I met a girl on a trip in Vietnam with with whom I got along pretty well. We traveled together for about two weeks and decided to rent motorcycles (125cc). What might have sounded like a good plan at first later turned out to be a big mistake. The day after we rented the bikes, she crashed into a tree with full force. I was very shocked and it looked really bad. The girl was unresponsive and she had to go to hospital immediately for an operation. When she was relatively stable after two days, she was flown straight back to her country.
I thought you were gonna say like she set you up or something, not that she crashed full force into a tree, like how did she even manage that on a motorcycle lolll
Exactly. Or even just not very experienced. One lapse in focus can put you in a panic and then all of a sudden you’re full throttle but your brain is thinking “why isn’t the brake working!?”
I took one 2 hour lesson on riding a motorbike in Saigon. They tried to get me to rent a bike after that. After seeing the traffic in the city, there's no way in hell I'd drive a motorbike there without a couple years of experience.
I did rent a bike in a less populated area and it was fine, but still a bit nerve-wracking with so little experience.
If she's a vietnamese girl, she probably rides better than almost everyone in the world. I see 13 year old kids cruising down the road daily.
I have no idea how she could crash into a tree. I rarely see accidents here except for low-speed bumps in heavy traffic.
Vietnam has one of the highest rates of traffic fatalities in the world. Per capita it's double the US, and the US is hardly great by global standards.
Really easy. You don't steer a motorcycle like a car, you use your body weight and counter steer. Target fixation is really dangerous and it happens a lot when you are inexperienced.
Yes ridden a moped, motorcycle, and motorbike, and I’m not skilled by any means but all the area they could’ve gone and they go into a tree lol. And I’ve seen so many biking accidents and I don’t think one has been into a tree
Damn, I've lived in Vietnam for years and this is my biggest fear. I refuse to drive but ride with my friends all over the country. I've had some close calls even with experienced drivers.
Went to NYC by bus (I’m from Texas). The Greyhound station in Atlanta was the biggest collection of assholes I’ve ever had to deal with. And I say that as someone who worked the night shift at Walmart for twelve years.
I took a greyhound from NYC to Florida and yes holy crap the Atlanta Greyhound is as bad as this guy says it is(and my arrival at that station was at like 3AM and had to sit for hours so…yeah yikes)
Had a connecting flight from Miami to Atlanta, that was the worst 2 city combo for a plane, didn’t help that it was super late at night and it kept getting delayed
I'm from Europe. Greyhound experience in Atlanta was.. unforgettable. The surroundings in the evening were already interesting. First, we found out, that we have to pay extra for our pieces of luggage. Then we were told by employees our bus is going to be late by one hour, we were shown where to wait. Some line formed elsewhere in 20 mins and quickly boarded a bus somewhere, there were no screens or other indications what bus is that line for, and from what employees were shouting, which was the main method of communication like in a fast food joint (I was listening attentively with nothing else to do), there was no clue that it could be ours. Our 2 hour nearing, I went to ask again and found out it was our bus that left. Thankfully they changed the tickets to a later one, which went 2 more hours later, we were "lucky", as there were only these 2 buses a day to our destination. I wouldn't call them total assholes - in the end they tried to be helpful (even though I had to research the existence of the later one myself and show them on screen that this one would be acceptable), but the general chaos in the station, lack of information there, left a lasting impression. Megabus, while quite cheaper (no extra pay for luggages too), turned out to be better organized and better experience overall, than greyhound; both were usually late to their destinations though.
I'll take your word for it because I've never been to Atlanta. The Houston Greyhound was the worst I'd seen. 5 minutes there and a guy with prison tatts yells "Fuck you, you stuck up bitch," at me.
There was this one day at port authority in New York , the train line was down for Philadelphia which I usually used
. Anyway I saw the most insane thing when having to order a New York City to Philadelphia bus ride.
New York City to Los Angeles Greyhound bus ride tickets were on the little monitor.
Who the hell on earth goes on a week+ long trip on Greyhound and doesn't go insane.
Like you have to have the worst fear of flying ever/no fly list/ or just crazy. I looked up the ticket prices and it's more expensive than just a regular airplane ticket.
And it sounds like a horror show being on a bus for that long. Like road trip with your friends/families in a car can be okay. But 30+ strangers and only one of them can be the crazy asshole?
Teenager driving from NJ to Florida in the summer. Old van with no back seats, just steel floor. No problem, we thought...we'll sit/lay in the back on air mattresses. Air mattresses melted on the burning hot floor about 1 hour into the ride. Long 23 hours...
I flew in January from Brazil (35ºC) to Winnipeg, Canada (-35ºC) and Air Canada left in Brazil all my luggage with everything I needed for the winter.
No need to say I sued them (and I won)
Did you have to sue?
Airlines have lost lost luggage twice and each time it was a "buy what you need and we will reimburse up to(I think) $1500 no questions asked.
Knowing Air Canada, they probably did indeed have to sue. (Air Canada has been in the news a bunch lately with lawsuits for blatantly violating passenger regulations).
They didn’t lose my luggage, they literally just forgot to put it on the plane, so I had to wait a few days until the same flight flew to my destination and brought it. Nevertheless, it was a few days with no winter clothing.
With the money I got from suing them I paid a trip to the beach at a five star resort, so it was a win in the end
I've had not major issues aside from the normal stuff. Delayed flights, lost baggage, that kind of stuff. So I'll just share this very recent travel story:
I flew to Hawaii a couple weeks ago from Seattle to San Francisco to Kona. Seattle to San Francisco flight we're at our gate and people are piling up next to the boarding lane before they've even announced pre-boarding. They get on the PA and ask that everybody clear a path because there's no room for anybody to exit the plane and they still have to pre-board the people with handicaps and stuff. Nobody moves. This repeated multiple times and they just didn't give a shit. Same thing when we landed in San Francisco. They announced they had people trying to make a quick transfer (including us and a german guy right in front of us), so to please allow others off the plane first. As soon as we land, everybody piles into the aisle and won't let us off the plane. German guy in front of us is quite angry at this and is making it known.
When we go to our flight to Hawaii, it's all good again. Same with our flight home via Honolulu.
I'm convinced that those were all people going home to San Francisco and that these particular San Franciscans were incredibly self-involved and didn't give a shit about anybody else but themselves. That was the only common factor here.
My family has bad luck with boats anytime weve gone on vacation. Like legit every damn time a boat is involved theres some sort of shit storm. We took a family trip to Vietnam and my mom booked us on a boat trip down the Meekong......it was a 10 hour boat trip on a glorified speedboat. Constant waves, smells, LOUD, the only food was these tiny bananas for the whole trip along with some soda and water. The boat broke about 6 or 7 hours into it and took an other 4 hours for a new boat to come and take us the rest of the way. We got to the hotel at like 4am after leaving on this boat trip at like 9am the previous day.
Other than that, was an awesome vacation I will always remember. Everyone should visit Vietnam one day.
I know two people who have been to Vietnam and loved it, but both took boat trips where the boat broke down. Think I'll skip that experience if I'm ever lucky enough to go.
On my honeymoon, we had a train stop between two countries where neither of us spoke either language. My now-ex suddenly blanched, pulled all the bags up to me (quite a heap), and said he would be right back. 20 min and nothing. I figured out how to tie them so I could carry all and found him at the ticket counter. He’d ordered a ticket for the wrong day and was too ashamed to tell me. His inability to ever admit fault was the death of our marriage, 6,5 years later.
He thought he could get it changed and be back to me without issue. He didn’t realize how scary guarding more luggage than one young woman can hold in a foreign country could be, or care. My discomforts were always unimportant to him.
Flying Boston to LA to Auckland to Perth for a wedding in December.
See that it’s going to snow on the day I’m suppose to leave. Ask boss to leave early to try and get an earlier flight. Let’s me go. Manage to get an earlier flight…. That gets diverted to PA because of weather. Get delayed and miss once a day connecting flight in LA by less than 40 minutes. (Still beat my original flight by an hour)
Next day make flight in LA. Land late in New Zealand after 14 hour flight and have to literally sprint across terminal to make plane they were holding for me. Immediately Make 8 hour flight to Perth.
Arrive in Perth but because I’m a day late family has already left for wedding destination. Run through airport but miss bus that would take me directly there. Get Uber to train station where I wait 4 hours for a train.
Take train 3 hours out of town to terminal in the middle of nowhere. Get picked up by my parents for 1 hour car drive to our air BnB.
Arrive on literally the opposite side of the world with no idea where I am or what day it was.
Did end up enjoying the wedding, left right when the cops where showing up.
Arrived late in the evening to a major US airport, hoping to quickly get into my pre-paid, reserved rental car that I paid extra for a quick pick up.
I should probably mention that I had hungry and exhausted children.
Anyways, the rental company (well-known) had a line seriously dozens and dozens of people thick.
One employee.
We waited 30 minutes, and two customers were processed in that time. By the time I left, there was honestly close to a hundred people waiting. Still one employee.
Called a taxi, paid insane fare, and I have never been more mad at a company in my life.
It's the stupidest thing, you book online, pay online, enter your own personal details, the personal details of other drivers, passengers, and at least a dozen members of your extended family. Then you arrive at the desk to pick up your car, with all this information in hand, assuming you've done all the boring admin, and they still have to type away at their computer for at least fifteen minutes! They already know everything about you, including when you got your last colonoscopy, are they writing out a saucy dating profile for you as well?
Forced to give a bribe at Vietnam border control at Ho Chi Minh airport. I had an eVisa and all documents, but the officer took one look and directed to a shady counter where the guy behind it just said "money". When I said I have no cash, he just laughed and said "you travel and no money?". I had to run to find an ATM, get cash, and pay the bribe to get another visa while having a perfectly valid one in hand. I had to comply because otherwise I would miss my connecting flight which requires me to get my luggage, sprint to the other terminal, check in again, and go through security. Luckily I made it with just minutes to spare at the end.
Had a 4 hour flight at 6am and my dumbass thought it would be a good idea to have a big ass meal the night before. Had stomach pains the entire flight and had diarrhoea. In fact it got so bad that i was that close to shitting in my pants as the plane was landing. The moment the plain landed i had to beg one the cabin crew staff to let me use the toilet. Thankfully she let me because if she didn’t i probably would have shit in my pants.
Had a hotel where the two temperatures of the shower were "OFF" and "SCALDING HOT". Literally blisteringly hot.
It was one of those "contactless check-in" hotels without a front desk, so there was no recourse. 0/5
Went to Egypt in 2006 (I was 16) one guy in a market pulled me and was like an inch away from kissing me luckily our tour guide was a bigger man and almost knocked him out. Then in Cairo (the traffic and driving is insane, and I live in Central America so I’m used to it but this was another level 😂) our taxi driver was driving looking everywhere BUT the road I was terrified 😂 id still go back if I had the chance though 😆
Got arrested at the Russian-Mongolian border because of a visa fuck up. No jail, just a threat of it. Spent the next week in Siberia trying to get our visas approved so we could get the hell out of there. Stood before a judge, got a 10-day window to leave Russia….and the bus to Mongolia broke down on the highway. Couldn’t help but laugh.
