we carefully skirted by a Flamengo fan holding a handgun and walking menacingly (the only part of the night where I actually felt nervous).

Then we hustled by a whole bunch of riot police looking threatening, in full-on riot gear, including some on horses, and into the metro station. Of course, here some Vasco fans began hurling insults down at Flamengo fans. The police came running by and decided to break up that ruckus with more tear gas as we got on the train, and we got part of that tear gas, too.

Then, the metro started and we rode back to our stop in peace and calm. The whole thing was one adrenaline rush to another, and one of my craziest travel stories to date. Despite what was definitely a tense situation after the game, we actually felt pretty safe – the Brazilians we were with were super nice about watching out for us and got us out without incident.

When we were on the train and going, we asked them, “so, was that actually dangerous?” And they just laughed and said oh, no it’s always like this (REALLY?!) and it’s usually fine as long as you aren’t in the middle of the main, crazy group.

That was our baptism by fire into Brazilian football! It was seriously so fun and wild and such a different and authentic experience that just fell into our laps. The guys we were with were unbelievably nice and welcoming – we loved having that experience.

When we got back to our hotel, we just looked at each other and laughed – a night like no other, to be sure.

11. Last Minute Food Poisoning

The crazy thing about this travel story is that we had been very careful in Morocco, in particular paying attention to the food preparation techniques at the stands in the famous Jemaa el-Fna square (where accounts of getting food poisoning are common). 

But then in the very last hours of the very last day we spent in Morocco, we visited the stunningly blue city of Chefchaouen. And there we bought a cup of freshly squeezed orange + lemon + sugar cane juice.

I drank some of it, but Matthew drank most of it. Now, you wouldn’t normally suspect juice to be a food poisoning culprit, but it is the only thing we had that day that makes any sense of giving us food poisoning. Perhaps the fruit or sugar cane was unwashed, or the guys hands, or maybe it was the water mixed in. Either way, our insides were soon unhappy.

We flew from Morocco to Paris for the next 3 days. My stomach felt a little off for a little bit in Paris, but Matthew got pretty sick basically the whole time we were in Paris – boo! 

Thankfully, he was not throwing up all the time, but he was also not feeling great a lot of it, either. Oh, and news flash, Paris does not have a lot of public toilets! At least the juice tasted good.

12. Kidney Stones at an Incredibly Unfortunate Time

Back in 2006 my parents surprised my brother and I with an international senior trip to France! This was the first time I would be leaving the country, I had been studying French in high school, and had been wanting to go to France.

They surprised us with the plane tickets about two months before departure, leaving enough time for me to plan basically everything else (which they knew I would love to do!)

So, after all this anticipation for this big, international senior trip, literally the morning we were supposed to leave, my dad starts getting severe stomach pains and quickly ends up in terrible, terrible pain and in the ER. Diagnosis: massive kidney stones. 

In fact, these kidney stones were so big that he had to go to surgery to get them blasted out. As our plane that we were supposed to be on was leaving, he was in surgery. While we were most concerned about my dad’s wellbeing, all of us were absolutely devastated about the trip. 

By some miracle, Dad actually got to go home after surgery that night, took some pain pills, and was seemingly better in the morning. We were, very surprisingly, able to rebook our tickets for no additional cost for the next day, and ended up going on our big France trip after all. 

We had THE best time together, although there were some definite adjustments we had to make to accommodate my dad (he had a stent put in as part of the surgery, and had to be careful to walk slowly and eat and drink very, very small amounts to prevent the stent from moving). We actually had a few scares while we were in France!

This was really my very first crazy travel story and one that actually had some unexpected benefits for my dad! A client who my dad had worked with heard that story from another co-worker and said, “That guy has six kids and went around France with a kidney stone? He’s too tough for me.”

That street cred actually helped my dad negotiate some really favorable contracts with the client later on – who would’ve thought?!

13. Lost a Cell Phone… and a Remarkable Ending (TWICE!)

We were on our way to a cooking class (one of our top favorite activities in Marrakech ) and had taken a taxi to the meeting point. After we got out and had walked down the street, Matthew reaches into his pocket to double check the map only to realize that he doesn’t have his phone – it was gone.

Cue STRESS!

We frantically searched the square and the spot where we had gotten out – no phone. We figured it had either gotten left in the taxi, or had dropped on the ground and someone had scooped it up already.

We tried calling the phone, but it rolled to voicemail – Matthew hadn’t been getting great cell service in Morocco, and we figured if someone had grabbed it, they would’ve turned it off or taken out the SIM card. We tried calling it many times with no success, and finally just had to accept it: the phone was gone .

We tried to put it out of our heads and enjoy the cooking class. An hour or two later, I got a text on my phone from a friend back home, saying “Matthew left his phone in a taxi.” I responded with, “Yes, I know… but how do YOU know???” Apparently the taxi driver had found the phone, and been calling contacts, trying to get a hold of someone to return Matthew’s phone to him, and had been able to talk to this friend of ours.

With that information and a spark of hope, we tried calling Matthew’s phone again, and long story short, with the help of the cooking class instructor, we were able to get in touch with the taxi driver and meet up with him to get Matthew’s phone back (and give the driver a very big tip).

Losing the Phone Part II – Medellin

Then, less than a year, later, we did the exact same thing in Medellin , Colombia.

We got out of a cab and 30 seconds later Matthew realizes he doesn’t have his phone. Again, we just thought it was gone, no hope of getting it back.

We do start calling his phone from my phone non-stop, and after several calls, the taxi driver picks up. He doesn’t speak English, and we don’t speak Spanish, so Matthew says a little bit in English, and then just keeps repeating the name of the place where we got dropped off, over and over.

The driver said “uno momento” and then a few minutes later we see him pull up, Matthew’s phone in hand. We thank him profusely, give him a big tip, and say goodbye. After that, every single time we got out of a cab or Uber, we always did a “okay, you have your phone, wallet, and keys?” check before I shut the door of the taxi.

In my opinion, the main reason these experiences qualify to be on this list of crazy travel stories isn’t even that we lost the phone, it’s that we actually got the phone back. And twice! We got so incredibly lucky both times that the taxi drivers were both so honest and helpful, going above and beyond to make the situation right for us.

Crazy Travel Stories #14. Blustery Days in South Dakota

The setting was the beautiful Badlands National Park – a spot that was rugged and gorgeous. We were loving the striated hills, watching the prairie dogs run from hole to hole, and the wild bison sightings. Everything felt so raw !

…Including the storms.

We spent 2 days and 3 nights in the Badlands and were camping just outside the entrance to the national park. When we arrived at the campground, we were warned that the winds can get strong and to stake down our tent really well, which is exactly what we did.

However, that night, when the winds started picking up, our big family tent was not able to withstand the 40+ mph gusts. The stakes kept getting pulled out of the ground, the whole tent was just billowing in the wind, and on particularly strong gusts, half of the tent would just collapse into itself.

We were working on the tent for over an hour in the middle of the night before we finally realized there was nothing we could do at that point. We moved our 4 kids out of the tent and to the car, pulled our suitcases out, collapsed the poles, put the suitcases on top of the now flat tent to weigh it down, and slept in the car.

Certainly not ideal, and thankfully the next night the wind was much calmer and passed without incident.

The Last Night

HOWEVER, on the third and final night of our stay in the Badlands, we arrived back at our campsite at 10pm after a long day of hiking, exploring, and star watching, to see that our tent had been basically destroyed in the afternoon thunderstorm that had rolled through.

All of the poles had snapped in half and the tent was totally collapsed in.

We had unthinkingly left the windows unzipped that day, so rain had gotten in and soaked all of our things. In fact, there was actually a good 2 inches of standing water inside the tent. Our sleeping bags and pillows were floating in water and absolutely sopping.

To put the cherry on top, we had also left our suitcases open and all of our clothes we had brought for this multi-week road trip were soaked.

We got out and just kind of stared at the collapsed, flooded tent, and said, “Well, crap.”

We pulled all our things out, spread them out to dry the best we could on the picnic table and threw some things in a dryer (so thankful for the camp laundry at that point!). We were almost laughing about it, because at this point it was either laugh or cry.

The funny thing about this was that even after all that, we still went back into the park at midnight to watch the stars (it was a clear, dark night with no moon and almost no light pollution – you can’t miss out on that!), came back to camp to sleep in our car (minus any pillows or blankets since they were all still dripping wet), and then woke up a few hours later to head back into the park to go watch the sunrise.

I don’t know if we otherwise could’ve pulled ourselves and the kids out of the tent to get in the car and drive into the park at 5am, but since we were already all in the car, it was easy to just drive in and park by a great sunrise spot. I’m so, so glad we did, because the sunrise by Big Badlands Overlook was absolutely spectacular.

This is also really the only of my crazy travel stories that involved the kids and a pretty difficult situation. I think it was a really good learning experience for them too! The younger two were asleep, but the older two got out and helped take care of unloading the tent and spreading all our wet things out to dry.

Definitely a character-building experience, and one that we can now always look back on and laugh about together as a family!

15. Got Hustled in Marrakech and Scammed in Bogota

Encountering scams is, unfortunately, a part of travel, particularly in certain destinations. Here are 2 that we somewhat fell for, one in Marrakech, and one in Bogota.

Alright, so we encountered a lot of scamming attempts in Morocco , mostly in the form of people on the street trying to take you places or give faulty directions. We knew what to watch out for, but we still fell for a scam our first full day in Marrakech. We were looking for the El Badii palace and the map seemed to indicate we could cut through a particular side street. 

A friendly young man stopped and told us that “oh, that way is closed” and ostensibly, it did look closed. Then he said “El Badii closes for lunch from 12-3 each day,” which sounded weird, but, hey, maybe it did. He kept chatting with us and then convinced us to let him take us to this “super great artisan market.” 

El Badii, as we double checked later, was certainly not closed from 12-3 each day.

Our second mistake was going to the “artisan” market with him, which was a huge warehouse of goods where the locals get a kickback when they bring customers. To underscore that point to us, he saw us again later, asked if we liked the store, and when we were like “meh” he said oh, you should go back later (and buy something so he could get his commission). 

We wised up a lot after this encounter, however, and the many other times we encountered a similar type of scam in Morocco, we just ignored them and continued on to our destination.

One of the days we were in Bogota , we decided to take a daytrip to the Zipaquira Salt Cathedral, that’s about 1.5 hours from the city. To do that, we took a taxi to the main bus terminal and caught the bus to Zipaquira.

The taxi we picked up outside our hotel decided he was going to try to take advantage of the international, non-Spanish speaking travelers. First, he took us to a spot that was nowhere near the bus station. It was a taxi terminal and he said, “oh, here you’ll get another taxi there to the bus station.” Wait, what? This is not what we had agreed to.

Second, Matthew noticed him messing with the meter as we were driving, but he didn’t register it as something to weird at the time. So, as we arrived at the spot where he dropped us off, he pushes the button that has the meter give the final cost, and the meter said 45,000 pesos (about $10).

Matthew, passed him a 50k bill, and the guy did some fancy handwork, and showed us a 5k bill. At first Matthew just reaches for it, as that should be the change, but the guy says “No, you gave me the wrong bill.”

