Travel can be all kinds of exciting, but the mix of new places, systems and an unfamiliar language can very quickly become a recipe for disaster.
Someone asked “Everyone has a travel blunder, what's yours?” and netizens shared their most embarrassing stories. We got in touch with veteran travelers Caz and Craig Makepeace to learn more about red flags. So get comfortable, scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to share your own thoughts in the comment section below.
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41M..Plane hit turbulence, dislocated both hip replacements. Had to lay in the center aisle for 45 minutes all while passing out in pain until we could emergency land.
At the end of a trip to Rome, I needed to take a train to the airport to catch my flight. So at the track where the train to Roma Fiumicino was announced, I got on the train. The train was fast but it took way longer than I thought and I started to worry a bit that I would be late for my flight. Then we arrived at the next train station. Which was Florence! So somehow I had taken the wrong train, for which I did not have a ticket, *and* I had missed my flight. I explained the situation to the conductor, and he kindly let me stay on until the next stop, which would be Milan, without having to pay for a new ticket. By the time we reached the next station, I had gone online to book a hotel room in Milan and to book a new flight from Milan home the next day. I had never been to Milan and I had a good time there, so in the end it worked out.
Case full of firearms. Airline lost it, when I explained that it was filled with firearms they magically found it 15 minutes later.
Put my keys back through the letterbox of the AirBnB as requested.
Few minutes later realised I needed the keys to access the garage my rental car was parked in.
Took an hour and a half for someone to appear and let me in. Got to the airport just in time to see my plane take off.
Not mine but I saw something about an airport in Austria that has an entire department dedicated to assisting travelers who are supposed to be in Australia.
I lived in China in college and took a trip from Beijing to Kunming, travelling across a large portion of the country. We took a 28-hour bumpy train ride, learning when we arrived that it would have been cheaper to fly.
Falling asleep in a train with my headphones on and my backpack not close to me…
Woke up and it was gone.
Train from Budapest to Vienna.
My wife and I are relatively frequent and experienced travelers but made a rookie mistake.
Left my driving license in a village which was only accessible by trekking back then. On top of that, it was left in the top most hotel.
I had checked out from the hotel, trekked for 45 mins to reach a bus point, caught two buses to reach another town with the total duration being approx. three hours in total.
Upon reaching there, the new hotel asked me for my license. Me realizing my blunder had to go back the whole route back again, trek up and down again just to get my driving license and wasting an additional 6-7 hours.
Landed in Mexico City in 2008.
Man in airport asks if I need a taxi and I did, so I accepted. He walks me to his car and I open my Mexico travel book and start reading. It tells me not to accept rides from taxis unless they are at formal stands, and to always negotiate the total fare in advance, so you don't get ripped off. I ask my driver how much the fare is, and the amount he asks is more than the cash I had, SO I ask him to take me to an ATM.
I keep reading my guide book, and it says not to let anyone take you to an ATM, because they might rob you. The driver leaves the main road and drives through an impoverished looking neighborhood with some dude laying face down on the sidewalk in the middle of the day. We get to an ATM, I walk over and withdraw the money, and as I turn around the driver says "Stop." I figure I'm going to get robbed but je just points out that I had left my debit card in the ATM.
We drove on to my destination (a big bus station) where I discovered he charged me 5x the standard fee.
I got lucky, don't be that dumb.
Forgot underwear. Was staying at a cheap resort in a tiny town. No one sold clothing. Nearest possible place was on another island or the mainland.
Made do with the one pair I was wearing and a swim suit during washings.
A friend of mine and I were playing the floor is lava in our hotel room. Turns out the bench in the entrance of the room couldn't take someone jumping onto it from the bed. We paid for the bench obviously, but it was hard coming up with a story less stupid than the truth.
Being detained by the Chinese military police in Beijing for having a camera in my pocket at the living tomb of Mao Zedong.
Forgot about time difference and booked all the hotels a day later than required. For a 2 week trip.
I missed my flight home on a layover in Rome from Ghana to California. And… well… I told everyone I fell asleep and missed the flight. But I really was sitting at the wrong gate reading and didn’t hear that they apparently had been calling my name forever and then just left me behind. To my credit it was a really good book. And I truly was exhausted from traveling. Even though I missed my flight they tried to put me on the next one, but that one was overbooked so they ended up paying for a hotel there. Wasn’t that big a deal in the end lol.
I missed a flight because I was eating a Big Mac. My buddy got on the flight without me.
Not me but someone i traveled with. Missed his plane cause he bought a novelty item shaped like a bullet (think it was a bottle opener or something) and left it in his locked bag. Security were not too happy when they found that.
I made hotel reservations for the wrong weekend. Had to find a hotel 30 minutes away. The original reservations were for a hotel we could walk out of our room onto the beach.
I accidently missed a Saturday 12:15 am flight showing up at Sunday 12:15 am. My brain said: Saturday 12:15 = "Saturday Night".