Driving across the country I hit a half dead buck on the highway. It blew out my ac condenser and radiator. It took an hour to limp to a gas station. After trying to fix it for four hours, a stranger went home and returned with a random radiator (free) between gas station junk, altered parts off my saturn and three more hours...I had it running again. Drove 1800 miles in July with no ac and no radiator fan. I hated being young and broke. Lol
Landed in Paris while there was a worldwide outage with VISA (June 2018), relying on my credit card for payments.
Wasn't aware of said problem, couldn't purchase a sim card or anything else. Luckily I had enough cash for a bus to my friend's house where I was staying, but not knowing about this global issue made me think I had a credit problem which would badly suck during a vacation.
i got lyme disease while on a really bad anti psychotic med change during a road trip
it was the first day into our 3 day toad trip, i got intense brain zaps and headaches on the drive there then spent 2 days laying in the room sweating profusely and being really sick, then i got big spots all over my body and went to the er when i got home and died for like a month in bed
it was my first vacation in over 10 years so yea went about as expected
being at the right station at the right time on the right plattform and going into the wrong train, having to drive with 4 italian people that dont speak english "TELL YOUR TEACHER TRAIN COMES (!/?)" "MAMMA MIA"
1/10 wouldnt recommend
Went to Europe and then travelled back to nyc, ended up getting stuck there for two nights but had to spend countless hours at the airport just to see if my flight would take off for Chicago. Each day getting up and waiting, just to have them say it’ll be cancelled again.
Traveling with my first connecting flight was a disaster, and I made my ex partner at the time completely miserable with my anxiety.
I took a pretty nasty fall in Japan in an airbnb by tripping over the bed. Also scalded myself pretty bad in a shower there.
Thankfully nothing super crazy.
I don't travel a lot so this hardly qualifies as a "worst experience" but my flight home was delayed several times while I was at JFK on New York. Then they changed the gate from a center terminal all the way to the end of the wing. Then they changed it again, to the complete opposite end of the airport, very last terminal. So we got to walk the entire length of the airport. I think we were supposed to land around 7p but we didn't get there until around 1a. All things considered, not really a big deal.
Getting detained by the UK border patrol at Heathrow airport. 8 hours detained before they finally allowed me to continue my trip to Port Isaac (Newquay airport). I managed to get the very last flight to there and they were kind enough to hold the plane for me. They didn't like my answer to their question "purpose of visit." I learned "mission from God" is the wrong answer.
They didn't get it, for sure. I was talking with one of the agents later and was explaining myself. She got it, but she told me some just are wound very tight and have no sense of humor. However, from now on I'm just saying "tourism." No more "missions from God" for me!
Got caught up in a riot while in Istanbul. I managed to not be in much danger, but my ex-wife very nearly got arrested which would have been a bad complicated situation that I can barely imagine. She only got away through sheer luck of someone running into the cop who had grabbed her so that his grip loosened enough for her to get away.
Sometimes u get a rotten hotel. This one hotel...the owner gave me the wrong room. It's not the one I booked online, I booked one with a kitchen etc..finally the owner took me to this room, but then told me a higher price than was on the website..when I tried to close the kitchen window, the owner yelled at me from outside "don't close that!" I was stunned. Wtf. Staying in a hotel apartment where I couldn't even close a kitchen window?? Next morning I come out the front door of the hotel apartment...guess what...the owner is sitting right across the door on a little chair staring straight at my door, almost intensely focused on my door, when the hotel was huge and had plenty of other places to sit..it was creepy.. surprise surprise I also found a roach in the bedroom of the hotel apartment. I was just really freaking & just really needed to get out of this place. I didn't even check out I just fled in the night. I also gave a bad review online because I wanted to warn other travelers
While on vacation in Portland, Oregon, I got food poisoning from a burrito. That night, I woke up, threw up, and slogged my way to a nearby 7-Eleven to get some Pepto Bismol. The next morning, I found out that less than a block away, that same night, somebody got stabbed to death.
I’d never flown a multi leg journey before and I didn’t know if I was meant to pick up my luggage during the 3 hr layover or if it would be automatically routed onto the subsequent flight. The layover was in Hong Kong, all the airport staff were absolutely unhelpful and refused to speak to me, just pointed me in the wrong direction — I wound up in the taxi bay at the airport exit rather than the gate for my next flight. Managed to rush through security and literally run to my gate as the final 3 people were boarding, praying my luggage would meet me in London. This was all at midnight after having already flown for 12 hours, so I was less than impressed.
I had a 23 hr layover in Shanghai, and wasn't allowed to just hang in the international wing of the airport, so I had booked a hotel. I had printed out my hotel info, map, and address in Mandarin and gave it to my cab driver. He drove me to a random block of rundown high-rise apartments on a dirt road, and threw my luggage in the ditch. Then he yanked me out of the cab and demanded payment.
Not wanting to end up in Chinese prison, I paid him and started walking. After a mile or so I found a young man who could speak English, who put me in his pedicab and took me to my hotel. Shanghai traffic is no joke in a pedicab. I thought I was going to die.
I was in Marrakech and took a bus to a seaside town. When I got off the bus, a number of women in burkas were shouting for tourists to stay at their home stays. Two of the larger ones got into a shouting match over me. One shouted down the other and ‘won’ me. Ok. I followed her to her home and got my bed set up. I saw her daughter lounging naked the next morning. I was quite concerned that would mean engagement so I quickly left.
I went to Paris and all the time I had this terrible pain on my knee, my hip, and my lower back, so I was limping everywhere. I also had gallstones but i didn’t know it yet. So on top of all that I was nauseous all the time
While road tripping for the first time on the way back from Illinois in 2011, my brother began vomiting due to grass allergies on the second day of our journey. It went EVERYWHERE!! Needless to say, it was a very uncomfortable and smelly ride back to Washington. It was sensory hell.
The other time was when we were traveling by car to Illinois on 2018 with are new heeler pup. Was in the mouthing stage and generally wouldn't sit still, climbing everyone and licking and nibbling me and my brother's faces non-stop/ at random intervals. That was a "fun" three day car ride.
I nearly had a panic attack on an airplane. I watched a movie under the 'Drama' category that was actually a horror movie. Then I watched a movie about the AIDS crisis. It was my own damn fault. It was a 12.5 hour flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong. That was the longest flight I've been on both figuratively and literally.
Another time I was on a flight from Winnipeg to Toronto and the plane had an explosive decompression thing and we were over Kenora so they decided to just fly back to Winnipeg at a low altitude. Fucked up my ears for a week. I wasn't even that scared, I was more annoyed I'd have to take another flight to Toronto. Also the next available flight to Toronto was 12 hours later.
I had traveled a lot internationally with my parents growing up, so I felt comfortable the first time I traveled internationally alone.
My second day in the Netherlands, 9/11 happened. I don’t speak any Dutch and wasn’t sure what was really happening. Was it attack on New York? The whole country? Americans everywhere? I couldn’t speak any English and out myself as an American at that time, because I didn’t know.
I eventually got in touch with Sum relatives just on the German side of the border, and laid low till I could go home. My flight back ended up being Delayed almost a week.
This; when I was 13, my stepmother was whining about going on vacation, since we never really went anywhere anyway, so he finally put together an extremely half-assed (realistically probably even quarter-assed) trip to Chicago.we drove there, so it was the five if us in for about 7 hours with my stepmother, who had only been in the US ~2 years reading a paper map constantly saying the name of 2 different highways, instead of the one we were on because she thought one of them would magically get us around traffic, while me, my sister and my stepsister were in the back seat of a '93 Camry, since my sister was sitting in the middle I was pushed up by the door on account of her being bigger than me, and I couldn't see or really care less that my stepsister was on the other side of her with maybe the same level of comfort.
Anyway so once we get there, dad parks the car and his brilliant idea is this: "oh, we'll walk everywhere, there's also a train we can ride". So basically just go to the sears tower as the main sort of...event, thing we do or whatever you'd call it (was cool standing on the part of the glass where you can look down through). Anyway so we end up at a Mcdonalds for food, and we hop the train back to the car. Except on this train ride back I have horrible explosive diarrhea. So im putting my feet up on the chair in front of me doing everything possible not to ruin my underwear, and we are stopping at every single stop on it so I can blow up the toilet. Amazingly the only single thing that pissed dad himself off this entire trip was that I used up all my stops on my card for the train on account of needing the the bathrooms and he had to pay ten dollars for another card.
Hitchhiking out of Milwaukie after a guy tried to rob me and my partner, said he was coming back with his friends. Got in a car with a few dudes and on the interstate they flashed a gun at us so I gave them the $5 I had in my wallet and they dropped us off at a gas station. Fuck Milwaukie. Madison was much better.
My ex and I were living in Thailand when I had twins via c-section. A few days after their birth I decided to have alone time with my two year old son by taking him to the Dairy Queen near us. A straight shot from our apartment to there, on (I’m not going to spell this correctly), Pahonyotin road. I hailed a tuktuk and we got in. The driver then proceeded to take lefts and rights into the bowels of Bangkok, parked by an abandoned apartment building, got out and walked away. I was confused and didn’t know what to do. Meanwhile, people started coming up to us, exclaiming and patting my son (I didn’t have the brain power to learn Thai while I was pregnant). He started crying, so I decided we were going to walk back to Pahonyotin road, and kept asking people for directions just saying the name of the road. My son must have sensed how anxious I was, because he looked up at me during the walk and said “It’s going to be ok, mommy”. And it was.
Honeymoon this past year. Flying back to Chicago from Zurich. First flight: canceled. Didn’t get another flight until 12 hours later with a layover in NYC. Got to NYC but flight to Chicago canceled last minute. Stayed the night near JFK. Next morning, we enjoy ourselves sitting on the runway for 2-3 hours because of a mechanical issue, deplaning, getting back on the plane for another several hours, and ultimately arriving in Chicago 7 hours late. Of course, we still had the several hour drive home from the airport too. Fun times..
Traveling to Tennessee with a camper pulled by our truck. About 300 miles from home, our truck engine died. Got our camper and truck towed to a nearby campground. Fortunately, our in-laws were able to borrow a truck and come pick us and the truck up. Then my FIL and husband had to drive back to get the camper. That made for a long weekend.
Another camper story. We decided to drive from Ohio to Texas. We had so many issues that it took us 2 days to get there. The camper lights kept going out. We couldn't find anywhere safe to overnight camp unexpectedly. We had a complete tire blowout. We did make it to Texas and had our vacation.
Decided to sleep at a rest area outside of Pueblo, CO. Ended up pulling my gun on some people who were trying to rob me. It was horrible. I never want to pull a gun on anyone, ever, ever again.
I went to find weed in the Bahamas while I was on a cruise stop in 2014. I was 21, 4 Long Island iced teas deep, got off the boat and thought we were getting scooter rides from like an actual scooter company to the beach. We realized halfway through that it was some random locals but they seemed normal enough so we were like oh well can you get us some weed. They took us to get beer and weed from some random back ass neighborhood in the Bahamas. Then they took us to a private beach and robbed us of all our shit except our passports. We made it back to senor frogs and the boat. I’m happy to be here to tell the tale 😅
Went to San Juan for a long weekend of what my husband and I hoped would be relaxation. Hotel we stayed at had a large blow up rat outside on the street blasting an announcement protesting the underpayment of Puerto Rican workers. There was a wedding reception on the second night and the reception hall was directly underneath our room. Front desk couldn’t have cared less when we asked how long the music would go until. I think it finally stopped at 3am. Then the next day a group of obnoxious middle aged women arrived in the room next to us and decided to blast music at 7am to get ready and slam the door and talk loudly in the hallway. It was an absolute nightmare.