We both recognized here that something funny was going on, both with the handwork, and his actual claim. Matthew was like “No, I gave you a 50. Plus, see, look, all my bills are creased from my wallet. That 5k bill you’re saying I gave you has no crease – it couldn’t come from my wallet.” We went back and forth with him about this for a bit (using Google translate), and then finally just got out of the car.

At that point, we realized the extent of the scam – not only was he trying to get us to pay an extra 50k, there was no way that the ride we took actually cost 45k pesos (we checked an Uber-type app which said the trip should have been about 14k). And of course, this was all to the wrong spot!

Even though we could tell things were getting weird on the ride, we didn’t put the whole thing together until about 1 minute after we got out of the cab. And by then, we were mad . We were real mad!

It’s a little crazy because we’ve traveled quite a bit and have encountered plenty of people trying to take advantage or be dishonest. Usually we’re quite good at avoiding getting scammed. And yet, there can still be situations that catch you off guard.

This is definitely one of those travel stories that I really wish didn’t happen, but that we’ve definitely learned from!

16. Days So Windy We Basically Couldn’t Go Outside

It was 2019 and Matthew and I were having a delightful time traveling around southern France.

However, we arrived in Marseille to strong winds, and the next two days we basically couldn’t do anything in the city – those winds were actually 50+ mph and were literally blowing us over. We tried to do some things, but halfway through the second day we just called it quits and spent the rest of the day in our rental apartment. 

Thankfully, we were staying in an adorable AirBnb that had all this old French architecture and a view over the water, so we bought groceries, cooked a meal, and hung out in our French apartment (unfortunately this apartment is not available to rent anymore).

It actually ended up being a really fun afternoon and evening and one I actually have very fond memories of, despite some of our plans being cancelled.  

In general, I try to not get too bothered by less than ideal weather and go with the flow rain or shine, but this was one time we really had to just ditch our plans for the day!

Crazy Travel Stories #17. Was Homeless in London for a Night

During my sophomore year of college I did a 3 month study abroad in Paris, and it was one of the most magical times of my life! I went with a group from my university, and we lived in pairs with French families around Paris. 

During these three months, we took advantage of living in Europe and did several weekend trips to different spots. We visited the Loire Valley chateaux and Normandy with our entire group, and then I went with a small group of friends on separate occasions to visit Brussels, London, and Rome. 

It’s pretty funny to me to look back on those trips, because we did so little prep and research before taking off for the weekend. (In contrast to the massive amount of planning I do before trips now!)

In fact, a few days before we spent the weekend in London, we were researching hostels to stay at that were less than $20/night – we were on a pretty shoestring budget and anything more than that felt exorbitant!

For our last night in London, we couldn’t find anywhere that felt appropriately cheap to stay, so we just put off booking anything, saying, “We’ll figure it out when we’re there.” 

Spoiler alert : We did not, in fact, figure it out.

We kept avoiding thinking about that pesky little fact all through the weekend, and when 9pm on that final night came, we just said, “Well I guess we’re not going to stay anywhere tonight.” 

So what did we do?

We ended up wandering around London for quite a while. Around 1am, we started riding busses. We rode the bus to the end of the line, and then would turn around and ride the bus back the other way to the end. At one point, I think around 4am, we ended up falling asleep on the bus and woke up an hour or two later to the bus driver saying “HEY! You can’t sleep here!”

Apparently while we fell asleep the bus driver finished his route for the night and drove back to the bus depot, where all the busses were stored and maintained, and we had slept through until he realized there were still some stragglers in the back.

We were jolted out of sleep and like “oh, sorry” as we stumbled out of the bus and made our way out of the bus station… to walk across the street and catch another bus back into London, ha!

This is one of those crazy travel stories that was pretty funny to us at the time (and I mean, I still think it’s a funny story), but also, we could have just paid $50 and actually gotten a good night’s sleep!

18. Our First Meal in Costa Rica

The first night that we were enjoying our meal in Costa Rica , my parents’ bill for dinner came to about $72. My dad gave our waitress his credit card and told her to run it in colones, which is the currency in Costa Rica. A few minutes later, he got a text from his credit card company that his purchase was denied because it was over his credit limit.

He understandably had a short heart attack before figuring out the issue – $72 is 23,000 colones, and our waitress had mistakenly run the bill as 23,000 DOLLARS!

We really believe it was an honest mistake and everything got sorted out just fine, and we never had this problem anywhere else in Costa Rica. But WOW that dinner got real bougie real fast!

19. Getting Lost in the Wilderness on a Snowmobile Trip

Back in 2010, Matthew and I went with my family (my parents and four of my brothers) on a snowmobiling trip in northern Minnesota. My family has lived in Minnesota for years – I was born and raised there! – but this was our first time snowmobiling up north. We couldn’t wait!

We stayed in a cabin in the middle of the forest and rented four 2-seater sleds to drive around. It was exhilarating zooming along the snow covered trails, with the pine trees coated in white snow.

One day as we were snowmobiling, Matthew and I were on a sled together at the back of the pack, and we had to stop real quick for me to adjust my scarf. The scarf had shifted, and the cold was hitting my neck and was absolutely freezing. I toughed it out for a while but then just had to stop and fix it.

While we did this, we got way behind the rest of the group, but figured they would notice and stop for us a little bit up ahead.

Well, we kept on going…. and going… and going… and never caught up to them. In fact, we reached the point in road that was a turnoff point and they weren’t there (which was extremely surprising because my dad would always regroup at any trail junctions).

We weren’t sure what to do. We were in the middle of nowhere, so we had no cell reception. We weren’t sure if they just made the turn, forgetting to check for everyone, or if they had just kept going straight. We decided to keep going straight for a while and see if we could find them, but after several minutes we still couldn’t see any sign of them.

Stumped about what to do, we decided to go back, make the turn, and continue on the planned route. The plan was to go to Hungry Jacks, an isolated restaurant up in the woods. We figured that wherever they had gone, they were also heading to Hungry Jacks, so we’d find them there.

Well, we show up to Hungry Jacks and… no family. We talked to an employee about if they had seen a family come through (maybe we had missed them? no luck), ate dinner, refilled our snowmobiles with gas, and made the 2-3 hour journey back to the cabin, thinking FOR SURE they’d be back at the cabin. It was night at this point, and the stars were bright overhead, light reflecting off the snow. It was beautiful!

But, when we got back, there was still no family. This was honestly the first time we were concerned — this whole time we had figured they were fine and had changed plans! About an hour later, the rest of the family pulled in. My mom walked in with this concerned expression on her face, saw us, and said, “OH THANK GOODNESS.”

My Parents’ and Brothers’ Side of the Story

The rest of the family had had quite the adventure. They were cruising down the straightaway, and because it was open and straight, everyone was just going full speed. Finally, they came to a point where there was a stop, and they were waiting for everyone to catch up.

Well, they were waiting and waiting for us to catch up, thinking “wow they are going really slow.” But of course, we never showed up.

So then mom and dad figured they should go back and try to find us. Some people stayed where they were, and some went back for several miles, realizing as they did how far ahead they had gone. They never ran into us though, and so they were really confused about just where the heck we had gone.

My parents were starting to get nervous for us, because we weren’t anywhere on the trail, so they thought we had made a wrong turn and were lost in the woods by ourselves somewhere.

They started going down some random trails, thinking maybe we had made a wrong turn somewhere, but then those trails became impassable, so it was obvious we hadn’t gone there.

Things Get Really Rough

Then, my dad’s snowmobile got low on gas while they were all still out on the middle of nowhere. It was weird because it was the only snowmobile running out of gas, while the other gauges were still high. Well, it ran out of gas, and now they had 2 people stranded on the dead snowmobile and two people (Matthew and me) who were separated from the group.

It’s starting to get dark now and Mom actually was starting to feel panicked, knowing that I have type I diabetes and was pregnant at the time, and what if I had a medical emergency while being lost in the woods by ourselves.

At this point, the three snowmobiles were split up: Dad and one brother were with the dead snowmobile, my two teenage brothers were still on the side of the trail (in the snow, alone, as it’s getting dark, so they could grab us in case we happened to come by) and my mom and 5 year old brother went to go find help somewhere, praying they could find something somewhere that would be open.

Thankfully, a little farther down, the trail ended at a road and on the road they found a B&B with the owners at home.

This couple was so nice and helpful – they had an extra gas can they brought back to my dad’s sled so he could drive again, they gave some directions to Mom and Dad, and they called around to the other resorts in the area – including Hungry Jack’s, who told them that yes, we had been there, gotten dinner, and had headed home.

It wasn’t until this point that mom and dad realized that they were, in fact, the ones who were lost, and Matthew and I were on the right trail. (In their defense, the maps of the trails were absolutely terrible. They were truly incredibly difficult to read – Matthew just happens to have an excellent sense of direction).

Mom and dad were incredibly relieved to know that we were okay. When they showed up an hour or so after we arrived back, I was really shocked to hear how crazy their afternoon and evening had been – it made ours feel so much tamer!

How to Prepare for When Travel Goes Awry

There’s a lot that we do to try to avoid bad, trip-interrupting experiences. We plan our itineraries instead of winging it, we download offline maps, and we bring some back ups of essentials.

We also practice good safety measures (e.g. keep our valuables secured, don’t wander into dangerous situations, learn about common scams in a destination ahead of time, etc.), and generally, that has served us really well! None of these crazy travel stories in this post have ruined our trips.

We also try to be pretty laidback and flexible when we’re on vacation. Have to make a detour to the doctor’s office in Iceland? It’s fine, it’s fine. Lose a phone in Morocco? Don’t stress, we can make it work. Tent collapsed and all our clothes, pillows, sleeping bags, and gear is sopping wet? Just laugh and shake your head at the absurdity of it all.

Always Have Travel Insurance

However, one of the biggest things we always do before any trip is get travel insurance. Securing some travel insurance is an important part of prepping for any international trip – you really never know when something might happen, and your regular insurance generally won’t cover you overseas. 

Costs for a medical emergency on vacation can add up extremely fast, so it’s just better to be safe than sorry. (If life, and especially covid, has taught me anything, it’s that you never know what could happen!)  

I like booking insurance at Insure My Trip, as they offer a variety of plans with different coverages to choose from, so you can find the right option for you. Plus, they have great customer support if you need help before, during, or after your trip.

Check rates at Insure My Trip here!

Final Thoughts on Experiencing Those Sometimes Funny, Sometimes Crazy Travel Stories

I’ll admit, many of these experiences were not exactly ideal, to say the least. They were often stressful or frustrating. But some of these were just really funny travel stories!

However, learning how to handle curveballs has definitely helped me a lot in life! Things happen, even (and especially) on vacation. Being adaptable to what happens, taking it in stride, and not letting it sour the entire trip has been a valuable lesson to learn (over and over again, ha!)

And I’m sure I’ll be adding more crazy travel stories to this list regularly in the coming years!

Stephanie is the author of The Unknown Enthusiast. She's visited 21 countries and 37 of the 50 US states (but her first love will always be France). When she's not traveling, she enjoys reading, taking naps, playing games, eating popcorn, and spending time with her husband (Matthew) and 4 daughters. Stephanie lives in Alabama, USA.

