my most embarrassing travel story invalsi

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Home » Adventure Tales » Our Embarrassing Travel Stories • MORTIFYING Moments on the Road

Our Embarrassing Travel Stories • MORTIFYING Moments on the Road

Have you ever made a fool of yourself while travelling? Don’t worry, you’re in with your own kind here. This is the place of professionals.

Welcome; you’ve arrived at an assortment of some of the most embarrassing travel stories on the internet.

From some of the worst travel days to the most HUMILIATING moments of our lives, embarrassing moments sure do make great stories. Like always, your buddies at The Broke Backpacker are out here making fools of ourselves for your entertainment.

Before I took my first-ever backpacking trip 9 years ago, I remember vividly my friend who had just come back from Thailand saying “ Everyone shits their pants at some point. ” And dare I say, not a word of a lie.

The truth is, shit happens. Physically or metaphorically, something, at some problematic point on your travel journey, will create a hilarious story .

Are we mad, sharing this on the internet?

But we’re all friends here… Right?

Our Most Embarrassing Travel Stories

Final regrets.

Strap in, folks. Get ready to cringe, laugh and snigger at The Broke Backpacker team ‘s most embarrassing moments on the road.

We will start this post with the founder of The Broke Backpacker and a travel story that memorable for all the wrong reasons… Brace yourself for “ The Dick Tick “.

The Dick Tick

The wind howled outside, cold and loud, battering at the wooden hatches of the cheap Nepalese guesthouse in the mountains. Yesterday, I had crossed Throng La pass, the highest navigable pass in the world, and last night I had crashed exhausted beneath a pile of blankets of dubious cleanliness. 

I was awake, and I shouldn’t be… it was early, perhaps 5 am, and my whole body ached from over a week of hiking at altitude. Why was I awake? I noticed it again, a sharp sensation in my nether regions and I sprung out from underneath the blankets. I pulled back my boxers and stared in horror at a tick firmly attached to the end of my penis. 

Fuuuuuuuuuuuck. I shook my friend awake, he stared at me groggily… “Ben, dude, you need to look at my dick.”

Ben was just as horrified as I was but agreed to help me burn the fucker off with a match. One singed bollock later and we gave up on that idea. I hobbled, legs splayed like a fucking cowboy, and made my way down the cobblestone streets to a small doctor’s clinic, the only gig in town.

Prayer flags flapped noisily in the wind and pockets of clouds danced around the snow-capped peaks surrounding the small village. It was a beautiful offbeat adventure , but I didn’t have time to notice. Endless horrible scenarios of having to amputate my penis kept swirling in my mind. Luckily, it wouldn’t come to that… 

Will : Founder & Chief Adventurer

The doctor thought my predicament was hilarious and after snapping a photo for, I assumed, his ‘album of distressed foreigners’, he poured saline onto my junk and boom, the little fucker was gone…  I remain scarred to this day (mentally).

The Walk of Shame

Did your High School counsellor/PSE teacher ever warn you about the dangers of drugs? Did you roll your eyes as they droned on about heroin deaths and warned you that smoking a joint would one day turn you into a boring, conspiracy theorist and a crusty, tedious reggae enthusiast? Yeah me too, but maybe we should have.

It was Christmas in Guatape – Colombia’s pretty lakeside town that is famed for an enormous rock. Me and some guys I had just met, decided to celebrate in the traditional manner by ingesting mild altering, psychedelic substances that we had bought from some other guy we just met in the street.

This is drug tourism done badly. The acid ( which was clearly not actually acid) came on fast and hard, and long story short, I entered a horrible, horrible alternate dimension and lost all contact with reality for a good 12 hours.

I came round with a sudden sharp, start, sat in the middle of the jungle, caked in mud and totally utterly stark bollock naked save for one white Converse all-star trainer.  

“Oh shit” 

I thought to myself.

“It appears that I shall now have to walk home naked…and where is home actually?”

I waited for nightfall and navigated the way home using the huge, enormous rock as a reference point. Every time I heard a motor-chiva’s rusty engine I hid behind a bush or a gate to hide my shame.