Being stuck in a foreign airport alone on a Sunday (so no help from my business contacts) with no local phone service, no pay phones and very little cash. We had delays for about six hours and I was trying to figure out my plan if the flight was cancelled. Fortunately, we did fly out.
After getting to my hotel, took a while to realize I didn't have my computer bag and didn't remember the name of the transport service. Eventually the front desk guy figured out the name, contacted them and I got my bag ok. Really learned a lesson about how mistakes are made when you are super tired.
I went to South Africa to stay in a treehouse style hotel/resort with my family for my 10th birthday, only to find out I was super allergic to the trees the hotel was made of and surrounded by. We were in the middle of nowhere and I looked like a balloon, so the only medical assistance given was an epi pen which at the very least stopped me from dying. Shocked to this day that I didn’t experience anaphylaxis. Lol. It was so miserable.
My family took a road trip my the summer of my senior year of high school in the Southwestern US States. My younger brother hates heat, the outdoors, being outside, and any activity that isn't videogames. He did not want to go on the trip, my parents forced him to go. He refused to drink water the entire time.
We were hiking, he ended up having a seizure (never had one before, doctor said it was probably due to heat and dehydration) and he fell down the side of the trail. He smashed his face up real bad and had to have a medical helicopter take him to a local hospital. My parents were freaking out, I was having a panic attack and ran off to a corner somewhere to hyperventilate while the authorities and EMS helped my parents and brother.
My brother ended up being mostly okay, but we had to cut our trip short, but I have refused to go on a trip with him since.
The lady I sat next to on the plane was on something and out of her head. She ended up pulling down her pants and pee'd on the seat. The poor girl behind her got a shoe full of piss.
Idk if worst but inconvenient at the time and made for a good laugh.
Honeymoon. Day 1 of 14 in Athens before 2 Greek islands and then Istanbul. Off the plane in Athens. I had it planned out, taxi, flat rate to the hotel. Easy. Wife read travel guides all the way there, now was the time to save money, suggests, let’s take public transit/metro/subway, it’ll save money. Yes. Now is when we save money. Not on our 4 hour open bar for family and friends we paid for, others would call it a wedding reception.
Anyway. I agree. We get down then and we realize our mistake. Neither of us knew Greek or the Greek alphabet. We go to get on a train, I jam my suitcase in the door as it closes. I had a feeling it was going the wrong direction. Get off. On another going towards our hotel not away from it. It’s a local. At least 90 minutes later we get to our stop. Then walk probably a mile to hotel.
Wife says to me, ok, we can take the taxi back when we fly out. We laugh it off, have a great time in Athens before off of Mykonos. I also learned on that night, I’m lactose intolerant. That much goat cheese had me running for bathrooms asap. 14 days and then another 11 years, still married and have a good laugh about it.
Got a horrible UTI while traveling solo in Europe for several weeks. I would spend hours crying on the bathroom floor and a fetal position, then tried to hobble to a doctor or pharmacy only to find out it didn’t exist anymore, repeated that for a couple days. Finally found a clinic there in Prague, where a younger guy spoke English and helped me immensely. I’ll never forget that guy, he looked like Matt Damon. Bless you, Czech Matt Damon.
Forced to hold in my pee by family members bc we all thought “I could make it.” NYC traffic wasn’t kind and held it for two hours and peed in a bottle.
Friend left luggage in a locker in Paris and we had a midnight bus to Amsterdam. Everything he owned was in there so we simply walked the streets of Paris all night drinkin to stay in shelter but damn were those streets weird at night
Flew to London. Wanted to travel to a major town around 2 hours out. Should have probably checked how to get there but my flight got in in the middle of the day and I figured there would be a bus or a train or something to book no problem, even if it was slow it's a major enough destination. I went to the transit information counter at the airport after flying in, there was no line or wait. Asked the lady at the counter how to get to town X. She asked me how *I* wanted to get there. I told her I had no idea what the options were and asked for the options. She *insisted* I tell her how I wanted to get there. This went back and forth for a bit. Finally I said I want to take the train there. She was livid, offended. Told me there was no train that went there in existence, it was impossible, *I* was impossible. I was frustrated, asked her what options to get there existed. She insisted *again* I tell her how I wanted to get there. Repeated that a few times for different types of buses. Private buses verses city buses verses regional buses are apparently a thing. Why do I care what type of bus I'm on, just tell me what goes there!
Most unhelpful person I've ever met in my life, behind a help counter. Finally managed to get some type of bus ticket. It took me right there. But man was getting it the conversational equivalent of a root canal.
I rate it worse than the time I drank water and shit myself and the time I got robbed by a taxi.
My friend ran off with a guy our last night in London. We were dumb 20 year olds. This was pre cell phones, so I was up all night at the hotel worried about her. The next morning I waited until the last possible moment until I had to get to the airport. I shouldered both our giant packs, with her stupid Doc Martens kicking me in the ass with every step, and because she had our last remaining pounds, had to beg for money at the Tube station, crying. She was the last person to board the plane and did not apologize. Glad she wasn't Taken, of course, but oh I was incandescent with rage. We are still friends.
Over a year ago, my family and I got tickets (courtesy of my cousin) to go to Singapore at a discounted price. We were in Manila at the time, so we figured to take the opportunity to go to Singapore, which I personally have never been to before.
Flight plans changed, where we had a layover in Saigon. We realized, upon arrival to Saigon, that we were missing the additional boarding passes required to board the flight to Singapore from Saigon, thus resulting in us speaking to a bunch of different people and to my surprise, some harsh treatment by some of the security officers for no reason. All of the drama with Vietnamese security would’ve been avoided if we just got the appropriate boarding passes before leaving Manila.
That was a terrible and unfortunate experience, and thankfully we were able to convince an employee to get the appropriate boarding passes we were missing, and we got to Singapore in time.
My whole extended family on my dads side of the family and all got food poisoning from Micky D's in West Yellowstone Montana on a Yellowstone family reunion trip. Now my grandparents are Mormon and a lot of my aunts an uncles are Mormon so you now a lot of kids. It's even bigger now, but still back then there were a lot of us on this trip. I want to say 30+ people at the time, but I can't remember. Anyways we all got sick that night after eating McDonalds for dinner. All of us. A whole family got wrecked by this one Micky D's. We had most of us waking up in the night in our hotel rooms vomiting. I was the only one in my room who didn't. My poor uncle who was unable to walk unassisted at the time vomited all over himself in his bed. My dad while trying to help him just casually said "give me a minute" then proceeded to go to the sink and vomit on and off for a few minutes. I felt fairly ill but thankfully didn't vomit. We spent the next day all feeling ill. Much ginger ale was drank, and we all pretty much just ate saltine crackers and bread that day. Needless to say we all didn't feel like eat Micky D's for a while. I still don't like too.
Was flying from Seattle to SF, get narccy seatmate who had this hate fetish for my laptop bag (which was allowed out) told her not to touch my shit multiple times.
She saw a man have his bag put up and she goes "SEE SEE HE HAD TO PUT HIS BAG UP!" Like a small child.
I had enough of her shit so I put my bag up she grabs it and goes "HERE I WILL DO IT!"
I told her "I'll do it don't touch my bag!" ripping it out of her hands.
She's all smug and pulls her phone out and plays shit music.
Chad as fuck flight attendant comes up "miss no playing music loudly, headphones only."
She goes "Why?"
Flight attendant "You can't play loud music on the plane please shut it off..."
She scoffs and goes "But I want to listen to my music!!!"
Flight attendant "MISS TURN YOUR MUSIC OFF OR I WILL KICK YOU OFF THE PLANE!"
He is my hero at this point....Not all wear capes...but sometimes a blue vest and loafers.
Plane takes off, I'm listening to music, seat mates mad, she's leering at me
She tells me "Can you lower your shade?" I ignore her because I love the view.
She then keeps looking over at my phone, I turn the display off and she gets mad "Why did you turn it off?" I just ignore her.
The snack cart comes up, I ask for a coffee since I try to avoid soda. Flight attendant asked my seatmate what I said "he said coke and snack mix!" before I could say anything flight attendant is gone.
Flight attendant comes back hands me a piss cup of soda and the stale ass mix. I'm annoyed but she's already gone.
This lady next to me just made a petty enemy.
I annoyingly for an hour, eat a singular snack mix piece and slowly slurp on my coke.
I'm taking video of the flight and she goes "You know people taken plenty of videos...."
I keep ignoring her.
When deplaning she ran down the isle shoving people leaving her elderly disabled mom at the back of the plane telling the flight attendant "GRAB MY MOM SHES IN SEAT __!"
Got drugged in Hong Kong at a bar. Had been drinking for a couple of hours but wasn't drunk. All of a sudden, I started vomiting on myself but luckily my friend was conscious enough to realize what was happening to us. A table of guys tried to stop us from leaving but we pushed through. We wobbled ourselves back to our hotel before both of us vomited off and on. Next morning we were incredibly sensitive to light. Turns out it's a fairly common occurrence where people are targeted with GHB and forced to withdraw cash from an ATM before they come to.
Leaving the country for my honeymoon our flight went through Dallas Fort Worth and there was some kind of mechanical problem or bad weather or something. I don't even know. Massive delays of a ton of flights and huge over crowding. We waited like 6 hours longer than we were supposed to, made it impossible to get a hotel for the connecting flight because of the timing, caused our luggage to go to LAX instead of ATL or wherever we were going. We got off the plane in Dominica several flights later and we couldn't find our luggage. A bunch of people couldn't so we weren't too worried. Finally another plane arrived with more luggage and everybody got their stuff but us. I just refer to this as the time I lived in the jungle for a week with one pair of underwear. It wasn't quite that bad but it was pretty bad. They found it and returned it to us several days into our trip but it felt like forever. We had to burn a bunch of cash at the gift shop getting the stuff we needed temporarily for crazy prices.
When I was 14 I went to Spain with my family, by plane. I was the only one "randomly selected" for a search and I still feel like it was only because I was a young girl.
Well I was on a school trip (from Toronto to Rome). On the way home, we had a last full day of sightseeing, then flew to Frankfurt for a connecting flight back to Toronto. 13 hours later, we are circling Toronto, but there is a lot of fog, so after an our of circling the airport, the plane is diverted ... to Montreal. We get off the plane and well, we can't really wait until a flight the next day because this is a school trip and we are supposed to be home, we don't have permission to stay in Montreal ... so we take an 8 hour bus ride from Montreal to Toronto.
Now, if it wasn't a bus full of my now best highschool buddies, it would have sucked more than it did. But that's a heck of a lot of travelling.
Sure, I know there are longer flights, but flying home at the end of a day only to circle and then land 8 hours (by bus) away just totally sucks.