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19 Inspiring Travel Experience Stories About Life-Changing Trips

Love inspiring travel experience stories ?

Then you’re in the right place!

Grab a snack and your favorite beverage and get ready to settle in, as you’re about to read some truly inspiring travel stories about life-changing trips.

In this roundup, some of my favorite bloggers share their best travel stories.

You’ll hear about travelers embarking on sacred pilgrimages, growing after a first solo female travel trip, deeply connecting with locals on the road, and getting out of their comfort zones in ways that completely alter the course of their life.

And if you’re looking for a unique travel experience, you’ll likely find it in the short stories about travel below.

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Plus, I’m constantly adding new resources, guides, and personality quizzes to help you travel beyond the guidebook!

On that note, let’s dive into the inspiring travel stories .

1. Travel Experience Stories In South America

My travel story takes place in South America, back when I used to travel solo for months at a time.

I was in my mid-20s, and even though I’d backpacked Europe, Southeast Asia, and China and had studied abroad in Australia, the mix of intense excitement and nerves I had leading up to my South America backpacking trip was different.

And despite family and friends warning me that South America wasn’t a place for a solo female traveler , it ended up being my best trip ever.

There are so many interesting short travel stories and unforgettable travel experiences woven into this trip, like:

• Getting invited to have dinner with my Brazilian plane seatmate and her grandma
• Having a group of complete strangers on Couchsurfing take me out for dinner and dancing on my birthday in Mendoza
• Attending a small house party in Argentina and learning about the tradition of mate
• Getting stuck on a broken-down bus and having an impromptu language exchange with an elderly woman in Peru
• Having a love interest back home break up with me via text, and then experiencing the kindness of strangers as a woman in my hostel who I barely knew treated me to ice cream to cheer me up
• Having a romance with a hostel mate in Ecuador and then traveling through the country together
• Living in a giant treehouse with a group of strangers during a solo trip in Brazil and spending our days exploring hiking trails and swimming and our nights drinking and exchanging stories about traveling
• Taking a 4×4 from Chile to Bolivia across the Siloli Desert to see otherwordly sites like rainbow lagoons and train graveyards in the middle of nowhere
• Experiencing some of the world’s most incredible natural wonders, like Iguazu Falls, Torres del Paine, the Amazon River, Uyuni Salt Flats, and Perito Moreno Glacier

At times the trip was also challenging, from dealing with long bus rides and car sickness to flipping over my bicycle handlebars in Peru and getting my body (and ego) badly bruised.

But, I was okay.

In fact, I was more than okay, as the trip showed me how independent I could be and what I was truly capable of. It also showed me the beauty of immersing yourself in cultures different than your own and connecting with locals who want to share them with you.

Years later, when people ask what my best travel experience has been this is the trip that comes to mind.

-Jessie from Jessie on a Journey

2. Traveling With An Open Mind

Many people think of travel as an experience and rightly so. Sometimes, however, you cannot choose the places you travel to.

This happened to me in 2019.

My husband found himself posted in Brunei for work.

Three months pregnant meant that I had a choice:

Either stay with him in Brunei for three months before returning back to India or remain in India, alone.

I chose the former. Not because of my love for the country but because I wanted to be close to him.

Brunei had never held any appeal to me. Whatever research that I pulled off the Internet showed me nothing other than one beautiful mosque.

The flights in and out of the country were expensive so traveling frequently out was not an option either.

I was engulfed by a sense of being trapped in a remote place.

Needless to say, I reached Brunei in a pretty foul mood. I think one of the things that struck me the most even in the midst of that bad mood was the large swaths of greenery that surrounded us.

Mind you, we were not staying in the big city but as far away on the outskirts as you could imagine. I’m not a city girl by any stretch and the greenery eventually soothed my nerves.

It took a week, but I soon found myself interacting with people around me. Fellow expats and locals all went out of their way to make me feel comfortable.

The more comfortable I felt, the more we explored. We trekked (yes, while pregnant!), we joined the board game community, and we enjoyed the local cuisine.

Three months later when it was time to leave, I found myself reluctant to say goodbye to the warmth of the country I had called home for a short while.

I think that my time in Brunei taught me a valuable lesson:

Don’t judge a place by what others say or a lack of information.

Sure, you may not always like what you see, but there will always be something that you will like. You just need to look hard enough to find it!

-Penny from GlobeTrove

3. From Half-Day Hiker To Walking Holiday Enthusiast

I’ve always enjoyed walking but never in a million years did I imagine I’d end up walking over 200 kilometers (~124 miles) in 10 days, become a fan of walking holidays, and end up developing self-guided hiking routes in Portugal with a local tour operator as part of my business.

The shift from being someone who was content with an easy three-hour walk to an experienced multi-day hiker began with a brief taste of the Portuguese Camino de Santiago, an ancient pilgrim trail through Portugal to Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in Spain.

Back in 2013 I did a guided one-day hike along one of the most beautiful stretches of the Camino, north of Ponte de Lima. It’s also one of the most challenging sections so it was hard work, but the views from the top of Labruja Mountain made the climb worthwhile.

My guides were so enthusiastic about the thrill of arriving at Santiago de Compostela Cathedral after the challenges of day after day on the Camino that I began to think I might want to give it a go, despite not being religious.

Fast forward a few years and I set off from Barcelos with a friend of mine to follow the Portuguese Camino de Santiago.

Apart from suffering from chronic back pain, I thought I was quite fit but nothing had prepared me for how utterly exhausted I would feel at the end of each walking day.

This was truly a slow travel experience, as we were averaging about 20 kilometers (~12 miles) per day and by the time we reached our hotel, I would barely have enough energy to get cleaned up and find food before collapsing. I had envisioned plenty of sightseeing but that ended up being minimal.

Quickly, I realized the moral of this unique travel experience:

The Camino was all about making the most of the journey rather than the destination.

For me, that was quite a shift in thinking as I am usually all about getting to where I want to be as soon as possible so that I can start exploring. It was, perhaps, also my first step on the path towards mindfulness.

I will never forget the sense of achievement and progress at the end of each walking day, and the relief and pride I felt when we finally made it to Santiago de Compostela.

We met people who had walked the Camino several times and I can totally understand how it can become addictive. 

-Julie from Julie Dawn Fox in Portugal

4. A Story About Traveling & Its Ripple Effect

Tucked away in far eastern Indonesia is a tiny archipelago of islands called the Banda Islands.

Apart from world-class snorkeling and some crumbling colonial buildings, the Banda Islands are mostly forgotten and would be described as a backwater by all accounts.

However, the Banda Islands are possibly the main reason that I am who I am today. 

Well, the Bandas are the original Spice Islands.

Nutmeg used to grow on this tiny group of islands alone and nowhere else. The Dutch colonized Indonesia and promptly became the owners of islands where money grew on trees.

The only problem was that Indonesia was so far away that they needed a halfway stop to and from Indonesia.

That’s where my travel experience story comes in.

The same Dutch East India Company that traded in spice set up a halfway station at the foot of Table Mountain to break up their long journey. As a result, my Dutch ancestors arrived in the southernmost point in Africa , and generations later we are still there.

When I visited the Banda Islands, it dawned on me how something happening on the other side of the world can ripple out and affect people on the other side of the planet.

And I’m not the only one!

The spice trade was so important to the Dutch that they even traded a tiny island in the Banda archipelago for a much bigger island…Manhattan.

Yes. That Manhattan.

Before visiting the Banda Islands I never really knew about this part of my history.

Along with the spice that the ships carried back to Amsterdam, it also carried slaves. These slaves, more often than not, ended up in Cape Town.

Just like my European ancestors, they too became a part of Africa and added another shade to our beautiful Rainbow Nation.

It was in the Banda Islands that I realized how much of my culture, food, stories and even words in my mother tongue, Afrikaans, actually originated in Indonesia.

Because of these tiny islands, I am a true mix of Europe, Africa, and Asia. While I always thought I knew how all things in life are somehow connected, I didn’t really grasp it until my visit to Indonesia.

This could have been a resort travel experience story, as I went to Indonesia to swim and snorkel and relax on the world’s best beaches. And while I did get to do that, I also learned a lot about who I am as a person, my people, and my country…on another continent. 

My visit to the Bandas has sparked a fascination with Indonesia, which I have visited seven times since. I’m already planning another trip to this spectacular country!

-De Wet from Museum of Wander

5. Awakening My Spirit In A Costa Rican Cloud Forest

In February 2017, I was just coming out of a decade of mysterious chronic illness that had shrunk my world.

And one of the things that finally helped me to resurface during the previous year was an online Qi Gong course I stumbled upon: 

Flowing Zen .

To the casual observer, Qi Gong looks a lot like its better-known cousin, Tai Chi — the ancient art of moving meditation — but it’s actually energy medicine for healing.

In fact, it’s commonly used in Chinese hospitals.

My daily practice that year made such a difference for me that I dangled a reward for myself:

If I stuck with it all year, then I’d head to Sifu Anthony’s annual retreat in a cloud forest in Costa Rica the following February.

And I did! It was my first trip out of the country for more than a decade.

Just like that, I booked a solo trip — something I hadn’t done since I was an exchange student to Europe 30 years earlier — to San Jose where I met up with a dozen strangers and Sifu Anthony, our Qi Gong master.

We boarded a tiny bus and rode up, up, up around carsick-inducing curvy mountain roads into a magical cloud forest jungle where we finally arrived at The Blue Mountain (“La Montana Azul”) for a weeklong Qi Gong retreat. 

There were no Internet or distractions here — just delicious organic vegetarian meals made with love and shared with the community under a gorgeous open-air palapa.

There were also colorful tropical birds singing in the jungle, as well as the largest arachnid I’ve ever seen in my gorgeous (but also roofless) room for a little extra adventure.

I’d felt a little energy movement during my year of online practice, but during that week on The Blue Mountain, my body began to really buzz with Qi — life force energy — as I Lifted the Sky, stood in Wuji Stance, and practiced Shooting Arrows.

I felt electrified and joyful. 

And that was when everything changed for me.

At home, I had a successful career as a freelance writer, but I decided during my week in the cloud forest that I wanted more from life.

I wanted to explore the beauty, diversity, nature, and culture in every corner of the world.

And I wanted to share this intoxicating joyful feeling of life-giving freedom and adventure with anyone who wanted to come along for the ride.

Shortly after that, at age 53, I launched my travel blog.

Dreams really do come true. They are just waiting for you to claim them.

-Chris from Explore Now or Never

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6. From Rome With Love

This wasn’t the way I wanted to see Rome. 

Sure, I was happy to spend Christmas in Rome and stand in awe of the city’s many iconic attractions. But, life wasn’t meant to turn out like this.

I was supposed to go to Rome with my mom back in 2012; however, life had different plans, because a week before our trip, I got a double kidney infection. A condition that required a week of hospitalization.

Although I was annoyed I had missed my trip, it wasn’t the end of the world since I was fine and everything seemed okay…until my mom developed a cough.

A cough that later became a heartbreaking diagnosis of stage four ovarian cancer. 