Each time I passed a lonesome farmhouse, I enviously eyed the contents of its washing line in search of stray modesty-cloths to steal. (Eventually, I found some tiny, wet blue trousers that felt to be made from some awful sandpaper-denim hybrid).

Aiden : Gear Manager & Senior Editor

Eventually I got home and had to sheepishly knock on the hostel door to be let in. Most embarrassing indeed.

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I Don’t Like Bikes

I’m always the clumsy one.

If someone in the group is gonna slip over the invisible banana peel, or drop their full cup of freshly brewed coffee in front of everyone, it’s gonna be me.

Both of those things had already happened, so my friends were just waiting for my next move.

Everyone backpacking in Vietnam needs to drive a bike at least once as a rite of passage, so we decided to cross the beautiful Hai Van Pass.

Driving through the countryside, pit-stopping in random little towns for snacks… life was good.

The very last stretch was a busy road connecting Da Nang and Hoi An, our final stop, and an accurate depiction of the country’s signature two-wheeled madness.

My friends entered the car-only lane and started overtaking. “Fun!”, I thought, so I followed suit…

But the fun ended quickly, as I hit the first car I tried to overtake, the impact projecting me onto said mad road in slow motion.

This was more of a mortifying moment than an embarrassing one at this point. I thought that was it.

Tomas : Brand Manager and Part-time Dirtbag

Luckily though, two Vietnamese angels were sitting roadside in plastic chairs as if waiting for my stupid move.

They picked me and my bike up in seconds, sitting me down, and pulling out their first aid kit. Quite literally a story of kindness on the road .

The Pakistan Poo

For most backpackers, food poisoning usually comes from street food escapades involving uncooked meat, dirty ice, or something of the like. But for me… it was an American chain I’d known for decades that led to one of the most embarrassing travel stories of my life.

After arriving in Pakistan’s frontier city of Peshawar after traveling through Afghanistan . I was utterly exhausted and absolutely STARVING by the time we finally got into our room. Unfortunately… it was also 1 AM, which meant all known restaurants were closed and delivery choices non-existent… except Domino’s, as luck would have it. Relieved as one could be, I excitedly placed the order and even recall raving about how good it tasted as I chewed my way through half a pepperoni pie.

The next morning, instead of my alarm waking me up, I was jolted out of bed by one seriously angry stomach…to make sure this doesn’t give out TMI, let’s just say … something… about that meal did not quite sit right.

Ordinarily, this would have been fine – nothing wrong with a day or two out of commission, right? But this morning was nothing but ordinary. In just 24 hours, we had plans to venture across the border into Afghanistan on an overland odyssey through Central Asia. While I somehow made it through the next few hours (which involved a visit with the Taliban to purchase my visa), things progressed…shittly. Armed with a whole lot of immodium, bananas, and other stomach aids, I writhed in pain and was all but sure we wouldn’t be able to travel on as planned.

Well… we did manage to cross the border. And for the entire day, I truly thought the horrors of the worst pizza in my life were behind me. I munched on Kabuli pulao, sipped on smoothies, and crossed nearly half of Afghanistan in a combination of taxis and buses virtually symptom-free…

That is until our bus found itself stuck in an Old Soviet tunnel on the 13,000 ft Solang Pass – no man’s land of Afghanistan road travel, if you will. Barricaded by construction work and with no toilets for miles (in one of the most conservative countries in the world, I may add) I had no choice but to rush off the coach, and make do behind an abandoned dump truck, all whilst stumbling amongst more layers of shawls and fabric than I had ever worn in my life.

Samantha : Travel Writer & Adventure Expert 

Moral of the story: NEVER eat Domino’s Pizza in Pakistan… Or if you’re me, never, ever eat it again.

The Show Off

On a sunny Sunday in the stunning tropical Isla Colon, Bocas Del Toro, Panama, I cycled around in the blazing sun. With the wind behind me, a stomach full of rice and peas, my AirPods blasting the finest Afrobeats known to man and my newly acquired travel friends (three blonde girls) in tow, my confidence was at an all-time high.

