" We got on the charabanc and slept . Sometime afterward , she woke me up thinking it was uncanny that we were in France . "
Seasoned travelers know that it’s only a matter of time before you do something that completely derails your travel plans. Like when I thought aone-hourlayover was enough time to catch my connecting flight out of Heathrow (spoiler alert: it wasn’t). Or when I spent weeks looking at the weather report for the wrong city and ended up packing sweaters for 80ºF weather.
Recently, Reddit useru/Medium-Decision6899took to ther/travelcommunity toask"What is the dumbest travel mistake you’ve made?" and the responses had me feeling A LOT better about all of my travel mishaps. Here’s what people had to say:
1.“I was traveling in Belfast and then taking a flight to Paris from the Belfast airport. When I got to the bus station, I asked for a ticket to the airport. I got my ticket and got on the bus. Thirty minutes into the trip, I checked my Google Maps and saw we were headed in the wrong direction. I asked someone if the bus was going to the Belfast airport. He looked horrified and told me it was going to theDublinairport. I missed my flight and had to get a new, way more expensive flight from the Dublin airport.”
2.“I agreed to carry a parcel of raw meat home to LA from some acquaintances in Dhaka. I had gotten ill in Dhaka, so I was in no mental state to question why the fuck they would want me to do that. It leaked blood inside my luggage, which ensured the customs officials wanted nothing to do with it. I still wonder what that was about.”
— u / No - Understanding4968
3.“Arriving at 1 p.m. for a 1 a.m. flight, 12 hours too late. The flight was from India to the US so it was a very expensive mistake.”
4.“My wife had her PhD defense in her home country (we lived in another country at the time), so she flew there a few days in advance to get everything ready. I flew there the day before her defense. I drove to the airport and parked in one of those cheap parking lots with shuttle service to the airport terminal. Once I got to the terminal, I realized I had forgotten my passport at home. After a solid two minutes of panicking hard and sweating, I decided that I could still make it for the next (and last) flight of the day. Of course, my ticket was not refundable nor transferable, so I was screwed on that front. But missing the flight would have been WAY worse.”
" The next shuttle to the parking lot was in 45 minutes . So I got a taxi , went to get my railway car , bolted through a substantive number of speed traps on the main road , got home plate , took the passport , bolted back , and stopped to leave my car at the same parking as before , butthe guy informed me that the next shuttle to the terminal would be in 45 minutes , again . There was no path I ’d make it .
So I just aver screw it and conk out to the unforesightful - term parking in the depot itself which costs 10 time more . But at that point I was push for survival — I HAD to get on the next planer or I would have miss one of the most important days in my married woman ’s life . When I finally found a dapple for the elevator car , I sprinted to the airway desk to bribe a ticket . Of course , there were no thriftiness ticket left so I had to get a occupation class ticketthat assassinate my credit card . But hey , I made it on time .
Once I finally boarded the aeroplane , I was exhausted . I took off my cap and fold it under my head as a pillow . I just want to sleep . Hey , what do you know , there was something in the pocket of the jacket . I. Wanted . To . Fucking . Die . It was my ID card . I could have flown with just that . There was no need to go back for the passport . I had it with me the whole fourth dimension . "
— u / cumguzzlingislife
5.“I booked a trip to Istanbul in December. I assumed it would be warm because it was on the Mediterranean and in the Middle East. Didn’t check the weather predictions, didn’t pack any warm clothes, and it was snowing when I arrived.”
6.“I once booked a month-long Airbnb for the wrong month. I also remember buying a plane ticket for the wrong day. If there is one lesson I feel the need to impart to the world, this is it: if you feel you’re getting a really good deal unexpectedly, make sure to check the details instead of rushing to pay for it.”
— u / Bruce_e
7.“Went on a week-long hiking trip to the Grand Canyon in college and I forgot to pack a single pair of underwear. I ended up going to the doctor when I got home because I had such a bad rash on my scrotum.”
" With my wallet now firmly lost , I expire back to Alhambra and did my best to bask the trip-up . While the tour was going on I did n’t have cell coverage , but when the term of enlistment was throughthe cab driver had sent an email to my work name and address ( my stage business card was in my wallet ) saying he had it!I would have to get in touch with the cab companionship to dispatch them to me to pick up the billfold and I ’d have to pay a few vaulting horse .
My Spanish is n’t very good , so when I got back to my hotel I had to act as a literal game of telephone with the front desk and the cab company to get them to dispatch the number one wood . Something was lost in translation because I sat around the antechamber for hours — no money and no hope . finally , after a few minute , I decide to use my last 0.75 Euro to grab a soda .
I walk down the street and I see the cab number one wood go by . I ended up sprinting a few blocks down to chase him and got the wallet back(tipped him 20 buck ) and got on my way . I pretermit my jalopy and had to reschedule my hotel , but I pay back everything back . gratuitous to say , I never impart all my money in my wallet and now fan out deferred payment cards and hard currency throughout my baggage / somebody . "
— uracil / flatlanded
9.“I took a red-eye charter to theGreekIslands in the 1990s. Opened the duty-free on the plane and got wasted, as good 19-year-olds do on a boys' trip. When we arrived, we saw our two bags on the luggage band. We grabbed them and took the chartered bus to the hotel. After checking in to the hotel, we crashed in bed. After one hour, we got woken up by the tour guide knocking on our door. He had two identical bags in his hand. He informed us we took some other guests' bags at the airport. Oops.”