My mom spent the final months of her life in chemo, desperately trying to fight a horrific disease so that she wouldn’t let her family down.

And she didn’t.

Instead, she showed us how to never give up on life, even if it was a losing battle. 

So, when she eventually passed away, I booked a trip to Rome. 

Sure, it wasn’t the trip I had hoped for. But, I knew that as her daughter, it was my job to live enough for the both of us. 

And that’s exactly what I did.

Was I an anxious, sad, angry mess of a person?

Absolutely. I was still getting used to a world that my mother wasn’t a part of. 

And honestly, you never get used to that world. You just deal with it because you don’t really have a choice.

But I also knew that I wanted my mom to live on through me and that I didn’t want to live a life where the haunting phrases “should of,” “could of,” and “would have” swirled through my head and ate away at my happiness.

So, I went. I packed a boatload of tissues, sobbed my heart out, and attended Christmas mass at the Vatican. 

I also threw a coin in the Trevi Fountain, walked through the Colosseum, chowed down on gelato, and spent two weeks doing all the things my mom and I had wanted to do. 

And that’s when it hit me. I had never gone to Rome alone because my mom had always been there with me. Maybe she wasn’t physically there, but I thought of her and felt her presence every minute of every day. 

Her presence also reminded me that life isn’t about the things we buy or the money that we have.

It’s about making memories with the people we love; people that never really leave us since they are constantly influencing our lives in countless ways.

And after my trip to Rome, I finally knew that my mom would always be there because she had forever changed my life in the best possible way. 

-Kelly from Girl with the Passport

7. Studying In Finland

One of my major life-turning points happened during my exchange studies in Finland.

Until then, I was studying at a university in Prague, had a part-time job at a renowned management-consulting firm, and thought I was on the right path in life.

At the University of Economics where I studied it was notoriously difficult to get on an Erasmus exchange trip abroad since the demand was huge. Everyone wanted to go!

Regardless, I decided to sign up early for my last semester, just to see what the process was like to be better prepared for applying again in a year.

I did make it through all the three rounds and surprisingly got a spot at a University in Turku, Finland! I was ecstatic. The success brought its own challenges, but once you set your eyes on the goal, nothing can stop you.

And I had the time of my life in Finland.

I met the most amazing people, traveled a ton, partied a lot, and bonded with friends from all over the world.

Given I was one of the few people there who really needed to pass all her courses and additionally write her thesis, I managed to run on an impossible sleep schedule of four hours per night. But I made it!

My studies in Finland opened up my horizons, too.

The summer after, I wrapped up my life in Prague and went on to study in Germany and China . The whole time I traveled as much as possible, often going on solo adventures. It was only a matter of time when I’d start my own travel blog.

My Finland adventure led me to a life of freedom made up of remote work, travel blogging , and plenty of traveling. I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. And it gave me one of my favorite true adventure stories that I can now share with others.

-Veronika from Travel Geekery

8. How Cuba Changed My Life

One of my favorite inspiring stories about travel takes place in Cuba.

I visited Cuba in February 2013 and it changed my life — and I like to think it did so for the better.

Interestingly, I expected a completely different country and was compelled to write about it when I got back home.

But let me tell you more.

I read copious amounts of blogs and travel diaries to prepare myself for the trip to Cuba so I thought I’d go in with a fairly good idea of what to expect. Each and every post I read spoke of marvelous landscapes, pristine beaches, crumbling but charming cities, and welcoming locals.

All of it was true, in my experience — except for the locals.

I didn’t find them so welcoming. At least, not genuinely so. They only seemed to welcome me as far as they could get something in exchange: money, clothes, pens, soap, you name it. 

Each and every day in Cuba was a challenge to avoid the scams, to avoid being ripped off, to fight off each and every attempt of people trying to take advantage of me. I usually managed, but it was exhausting and it left a sour taste in my mouth.

Once I got back home I felt the urge to write about my experience — not for other sites or papers as I’d often do. This time I was afraid I’d be censored.

So I opened my own blog. With zero tech knowledge, zero understanding of online content creation and SEO, I started writing and telling people what they should really expect during a trip to Cuba.

I’d put up the occasional post, but continued with my usual job.

At the end of the year, my contract as a researcher in international human rights law at the local university ended, and I decided to stop pursuing that career for a while.

I packed my bags and left for a long-term trip to Central and South America . I started writing on the blog more consistently and learning, and eventually took my blog full-time , turning it into a career.

As of today, I have never looked back and have no regrets.

The one thing I’ll do, as soon as I can, is travel to Cuba to say thank you — because it changed my life in a way nothing else has ever done. 

-Claudia from Strictly Sardinia

9. A Short Travel Story About Finding Inner Peace In Patagonia

Life in London is hard.

Life in London as a gay single brown refugee is harder.

Juggling between work, my passion for traveling, and the prejudices that I dealt with on a daily basis eventually took their toll on me and I reached a breaking point.

The fact that I couldn’t return home to see my family and being away for them for almost nine years was enough to hammer in the final nail in the coffin.

I almost had a nervous breakdown and in that moment of desperation, which I knew would define the rest of my life, I took a month off and headed to Patagonia.

It was probably the best decision I’ve ever made in my life. The 36 hours it took me to get to El Chalten from London were tiring but Patagonia blew me away.

On my first day there I did a 28-kilometer (17-mile) hike which included a steep mountain climb. It was incredible how moving through the forest helped me clear my mind. And as I stood in front of Laguna de Los Tres, the rain and clouds gave way to sunshine and a rainbow.

I felt at peace.

The countless hikes, great food, and the warmth of locals in Chile and Argentina helped me get back in my skin and find the peace I was missing in my heart.

Nature is indeed the best medicine when it comes to stress relief and I won’t be coy about hugging trees to speed up the process (it did).

Patagonia was life-changing for me.

The beauty of nature struck me at each point and every time I thought it wasn’t possible to beat the view, the next one did just that.

I came back a changed, resilient, and most importantly, a happy person.

-Ucman from BrownBoyTravels

10. Looking Inwards & Making Connections With Strangers

It was decades before I traveled solo for the first time in my life.

This trip — a six-day escape to Colorado — was the first trip that was not for business or family reasons but just to travel and discover.

As I prepared for it, I had a strange feeling of excitement and nerves at the same time. I had all sorts of thoughts and doubts:

Would it be fun?

Would I be bored?

Would I stay in bed all day or would I bounce with excitement to do the next thing?

I wasn’t sure. Little did I know that it was going to be a memorable journey of self-discovery. 

As a good wife and mom, for me travel is always about the family; always thinking of who would enjoy what. It’s about family time and bonding. It’s about creating memories and travel stories together. It’s all so wonderful.

But on a solo trip who would I connect with? What would I say?

Well, I found that I got to do anything I wanted!

Usually when I travel with my family, if I feel like going on a drive that’s not on the itinerary or getting a snack no one else is interested in, we simply don’t do that.

So it was weird to just go do it. Really, that’s a thing?

As for making connections, it was so easy to meet locals while traveling and also to connect with other travelers. Honestly, I had conversations everywhere — on planes, while hiking, in restaurants, in the hotel lobby.

It was quite an eye-opening experience to meet a mom of 18 kids and hundreds of foster kids, a cookie baker, a professional photographer, a family of Fourteener hikers, and an internationally ranked marathon runner.

The inspiring stories I discovered were amazing and nothing like my wonderful safe life at home. 

In terms of travel safety , I got to go rock climbing, solo hiking, driving up a Fourteener, eating alone.

And it was all fine. Actually, it felt surprisingly normal.

It was was just me, my SUV, and my backpack for a week. Most of all, it was a breath of fresh air that I didn’t know existed. 

It’s wonderful to be back home and know that possibilities are endless and there is so much more out there to explore and be wowed by!

-Jyoti from Story At Every Corner

11. A Solo Hike To Find Connection

I have traveled solo many times, but I admit I was a bit uneasy booking my trip to Colombia . In part, due to the country’s dark past. But also because I desperately wanted to do the Cocora Valley hike, and if I’m honest, I was terrified.

This hike is located in the Coffee Triangle, an area recognized for its beauty as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It features both rainforest and a stunning green valley speckled with cartoonishly-tall wax palms rising 200 feet or more.

It’s incredibly beautiful.

It’s also a long hike and quite challenging — it generally takes between six and eight hours and there is a steep area with over 3,000 feet of elevation within a quarter of a mile.

I wasn’t in hiking shape, so I was a little concerned. But, worst of all for me were the seven dodgy-looking suspension bridges. 

I’m terrified of heights.

And, I’d be going alone.

I decided to go anyway and I met an incredible woman on the bus to Salento, the town near Cocora. She was also traveling solo and we agreed to hike together.

The town is a backpacker enclave and we met up with a small group of people all traveling solo. As the days passed, our group got larger and it was such a magical experience.

As much as I love city travel, this small town won my heart.

My new friend and I set off on the hike and met two other women who were nervous to do the hike. We all went together.

When we got to the first suspension bridge, I paused. I was embarrassed to admit my fear, but the bridge swayed widely and there was nowhere to hold onto.

When they realized how out of my comfort zone I was and how scared I felt, everything changed. Instead of me dealing with it alone, they were all there to encourage me.

One crossed the bridge to encourage me from the other side and they stayed off of it to limit the sway. Crazy enough, I not only crossed the seven suspension bridges, but I also crossed one an extra time when we went the wrong way on the trail.

I did it! 

I was prepared to be blown away by Cocora Valley’s beauty, but what I wasn’t expecting was what a life-changing travel experience my time there would be.

 -Sam from My Flying Leap

12. How A Pet Sitting Travel Experience Led To A Passionate Career

We wanted to go to the Caribbean but didn’t know much about the islands or how we were going to afford it.

By chance, a friend of ours in Australia mentioned “pet sitting” and that it is something you can do all over the world.

We quickly created an account on a pet sitting website and began searching for options. There were only a couple of sits available in that part of the world, but we tried our luck, sent a request, and to our surprise landed a three-month gig in a beautiful house in the US Virgin Islands — with an infinity pool overlooking the British Virgin Islands.

A month into our sit, we had explored the destination pretty well and so had a lot of time on our hands. We managed to secure another sit in Grenada, so our year was going to be taken up with Caribbean pet sits.

Inspired by a Canadian couple that had previously stayed at our Grenada housesit, we decided to start our own travel blog. We began by writing about The Virgin Islands, highlighting the beautiful beaches and funky bars.

But for every photo of a beautiful beach there were 10 photos of trash.     

It was hard to ignore the plastic pollution issue, especially on such pristine and remote beaches.  So, we began to share photos of the trash we saw and how much we could pick up on our daily dog walks.

The more we looked into plastic pollution, the more we realized the severity of the global plastic pandemic. From that point, we used our platform to create awareness and highlight ways to say no to plastic and travel plastic-free .

We changed our daily routines, our way of living, and even our diets to accommodate more organic foods and little to no plastic packaging.

It’s been over three years now and we continue to do what we can. This journey has led us to some amazing places, working with great conscious brands and even organizing a country-wide beach clean-up campaign in Grenada.

Our aim now is to keep on going.