We stopped for a photo and coconut break next to a pier that stretched out into the Caribbean Sea. As I took off my molten hot, jet-black helmet, drops of sweat slid down the side of my face. “A dip,” I thought to myself, “Why not?” What’s the worst that could happen, right?

As the show off I am, I wanted to impress one of the lovely ladies in particular and thought it would be a cool idea to jump off the edge of the pier. Without a second thought, I went full send and bombed it into the deep blue. Only, it wasn’t the deep blue. 

My neck and head didn’t even break the surface. 

There I was, still curled up in the bomb position, sitting on the ocean floor. At the point of contact, my ankle popped so loud that one of the girls screamed louder than I did. It was f*cked.

Long story short, I ruined the girls’ day. They had to drag me out of the water, call me a taxi, and take me to the hospital while I called my amazing backpacker insurance . I found out my injury was so severe I would have to fly home and wear an ankle boot for at least the next six months.

Joe : Editor & Serial Side Quester

Time for the morals of the story folks… Don’t jump into the sea at low tide. Don’t do stupid sh*t to impress girls and don’t wear a helmet (pls do).

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Or, y’know… you can stick to just chucking it all in your backpack…

Squat Toilet Horror

If anyone isn’t familiar with using a squat toilet , they take a bit of getting used to at first. But after a while, you realise it can’t be all that bad. It just means you aren’t quite as relaxed as you might usually be. 

Anyway, I just arrived in a guesthouse which had two toilet options: a western toilet upstairs and a squat toilet downstairs. The second option opened to the common area. And that common area was always filled with enthusiastic, loud travellers that I was hoping to make some friends with as I just arrived in this new town alone. 

Well, although I had a preference for the western toilet upstairs – undisturbed and relaxed – it had been occupied for some time now. And I was getting desperate. Reluctantly, I went to the squat toilet downstairs.

A few minutes into the job, what I didn’t realise was that the tiny sliding bolt lock on the door wasn’t in place properly. And there I was Hershey’s Kiss at my feet, as someone opened the door and screamed even louder than I did. 

Laura : Senior Editor & Chill Goddess 

Yes, everyone in the guesthouse must have heard it. Everyone in town probably heard it. It remains to this day, the most embarrassing moment in all my travels – and probably my whole life too.

The Oat Milk Bath

After a 36-hour journey from New Zealand, I landed in London , bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready for my first-ever solo backpacking trip. With my big ol’ backpack in tow and battling some severe jet lag, I ventured toward the city. Despite needing a serious shower, I saw that Covent Garden was on the way – that sounded famous, so off I went!

In a bid to relieve the jet lag, I splurged on an over-priced oat milk latte, questioning my decision not to head back and crash at the hostel. As I roamed, the enticing aroma of Aesop, a lush soap store, lured me over. As The Broke Backpacker I am, I went to snag some of the free hand cream out front. 

I was carrying a lot of stuff but this soap is seriously good so I started to juggle my things around. I cleverly bit my coffee cup lid so it balanced between my teeth… until it didn’t… 

BAM. There it went, a coffee explosion. Time slowed and I flooded with regret.  

It made a way louder noise than a coffee cup should and went absolutely EVERYWHERE. Stares from all angles came my way. There was no one to laugh it off with. Just me, my big backpack and a shit load of coffee all over my (no longer) LIGHT-coloured clothes in the middle of the bustling heart of Covent Garden!

The silver lining is that this happened outside a soap shop. The kind lady from the shop welcomed me in, cleaned me up as well as she could, and sent me on my merry way. 

Dani : Junior Editor & Oceanic Explorer

I was covered in coffee, but at least now I was slightly caffeinated and smelt a lot better. What a way to start my journey!

The Humble Puddle

It was a pretty shitty day; it was raining more than ever and I was dying to leave the coworking space to see my friends for dinner. I am convinced the people around me could hear my thoughts as they were so loud.

