People Share Their Travel Horror Stories And They Make Staycations Sound Ideal
Traveling to different places around the world can create some of the best and most memorable experiences of your life. However, some trips are extremely memorable for the wrong reasons: like that you had a miserable time and everything went wrong.
People on Reddit came together to share their travel horror stories and, honestly, a staycation seems like the way to go.
That's Pretty Unlucky Timing
"I landed in Kenya the day a coup started, so my group and I ended up stuck in the hotel for three 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 a.m."
Sounds Like It Was Awful From Start To Finish
"I had to bribe my way into Afghanistan from the Tajik border because the embassy screwed up my Tajik visa and made it a single entry. I was in Afghanistan for three days and couldn't sleep a single night because my head and neck were itching—turns out there were giant bugs all over.
"At the end of the trip, I went to go back across the border and the same guard I had to bribe tried to get more money out of me."
This Is Why We Don't Fall Asleep On Transit
"After a night on the town, while living abroad in Melbourne, I was taking the train back home when I dozed off. I woke up to a person shaking me and telling me it was the last stop and I had to get off. It was the middle of the night, my phone was dead, and I had no idea where I was.
"Eventually, I convinced the owner of a convenience store (the only building in sight) to set me up with a cab ride home. It cost over $100."
I Guess Spain Hates Phones...
"I ALWAYS 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."
This Is Why Everyone Needs GPS
"I was in a very remote part of Austria (Grünau) and wanted to 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 on an incline. My poor sense of direction had 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 turned around and instantly got a flat tire. It was getting darker and I was nervous. I eventually met two elderly Austrian men who gave me a phone and a large pint of Austrian beer to save the day."
Quite Literally A Sticky Situation
"I spilled a liter of orange juice on myself about 3 minutes into a 10-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."
A Lot Can Go Wrong In Two Minutes
"Last summer, I went to Europe with two friends of mine. On our last night at our first stop, Paris, we got drunk and my friend left his bag for about two minutes. He ran back to the bar, but it was gone along with the 250 Euro he just extracted from an ATM, his debit card, his passport, his Eurail pass, and IDs.
"It was the Friday of the July 4th weekend, meaning the U.S. embassy wouldn’t open until the following Tuesday. In the end, he had to stay in Paris and we completed the Eurotrip without him."
You Ever Have Your Hostel Just Disappear?
"A friend and I stayed in the Amazon jungle in Peru. After five days out in the wild, I was ready for a nice warm shower and a good night's sleep in a decent bed. The hostel was a set of floating buildings right on the river. We decided to go for dinner in the city. It started to rain incredibly hard, so we waited it out. We went back to find our hostel had dislodged from its anchor and floated down the river.
"The staff thought that we'd been in our rooms and called the police to retrieve us. When they didn’t find us in our room, they started to search the river with spotlights and every boat they could spare. They were so relieved when we just walked up."
She Has A Much Nicer Job, Thank You Very Much!
"In Turkey, a lot of the public toilets have attendants outside that you have to pay some small amount of money 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.
"Except, this woman wasn't a toilet attendant. She started screaming 'You think I am a toilet attendant?!' in broken half-German-half-English and started chasing him down the road waving her handbag at him. Then a very confused German man came out of the toilets wondering where his wife has gone to."
That Could Have Taken A Much Worse Turn
"During a flight to Germany, a woman stood up and starts screaming and pointing. A couple others stoop up and moved away from the middle row of seats where a man was unconscious. The flight attendant overreacted, slapped him, and started yelling so the whole cabin started to panic. A couple more flight attendants arrived and carried the (still) unconscious man to the food prep area and called for a doctor over the plane intercom.
"An hour later the man walked out of the food prep area and sat back down in his seat, saying he was 'just fine.'"
People Can Be So Inconsiderate...
"While staying in a hostel, a couple openly, unapologetically, started doing the nasty on the bottom bunk while I was on the top bunk. I was tired from traveling and pretty pissed off that I had to stay up until 2 a.m. in the lobby waiting for them to finish because nobody wants to see/listen to that.
"Then, at 5 a.m., I woke to my bed rocking back and forth again."
They Do Sound Pretty Similar
"After taking an 8-hour flight to Rome, I found out that my luggage hadn't been put on the plane. While arguing with the local airline customer service about the situation, we ended up missing our connecting flight to Budapest, Hungary.
"The airline worker arranged another flight for us, which we had to run to catch and were the last ones to board. It wasn't until we landed and tried to catch a cab that we realized she had sent us to Bucharest, Romania instead."
Stranger Danger!
"While traveling alone in Argentina at age 18, I met a man who also claimed to be a traveler and asked if we wanted to explore Buenos Aires together. We toured some spots before grabbing dinner together and following it up with drinks. I woke up eight hours later missing my debit card, iPod, cellphone, and travel guide."
That Poor, Poor Woman
"Not my story, but United Airlines once assured a blind woman that they would help her off the plane but only after the other passengers had gotten off, and then they forgot about her and locked the plane up with her in it after everybody else had left."
Next Time, Write The Address On Your Hand
"I left Oktoberfest at 11 p.m. with my friends and took the subway towards our campsite. I got off the train to go get food promising the meet them back at camp. I got off the wrong stop at 1 a.m., 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.
"Luckily, I managed to find a hotel concierge who was kind enough to find the address of the place I was staying and I taxied back at 4 a.m."
R.I.P. Nana
"We found out my grandma died and rushed to the airport to get tickets to go to the funeral (this was before the internet). The ticket counter was closed so we were told to return the next day at 5 a.m. We returned the next day at 5, but the agent didn't get there until 6 a.m.
"After getting ticketed and checked in, it was already 6:45 a.m and the flight was at 7:30 a.m. By the time we go through security, it was 7:25 a.m. We rushed to the gate and made it on time...to see the plane taxiing to the runway."
Not Exactly A Magical Experience
"I was traveling with my (now) ex to Disney World. She had to poop but we were very far from the next stop. She kept saying she could not hold it and started crying in frustration.
"I pulled over to the side of the road, but she said she could not do it in front of people, and then she let out a fart and pooped her pants. Needless to say, the trip was ruined, and so was the front seat."
Up A Creek With No Paddle (Kind Of)
"I took a jet ski down the Rio Grande river. It sucked up a rock and broke down miles from anywhere. I then had nothing but a swimsuit, a cell phone with no signal, and a broken jet ski, and I was alone on the Mexican border, miles from any form of civilization.
"'Twas not a good day."
He Would've Been Better Off Outback Camping
"I drove through 14 states from Oregon to Florida. One motel room I stayed in was sinking into the gully behind it—it literally had a slope. In Lubbock, I spent one night at a Super 8 Motel that had a light fixture hanging by its wires, and one of the cement steps was nothing but rubble."
I Would Have Thrown Up On Sight
"While traveling, I decided to stay at this hotel in Ottawa. I went to the room, got ready for bed, but when I pulled back the covers there were BUGs! I never knew I could pack up and leave a place so fast.
"Now I always thoroughly check beds and pillows whenever I check into a room."