We love connecting with like-minded people and love the shift over the last few years that brands have made towards creating more sustainable products and services.

It’s been an amazing few years that was sparked by a conversation about pet sitting. Who would have guessed?

-Aaron & Vivien from The Dharma Trails

13. Learning To Slow Down The Hard Way

On Christmas of 2017, I was born again.

We like to spend our Christmas holidays somewhere warm abroad, and that year we chose Uganda.

Nature, wildlife, and sunny days were a blessing when it was so cold and dark in Europe. Life was beautiful, and we had a rental car and a busy schedule ahead to explore the country.

This is where this short travel story turns into one of my more scary travel experiences :

At Murchinson Falls National Park, we had a car accident.

I lost control of the car, and it rolled over, destroying windows, chassis, and engine.

But we were alive! My right arm was severely injured, but we managed to walk to our lodge, not far inside the park.

In the lodge, I was happy to learn that there was a pretty decent American hospital in Masindi that was just a one-hour drive from the lodge. Moreover, one of the lodge’s guests was a nurse who cleaned the wound while we were waiting for the taxi from/to Masindi.

The hospital took care of us, and after a couple of injections and stitches, I was ready to head to our new hotel in Masindi; however, my wound required daily dressing and more injections, so we were asked to stay in town for a few days.   

Masindi is the kind of place where you may want to stop to buy some food or water, but that’s it.

The town’s highlights were the market and our daily visit to the hospital, so we ended up looking for the small things, chatting with the medical staff, the hotel staff, the people in the market, and learning more about their customs.

We learned to slow down the hard way.

When we were allowed to leave, we took a road trip south through the country to see something else. We did not care about our travel bucket list anymore — we were alive, and we wanted to enjoy Uganda’s unique nature and its people. 

In the end, our Uganda trip was not about the places that we saw, but the people that we met. It was travel for experience vs sightseeing.

I hope to revisit Uganda one day, with a stop at Masindi for some food, water, and maybe something else.

-Elisa from World in Paris

14. A Cycling Trip To Remember

During the summer of 2019, I cycled solo from London to Istanbul. This huge bicycle tour took me 89 days and through 11 countries.

As you might expect, it was a challenging yet incredible journey, which saw me pedal along some of Europe’s greatest rivers, pass through some of its best cities, and witness some of its most beautiful scenery.

It’s becoming more and more important for us to think about the impact that travel can have on our environment. This was the inspiration for my bicycle tour; I wanted to find more responsible ways to explore the world and avoid flights where possible.

I discovered that bicycle touring is one of the most eco-friendly ways to travel, as using nothing but a bicycle and your own pedal power you can carry everything you need while covering surprising distances each day.

The simplicity of life and the sheer amount of time I spent cycling alone gave me a lot of time to just think . This really helped me to come to terms with some personal problems rooted in my past and, as a result, I arrived solo in Istanbul with newly found confidence, independence, and liberation. 

Cycling across the entire European continent may seem like an impossibly daunting task, but I assure you, it will make you feel like a new person, just like it did for me.

-Lauren from The Planet Edit

15. How The Caribbean Shaped Me Into A Fully Sustainable Traveler

One of my first international trips as an adult was traveling around the Caribbean .

I checked into my hotel in Jamaica and asked for a recommendation for a local place to eat. The receptionist told me that under no circumstances should I should go into the town because it was really dangerous, but that — to my luck — the hotel’s restaurant offered wonderful Caribbean food.

I pondered my options:

Did I really want to spend all my time on the beach without getting to know a single local?

I was a very inexperienced traveler and very young, but there was only one answer to my question:

Absolutely not. I was not going to be visiting a new place and staying hostage in a hotel chain. So out I went.

The poverty hit me in the face. After only seeing fancy resorts, the reality was hard to swallow.

A few locals approached me and were super curious as to what I was doing there alone, since most tourists didn’t go there.

I told them I was interested in meeting them and experiencing their culture. And just like that, I was embraced.

We met more people, had some food, and then we danced the night away. They had so little, yet they wanted to share it with me. They wanted to make me feel welcome.

And they undeniably did.

The next morning all I could think about was how all the money most tourists spend goes to big corporations. The locals have to be thankful if they get a job that pays minimum wage, while foreign businesses earn millions.

I have always been environmentally conscious, but this trip made it clear that sustainability goes well beyond nature and wildlife.

It’s also about communities.

From then on I always look for locally owned accommodation, eateries, guides, and souvenirs.

Sustainability, with everything it entails, became a motto for me and changed the very essence of the way I travel.

-Coni from  Experiencing the Globe

16. Lessons From My Students In Peru

One of the most life-changing trips I’ve ever been on was a volunteering experience in the stunning city of Cuzco in Peru.

I spent a month there teaching English and Italian to a group of local adults. And even though my time there was short, the travel experience was so humbling that it changed my outlook on life.

My lessons took the form of active conversations, which essentially turned into a massive multilingual cultural exchange between me and my students. Hearing my students talk about their lives — and realizing just how different they were from mine — made me look at my own life with a fresh new perspective.

One person spoke about the three years he spent living in a jungle with his dad, where they fed off of animals they hunted in order to survive.

Another student told me about her ultimate dream of mastering English so that she could become a tour guide and have a more stable future.

For me, these stories were a reminder of just how small I am in this world and how much we can get consumed by the small bubbles we live in. 

Most of all, my students showed a passion and appreciation for life that I’d never witnessed before.

This is true for the locals I met in Cuzco in general. The quality of life in Cuzco is very modest; hot water is scarce and you learn to live with little.

But the locals there do way more than just that — they spontaneously parade the streets with trumpets and drums just because they’re feeling happy, and their energy for the simple things in life is incredibly contagious.

It was impossible to not feel inspired in Cuzco because my students always had the biggest smiles on their faces, and the locals showed me again and again that simply being alive is a blessing.

I went to Peru to teach, but ended up learning more from my students and the locals there than they did from me.

Ever since I got back from that trip, I made it a goal to slow down and not take the simple things in life for granted.

Every time I get upset about something, I think about the Peruvians in Cuzco parading their streets in song and pure joy, and I tell myself to stop complaining.

-Jiayi from  The Diary of a Nomad

17. Braving Travel With Chronic Pain

Santiago de Compostela is a beautiful city with a prominent cathedral positioned centrally within the city.

While the historical cathedral attracts numerous visitors, even more well-known is the route to Santiago de Compostela, Camino de Santiago –- the world-famous pilgrimage route that has a plethora of trailheads and ends in Santiago. 

Home to locals, students, English teachers, and those on a spiritual pilgrimage, personal conquest, or a great outdoor hiking excursion, Santiago is a magical city.

My introduction to Santiago de Compostela doesn’t begin on the pilgrimage route, yet ends with a spiritual awakening analogous with those other unique pilgrimage stories.

It was my first solo trip abroad teaching English in Spain, a country that’s always been on my travel bucket list. A small town outside of Santiago was selected as the school I’d be teaching at for the year.

Unknowingly, this teach abroad program chose the perfect city for me to live in. 

A year prior, I suffered a traumatic brain injury that left me unable to function normally and complete average tasks. Migraines, headaches, and dizziness became my body’s normal temperament, a hidden disability invisible to the naked eye. 

Braving travel with chronic pain was the first lesson I learned during the trip.

The vast green outdoors and fresh dew from the morning rain enlivened me daily and reminded me about the importance of slowing down so I could enjoy traveling with my hidden disability. 

I also learned to stop often for daily tea breaks and to embrace the long lunch hour,  siestas , with good food, company, and a nap to rest.

Meeting locals , indulging in local food, and learning Spanish allowed me to connect deeply with the beautiful culture of Santiago. After all, my dream was to travel to Spain, and I more than accomplished that dream.

Difficult or not, I learned to own my dream and I was more than surprised with the results.

Who knew that a year after my injury I’d be traveling the world with chronic pain, and for that, I’m eternally grateful.

-Ciara from Wellness Travel Diaries

18. A Blessing In Disguise

2020 has been a wild year for all of us and foreign students in China are no exception. As soon as the malevolent virus began to make its rounds in China, our university sent us home for “two weeks.”

However, within a short time, countries began to shut their borders and these “two weeks” turned into months, a full year even.

Crushed by the burden of online lectures and virtual labs, my boyfriend and I packed our bags and caught one of the first flights to his home country of Pakistan.

I had always been an over-ambitious traveler. I believed numbers were everything — the number of countries I visited, the number of hours I spent on a plane, the number of international trips I took in a year. These numbers were what defined me.

My feet were constantly itching and I never liked to spend more than a few days in a place before heading to the next country. Revisiting a place felt superfluous to me.

That’s why I was hoping to spend a month or two in Pakistan and then continue to check new countries off the list — after all, my online classes finally granted me the freedom to “work on my numbers.”

But as is usually the case in 2020, things turned out quite different from what I had expected. Borders remained closed and worldwide infections stayed rampant. At this point, I have already spent nearly half a year in Pakistan.

During this peculiar time, however, an amazing thing happened:

My mindset about travel started to change and I began to look at my long stay in Pakistan as perhaps my most valuable travel experience ever.

I may not have visited dozens of countries like in previous years but my experiences were deeper than ever before.

From trekking to one of the world’s tallest mountains to sharing tea with heavily armed officers at nearly 5,000 meters altitude to exploring hidden beaches in the most secluded regions to spontaneously being invited to village homes, my adventures in Pakistan couldn’t have been more incredible. They opened my eyes to the sheer diversity of many countries and completely transformed my idea about traveling. 

It took me nearly a full year of heavy restrictions on international travel and a few months in one of the world’s most fascinating countries to give up on my superficial ideals and become a more mature traveler.

This time will always have a special place in my heart.

-Arabela from The Spicy Travel Girl

19. What The River Taught Me

My travel story takes place in the summer of 2017 — the final summer before I graduated university — as it continues to play a significant role in the person I’ve become.

When I say that, people ask me if it was the portion of the summer I spent solo backpacking in Europe . And to their surprise, it wasn’t. It was actually the latter portion of the summer where I stayed closer to home.

For July and August I worked as a canoe guide leading whitewater canoe trips on remote rivers in Canada. It was here that I got to canoe the powerful and iconic Missinaibi River, a river that continues to influence me all these years later.

The Missinaibi River flows from the powerful Lake Superior to the even more powerful salty waters of James Bay. Here, I led a group of eight teenagers through dozens of whitewater rapids over 500 kilometers (~311 miles).

With no cell service for 25 days, we were forced to disconnect from anything other than the river.

During this trip I learned two important lessons:

First, I learned to be confident in my own abilities as a leader and problem solver.

There were a few rapids where my campers’ boats flipped and I had to rescue the campers and the canoes. One rescue saw two boats flip on a mile-long rapid. It took six hours to make it down the rapid, and during this time I managed stuck canoes and crying campers.

And while this was one of the most difficult rescues I’ve done, I was amazed at how calm I was throughout it. I gave clear directions, prioritized effectively, and kept my campers safe throughout the entire experience. Following the rescue, I had a newfound sense of confidence in my abilities.

The second lesson I learned on the Missinaibi was the power of disconnecting from society and connecting with the people around you.