I finally made a move for my scooter, regardless of the massive muddy puddles surrounding the parking zone. One of the coworking space workers was barefoot in the puddle helping people get across the tiny stepping stones to the other side of the lot. 

I was impatient and he was busy, so I impulsively made a hop to the stepping stones. Not only did I miss, The stone fell over and so did I. I ended up full of mud, ripped pants, and I cracked my phone in the process.

Amanda : Junior Editor & Senior Dreamer 

The WORST part was the crowd of people watching through the glass of the coworking space. Never showing my face there again, that’s for sure.

Things go wrong on the road ALL THE TIME. Be prepared for what life throws at you.

Buy an AMK Travel Medical Kit before you head out on your next adventure – don’t be daft!

Caffeine Deprivation

One fine sunny morning in 2013 (I already forgot the month as I wanted to erase this in my memory), I strolled into the soft, powdery sand of Boracay. I was looking for a place to eat breakfast and sip my very first iced coffee of the day . I spotted someone familiar walking with his friends happily chatting with each other.

Overflowing with excitement, I ran towards him, with a delighted jump and a tight hug upon reaching him, and said without looking “ Uy! Nandito ka din pala. Na-miss kita ah! ” (Hey! You’re here too. I miss you so much!).

He looked at me with a flustered expression replying “ Miss sino ka? ” (Miss who are you?). I glanced back at him, then my face flushed red, and it felt as though cold water had been poured over me. After a few seconds, reality hit me and I realized that he was not the person that I thought he was.

I nervously responded “Oh my gosh! I’m sorry… I thought you were someone I know!!!” His group of friends burst out laughing and one of them said “ Akala ko kilala mo tol !” (I thought you knew her bro) to which he quickly responded with an annoyed face “Of course not!” He slightly pushed his friend and started to walk away. I kept on apologizing for mistakenly thinking he was someone I knew of until his friend chased and teased him.

Feeling embarrassed, I returned to our hotel and didn’t leave the entire day after that incident.

Rhenzy : Empress of the Virtual Assistants 

Lesson learned: don’t forget to drink your coffee first and do not … I repeat! DO NOT hug someone until you confirm that they are indeed someone you know.

Why You Need Travel Insurance

If there’s one thing we at The Broke Backpacker would never travel without, it’s good travel insurance . As you can see, the unexpected and unpredictable can happen to anyone on the road. Staying well insured is essential.

ALWAYS sort out your backpacker insurance before your trip. There’s plenty to choose from in that department, but a good place to start is Safety Wing .

They offer month-to-month payments, no lock-in contracts, and require absolutely no itineraries: that’s the exact kind of insurance long-term travellers and digital nomads need.

SafetyWing is cheap, easy, and admin-free: just sign up lickety-split so you can get back to it!

Click the button below to learn more about SafetyWing’s setup or read our insider review for the full tasty scoop.

Now that that’s on the internet for everyone to see, we all feel great. But hey, can’t be all that bad now, can it?

Life on the road is full of massive ups and massive downs. But that’s what travel is all about.

Travel is about experiences, good, bad, and, remorseful. All of our experiences mould who we become and negative or regretful occurrences often become blessings in disguise for your future self.

Without these moments of despair, it is more difficult to appreciate all the good times in life. By withstanding the shit stuff (literally), laughing about it, learning from it, and embracing a positive attitude, you will come out of it a better person. That’s a guarantee.

If you have any embarrassing travel stories of your own, please do share… Drop it in the comments below and air your shameful moments with us. Perhaps, that way, there really is no shame in the end.

• Check out our ultimate guide to Hostel Life .
• For some travel stories inspiration, view our best best places to backpack .
• Embrace the backpacker spirit at one of the world’s best hostels .
• Swing by our super useful backpacking packing list to prep for your trip.
• Sort your international SIM card out to avoid unnecessary hassle.
• Plan your travels perfectly with volunteer opportunities on the road .