10.“Mine was being an inexperienced 19-year-old traveler bringing lots of German beer to Liverpool in a duffel bag. About 10 or 12 bottles broke and the bags on the conveyor belt were soaked in beer. People were angrily mumbling over it — then mine came. The whole bottom was drenched and eyes were all over me as I quietly snuck out.”
— u / DoneTravelling
11.“My friend booked us a bus to Amsterdam from the south of Germany. We got on the bus and slept. Sometime later, she woke me up thinking it was weird that we were inFrance. We contemplated it but figured it wouldn’t be totally unreasonable for the bus to drive through the west of France and Belgium to get to the Netherlands. But after we checked the city names, it was clear we were already near the English Channel.”
12.“I do a really stupid thing almost every time I travel! Most notable: Leaving all cash and IDs in my safe in the hotel room in Mexico and going into town with only one credit card. Didn’t realize it until I had to try and get a ride back to the hotel and no one had the ability to take credit. No banks would give me a cash advance, obviously. I had to beg a shopkeeper to charge my card for cash — he charged me $80 and gave me $30.”
— uracil / CalmAsYouAre
13.“I showed up for my flight exactly 24 hours before departure. Luckily, they got me on or I would’ve had to go home and repeat the whole process the next day. Extra vacation day I guess so that was cool.”
14.“On a very drunken night out in Thailand, I gave my wallet to a lovely couple we had spent the day with on a trip to keep safe as I had no pockets in my shorts. Needless to say, I woke up the next day and the doom hit me. I kicked myself for the next few days and carried on with my trip with the help of my friends, mostly transferring money to them online. A few days, later I logged in to a computer at the hostel and found an email from LinkedIn with a connection request and a short message from the couple! They had tried finding me on all my socials but the only one that they found me on was LinkedIn. They managed to post it to my next hostel and it was on my bed waiting for me! Heroes.”
— uranium / inbelfast
15.“I booked a ticket to the Anne Frank museum tour and stood in line. The ticket was for the following year.”
16.“I am subscribed to a flight deal service and was waiting for a flight to pop up to France or Italy for a trip to Corsica. A deal finally popped and I was stoked. I started talking to my then-partner about dates and stuff knowing we had about a day or two before it expired. We kept clicking on different cities to find the best price and settled on Florence.”
" When the time issue forth to buy a ticket , it had gone up about $ 100 but was still cheapest so we chose it . When I hold out to piece seats after we pay , I was put off as to why it was a regional plane . perhaps because it was such a ripe mickle ? Nope . I had booked a two - workweek trip to Florence , South Carolina . fortunately I catch it within 48 hr and was able to set off it , but we missed the flight of stairs pile . "
— u / pycckuu_brady
17.“I booked a train from Venice on the Trenitalia site. When the train never arrived, I discovered I’d booked a bus. We missed it.”
18.“Drunk, February, late-1990s in Brussels. I clicked my apartment key against the old-fashioned elevator door as I ascended. Shocker, it fell. I went outside at midnight with only a bus pass and 35 Belgian francs to my name (I didn’t have a credit card) because I idiotically thought I needed to get on the bus before it stopped running. A man on the bus offered to let me stay in his apartment. I said okay, picturing myself sleeping on the couch in the living room. Instead, it was a tiny garret with blaring radios strapped to the doorknobs. Woke up to him blowing his hair dryer on me under the covers because it was cold. Nothing awful happened, but man, it sure could have.”
— uranium / sweetpotatopietime
19.“Not me, but my husband. The night before our first trip to Barcelona he noticed his passport had expired. Hotels were nonrefundable at that point so I waved goodbye and did the trip solo.”
20.“I was leaving Germany after surprising my then-girlfriend in Berlin last minute. I’d booked a very cheap flight from NYC to Frankfurt, but, of course, had to trek from Frankfurt to Berlin and back for the flights. While taking the ICE train from Berlin to Frankfurt, a gal came and sat inside my little private car. Turns out she was a dancer at one of the private clubs in Berlin and was on her way to Frankfurt.”
" She was rolling a huge stick toward the ending of the stumble and offered to roll me one . I decided not to fume the joint and instead gather it in my waistbandfor the flight of stairs . While conk through security , I got sag for a secondary search . I was freak out the F out walking behind the two officers and break down the joint inside of my pants , allow it fall out of the bottom of my pants wooden leg .
I anxiously got into the image scanner , answered a few query ( surely sweating ) , and was cleared to take my thing and go . walk back toward the initial security part , I saw the weed and newspaper publisher scattered on the floorand was more than positive they would see this and persist cameras on it .
Needless to say , I was waiting on the flight of steps for them to come in , twitch me out of my keister , and lock me up for seven lifetime sentences . I prayed for the doors to close down and to be wheels up . Finally , it pass — we ingest off and I feel so damn relieved . In hindsight , I was overreacting , but I was also very unintelligent .
— u / brittlebk
21.“My wife and I traveled to New Zealand for six weeks to go camping, then flew toHawaiifor a week to visit friends. I had a car and condo rented in Hawaii but on the plane to Hawaii I realized the day we lost going to New Zealand, we were gaining back going to Hawaii (International Date Line). So we had to scramble as we had no car or housing for our first day there since we technically arrived in Hawaii hours before we left New Zealand.”