A wild river commands all of your attention. Each day, you and your group must take down camp, load canoes, paddle up to eight hours while navigating both rapids and portages, get to a new campsite, set up camp, cook dinner, and go to bed.

And without the distraction of technology, your attention has nowhere else to be. You focus on the river and your teammates.

As someone who had wrestled with anxiety and depression prior to this summer, I felt at total ease on the trip. Now I seek societal disconnection and human connection as much as I can. 

Sometimes the most profound, life-altering trips are the least expected trips closer to home.

-Mikaela of  Voyageur Tripper

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These stories are so much fun to read! Thanks so much for putting a post like this together. It’s great to be able to check out other people’s blogs and read about other people’s experiences!

Always great to read about travel experiences of others. Some great stories to read over coffee. I’ve Pinned your post for future reference and to share with others. Will check out each story author’s blog as well. Great Job! 🙂

Amazing story for new traveler like me thanks for your contribution

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Experts Reveal The Common Mistakes Travelers Make On Long-Haul Flights, And Wow This May Have Just Changed My Life

"The most common mistake people make on long-haul flights is not dressing properly."

HuffPost Writer

On the list of ways people want to spend their time, sitting on a plane for hours on end is probably not very high. But long-haul flights are a necessary reality if you need to travel far. 

“A long-haul flight can certainly be daunting and stressful,” Casey Brogan, a consumer travel expert at  Tripadvisor , told HuffPost. “Airports and security lines definitely generate traveler anxiety, especially with new guidelines and ever-changing restrictions. But it is important to remind ourselves that the journey to get there is not the vacation, and relaxation awaits you.”

In addition to focusing on the positive light at the end of the tunnel, there are also many ways to make the flight a little more pleasant. An easy approach is to understand what not to do. 

With that in mind, HuffPost asked travel experts to share the common mistakes travelers make when it comes to long-haul flights — and their advice for avoiding these pitfalls. 

Wearing Uncomfortable Clothes

“The most common mistake people make on long-haul flights is not dressing properly,” said Phil Dengler, co-founder of  The Vacationer . “Since you will be sitting in the same seat for six or more hours, it is essential to be as comfortable as possible.”

Avoid heavy and restrictive clothing and instead choose soft fabrics and stretchy garments for peak comfort and coziness. Wearing layers is helpful for the shifting cabin temperatures. And don’t forget to invest in some compression socks for health and comfort during long-haul flights. 

“While I’m usually a proponent of dressing nicely on flights, the super long-haul ones are the ones where I see many people make the mistake of dressing too cute and then winding up uncomfortable,” said Gabby Beckford, founder of the travel site  Packs Light . “I always get compliments on my flight fit ― matching top and bottom neutral sweats. Or, I recommend bringing a comfortable flight fit to change into once you reach a cruising altitude.”

In addition to wearing comfortable, stretchy clothes, you’ll also want to avoid wearing tight, restrictive shoes when you fly. 

“Loosen the laces so you can slip on and off to get comfortable,” Brogan advised. “At the end of the flight, you’ll probably find that your feet have swollen. This is normal and another reason to choose comfortable footwear.”

Choosing A Seat By The Restroom

Your seat selection can make a big difference in the quality of your flight experience. If you’re looking for a more peaceful time, consider choosing a seat that isn’t in a high-traffic area. 

“Sitting near the restroom may sound convenient, but it’s never fun to be in that row when a line forms outside the restroom,” said Paul Jacobs, general manager and vice president at  Kayak North America . “Sit far away and use the walk to stretch.”

Watching The Clock

As the saying goes, “A watched pot never boils.” Similarly, time will seem to move a lot more slowly during a long flight if you keep staring at the clock. 

“Once you’re on board, set your watch to the time of the place you will be landing in, but try to avoid looking at it and counting down the hours,” Brogan advised. “Similarly, don’t look at the ‘where are we’ map. You’ll land soon enough!”

Forgetting To Double-Check Upgrade Options

Don’t assume you can’t afford to upgrade your seat on a long-haul flight. Check the upgrade options when you check in for your flight online. 

“I always check in as soon as the option is available ― 24 hours before flight time via the airline app,” Beckford said. “When you do that, you will see what seat options are available. Often on the day of the flight, upgrades will be drastically reduced in cost.”

“For example, on my flight from Cape Town to Newark, originally upgrades were $3,000 ― but on the day of the flight, those same upgraded seats were $700,” she noted. “That little upgrade will definitely make a 14-hour flight more enjoyable.”

Traveling Without Sleep Essentials

“You should bring good earplugs or noise-canceling headphones if you plan to sleep,” Dengler said. “Additionally, a good sleep mask can make a huge difference. Finally, I recommend finding a good neck pillow before flying.”

He noted that “not all neck pillows are created equal,” so do your research and find the one that works for you. “Get the ones that attach to the headrest,” Jacobs said. “It’s a total game changer.”

Flying Without Entertainment

“Before your flight, download movies, music or podcasts to your devices like phone, iPad or laptop and ensure they are fully charged before traveling so you have guaranteed entertainment options,” Brogan said. “On a recent flight, my in-flight entertainment was not working properly, so I was glad to have downloaded movies to my iPad as a backup for the hours in the air.”

Your entertainment doesn’t have to involve a screen either. Bring a book or magazine or do crossword puzzles for entertainment. 

“You should always have something to do on a long-haul flight,” Dengler said. “At times, that may be sleeping, but I recommend always having access to entertainment.”

Overlooking Seat Options

“Be sure to select your seat in advance,” said  Ravi Roth , a travel expert and host of “ The Gaycation Travel Show .” “You don’t want to end up stuck in a middle seat on a long flight. Most airlines do not charge a seat fee for economy, but if you can splurge I say go for comfort plus or economy plus. Extra legroom is key.”

Paying for business class is not feasible for most people, but maybe you’ve saved up enough to compromise with a premium economy ticket. 

“Select a window seat if you plan on sleeping,” Dengler said. “Pay extra for an exit-row seat if you will be more comfortable with extra legroom. It really comes down to what time the flight is and whether or not you plan to sleep.”

Figure out which seat position you prefer before booking a long flight. 

“Window or aisle ― you really need to decide what is more important to you,” Jacobs said. “You can lean on the window ― or have the freedom of getting up and stretching whenever you feel like it. I prefer the aisle any day.”

Boarding Without A Sleep Game Plan

“It is important to figure out what you will be doing on the flight,” Dengler explained. “Is it a red-eye flight where the goal will be to sleep? Or is it during the day when you will need to stay occupied?”

Try to sleep when it’s nighttime at your destination, rather than your origin. And if you’re planning to sleep during the flight, avoid caffeine and try to walk around the airport to tire yourself out before boarding.

“Watching movies can make you sleepy, so instead log on to Wi-Fi and work or shop when you need to be awake,” Jacobs suggested. 

Jet lag is very real, but there are different tactics for making the time change easier to manage, even after a sleepless red-eye. 

“Do not take a nap once you land at your destination,” Roth said. “Power through so that you sync up your body with the local clock. You will adapt much better to the new time zone.”

Don’t put too much pressure on yourself, however. It’s not the end of the world if you can’t quickly adjust. 

“Don’t force yourself to sleep just because you feel like you should,” said Laura Ratliff, senior editorial director at  TripSavvy . “I’m a big fan of an arrival ‘espresso nap’ ― I down a quick espresso, draw the curtains, and force myself to sleep for 25-30 minutes. It helps me get through the day without being bleary-eyed, and I am just tired enough to sleep at night.”

Feel Obliged To Talk The Whole Time

“When traveling with colleagues, you don’t have to sit next to them,” Jacobs said. “A long flight is a long time to make small talk.”

Unless you need to do collaborative work during a flight, choose your own seat on a business trip if possible and try to put some space between you and co-workers. You’ll have plenty of time together at the airport and then your destination. 

“Plus, no need to have your colleagues see or hear you sleeping,” Jacobs said. “Sit separately ― it’s not rude. They will appreciate it too.”

Relying On Plane Food

Unless you’re sitting in business class, you’re not guaranteed a lot of meal and snack choices, so if you’re particular, it’s best to eat just before the flight or come prepared with your own food. 

“I always bring my own snacks on long-haul flights, and I have never regretted it,” Dengler said. “Food options can be limited, so this guarantees I will be able to eat what I want and when I want.”

Neglecting Self-Care

Being on a long flight might feel like some sort of alternate reality where time and rules don’t apply, but it’s still important to take care of yourself and your body when you can. 

“Get up to walk around and stretch every few hours,” Brogan said. “Your legs will thank you once you arrive!”

Don’t forget to stay hydrated and take any vitamins and medications that are part of your daily routine. You’ll feel much better during your trip if you do what you can to take care of yourself during the transit process. 

“On long flights, I have a little ritual of brushing my teeth, washing my face and applying lotion about an hour before landing,” Ratliff said. “My favorite lotion is Le Labo’s Rose 31 — the fragrance helps boost my mood a little, and now, it’s become such a habit that I associate that smell with getting off the plane and exploring a new place!” This post originally appeared on HuffPost .

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Trump is funneling campaign money into cash-strapped businesses. Experts say it looks bad.

Donald Trump’s main 2024 White House campaign fundraising operation sharply increased spending at the former president's properties in recent months, funneling money into his businesses at a time when he is facing serious legal jeopardy and desperately needs cash.

Trump’s joint fundraising committee wrote three checks in February and one in March to his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, totaling $411,287 and another in March to Trump National Doral Miami for $62,337, according to a report filed to the Federal Election Commission this week.

Federal law and FEC regulations allow donor funds to be spent at a candidate’s business so long as the campaign pays fair market value, experts say. Trump has been doing it for years , shifting millions in campaign cash into his sprawling business empire to pay for expenses such as using his personal aircraft for political events, rent at Trump Tower and events at his properties, which has included hotels and private clubs.

While the practice is legal, some campaign finance experts believe it raises ethical concerns when a candidate is generating personal revenue off running for office.

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“When voters see something like this happening it contributes to their distrust of the political system and their elected officials' motives,” said Shanna Ports, senior legal counsel with the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit government accountability group.

Trump faces huge legal costs amid multiple civil and criminal cases

The money Trump’s campaign is spending at his businesses could help the former president as he faces a big cash crunch.

Trump has been hit with a pair of large financial judgements after losing two civil lawsuits.

He posted a $91.6 million bond in a defamation case brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll , and a $175 million bond in a fraud case involving falsifying business records. The New York attorney general is challenging whether the deal Trump made to post the larger bond payment is financially sound.

The payments Trump’s campaign has made to his businesses are small compared to his large court-ordered financial judgements, but have been growing in recent months.

The Trump campaign and affiliated political committees paid businesses owned by Trump at least $4.9 million since the start of 2023, according to an analysis by USA TODAY. Most of that money – $4.1 million – went to TAG Air, Inc. for air travel.

Trump lists TAG Air, Inc among his assets on his latest financial disclosure required of presidential candidates, with a value of between $5 million and $25 million. It operates his private aircraft, nicknamed Trump Force One.

Trump's various campaign committees and a super PAC controlled by his supporters also spent at least $809,000 at his properties since the beginning of last year.