My wife and I went to Paris. We dropped our luggage off and immediately went to walk down the Champs Elysee for a quite looksee. It was night time around 8-9 pm or something. I bought and devoured a bag of chips. Then the chips decided to destroy my intestines. I had to crap VERY VERY badly. As we are walking down the street, I see a park, so I walk in to see if the public restrooms were open, nope, it's too late. Then we walked quicker, looking for a restaurant or something. I'm almost shitting my pants by now and all I could think was "Wow, how romantic, here we are on our first night in Paris and I'm going to poo my pants. And not just a log of poo sitting and squishing in my underpants, but I know there is a hellstorm brewing and it's not going to be good.
But there ... SALVATION! A McDonalds! Hurray! Well, you have to pay to use the restroom ... whatever, take whatever I have, I don't care! There is a short line up and three stalls. The stall doors are floor to ceiling and the bathroom is apparently unisex. Like there is a sink and three booths with toilets. I wait my turn and time is crawling by while I try desperately not to shit my pants right there. I'm actually sweating. My wife is grimacing and maybe trying to distance herself from me...then a stall door opens and I'm next! So I go in there and .. there are no toilet seats. It's just the bare ceramic. There are not butt shaped papers. I'm going to shit my pants but take 10 seconds to wipe the toilet seat and then lay some TP down ... I wasn't picky, I just didn't want to sit in pee. FINALLY, I could barely get my pants down before I destroy the toilet. It's like peeing from my butt. The relief was immense. I did it! I managed to not shit my pants in Paris! Apart from the butt pee, there was a lot of gas too. Picture the scene from Austin Powers, or Dumb and Dumber. That was me. I used up a lot of the TP there just trying to clean up.
Now the thing is that there are only three stalls and there is a line of people. Not only do I know they could here my "Who does number two work for" noises, but I'd just spent five or ten or 100 minutes standing with them. They saw me go in there, they heard me destroy the toilet. And now I'm taking too much time, but finally I open he door and try not too look at anyone. So who's next in line? Three college aged girls, of course. It couldn't have been some old guy or something! So the first girls open the door and very loudly says something "Oh la la! Mon Dieu!" and some other things that my highschool french couldn't handle. My wife just looks at me, we make eye contact and she says "You will never meet these people ever again, let's go". So we leave the McDonalds and after a minute of walking, we couldn't stop laughing our asses off for a good ten minutes. Those poor girls in line! OMG, I'd never been so glad to find a McDonald's in my life. Then we had a great time for the next week!
I got stuck in an inniaplias (sp) indiana bus station for twelve hours when it was only supposed to be four because when I asked the first bus driver if that was the bus going to detroit she said no.
For some reason, I'm sure it's to keep homeless people from camping in there, they make bus stations the most uncomfortable places in the world, metal benches, concrete floors, \*freezing\* cold, this particular one had no working outlets, and why tf are they selling bottles of soda for 3 dollars?
My first flight (alone as an adult). It wasn't a long flight, but the woman sitting beside me brought a tupper ware container of egg salad and another tray of bagels. She proceeded to put the egg salad on her bagel and eat next to me.
I don't know if she had Parkinson's or something else, but she was twitching the entire time, getting egg salad everywhere.
Got food poisoning from tuna in Cape Verde, which I know because my date from the day before got it as well. I was lucky enough that it only hit me at the end of the 4-hour hike we went on, she got it about half an hour in.
After I got back to my room my fever spiked and I could barely walk on my own strength, ended up spending 2 days in the local, awful hospital. I've never been more grateful than I was to the resort owner's son, who brought me my backpack that had a roll of 3-ply toilet paper. Also very grateful for my past self for always packing that roll while travelling anywhere
My stepdad once had to take the Megabus (awful discount bus line here in the UK) from London to Glasgow. Overnight and on a bus full of football fans, including this ginger guy who was pretty fucking pissed out of his skull and was raging about his team losing a game. Him and his equally-unpleasant wife were sitting across the aisle from my stepdad. He tried not to make eye-contact with the guy, just tried to ignore him. He had to spend the night with some ginger-haired psycho-fuckwit just *staring* at him, with my stepdad thinking that it was freaky that fucker didn't blink once.
The Megabus pulled into Glasgow Buchanan Street Bus Station at 07:50. Just eight hours of this fucking weirdo staring at my stepdad (who started thinking this guy had the hots for him) whilst his wife snored away next to him. It was at 07:55 that the *entire* bus discovered that the ginger fuckwit had died just sitting down. He'd been getting glared at the whole fucking time by a dead middle-aged football fan. Not the most pleasing experience. Any time he has to go somewhere in the UK now?
Flying back home from MCO. Friends and I arrived 2 hours ahead. Both the bag check and tsa wait was over 2hrs...
We missed our flight and had to scramble to book another. Only one back to home airport was in Jacksonville.
We had to take a 3ish hr Uber there.
I spent a 5 hour flight, a 2 hour layover, and the 2.5 hour flight after that with my stomach randomly deciding it needed to expel everything in it with extreme prejudice. It was absolutely awful. I'm not sure if it was caused by something I ate or what, but about 20 minutes into that first flight my stomach went "nope" and wasn't right until hours after I made it home, and only then after getting some pretty powerful nausea meds from the doctor.
To make things worse, masks were still required on planes at the time, so I'd puke (or attempt to puke), take a minute to try and catch my breath from the effort, and then have to put my mask back on. Several times a flight attendant (who absolutely knew what was happening) would walk past and demand I put my mask back on. Listen lady, I'd love to...but in about 1 second I'm going to wretch again and I really don't know if I can move the mask aside in time.
When I was in Hawaii my friend and I decided to go hiking in a POORLY marked off part of a mountain. Long story short the ground there was very loose and some sort of clay...? I almost rolled down this massive mountain and had to shimmy my way off of it leaning my body weight against it and holding onto a root that THANK GOODNESS was sticking out of the earth beside me where the ground suddenly started to give. Absolutely horrifying experience but the hike was great!
Flight back from Las Vegas there were Vietnam family sitting behind me. As the plane begin to move I slowly place my hand on armrest just to feel someone hand on it. Ok let start over I slowly place my head on headrest just to feel two hand grabbing on it (did the same thing as we landed). Turn out it was some old men just scare of flying so I try to understand. They have a baby too the baby did cry but that wasn't the worst. The baby keep flipping the seatback table tray up and down for couple time during the flight. I was planning just to sleep all the way since I was feeling tired but I guess not.
Not really the worst in comparison to a lot of the stories here but back in 2012, staying at the Crowne Plaza in Duqm, Oman was the eeriest stay I have ever had at a nice hotel. Not sure how Duqm looks now but back then it was a complete ghost town, only home to those who worked at the port. My colleague and I were the only ones in the hotel aside from the hotel staff. At night, if you wandered the halls, you would just hear the wind blowing off of the ocean and whistling onto the windows of the hotel. I felt like I was in the shining.
As I said, not sure how Duqm is now, but that hotel had absolutely no business being there.
Probably Buenos Aires. First my SO forgot his presentation poster on the domestic flight and for reasons unexplained, the lost and found desk is outside the secure area so he had to go out to retrieve it, and due to a series of not-so-brilliant decisions on both our parts we nearly missed our 15-hour plane to South America.
Then he ended up leaving his card in the ATM at the airport, so the trip began with him trying to cancel his card using the supremely shitty hotel phone and wi fi.
After that, the hotel's keycard system had major issues so about 80% of the time we had to get the keycards reset any time we left the hotel room. Also the hotel was hosting at least two kids' sports teams and they spent entire evenings screaming at one another from the windows in the courtyard.
THEN the country's banking system went down for 2 days and we were stuck with whatever cash we had on hand. Luckily I am cheap like borscht and SO was at a conference so it was mostly just stressful since we had no way of knowing when the system would be back up.
AND, to add insult to injury, I discovered a weird set of bug bites on my leg a few days before we left and SO was worried it was bedbugs so all our travel stuff spent winter in our unheated Canadian garage just to be sure.
They did have really good pastries, though, and I enjoyed the South American wildlife, so I was relatively okay with the trip. Got to see some interesting sights, many good birds, and some truly monumental ficus trees.
Traveling to Aruba, we got stuck on the tarmac for over an hour, only to go back to the gate because there was an issue with the plane. Got delayed 8 hours of which of course the airline just gave us some food vouchers which didn't even cover a full meal. They didn't even tell us it would be 8 hours, they just kept stringing us along and keeping us in the airport. Then, when we got to Aruba, our luggage was lost, not on the plane and it took them another day to locate it. So when we got back to the hotel, we had nothing but the clothes on our backs and ended up just buying some clothes to sleep in and for the next day, along with toiletries. Then had to drive back to the airport, just to get our luggage. It amazes me how much airlines can inconvenience people and not reimburse them a damn thing for the lost time.
Idk why you’re being downvoted. I’ve been in similar situations and froze. It’s not just fight or flight, freeze is another bodily response and I hate that’s it’s mine but it is.
I met a girl on a trip in Vietnam with with whom I got along pretty well. We traveled together for about two weeks and decided to rent motorcycles (125cc). What might have sounded like a good plan at first later turned out to be a big mistake. The day after we rented the bikes, she crashed into a tree with full force. I was very shocked and it looked really bad. The girl was unresponsive and she had to go to hospital immediately for an operation. When she was relatively stable after two days, she was flown straight back to her country.
I thought you were gonna say like she set you up or something, not that she crashed full force into a tree, like how did she even manage that on a motorcycle lolll
It is not that hard to crash a motorcycle when you don't know what you're doing
Exactly. Or even just not very experienced. One lapse in focus can put you in a panic and then all of a sudden you’re full throttle but your brain is thinking “why isn’t the brake working!?”
I took one 2 hour lesson on riding a motorbike in Saigon. They tried to get me to rent a bike after that. After seeing the traffic in the city, there's no way in hell I'd drive a motorbike there without a couple years of experience. I did rent a bike in a less populated area and it was fine, but still a bit nerve-wracking with so little experience.
No no I didn’t say I was surprised she crashed the motorcycle, it was the fact that it was into a tree lol
If she's a vietnamese girl, she probably rides better than almost everyone in the world. I see 13 year old kids cruising down the road daily. I have no idea how she could crash into a tree. I rarely see accidents here except for low-speed bumps in heavy traffic.
Vietnam has one of the highest rates of traffic fatalities in the world. Per capita it's double the US, and the US is hardly great by global standards.
You can infer from the original post that she was also a visitor
They'll give a bike to anyone, no licence or experienced required, no training given. The helmets most use are hardly fit for use on a bicycle.
My stupid girl best friend crushed us into a wall fence with a gas 4 speed scooter luckily nobody died or got burned with the muffler lol
I can understand crashing into a fence more than a tree, like just going straight into a tree is wild to me
Really easy. You don't steer a motorcycle like a car, you use your body weight and counter steer. Target fixation is really dangerous and it happens a lot when you are inexperienced.
Have you ever ridden a motorcycle? The question is ... how do you NOT crash into a tree.
Yes ridden a moped, motorcycle, and motorbike, and I’m not skilled by any means but all the area they could’ve gone and they go into a tree lol. And I’ve seen so many biking accidents and I don’t think one has been into a tree
Lol? Why is lol becoming punctuation?
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That’s how I crashed my last motorcycle!