The Broke Backpacker

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My Funniest, Cringiest & Most Embarrassing Travel Stories

Last Updated: October 18, 2023

*FYI - this post may contain affiliate links, which means we earn a commission at no extra cost to you if you purchase from them. Also, as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Check out our Privacy Policy and Disclosure. for more info.

Whenever I tell people I’m a travel blogger, the first response I typically get (well, besides the backing away slowly) is “wow you must have so many fascinating travel stories to tell” .

At which point I laugh nervously and try to change the subject.

The truth is, most of my best travel stories happen because I did something shockingly stupid, as opposed to the fearlessly inspirational wanderlust stories most people imagine.

Truth be told, these days, my site (like many travel blogs) is more geared towards helpful, practical how-tos and guides. That’s what the people tend to want, and (truthfully) that’s where the money is.

But you really can’t beat a good travel story.

So here are my top stories about travel – zapped of all practical tips and paraded here for your amusement only.

Save this list of funny travel stories for later!

You’ll be very glad you did.

To offer a semblance of organization to the chaos, I’ve divided my travel stories into the following sections:

• My funniest and most embarrassing travel stories (short travel stories to make you laugh)
• My best travelogues (journal style content that is only slightly more serious)
• An archive of my old travel updates organized by month/year

Simply tap on each Travel Story title and the tale will reveal itself. Enjoy!

My Funniest & Most Embarrassing Travel Stories

I’ve long considered myself a magnet for cringe, awkwardness and embarrassment. Luckily. my pride’s loss is your entertainment’s gain! Here are the funniest travel stories I have in my repertoire.

I’ve always considered myself a grandma in disguise. 

After all, I love baking cookies, I often use the term “youths” non-ironically, and quite frankly: I’m nostalgic for time periods I wasn’t even alive to witness. 

But you know, dating a grandpa by accident – that’s where I draw the line.

And as absurd as it sounds, this happened. I went on a date with a man 3x my age one night in Liverpool. All by accident. 

Here is that story. 

Let me start things off by saying – I wouldn’t consider it an actual “date”, though maybe he thought differently. Moreover, my boyfriend finds this story rather hilarious so let’s not slander my name with terms like adulterous and wench.

Anyways, last summer I found myself in Liverpool while criss crossing England by train. This was a true bucket list trip for me, one that I’d dreamt of ever since deciding in high school that I’d be weird and listen exclusively to music that was at least 40 years old.

So yes, an early onset obsession with the Beatles is what led me to Liverpool.

My visit coincided with peak season, meaning a hostel was all I could afford without subsisting off ramen the entire trip. I was excited though – it had been a while since I’d stayed at a hostel, and I was looking forward to the social element.

Well, the social element definitely came through in a way I did not expect.

One night, after delighting myself with countless Beatles  tours that flung my fangirl heart into overdrive, one piece that remained missing was seeing a live performance at the Cavern Club, where the Beatles rocked the stage decades ago. 

I stopped at my hostel to quickly drop off my things and rest up before attending the show. 

To my surprise, as I flung the door open, one of my dormmates happened to be slightly above the average age of a backpacker. 

… By like, 50 years.

“Oh helloooo!!” he sang as I tip toed in. His enthusiasm was undeniable. 

After an awkward hello, I quickly learned that this man, easily 50 years my senior was in fact a local – Liverpool born and raised, supposedly holed up in my hostel dorm due to some water issues at his own home. 

And while I was taught since birth to avoid hanging out alone in rooms with strange old men, I was captivated by his stories. He rattled on and on about what it was like to grow up in Liverpool during such an important time (yes, he grew up with the Beatles’ rise to fame), and chatted about his favourite spots in the city.

Then came my ultimate blunder.

In an awkward attempt to fill the conversation, I asked him if he had ever seen the Beatles tribute band at the Cavern Club on Thursdays.

His response? 

“That sounds great. LET’S GO!” 

Did I just ask him OUT? 

It seems, in a comical twist of events, he had interpreted my question as an invitation, and before I could clarify he was already rattling off how excited he was to be going again. 