Campaign spending at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Doral in Miami

The bulk of the campaign spending at Trump's properties since the start of 2023 — $663,000 — has been at Mar-a-Lago, and most of it occurred in February. It’s not clear what events the money went toward.

A Trump spokeswoman did not respond to specific questions about the campaign spending at his properties but instead sent a statement attacking President Joe Biden.

Other GOP candidates also have been spending considerable campaign cash at Trump properties.

Ohio Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno's campaign spent $109,000 on "event catering" at Mar-a-Lago in April, December and January of 2023, records show. Trump endorsed Moreno in December . Moreno won the primary in March and will face three-term Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in November.

Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Jim Marchant's campaign spent about $67,000 at Mar-a-Lago on "event venue rental and catering" in November and December. Trump backed Marchant in his unsuccessful bid to be Nevada's secretary of state in 2022. Marchant is now seeking to unseat first-term Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen.

A PAC called Giuliani Defense spent $2,400 on fundraising expenses and food at Trump's golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey in January. That PAC has spent $540,000 on legal fees, according to FEC filings. Trump hosted a fundraiser for Rudy Giuliani at Bedminster in September to help with the former New York mayor's legal costs, which stem in part from the criminal charges Giuliani faces in Fulton County, Georgia, for trying to help Trump overturn the 2020 election.

Trump hosted a party at Mar-a-Lago on March 5 with a large group of supporters to watch the Super Tuesday primary election results from 16 states. He also held a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago in October that drew hundreds of supporters, including U.S. Reps Marjorie Taylor Green and Byron Donalds, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton and the actress Roseanne Barr.

Another fundraiser at Trump National Doral in March was hosted by former Ambassador Carlos Trujillo, with the money benefiting the Make America Great Again, Inc. super PAC.

The Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, which raises money for Trump’s campaign and his Save America leadership PAC accounted for the majority of the spending at Trump properties, with other expenses paid for by Trump’s main campaign committee, the MAGA Inc. super PAC and Save America.

Concerns about Trump's business conflicts go back to 2016 election

Questions about how Trump’s businesses have benefited from his political career have swirled around him throughout the former president’s three campaigns and his four years in the White House.

Under pressure to avoid potential conflicts of interest between his role as president and his vast business dealings, Trump declared after winning the 2016 election that he wouldn't cut any "new deals." The incoming president also put his two adult sons in charge of the family business, which was controlled by a trust that critics said didn't have strong enough requirements to prevent potential ethical conflicts.

Lawsuits accusing Trump of violating the emoluments clauses in the Constitution during his presidency were unsuccessful. Critics said those seeking to influence Trump's administration funneled money into his businesses, including a hotel near the White House in Washington, D.C. that has since been sold and rebranded as a Waldorf Astoria.

America Democracy Legal Fund filed a complaint with the FEC in 2016 alleging “Mr. Trump is using funds from his presidential campaign to further his business and personal interests." The complaint was dismissed, but concerns remain in the minds of some campaign finance experts.

"People should be running for office because they want to serve the public, not because they want to enrich themselves," Ports said. "So the fact that campaigns are allowed to pay the candidate’s business raises those concerns. While legal, it creates kind of a negative impression of the election system."

Richard Briffault, a legislation professor at Columbia Law School, said Trump's use of campaign funds at his businesses may not be illegal, but it's "a little bit dicey."

'Nobody's ever seen anything like it'

Briffault said the only comparable political candidate with such a sprawling business may be former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who ran for president as a Democrat, but even then, they’re not an exact comparison. “Everything with Trump, nobody’s ever seen anything like it,” he said.

The primary thing Trump’s businesses need to do is charge his campaign and PACs the same amount they would charge any other paying customer for the services. But there’s also an ethical question of whether the campaign and PACs could get a better deal somewhere else.

“How much are they charging? And to what extent are they putting people up who might be staying someplace else that might be cheaper?” Briffault asked. “You could imagine that there could be cheaper venues to these things, but they’re purposely holding them there.” 

Trump's leadership PAC also has been spending vast sums on attorneys as the president faces four criminal cases. He currently is on trial in New York City in a case involving alleged payments to an adult film star during the 2016 presidential campaign to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual affair.

Since days after the 2020 election, the leadership PAC Save America spent more than $72.5 million on legal bills to many of the same firms that are representing him in his civil and criminal cases. That fund accounts for the bulk of his legal spending, but his affiliated committees have spent millions more.

Spending money on legal issues is not unusual for a campaign, but campaign finance experts say Trump has pushed the boundaries of what is allowable.

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Dubai flooding hobbles major airport's operations as "historic weather event" brings torrential rains to UAE

Updated on: April 17, 2024 / 5:57 PM EDT / CBS/AP

Dubai, United Arab Emirates  — The desert nation of the United Arab Emirates attempted to dry out Wednesday from the heaviest rain ever recorded there after a deluge flooded out Dubai International Airport, disrupting travel through the world's busiest airfield for international travel. The state-run WAM news agency called the rain Tuesday "a historic weather event" that surpassed "anything documented since the start of data collection in 1949." 

The rains began late Monday, soaking the sands and roadways of Dubai with some 0.79 inches of rain, according to meteorological data collected at Dubai International Airport. The storms intensified around 9 a.m. local time Tuesday and continued throughout the day, dumping more rain and hail onto the overwhelmed city.

Flooding impacts Dubai International Airport

By the end of Tuesday, more than 5.59 inches of rainfall had soaked Dubai over 24 hours. An average year sees just 3.73 inches of rain fall at Dubai International Airport, a hub for the long-haul carrier Emirates.

At the airport, standing water lapped on taxiways as aircraft landed. Arrivals were halted Tuesday night and passengers struggled to reach terminals through the floodwater covering surrounding roads.

The airport said in a  series of social media posts  that all operations were halted for about 25 minutes on Tuesday afternoon and that all arrivals would be diverted after that "until the weather conditions improve." Late Wednesday morning, the airport and the flagship carrier Emirates were still warning travelers not to come to the airport unless absolutely necessary, saying all flight check-in was still suspended.

"Flights continue to be delayed and diverted. Please check your flight status directly with your airline," the airport said in a tweet. "We are working hard to recover operations as quickly as possible in very challenging conditions." 

One couple, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in a country with strict laws that criminalize critical speech, called the situation at the airport "absolute carnage."

"You cannot get a taxi. There's people sleeping in the Metro station. There's people sleeping in the airport," the man said Wednesday.

They ended up getting a taxi to near their home some 18 miles away, but floodwater on the road stopped them. A bystander helped them over a highway barrier with their carry-on luggage, the bottles of gin they picked up from a duty-free store clinking away.

Paul Griffiths, the airport's CEO, acknowledged continued issues with flooding Wednesday morning, saying every place an aircraft could be safely parked was taken. Some aircraft had been diverted to Al Maktoum International Airport at Dubai World Central, the city-state's second airfield.

"It remains an incredibly challenging time. In living memory, I don't think anyone has ever seen conditions like it," Griffiths told the state-owned talk radio station Dubai Eye. "We are in uncharted territory, but I can assure everyone we are working as hard as we possibly can to make sure our customers and staff are looked after."

Did "cloud-seeding" contribute?

Rain also fell in Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. However, the rains were acute across the UAE. One reason may have been " cloud seeding ," in which small planes flown by the government go through clouds burning special salt flares. Those flares can increase precipitation.

Several reports quoted meteorologists at the National Center for Meteorology as saying they flew six or seven cloud-seeding flights before the rains. The center did not immediately respond to questions Wednesday, though flight-tracking data analyzed by the AP showed one aircraft affiliated with the UAE's cloud-seeding efforts flew around the country Sunday.

The UAE, which relies heavily on energy-hungry desalination plants to provide water, conducts cloud seeding in part to increase its dwindling, limited groundwater.

Flooding closes schools across UAE

Schools across the UAE, a federation of seven sheikhdoms, largely shut ahead of the storm and government employees were largely working remotely if they could. Many workers stayed home as well, though some ventured out, with the unfortunate ones stalling out their vehicles in deeper-than-expected water covering some roads.

Authorities sent tanker trucks out into the streets and highways to pump away the water. Water poured into some homes, forcing people to bail out their houses.

The country's hereditary rulers offered no overall damage or injury information for the nation, as some people slept in their flooded vehicles Tuesday night. In Ras al-Khaimah, the country's northernmost emirate, police said a 70-year-old man died when his vehicle was swept away by floodwater.

Fujairah, an emirate on the UAE's eastern coast, saw the heaviest rainfall Tuesday with 5.7 inches falling there.

Authorities canceled school and the government instituted remote work again for Wednesday.

Rain is unusual in the UAE, an arid, Arabian Peninsula nation, but occurs periodically during the cooler winter months. Many roads and other areas lack drainage given the lack of regular rainfall, causing flooding.

Meanwhile in neighboring Oman, a sultanate that rests on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, at least 19 people were killed in heavy rains in recent days, according to a statement Wednesday from the country's National Committee for Emergency Management. That includes some 10 schoolchildren swept away in a vehicle with an adult, prompting condolences from rulers across the region.

Climatologists have warned for years that human-driven climate change is fueling more extreme and less predictable weather events across the globe.

Parts of southern Russia and Central Asia have also been dealing for days with unusually damaging amounts of rainfall and snowmelt, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate to higher ground and killing more than 60 people in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

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Dubai’s Extraordinary Flooding: Here’s What to Know

Images of a saturated desert metropolis startled the world, prompting talk of cloud seeding, climate change and designing cities for intensified weather.

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By Raymond Zhong

Scenes of flood-ravaged neighborhoods in one of the planet’s driest regions have stunned the world this week. Heavy rains in the United Arab Emirates and Oman submerged cars, clogged highways and killed at least 21 people. Flights out of Dubai’s airport, a major global hub, were severely disrupted.

The downpours weren’t a freak event — forecasters anticipated the storms several days out and issued warnings. But they were certainly unusual. Here’s what to know.

Heavy rain there is rare, but not unheard-of.

On average, the Arabian Peninsula receives a scant few inches of rain a year, although scientists have found that a sizable chunk of that precipitation falls in infrequent but severe bursts, not as periodic showers.

U.A.E. officials said the 24-hour rain total on Tuesday was the country’s largest since records there began in 1949 . But parts of the nation had experienced an earlier round of thunderstorms just last month.

Oman, with its coastline on the Arabian Sea, is also vulnerable to tropical cyclones. Past storms there have brought torrential rain, powerful winds and mudslides, causing extensive damage.

Global warming is projected to intensify downpours.

Stronger storms are a key consequence of human-caused global warming. As the atmosphere gets hotter, it can hold more moisture, which can eventually make its way down to the earth as rain or snow.

But that doesn’t mean rainfall patterns are changing in precisely the same way across every corner of the globe.

In their latest assessment of climate research , scientists convened by the United Nations found there wasn’t enough data to have firm conclusions about rainfall trends in the Arabian Peninsula and how climate change was affecting them. The researchers said, however, that if global warming were to be allowed to continue worsening in the coming decades, extreme downpours in the region would quite likely become more intense and more frequent.

The role of cloud seeding isn’t clear.