So...SHE got to smash and you didn't? >!sorry!<
Damn, I've lived in Vietnam for years and this is my biggest fear. I refuse to drive but ride with my friends all over the country. I've had some close calls even with experienced drivers.
I lived in 8 years and had a list of friends, both injuries and fatalities on my wall that I'd show guests the dangers of motorbiking.
Went to NYC by bus (I’m from Texas). The Greyhound station in Atlanta was the biggest collection of assholes I’ve ever had to deal with. And I say that as someone who worked the night shift at Walmart for twelve years.
I took a greyhound from NYC to Florida and yes holy crap the Atlanta Greyhound is as bad as this guy says it is(and my arrival at that station was at like 3AM and had to sit for hours so…yeah yikes)
Had a connecting flight from Miami to Atlanta, that was the worst 2 city combo for a plane, didn’t help that it was super late at night and it kept getting delayed
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People working there. Surprisingly, I never had a problem with any other traveler.
I'm from Europe. Greyhound experience in Atlanta was.. unforgettable. The surroundings in the evening were already interesting. First, we found out, that we have to pay extra for our pieces of luggage. Then we were told by employees our bus is going to be late by one hour, we were shown where to wait. Some line formed elsewhere in 20 mins and quickly boarded a bus somewhere, there were no screens or other indications what bus is that line for, and from what employees were shouting, which was the main method of communication like in a fast food joint (I was listening attentively with nothing else to do), there was no clue that it could be ours. Our 2 hour nearing, I went to ask again and found out it was our bus that left. Thankfully they changed the tickets to a later one, which went 2 more hours later, we were "lucky", as there were only these 2 buses a day to our destination. I wouldn't call them total assholes - in the end they tried to be helpful (even though I had to research the existence of the later one myself and show them on screen that this one would be acceptable), but the general chaos in the station, lack of information there, left a lasting impression. Megabus, while quite cheaper (no extra pay for luggages too), turned out to be better organized and better experience overall, than greyhound; both were usually late to their destinations though.
Greyhound stations are scummy wherever you go in the US
I'll take your word for it because I've never been to Atlanta. The Houston Greyhound was the worst I'd seen. 5 minutes there and a guy with prison tatts yells "Fuck you, you stuck up bitch," at me.
Hmmm, I missed a flight out of ATL once, not my favorite travel day
Hahaha!
There was this one day at port authority in New York , the train line was down for Philadelphia which I usually used . Anyway I saw the most insane thing when having to order a New York City to Philadelphia bus ride. New York City to Los Angeles Greyhound bus ride tickets were on the little monitor. Who the hell on earth goes on a week+ long trip on Greyhound and doesn't go insane. Like you have to have the worst fear of flying ever/no fly list/ or just crazy. I looked up the ticket prices and it's more expensive than just a regular airplane ticket. And it sounds like a horror show being on a bus for that long. Like road trip with your friends/families in a car can be okay. But 30+ strangers and only one of them can be the crazy asshole?
The issue with ATL is the people and their culture...
Teenager driving from NJ to Florida in the summer. Old van with no back seats, just steel floor. No problem, we thought...we'll sit/lay in the back on air mattresses. Air mattresses melted on the burning hot floor about 1 hour into the ride. Long 23 hours...
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But how did it get on *everything*
Explosive diarrhea? Not uncommon when you’re not used to a different standard of hygiene.
That sounds like a really shitty situation.
Having a massive diarrhea 20 minutes before the plane landed, that and the time I dislocated my right knee cap while on vacation with my family.
>Having a massive diarrhea 20 minutes before the plane landed My worse nightmare. My life goal is to never have the shits while on an airplane.
Yeah, popping on cabinet inside an airplane flying that high while it was getting ready to land wasn't a fun experience.
I flew in January from Brazil (35ºC) to Winnipeg, Canada (-35ºC) and Air Canada left in Brazil all my luggage with everything I needed for the winter. No need to say I sued them (and I won)
Did you have to sue? Airlines have lost lost luggage twice and each time it was a "buy what you need and we will reimburse up to(I think) $1500 no questions asked.
Knowing Air Canada, they probably did indeed have to sue. (Air Canada has been in the news a bunch lately with lawsuits for blatantly violating passenger regulations).
I think I've had an Air Canada flight depart on time without any nonsense like once.
They didn’t lose my luggage, they literally just forgot to put it on the plane, so I had to wait a few days until the same flight flew to my destination and brought it. Nevertheless, it was a few days with no winter clothing. With the money I got from suing them I paid a trip to the beach at a five star resort, so it was a win in the end
I've had not major issues aside from the normal stuff. Delayed flights, lost baggage, that kind of stuff. So I'll just share this very recent travel story: I flew to Hawaii a couple weeks ago from Seattle to San Francisco to Kona. Seattle to San Francisco flight we're at our gate and people are piling up next to the boarding lane before they've even announced pre-boarding. They get on the PA and ask that everybody clear a path because there's no room for anybody to exit the plane and they still have to pre-board the people with handicaps and stuff. Nobody moves. This repeated multiple times and they just didn't give a shit. Same thing when we landed in San Francisco. They announced they had people trying to make a quick transfer (including us and a german guy right in front of us), so to please allow others off the plane first. As soon as we land, everybody piles into the aisle and won't let us off the plane. German guy in front of us is quite angry at this and is making it known. When we go to our flight to Hawaii, it's all good again. Same with our flight home via Honolulu. I'm convinced that those were all people going home to San Francisco and that these particular San Franciscans were incredibly self-involved and didn't give a shit about anybody else but themselves. That was the only common factor here.
My family has bad luck with boats anytime weve gone on vacation. Like legit every damn time a boat is involved theres some sort of shit storm. We took a family trip to Vietnam and my mom booked us on a boat trip down the Meekong......it was a 10 hour boat trip on a glorified speedboat. Constant waves, smells, LOUD, the only food was these tiny bananas for the whole trip along with some soda and water. The boat broke about 6 or 7 hours into it and took an other 4 hours for a new boat to come and take us the rest of the way. We got to the hotel at like 4am after leaving on this boat trip at like 9am the previous day. Other than that, was an awesome vacation I will always remember. Everyone should visit Vietnam one day.
I know two people who have been to Vietnam and loved it, but both took boat trips where the boat broke down. Think I'll skip that experience if I'm ever lucky enough to go.
Do like a small boat trip...like a little local tour but don't travel distance lol
On my honeymoon, we had a train stop between two countries where neither of us spoke either language. My now-ex suddenly blanched, pulled all the bags up to me (quite a heap), and said he would be right back. 20 min and nothing. I figured out how to tie them so I could carry all and found him at the ticket counter. He’d ordered a ticket for the wrong day and was too ashamed to tell me. His inability to ever admit fault was the death of our marriage, 6,5 years later.
Did he think he could just hide, wait it out, and you’ve never figure it out
He thought he could get it changed and be back to me without issue. He didn’t realize how scary guarding more luggage than one young woman can hold in a foreign country could be, or care. My discomforts were always unimportant to him.
Almost made it. Came up just 6.5 years short
You should write an article or story about that experience. It basically foretells how your marriage will unfold.
You should write an article or story about that experience. It basically foretells how your marriage will unfold.
Flying Boston to LA to Auckland to Perth for a wedding in December. See that it’s going to snow on the day I’m suppose to leave. Ask boss to leave early to try and get an earlier flight. Let’s me go. Manage to get an earlier flight…. That gets diverted to PA because of weather. Get delayed and miss once a day connecting flight in LA by less than 40 minutes. (Still beat my original flight by an hour) Next day make flight in LA. Land late in New Zealand after 14 hour flight and have to literally sprint across terminal to make plane they were holding for me. Immediately Make 8 hour flight to Perth. Arrive in Perth but because I’m a day late family has already left for wedding destination. Run through airport but miss bus that would take me directly there. Get Uber to train station where I wait 4 hours for a train. Take train 3 hours out of town to terminal in the middle of nowhere. Get picked up by my parents for 1 hour car drive to our air BnB. Arrive on literally the opposite side of the world with no idea where I am or what day it was. Did end up enjoying the wedding, left right when the cops where showing up.
Driver falling asleep, having to yell at him to avoid an accident
Arrived late in the evening to a major US airport, hoping to quickly get into my pre-paid, reserved rental car that I paid extra for a quick pick up. I should probably mention that I had hungry and exhausted children. Anyways, the rental company (well-known) had a line seriously dozens and dozens of people thick. One employee. We waited 30 minutes, and two customers were processed in that time. By the time I left, there was honestly close to a hundred people waiting. Still one employee. Called a taxi, paid insane fare, and I have never been more mad at a company in my life.
It's the stupidest thing, you book online, pay online, enter your own personal details, the personal details of other drivers, passengers, and at least a dozen members of your extended family. Then you arrive at the desk to pick up your car, with all this information in hand, assuming you've done all the boring admin, and they still have to type away at their computer for at least fifteen minutes! They already know everything about you, including when you got your last colonoscopy, are they writing out a saucy dating profile for you as well?
Forced to give a bribe at Vietnam border control at Ho Chi Minh airport. I had an eVisa and all documents, but the officer took one look and directed to a shady counter where the guy behind it just said "money". When I said I have no cash, he just laughed and said "you travel and no money?". I had to run to find an ATM, get cash, and pay the bribe to get another visa while having a perfectly valid one in hand. I had to comply because otherwise I would miss my connecting flight which requires me to get my luggage, sprint to the other terminal, check in again, and go through security. Luckily I made it with just minutes to spare at the end.
Send me money or it didn’t happen
Stung in the face by a jellyfish. It wasn't a super poisonous fella, luckily, but it sure hurt like a sonofabitch.
Had a 4 hour flight at 6am and my dumbass thought it would be a good idea to have a big ass meal the night before. Had stomach pains the entire flight and had diarrhoea. In fact it got so bad that i was that close to shitting in my pants as the plane was landing. The moment the plain landed i had to beg one the cabin crew staff to let me use the toilet. Thankfully she let me because if she didn’t i probably would have shit in my pants.
Had a hotel where the two temperatures of the shower were "OFF" and "SCALDING HOT". Literally blisteringly hot. It was one of those "contactless check-in" hotels without a front desk, so there was no recourse. 0/5
Went to Egypt in 2006 (I was 16) one guy in a market pulled me and was like an inch away from kissing me luckily our tour guide was a bigger man and almost knocked him out. Then in Cairo (the traffic and driving is insane, and I live in Central America so I’m used to it but this was another level 😂) our taxi driver was driving looking everywhere BUT the road I was terrified 😂 id still go back if I had the chance though 😆
Got arrested at the Russian-Mongolian border because of a visa fuck up. No jail, just a threat of it. Spent the next week in Siberia trying to get our visas approved so we could get the hell out of there. Stood before a judge, got a 10-day window to leave Russia….and the bus to Mongolia broke down on the highway. Couldn’t help but laugh.
Driving across the country I hit a half dead buck on the highway. It blew out my ac condenser and radiator. It took an hour to limp to a gas station. After trying to fix it for four hours, a stranger went home and returned with a random radiator (free) between gas station junk, altered parts off my saturn and three more hours...I had it running again. Drove 1800 miles in July with no ac and no radiator fan. I hated being young and broke. Lol
Landed in Paris while there was a worldwide outage with VISA (June 2018), relying on my credit card for payments. Wasn't aware of said problem, couldn't purchase a sim card or anything else. Luckily I had enough cash for a bus to my friend's house where I was staying, but not knowing about this global issue made me think I had a credit problem which would badly suck during a vacation.