As a safety net, I roped in another guy from the dorm to come, turning my awkward maybe-date into a definite threesie-date type situation. 

We took the short 5 minute walk to the Cavern Club, and as I slipped through those iconic doors to see the exact setting where the Beatles performed decades ago, I temporarily forgot I was on a date with a strange old man.

What about my safety net invite, you might ask? Let me tell you – that man did NOT stick around. He soon faded to the back of the room and left me alone with my grand-date, who had sweetly scavenged some beers for us as the concert began.

But I was too blissed out to care. After all, I was in the Cavern Club, watching a Beatles Tribute Band that (to my blurry vision) was a dead-ringer for the real Fab Four. 

This was living.

Of course, there were moments here and there that would snap me back to my bizarre reality, like when Gran-Date tried to teach me how to twist. 

Or when he tapped me on the shoulder mid-twist to say “I’m so glad you dragged me to this!”, likely to the horror of anyone who could hear.

But most curious of all was when briefly after the intermission, I turned to my side mid-jam, and found my Gran-Date nowhere to be found.

Gone like the wind. Replaced with a wall of drunk tourists.

Apparently I’d been ghosted.

After the concert, I walked back to the hostel, soaking in the brisk Liverpool air, trying to process the simultaneous euphoria of a bucket list concert and the bizarre company I’d mistakenly roped into the ordeal.

And just as I pondered the mystery of my disappearing date, I slipped into our shared hostel dorm and found him snoring away in his bottom bunk, dreaming (I assume) of the golden days where he’d twist and shout the night away. 

I slipped into my bunk, dress soaked through with the stench of smoke and spilled beer from the Cavern Club, thinking about what a weird day that all was.

All in all though, I’ve had worse dates.

There are few times in my life when I have laughed hysterically, uncontrollably and in sheer terror.

My dear readers, today I will recount to you one of those times.

This is the story of how I once managed to forget an entire suitcase on my way to a trip. No, I did not leave it at a bus stop. I did not negligently have it taken from me in a busy cross street. No, I simply left it on the floor, meticulously packed on the dusty carpet of my studio apartment, probably wondering why his mommy left him. 

It was a hazy November evening, specifically – it was Black Friday.

Exhausted from a recent press trip and the daunting catch-up to be played that morning, I can fully admit I was not myself, mentally-speaking. Marbles might have been lost, or destroyed entirely. 

But a Christmas market getaway was soon to be my reward for a hard day’s work! 

My to-do list that day was the only thing standing between me and a weekend in üusseldorf munching on bonbons and frolicking wherever the glühwein was fresh. 

So, dutifully, I started my day by packing for the weekend, and then proceeded to spend the next 8 hours glued at my desk, clacking away at the keyboard.

When my boyfriend got home from work, we had to act fast. Our train was set to depart within the hour, so it was very much a “grab bags and go situation”. Luckily, having pre-packed, I felt pretty smug as he darted around trying to find his toothpaste while shoving all his things into an oversized duffel. 

I was clacking away at my keyboard up until the moment he said “time to go!”, at which point I threw my laptop in my backpack and off we went. 

Throughout the 15 minute commute to Munich’s main train station, I kept my nose glued to my phone, attempting in earnest to craft the perfect caption for a Facebook post (yes, really). 

“How Cosmopolitan of me!” I thought. A woman on the go juggling work so effortlessly en route to a weekend away in a glassy new city. 

I AM CARRIE BRADSHOW MEETS MICHELLE OBAMA, I gloated giddily to myself, thumbs still working as the U-Bahn came to a slow crawl. 

Hauptbahnhof. Central Station. That’s me – the woman on the go.

It was at this moment that I felt the emptiness of my hands. 

I didn’t have ANY OF MY STUFF. 

In horror, I realized I hadn’t brought the suitcase I had so dutifully packed, and had nothing on me but my small black backpack with my laptop and camera.

But with my train leaving in 10 minutes, I had to go. Forget running back to get my suitcase – I had to bust my butt to even make it on the train.