The U.A.E. has for decades worked to increase rainfall and boost water supplies by seeding clouds. Essentially, this involves shooting particles into clouds to encourage the moisture to gather into larger, heavier droplets, ones that are more likely to fall as rain or snow.

Cloud seeding and other rain-enhancement methods have been tried across the world, including in Australia, China, India, Israel, South Africa and the United States. Studies have found that these operations can, at best, affect precipitation modestly — enough to turn a downpour into a bigger downpour, but probably not a drizzle into a deluge.

Still, experts said pinning down how much seeding might have contributed to this week’s storms would require detailed study.

“In general, it is quite a challenge to assess the impact of seeding,” said Luca Delle Monache, a climate scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif. Dr. Delle Monache has been leading efforts to use artificial intelligence to improve the U.A.E.’s rain-enhancement program.

An official with the U.A.E.’s National Center of Meteorology, Omar Al Yazeedi, told news outlets this week that the agency didn’t conduct any seeding during the latest storms. His statements didn’t make clear, however, whether that was also true in the hours or days before.

Mr. Al Yazeedi didn’t respond to emailed questions from The New York Times on Thursday, and Adel Kamal, a spokesman for the center, didn’t immediately have further comment.

Cities in dry places just aren’t designed for floods.

Wherever it happens, flooding isn’t just a matter of how much rain comes down. It’s also about what happens to all that water once it’s on the ground — most critically, in the places people live.

Cities in arid regions often aren’t designed to drain very effectively. In these areas, paved surfaces block rain from seeping into the earth below, forcing it into drainage systems that can easily become overwhelmed.

One recent study of Sharjah , the capital of the third-largest emirate in the U.A.E., found that the city’s rapid growth over the past half century had made it vulnerable to flooding at far lower levels of rain than before.

Omnia Al Desoukie contributed reporting.

Raymond Zhong reports on climate and environmental issues for The Times. More about Raymond Zhong

Medical Mysteries: Years of hives and fevers traced to a startling cause

A california woman suffered from an episodic flu-like illness that defied explanation. its origin stunned her doctors..

There were few things Beth Sternlieb’s Los Angeles doctors could say with certainty about her baffling illness, but this much was clear: Although manageable for years, it had worsened dramatically.

For nearly two decades Sternlieb had been plagued by flu-like episodes that began with a headache and abdominal pain accompanied by fatigue, muscle aches and diarrhea. Within a day, a spotty red rash blanketed her abdomen.

A yoga and meditation teacher who worked at the University of California at Los Angeles’s pediatric pain program, Sternlieb had undergone numerous tests that failed to reveal the reason for the unidentified illness that occurred two or three times a year and lasted about five days. In 2004, after 17 years, the illness began occurring more frequently and Sternlieb never fully recovered between episodes. A year later she developed a high fever, chills and exhaustion that lasted five months and left her bedridden.

The startling and highly unusual cause was finally identified after Sternlieb underwent an operation that ended up curing her.

“It was a good thing my abdomen turned red because it caught the attention of my doctors,” Sternlieb said recently. “Something was really wrong, but no one imagined this.”

Bad case of flu

The first episode occurred in December 1987, two weeks after Sternlieb’s second child was born. “I became sicker than I had ever been,” said Sternlieb, then 37. “It was flu season and that year was a bad flu season,” so doctors attributed her illness to influenza.

Six months later the illness recurred, a pattern that prevailed for years.

At first Sternlieb didn’t pay much attention to the tiny red dots that covered her abdomen. The rash resembled a sunburn but wasn’t itchy or painful. Doctors ultimately decided it was hives , a common skin condition that can occur as an allergic reaction to food or drugs; often its cause is never discovered.

“I became sicker than I had ever been. ... It was flu season and that year was a bad flu season,” so doctors attributed her illness to influenza. — Beth Sternlieb

Her primary care doctor referred her to a rheumatologist, a physician who specializes in treating autoimmune diseases, whom she saw for several years. He ordered blood tests, which he said suggested the presence of an unspecified autoimmune disorder in which the body mistakenly attacks itself.

Over the years, Sternlieb noticed that the episodes seemed to occur during periods of stress “both good and bad,” including traveling, partying and too little sleep. “I thought it must have a psychological component,” she said.

She learned to incorporate the bouts into her life, relieved that no one had found anything serious. She hoped doctors would figure out what was wrong so they could treat and eradicate whatever it was.

Travel history

By 2005, Sternlieb’s equanimity was shattered by a sharp deterioration in her health.

That summer, she became seriously ill and did not recover. Her fever periodically spiked to 104 degrees, and she suffered from drenching night sweats as well as profound weakness and fatigue. She lost 15 pounds and, unable to work, spent most of her time in bed or on the couch. The rash that had been confined to her abdomen spread to her neck and torso. Blood tests showed elevated levels of inflammation and a high white blood cell count.

Sternlieb began seeing a new crop of specialists. An infectious-disease doctor combed through her travel history, which included a trip to India years earlier, ultimately ruling out malaria and other parasitic infections. Doctors considered and discarded a variety of diagnoses including fever of unknown origin , which can be associated with some autoimmune diseases; familial Mediterranean fever , an inherited genetic disorder that causes recurrent fevers and inflammation; as well as HIV and hepatitis.

That left an infection or an allergy as possible causes. The latter seemed unlikely despite recurrent hives, said Raffi Tachdjian , then a fellow in allergy and immunology at UCLA and one of the doctors Sternlieb consulted.

“Hives usually last 24 hours and are not like this, which was chronic," he recalled. “We needed to look deeper into anything unusual....It seemed that there was something packing some heat somewhere” that was triggering a reaction from Sternlieb’s immune system.

“We see this in sinuses where antibiotics don’t reach infected tissue” and result in a smoldering infection that becomes virtually impossible to eradicate with medication, he added.

A CT scan ordered by the infectious-disease doctor showed multiple uterine fibroids , common benign tumors that don’t require treatment unless they cause problems. The scan showed that one of the fibroids had grown very large and was possibly degenerating (dying) or necrotic (dead), which happens when a tumor loses its blood supply.

A degenerating fibroid can get very big very fast. But doctors were also concerned about the possibility of a rare cancer such as a leiomyosarcoma, which grows in smooth muscles including in uterine tissue. None of her doctors, including her new gynecologist Jessica Schneider , knew whether her long-standing illness and the fibroids were related.

And what explained the hives, which are not associated with fibroids or this cancer?

“It didn’t seem obvious that a fibroid would cause this,” said Schneider, a member of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Group. “But it didn’t look like a typical fibroid, and I recommended we take it out.” Sternlieb, who said she worried she might still be sick after a hysterectomy, agreed.

During the December 2005 operation, Schneider removed eight fibroids. The largest measured a whopping 11 centimeters, the size of a large grapefruit.

Nearly 20 years later Schneider vividly remembers its unique characteristics. Typically a fibroid is a solid ball of muscle, she said. This one was full of pus that spurted explosively when it was touched with a scalpel.

“It was crazy,” said Schneider, who had never seen anything like it before and hasn’t since. She administered antibiotics and took a culture that she sent to the pathology lab for analysis.

Tachdjian remembers that Schneider called him just after she finished surgery to tell him what she had found.

“I thought ‘We need to know what the heck grew,’ ” Tachdjian said. “We were crossing our fingers that surgery would take care of it, whatever it was. But only time would tell.”

‘A nice nest’

A few weeks later, the first question was answered. The culture showed an unknown strain of salmonella , a common bacterial infection that is usually caused by contaminated food. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that it causes more than 1.3 million illnesses annually and results in more than 26,000 hospitalizations and 420 deaths. Neither Sternlieb nor her doctors knew how or when she contracted salmonella, which is known to cause hives if it settles in the intestine, Tachdjian said.

In Sternlieb’s case, the bacteria had burrowed into only one fibroid; the other seven were free of salmonella.

“I kept asking older doctors if they’d ever seen anything like this, and they said they hadn’t.” — Jessica Schneider, gynecologist

“It probably seeded itself in the GI tract and thought ‘Here’s a nice nest for me,’ ” said Tachdjian, who practices in Santa Monica and is an associate clinical professor of medicine and pediatrics at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine.

But the duration of Sternlieb’s infection, its location in a uterine fibroid and the recurring hives made the case something of a fascinoma — medical slang for an unusual and unusually interesting case, a status that would be enhanced by the discovery of its source.

“I kept asking older doctors if they’d ever seen anything like this, and they said they hadn’t,” Schneider said. A search of medical journals conducted by Tachdjian turned up nothing similar.

Because salmonella is a reportable disease, California health officials were notified.

Several months after her operation, Sternlieb received a home visit from a public health nurse with startling news: Her infection had been traced not to food but to a reptile.

Turtles are known to harbor salmonella, one reason federal law has long banned the sale of small turtles because of the risk they pose to young children. Other reptiles and amphibians including snakes, frogs and lizards are also carriers, which is why public health officials stress the importance of handwashing after touching them.

But her family never had a pet reptile, Sternlieb said. Because her symptoms started shortly after giving birth, Sternlieb’s infectious-disease doctor suspected she might have contracted the infection in the hospital, possibly from a staff member. At times during pregnancy and before delivery, the mother’s immune system is suppressed to prevent it from rejecting the fetus.

Another possibility, said Sternlieb, who wracked her brain trying to recall possible reptile exposures from nearly two decades earlier, is that the infection was transmitted by a pet reptile at the nursery school her then-4-year-old son attended. But she added that he never brought a reptile home and that she doesn’t remember the school keeping such pets.

Schneider said she began to recover almost immediately after surgery and has never had another episode. Doctors deemed the surgery a cure.

Tachdjian said he suspects she was exposed in the hospital and added that it’s fortunate she underwent surgery when she did. Had the fibroid ruptured, Sternlieb could have developed sepsis , a potentially fatal infection that results from bacteria coursing through the bloodstream.

In 2010, Tachdjian, Schneider and two other doctors published a report of her case in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology. Their goal, Tachdjian said, was to alert other doctors to consider abdominal hives as a possible sign of a simmering pelvic infection.

“You want these reports so the next [doctor] that runs into something like this gets imaging quickly,” he said.

Send your solved medical mystery to [email protected] . No unsolved cases, please. Read previous mysteries at wapo.st/medicalmysteries .

A previous version of this article included frogs as reptiles known to carry salmonella. Frogs are amphibians. The article has been corrected.

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FAA lifts temporary ground stop of Alaska Airlines flights after technical issue is resolved

The Federal Aviation Administration lifted a ground stop for all Alaska Airlines flights Wednesday after grounding the planes earlier as a result of a computer problem at the carrier.

The Seattle-based airline said in a statement that an issue arose “while performing an upgrade to the system that calculates our weight and balance.”

The FAA initially approved a ground stop for all Alaska and Horizon flights starting at approximately 10:50 a.m. ET.

It was lifted just before 11:45 a.m. ET.

It wasn't immediately clear how many flights were affected. An Alaska spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rob Wile is a breaking business news reporter for NBC News Digital.

Jay Blackman is an NBC News producer covering such areas as transportation, space, medical and consumer issues.