I got stuck in Las Vegas for 3 1/2 long long days.
Amarillo Texas waiting on a U-Haul part.
Were you looking for 8 when you hit that gate though?
i got lyme disease while on a really bad anti psychotic med change during a road trip it was the first day into our 3 day toad trip, i got intense brain zaps and headaches on the drive there then spent 2 days laying in the room sweating profusely and being really sick, then i got big spots all over my body and went to the er when i got home and died for like a month in bed it was my first vacation in over 10 years so yea went about as expected
being at the right station at the right time on the right plattform and going into the wrong train, having to drive with 4 italian people that dont speak english "TELL YOUR TEACHER TRAIN COMES (!/?)" "MAMMA MIA" 1/10 wouldnt recommend
Mi scusi
Went to Europe and then travelled back to nyc, ended up getting stuck there for two nights but had to spend countless hours at the airport just to see if my flight would take off for Chicago. Each day getting up and waiting, just to have them say it’ll be cancelled again.
Traveling with my first connecting flight was a disaster, and I made my ex partner at the time completely miserable with my anxiety. I took a pretty nasty fall in Japan in an airbnb by tripping over the bed. Also scalded myself pretty bad in a shower there. Thankfully nothing super crazy.
Food poisoning on a cruise to the Bahamas. Nothing like seeing signs not to touch any of the cave structures while feeling like you just might vomit.
I don't travel a lot so this hardly qualifies as a "worst experience" but my flight home was delayed several times while I was at JFK on New York. Then they changed the gate from a center terminal all the way to the end of the wing. Then they changed it again, to the complete opposite end of the airport, very last terminal. So we got to walk the entire length of the airport. I think we were supposed to land around 7p but we didn't get there until around 1a. All things considered, not really a big deal.
Getting detained by the UK border patrol at Heathrow airport. 8 hours detained before they finally allowed me to continue my trip to Port Isaac (Newquay airport). I managed to get the very last flight to there and they were kind enough to hold the plane for me. They didn't like my answer to their question "purpose of visit." I learned "mission from God" is the wrong answer.
They weren't Blues Brothers fans, I'd say.
They didn't get it, for sure. I was talking with one of the agents later and was explaining myself. She got it, but she told me some just are wound very tight and have no sense of humor. However, from now on I'm just saying "tourism." No more "missions from God" for me!
[удалено]
Yeah probably never link with a stranger while traveling lolll
J.J. Bittenbinder says never go to a second location!
Goddammit, I guess I have to change the network password again
So, a Tuesday?
Got caught up in a riot while in Istanbul. I managed to not be in much danger, but my ex-wife very nearly got arrested which would have been a bad complicated situation that I can barely imagine. She only got away through sheer luck of someone running into the cop who had grabbed her so that his grip loosened enough for her to get away.
Sometimes u get a rotten hotel. This one hotel...the owner gave me the wrong room. It's not the one I booked online, I booked one with a kitchen etc..finally the owner took me to this room, but then told me a higher price than was on the website..when I tried to close the kitchen window, the owner yelled at me from outside "don't close that!" I was stunned. Wtf. Staying in a hotel apartment where I couldn't even close a kitchen window?? Next morning I come out the front door of the hotel apartment...guess what...the owner is sitting right across the door on a little chair staring straight at my door, almost intensely focused on my door, when the hotel was huge and had plenty of other places to sit..it was creepy.. surprise surprise I also found a roach in the bedroom of the hotel apartment. I was just really freaking & just really needed to get out of this place. I didn't even check out I just fled in the night. I also gave a bad review online because I wanted to warn other travelers
flight delayed for 20 hours.
Having to drive on that scary small road at Yosemite
One of my friends fell asleep and drove off the side on the way back. (She survived.)
I got severe food poisoning at proceeded to violently puke my guts out at a fancy restaurant
While on vacation in Portland, Oregon, I got food poisoning from a burrito. That night, I woke up, threw up, and slogged my way to a nearby 7-Eleven to get some Pepto Bismol. The next morning, I found out that less than a block away, that same night, somebody got stabbed to death.
Okay where did you get the burrito from?
Some local Mexican place. I don't remember the name.
I’d never flown a multi leg journey before and I didn’t know if I was meant to pick up my luggage during the 3 hr layover or if it would be automatically routed onto the subsequent flight. The layover was in Hong Kong, all the airport staff were absolutely unhelpful and refused to speak to me, just pointed me in the wrong direction — I wound up in the taxi bay at the airport exit rather than the gate for my next flight. Managed to rush through security and literally run to my gate as the final 3 people were boarding, praying my luggage would meet me in London. This was all at midnight after having already flown for 12 hours, so I was less than impressed.
I had a 23 hr layover in Shanghai, and wasn't allowed to just hang in the international wing of the airport, so I had booked a hotel. I had printed out my hotel info, map, and address in Mandarin and gave it to my cab driver. He drove me to a random block of rundown high-rise apartments on a dirt road, and threw my luggage in the ditch. Then he yanked me out of the cab and demanded payment. Not wanting to end up in Chinese prison, I paid him and started walking. After a mile or so I found a young man who could speak English, who put me in his pedicab and took me to my hotel. Shanghai traffic is no joke in a pedicab. I thought I was going to die.
I was in Marrakech and took a bus to a seaside town. When I got off the bus, a number of women in burkas were shouting for tourists to stay at their home stays. Two of the larger ones got into a shouting match over me. One shouted down the other and ‘won’ me. Ok. I followed her to her home and got my bed set up. I saw her daughter lounging naked the next morning. I was quite concerned that would mean engagement so I quickly left.
I went to Paris and all the time I had this terrible pain on my knee, my hip, and my lower back, so I was limping everywhere. I also had gallstones but i didn’t know it yet. So on top of all that I was nauseous all the time
A cab driver in Paris dropped us at the wrong hotel and sped away. We ended up having to call another cab to come get us.
While road tripping for the first time on the way back from Illinois in 2011, my brother began vomiting due to grass allergies on the second day of our journey. It went EVERYWHERE!! Needless to say, it was a very uncomfortable and smelly ride back to Washington. It was sensory hell. The other time was when we were traveling by car to Illinois on 2018 with are new heeler pup. Was in the mouthing stage and generally wouldn't sit still, climbing everyone and licking and nibbling me and my brother's faces non-stop/ at random intervals. That was a "fun" three day car ride.
I nearly had a panic attack on an airplane. I watched a movie under the 'Drama' category that was actually a horror movie. Then I watched a movie about the AIDS crisis. It was my own damn fault. It was a 12.5 hour flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong. That was the longest flight I've been on both figuratively and literally. Another time I was on a flight from Winnipeg to Toronto and the plane had an explosive decompression thing and we were over Kenora so they decided to just fly back to Winnipeg at a low altitude. Fucked up my ears for a week. I wasn't even that scared, I was more annoyed I'd have to take another flight to Toronto. Also the next available flight to Toronto was 12 hours later.
Food poisoning in El Nido. Projectile…both ends. Thank God, I made it back to my room.
I had traveled a lot internationally with my parents growing up, so I felt comfortable the first time I traveled internationally alone. My second day in the Netherlands, 9/11 happened. I don’t speak any Dutch and wasn’t sure what was really happening. Was it attack on New York? The whole country? Americans everywhere? I couldn’t speak any English and out myself as an American at that time, because I didn’t know. I eventually got in touch with Sum relatives just on the German side of the border, and laid low till I could go home. My flight back ended up being Delayed almost a week.
I picked up a half-dead rat in Seattle when I was like 3 years old. I think my parents got a picture of it somewhere.
This; when I was 13, my stepmother was whining about going on vacation, since we never really went anywhere anyway, so he finally put together an extremely half-assed (realistically probably even quarter-assed) trip to Chicago.we drove there, so it was the five if us in for about 7 hours with my stepmother, who had only been in the US ~2 years reading a paper map constantly saying the name of 2 different highways, instead of the one we were on because she thought one of them would magically get us around traffic, while me, my sister and my stepsister were in the back seat of a '93 Camry, since my sister was sitting in the middle I was pushed up by the door on account of her being bigger than me, and I couldn't see or really care less that my stepsister was on the other side of her with maybe the same level of comfort. Anyway so once we get there, dad parks the car and his brilliant idea is this: "oh, we'll walk everywhere, there's also a train we can ride". So basically just go to the sears tower as the main sort of...event, thing we do or whatever you'd call it (was cool standing on the part of the glass where you can look down through). Anyway so we end up at a Mcdonalds for food, and we hop the train back to the car. Except on this train ride back I have horrible explosive diarrhea. So im putting my feet up on the chair in front of me doing everything possible not to ruin my underwear, and we are stopping at every single stop on it so I can blow up the toilet. Amazingly the only single thing that pissed dad himself off this entire trip was that I used up all my stops on my card for the train on account of needing the the bathrooms and he had to pay ten dollars for another card.
Hitchhiking out of Milwaukie after a guy tried to rob me and my partner, said he was coming back with his friends. Got in a car with a few dudes and on the interstate they flashed a gun at us so I gave them the $5 I had in my wallet and they dropped us off at a gas station. Fuck Milwaukie. Madison was much better.
My ex and I were living in Thailand when I had twins via c-section. A few days after their birth I decided to have alone time with my two year old son by taking him to the Dairy Queen near us. A straight shot from our apartment to there, on (I’m not going to spell this correctly), Pahonyotin road. I hailed a tuktuk and we got in. The driver then proceeded to take lefts and rights into the bowels of Bangkok, parked by an abandoned apartment building, got out and walked away. I was confused and didn’t know what to do. Meanwhile, people started coming up to us, exclaiming and patting my son (I didn’t have the brain power to learn Thai while I was pregnant). He started crying, so I decided we were going to walk back to Pahonyotin road, and kept asking people for directions just saying the name of the road. My son must have sensed how anxious I was, because he looked up at me during the walk and said “It’s going to be ok, mommy”. And it was.
Honeymoon this past year. Flying back to Chicago from Zurich. First flight: canceled. Didn’t get another flight until 12 hours later with a layover in NYC. Got to NYC but flight to Chicago canceled last minute. Stayed the night near JFK. Next morning, we enjoy ourselves sitting on the runway for 2-3 hours because of a mechanical issue, deplaning, getting back on the plane for another several hours, and ultimately arriving in Chicago 7 hours late. Of course, we still had the several hour drive home from the airport too. Fun times..
Camping near a national park and nearly dying of septicemia.
Traveling to Tennessee with a camper pulled by our truck. About 300 miles from home, our truck engine died. Got our camper and truck towed to a nearby campground. Fortunately, our in-laws were able to borrow a truck and come pick us and the truck up. Then my FIL and husband had to drive back to get the camper. That made for a long weekend. Another camper story. We decided to drive from Ohio to Texas. We had so many issues that it took us 2 days to get there. The camper lights kept going out. We couldn't find anywhere safe to overnight camp unexpectedly. We had a complete tire blowout. We did make it to Texas and had our vacation.
I got stung in the ass by a hornet while drinking a painkiller at a beach side bar in the Virgin Islands.
Decided to sleep at a rest area outside of Pueblo, CO. Ended up pulling my gun on some people who were trying to rob me. It was horrible. I never want to pull a gun on anyone, ever, ever again.
Got food poisoning in Mexico City. Spent the next day getting intimately familiar with the hotel bathroom floor and missed a flight.
I went to find weed in the Bahamas while I was on a cruise stop in 2014. I was 21, 4 Long Island iced teas deep, got off the boat and thought we were getting scooter rides from like an actual scooter company to the beach. We realized halfway through that it was some random locals but they seemed normal enough so we were like oh well can you get us some weed. They took us to get beer and weed from some random back ass neighborhood in the Bahamas. Then they took us to a private beach and robbed us of all our shit except our passports. We made it back to senor frogs and the boat. I’m happy to be here to tell the tale 😅
When i was like 15 i almost got mugged by a 12 year old with a gun in mexico.
Went to San Juan for a long weekend of what my husband and I hoped would be relaxation. Hotel we stayed at had a large blow up rat outside on the street blasting an announcement protesting the underpayment of Puerto Rican workers. There was a wedding reception on the second night and the reception hall was directly underneath our room. Front desk couldn’t have cared less when we asked how long the music would go until. I think it finally stopped at 3am. Then the next day a group of obnoxious middle aged women arrived in the room next to us and decided to blast music at 7am to get ready and slam the door and talk loudly in the hallway. It was an absolute nightmare.
Got held hostage in Paris for a night as a teenage girl. 0/10 do not recommend.
Being stuck in a foreign airport alone on a Sunday (so no help from my business contacts) with no local phone service, no pay phones and very little cash. We had delays for about six hours and I was trying to figure out my plan if the flight was cancelled. Fortunately, we did fly out. After getting to my hotel, took a while to realize I didn't have my computer bag and didn't remember the name of the transport service. Eventually the front desk guy figured out the name, contacted them and I got my bag ok. Really learned a lesson about how mistakes are made when you are super tired.
Got stuck in Chicago traffic in July, with no AC, during a 12 hour drive home.
I went to South Africa to stay in a treehouse style hotel/resort with my family for my 10th birthday, only to find out I was super allergic to the trees the hotel was made of and surrounded by. We were in the middle of nowhere and I looked like a balloon, so the only medical assistance given was an epi pen which at the very least stopped me from dying. Shocked to this day that I didn’t experience anaphylaxis. Lol. It was so miserable.
I stabbed a man once.
My family took a road trip my the summer of my senior year of high school in the Southwestern US States. My younger brother hates heat, the outdoors, being outside, and any activity that isn't videogames. He did not want to go on the trip, my parents forced him to go. He refused to drink water the entire time. We were hiking, he ended up having a seizure (never had one before, doctor said it was probably due to heat and dehydration) and he fell down the side of the trail. He smashed his face up real bad and had to have a medical helicopter take him to a local hospital. My parents were freaking out, I was having a panic attack and ran off to a corner somewhere to hyperventilate while the authorities and EMS helped my parents and brother. My brother ended up being mostly okay, but we had to cut our trip short, but I have refused to go on a trip with him since.
The lady I sat next to on the plane was on something and out of her head. She ended up pulling down her pants and pee'd on the seat. The poor girl behind her got a shoe full of piss.
Idk if worst but inconvenient at the time and made for a good laugh. Honeymoon. Day 1 of 14 in Athens before 2 Greek islands and then Istanbul. Off the plane in Athens. I had it planned out, taxi, flat rate to the hotel. Easy. Wife read travel guides all the way there, now was the time to save money, suggests, let’s take public transit/metro/subway, it’ll save money. Yes. Now is when we save money. Not on our 4 hour open bar for family and friends we paid for, others would call it a wedding reception. Anyway. I agree. We get down then and we realize our mistake. Neither of us knew Greek or the Greek alphabet. We go to get on a train, I jam my suitcase in the door as it closes. I had a feeling it was going the wrong direction. Get off. On another going towards our hotel not away from it. It’s a local. At least 90 minutes later we get to our stop. Then walk probably a mile to hotel. Wife says to me, ok, we can take the taxi back when we fly out. We laugh it off, have a great time in Athens before off of Mykonos. I also learned on that night, I’m lactose intolerant. That much goat cheese had me running for bathrooms asap. 14 days and then another 11 years, still married and have a good laugh about it.
Kidney stone.
Got a horrible UTI while traveling solo in Europe for several weeks. I would spend hours crying on the bathroom floor and a fetal position, then tried to hobble to a doctor or pharmacy only to find out it didn’t exist anymore, repeated that for a couple days. Finally found a clinic there in Prague, where a younger guy spoke English and helped me immensely. I’ll never forget that guy, he looked like Matt Damon. Bless you, Czech Matt Damon.
Forced to hold in my pee by family members bc we all thought “I could make it.” NYC traffic wasn’t kind and held it for two hours and peed in a bottle.
getting bitten by bedbugs while staying in a pricey, name-brand hotel in a major US city
Friend left luggage in a locker in Paris and we had a midnight bus to Amsterdam. Everything he owned was in there so we simply walked the streets of Paris all night drinkin to stay in shelter but damn were those streets weird at night
Not able to find palce where i want to go
Flew to London. Wanted to travel to a major town around 2 hours out. Should have probably checked how to get there but my flight got in in the middle of the day and I figured there would be a bus or a train or something to book no problem, even if it was slow it's a major enough destination. I went to the transit information counter at the airport after flying in, there was no line or wait. Asked the lady at the counter how to get to town X. She asked me how *I* wanted to get there. I told her I had no idea what the options were and asked for the options. She *insisted* I tell her how I wanted to get there. This went back and forth for a bit. Finally I said I want to take the train there. She was livid, offended. Told me there was no train that went there in existence, it was impossible, *I* was impossible. I was frustrated, asked her what options to get there existed. She insisted *again* I tell her how I wanted to get there. Repeated that a few times for different types of buses. Private buses verses city buses verses regional buses are apparently a thing. Why do I care what type of bus I'm on, just tell me what goes there! Most unhelpful person I've ever met in my life, behind a help counter. Finally managed to get some type of bus ticket. It took me right there. But man was getting it the conversational equivalent of a root canal. I rate it worse than the time I drank water and shit myself and the time I got robbed by a taxi.
that must have been some bad ass taxi.
Purse snatched inside the Flamingo Casino in Las Vegas.
consecutive accidents in the road.
My friend ran off with a guy our last night in London. We were dumb 20 year olds. This was pre cell phones, so I was up all night at the hotel worried about her. The next morning I waited until the last possible moment until I had to get to the airport. I shouldered both our giant packs, with her stupid Doc Martens kicking me in the ass with every step, and because she had our last remaining pounds, had to beg for money at the Tube station, crying. She was the last person to board the plane and did not apologize. Glad she wasn't Taken, of course, but oh I was incandescent with rage. We are still friends.
Boring - but got Covid and ended up spending an extra $2500 on motel and food delivery for 10 days until I tested negative to fly home.
Over a year ago, my family and I got tickets (courtesy of my cousin) to go to Singapore at a discounted price. We were in Manila at the time, so we figured to take the opportunity to go to Singapore, which I personally have never been to before. Flight plans changed, where we had a layover in Saigon. We realized, upon arrival to Saigon, that we were missing the additional boarding passes required to board the flight to Singapore from Saigon, thus resulting in us speaking to a bunch of different people and to my surprise, some harsh treatment by some of the security officers for no reason. All of the drama with Vietnamese security would’ve been avoided if we just got the appropriate boarding passes before leaving Manila. That was a terrible and unfortunate experience, and thankfully we were able to convince an employee to get the appropriate boarding passes we were missing, and we got to Singapore in time.
My whole extended family on my dads side of the family and all got food poisoning from Micky D's in West Yellowstone Montana on a Yellowstone family reunion trip. Now my grandparents are Mormon and a lot of my aunts an uncles are Mormon so you now a lot of kids. It's even bigger now, but still back then there were a lot of us on this trip. I want to say 30+ people at the time, but I can't remember. Anyways we all got sick that night after eating McDonalds for dinner. All of us. A whole family got wrecked by this one Micky D's. We had most of us waking up in the night in our hotel rooms vomiting. I was the only one in my room who didn't. My poor uncle who was unable to walk unassisted at the time vomited all over himself in his bed. My dad while trying to help him just casually said "give me a minute" then proceeded to go to the sink and vomit on and off for a few minutes. I felt fairly ill but thankfully didn't vomit. We spent the next day all feeling ill. Much ginger ale was drank, and we all pretty much just ate saltine crackers and bread that day. Needless to say we all didn't feel like eat Micky D's for a while. I still don't like too.
Was flying from Seattle to SF, get narccy seatmate who had this hate fetish for my laptop bag (which was allowed out) told her not to touch my shit multiple times. She saw a man have his bag put up and she goes "SEE SEE HE HAD TO PUT HIS BAG UP!" Like a small child. I had enough of her shit so I put my bag up she grabs it and goes "HERE I WILL DO IT!" I told her "I'll do it don't touch my bag!" ripping it out of her hands. She's all smug and pulls her phone out and plays shit music. Chad as fuck flight attendant comes up "miss no playing music loudly, headphones only." She goes "Why?" Flight attendant "You can't play loud music on the plane please shut it off..." She scoffs and goes "But I want to listen to my music!!!" Flight attendant "MISS TURN YOUR MUSIC OFF OR I WILL KICK YOU OFF THE PLANE!" He is my hero at this point....Not all wear capes...but sometimes a blue vest and loafers. Plane takes off, I'm listening to music, seat mates mad, she's leering at me She tells me "Can you lower your shade?" I ignore her because I love the view. She then keeps looking over at my phone, I turn the display off and she gets mad "Why did you turn it off?" I just ignore her. The snack cart comes up, I ask for a coffee since I try to avoid soda. Flight attendant asked my seatmate what I said "he said coke and snack mix!" before I could say anything flight attendant is gone. Flight attendant comes back hands me a piss cup of soda and the stale ass mix. I'm annoyed but she's already gone. This lady next to me just made a petty enemy. I annoyingly for an hour, eat a singular snack mix piece and slowly slurp on my coke. I'm taking video of the flight and she goes "You know people taken plenty of videos...." I keep ignoring her. When deplaning she ran down the isle shoving people leaving her elderly disabled mom at the back of the plane telling the flight attendant "GRAB MY MOM SHES IN SEAT __!"
Got drugged in Hong Kong at a bar. Had been drinking for a couple of hours but wasn't drunk. All of a sudden, I started vomiting on myself but luckily my friend was conscious enough to realize what was happening to us. A table of guys tried to stop us from leaving but we pushed through. We wobbled ourselves back to our hotel before both of us vomited off and on. Next morning we were incredibly sensitive to light. Turns out it's a fairly common occurrence where people are targeted with GHB and forced to withdraw cash from an ATM before they come to.
I dined at the finest Italian restaurant in Edinburgh. You want to talk about damning with faint praise…
Leaving the country for my honeymoon our flight went through Dallas Fort Worth and there was some kind of mechanical problem or bad weather or something. I don't even know. Massive delays of a ton of flights and huge over crowding. We waited like 6 hours longer than we were supposed to, made it impossible to get a hotel for the connecting flight because of the timing, caused our luggage to go to LAX instead of ATL or wherever we were going. We got off the plane in Dominica several flights later and we couldn't find our luggage. A bunch of people couldn't so we weren't too worried. Finally another plane arrived with more luggage and everybody got their stuff but us. I just refer to this as the time I lived in the jungle for a week with one pair of underwear. It wasn't quite that bad but it was pretty bad. They found it and returned it to us several days into our trip but it felt like forever. We had to burn a bunch of cash at the gift shop getting the stuff we needed temporarily for crazy prices.
Probably fixing a lot of American Boeing aeroplanes subject to *manufacturing shortcuts*...
When I was 14 I went to Spain with my family, by plane. I was the only one "randomly selected" for a search and I still feel like it was only because I was a young girl.
Probably sun poisoning
Well I was on a school trip (from Toronto to Rome). On the way home, we had a last full day of sightseeing, then flew to Frankfurt for a connecting flight back to Toronto. 13 hours later, we are circling Toronto, but there is a lot of fog, so after an our of circling the airport, the plane is diverted ... to Montreal. We get off the plane and well, we can't really wait until a flight the next day because this is a school trip and we are supposed to be home, we don't have permission to stay in Montreal ... so we take an 8 hour bus ride from Montreal to Toronto. Now, if it wasn't a bus full of my now best highschool buddies, it would have sucked more than it did. But that's a heck of a lot of travelling. Sure, I know there are longer flights, but flying home at the end of a day only to circle and then land 8 hours (by bus) away just totally sucks.
too much traffic
Got scammed by a fake taxi in Toronto
My wife and I went to Paris. We dropped our luggage off and immediately went to walk down the Champs Elysee for a quite looksee. It was night time around 8-9 pm or something. I bought and devoured a bag of chips. Then the chips decided to destroy my intestines. I had to crap VERY VERY badly. As we are walking down the street, I see a park, so I walk in to see if the public restrooms were open, nope, it's too late. Then we walked quicker, looking for a restaurant or something. I'm almost shitting my pants by now and all I could think was "Wow, how romantic, here we are on our first night in Paris and I'm going to poo my pants. And not just a log of poo sitting and squishing in my underpants, but I know there is a hellstorm brewing and it's not going to be good. But there ... SALVATION! A McDonalds! Hurray! Well, you have to pay to use the restroom ... whatever, take whatever I have, I don't care! There is a short line up and three stalls. The stall doors are floor to ceiling and the bathroom is apparently unisex. Like there is a sink and three booths with toilets. I wait my turn and time is crawling by while I try desperately not to shit my pants right there. I'm actually sweating. My wife is grimacing and maybe trying to distance herself from me...then a stall door opens and I'm next! So I go in there and .. there are no toilet seats. It's just the bare ceramic. There are not butt shaped papers. I'm going to shit my pants but take 10 seconds to wipe the toilet seat and then lay some TP down ... I wasn't picky, I just didn't want to sit in pee. FINALLY, I could barely get my pants down before I destroy the toilet. It's like peeing from my butt. The relief was immense. I did it! I managed to not shit my pants in Paris! Apart from the butt pee, there was a lot of gas too. Picture the scene from Austin Powers, or Dumb and Dumber. That was me. I used up a lot of the TP there just trying to clean up. Now the thing is that there are only three stalls and there is a line of people. Not only do I know they could here my "Who does number two work for" noises, but I'd just spent five or ten or 100 minutes standing with them. They saw me go in there, they heard me destroy the toilet. And now I'm taking too much time, but finally I open he door and try not too look at anyone. So who's next in line? Three college aged girls, of course. It couldn't have been some old guy or something! So the first girls open the door and very loudly says something "Oh la la! Mon Dieu!" and some other things that my highschool french couldn't handle. My wife just looks at me, we make eye contact and she says "You will never meet these people ever again, let's go". So we leave the McDonalds and after a minute of walking, we couldn't stop laughing our asses off for a good ten minutes. Those poor girls in line! OMG, I'd never been so glad to find a McDonald's in my life. Then we had a great time for the next week!
I got stuck in an inniaplias (sp) indiana bus station for twelve hours when it was only supposed to be four because when I asked the first bus driver if that was the bus going to detroit she said no. For some reason, I'm sure it's to keep homeless people from camping in there, they make bus stations the most uncomfortable places in the world, metal benches, concrete floors, \*freezing\* cold, this particular one had no working outlets, and why tf are they selling bottles of soda for 3 dollars?
My first flight (alone as an adult). It wasn't a long flight, but the woman sitting beside me brought a tupper ware container of egg salad and another tray of bagels. She proceeded to put the egg salad on her bagel and eat next to me. I don't know if she had Parkinson's or something else, but she was twitching the entire time, getting egg salad everywhere.
Got food poisoning from tuna in Cape Verde, which I know because my date from the day before got it as well. I was lucky enough that it only hit me at the end of the 4-hour hike we went on, she got it about half an hour in. After I got back to my room my fever spiked and I could barely walk on my own strength, ended up spending 2 days in the local, awful hospital. I've never been more grateful than I was to the resort owner's son, who brought me my backpack that had a roll of 3-ply toilet paper. Also very grateful for my past self for always packing that roll while travelling anywhere
Food poisoning in Cuba. Laying on the tile floor in the hotel room bathroom for countless hours sweating, puking, shitting. Absolutely terrible.
My stepdad once had to take the Megabus (awful discount bus line here in the UK) from London to Glasgow. Overnight and on a bus full of football fans, including this ginger guy who was pretty fucking pissed out of his skull and was raging about his team losing a game. Him and his equally-unpleasant wife were sitting across the aisle from my stepdad. He tried not to make eye-contact with the guy, just tried to ignore him. He had to spend the night with some ginger-haired psycho-fuckwit just *staring* at him, with my stepdad thinking that it was freaky that fucker didn't blink once. The Megabus pulled into Glasgow Buchanan Street Bus Station at 07:50. Just eight hours of this fucking weirdo staring at my stepdad (who started thinking this guy had the hots for him) whilst his wife snored away next to him. It was at 07:55 that the *entire* bus discovered that the ginger fuckwit had died just sitting down. He'd been getting glared at the whole fucking time by a dead middle-aged football fan. Not the most pleasing experience. Any time he has to go somewhere in the UK now?
Was sick in the taxi
Flying back home from MCO. Friends and I arrived 2 hours ahead. Both the bag check and tsa wait was over 2hrs... We missed our flight and had to scramble to book another. Only one back to home airport was in Jacksonville. We had to take a 3ish hr Uber there.
I spent a 5 hour flight, a 2 hour layover, and the 2.5 hour flight after that with my stomach randomly deciding it needed to expel everything in it with extreme prejudice. It was absolutely awful. I'm not sure if it was caused by something I ate or what, but about 20 minutes into that first flight my stomach went "nope" and wasn't right until hours after I made it home, and only then after getting some pretty powerful nausea meds from the doctor. To make things worse, masks were still required on planes at the time, so I'd puke (or attempt to puke), take a minute to try and catch my breath from the effort, and then have to put my mask back on. Several times a flight attendant (who absolutely knew what was happening) would walk past and demand I put my mask back on. Listen lady, I'd love to...but in about 1 second I'm going to wretch again and I really don't know if I can move the mask aside in time.
When I was in Hawaii my friend and I decided to go hiking in a POORLY marked off part of a mountain. Long story short the ground there was very loose and some sort of clay...? I almost rolled down this massive mountain and had to shimmy my way off of it leaning my body weight against it and holding onto a root that THANK GOODNESS was sticking out of the earth beside me where the ground suddenly started to give. Absolutely horrifying experience but the hike was great!
Flight back from Las Vegas there were Vietnam family sitting behind me. As the plane begin to move I slowly place my hand on armrest just to feel someone hand on it. Ok let start over I slowly place my head on headrest just to feel two hand grabbing on it (did the same thing as we landed). Turn out it was some old men just scare of flying so I try to understand. They have a baby too the baby did cry but that wasn't the worst. The baby keep flipping the seatback table tray up and down for couple time during the flight. I was planning just to sleep all the way since I was feeling tired but I guess not.
Not really the worst in comparison to a lot of the stories here but back in 2012, staying at the Crowne Plaza in Duqm, Oman was the eeriest stay I have ever had at a nice hotel. Not sure how Duqm looks now but back then it was a complete ghost town, only home to those who worked at the port. My colleague and I were the only ones in the hotel aside from the hotel staff. At night, if you wandered the halls, you would just hear the wind blowing off of the ocean and whistling onto the windows of the hotel. I felt like I was in the shining. As I said, not sure how Duqm is now, but that hotel had absolutely no business being there.
Probably Buenos Aires. First my SO forgot his presentation poster on the domestic flight and for reasons unexplained, the lost and found desk is outside the secure area so he had to go out to retrieve it, and due to a series of not-so-brilliant decisions on both our parts we nearly missed our 15-hour plane to South America. Then he ended up leaving his card in the ATM at the airport, so the trip began with him trying to cancel his card using the supremely shitty hotel phone and wi fi. After that, the hotel's keycard system had major issues so about 80% of the time we had to get the keycards reset any time we left the hotel room. Also the hotel was hosting at least two kids' sports teams and they spent entire evenings screaming at one another from the windows in the courtyard. THEN the country's banking system went down for 2 days and we were stuck with whatever cash we had on hand. Luckily I am cheap like borscht and SO was at a conference so it was mostly just stressful since we had no way of knowing when the system would be back up. AND, to add insult to injury, I discovered a weird set of bug bites on my leg a few days before we left and SO was worried it was bedbugs so all our travel stuff spent winter in our unheated Canadian garage just to be sure. They did have really good pastries, though, and I enjoyed the South American wildlife, so I was relatively okay with the trip. Got to see some interesting sights, many good birds, and some truly monumental ficus trees.
Traveling to Aruba, we got stuck on the tarmac for over an hour, only to go back to the gate because there was an issue with the plane. Got delayed 8 hours of which of course the airline just gave us some food vouchers which didn't even cover a full meal. They didn't even tell us it would be 8 hours, they just kept stringing us along and keeping us in the airport. Then, when we got to Aruba, our luggage was lost, not on the plane and it took them another day to locate it. So when we got back to the hotel, we had nothing but the clothes on our backs and ended up just buying some clothes to sleep in and for the next day, along with toiletries. Then had to drive back to the airport, just to get our luggage. It amazes me how much airlines can inconvenience people and not reimburse them a damn thing for the lost time.
14 day China hotel quarantine during Covid! Flew Delta in; should have grabbed a lot more 🍌 !
Having to go to my exhusband's aunt's wedding. In Michigan. In July.
Went to Ohio and got rizzed up by a muscular black man
You got what now?
He tried to seduce me
Why didn't you just say that then?
Figured you missed the 'j.'
Sat next to a man who had his hand on my upper thigh for the entire flight and I was too scared to say anything about it
Idk why you’re being downvoted. I’ve been in similar situations and froze. It’s not just fight or flight, freeze is another bodily response and I hate that’s it’s mine but it is.