Luckily, I did.

And so I sat on my overheated train bound for Düsseldorf, 5 hours ahead to allow the full gravity of my problem sink in. 

I had no clothes… nothing but the woolen granny sweater I threw on last minute, and a black tank top which was sure to be caked soon with 72 hours’ worth of sweat and humiliation. 

And my boyfriend? Smugly unhelpful.

There are a few moments of my life that I’m not terribly proud of. In the aftermath of my realization, and amidst the hysterical laughter that followed, I would have traded places with any of those prior moments 20 times over.

But as they say, even lemons can be made into lemonade. I hurled myself into a DM upon arrival and stocked up on makeup and hygiene essentials, and treated myself to a dorky Christmas sweater to last me the rest of the weekend so I had at least one outfit change.

Add on some borrowed clothes from my cooperative boyfriend, and I was back in business, able to frolic and enjoy Düsseldorf’s Christmas markets to my heart’s content.

72 hours later, when I arrived back home to Munich, I couldn’t help but laugh hysterically a final time as I saw my sad suitcase sitting in the middle of the room, handle up, ready to go… exactly as I had left it only a few short days ago.

Maybe next time, bud. Maybe next time.

Warning: this story will make zero sense if you have not seen Game of Thrones (or at least familiar with its main characters). Read at your discretion. 

Dear readers, there was a time not too long ago that I was a raging, rabid fangirl.

Like, to the point where I would fly long distances to meet my favourite musicians, gift them fan art, and attend the PBS taping of their concert special.

And while those dark times are now (fortunately) in the past, there are still some specks of that fangirl enthusiasm that remain. 

Said speck is what spurred me to buy a last-minute ticket to see Kit Harrington’s play in the West End by myself on one random London day, an expensive and spontaneous decision that would lead to one of the weirder days of my life.

(Bear in mind this took place during the peak of Game of Thrones hysteria, so try not to judge me too hard)

With a ticket confirmation in hand for the performance later that evening, I swung by the Duke of York’s Theatre in the late afternoon to get my ticket. 

As I exited the theatre, my fangirl spidey senses began to tingle. Stood steps from the door, I watched as a silver car pulled up to the curb…

And the passenger door swung open to reveal a mass of curly black hair.

KIT. FREAKING. HARRINGTON.

Literal metres from me.

I froze in place as a mob of fans seemingly emerged from nowhere, swarming him for photos and autographs. He made a pretty firm beeline for the theatre, stopping only for a photo or two.

And just like that, he was gone.

As I reeled trying to process that flash entrance, a French accented voice snapped me out of my daze. 

“He arrives everyday at this time. I always come when I have the day off” she said. 

I turned to see a girl about my age, holding a letter she’d written for Kit and intended to give him. 

For a few minutes, I chatted with my fellow fangirl in battle. She told me how she’d met Kit Harrington only twice, but she’d recently met Shawn Mendez 11 times, and how she had a group chat on Whatsapp with fellow fangirls where they swapped Shawn-spotting tips daily. 

She also told me how Kit’s work had helped her during a tough time, and that she’d written him a letter with the specifics… something she intended to give him at some point today, even though she didn’t have a ticket to the show.

I knew instantly, if anyone was going to crowbar her way into Jon Snow’s heart with weaponized fear, it would be her and her alone. 

So we said our goodbyes, I grabbed a romantic Chipotle dinner for one (AKA the ‘Cry for Help’ combo) and headed back to the theatre.

There, I watched the play (it was terrible) and rushed outside right after the final bows, just as I was instructed. 

Immediately, I saw my new ally, feet planted into the concrete, guarding her position at the front of the gate. She motioned me over, permitting me the honour of fighting by her side in this battle.

I mean… with stakes as high as breathing Kit Harrington’s air, we needed a united front.

Together we stood, hopes high with every squeak of the door, watching with the ferocity of hawks. Countless cast members exited, each ushering in their own wave of disappointment.

Then, finally – another squeak of the door… and there he was! Black curls, black coat. “King of the North!!!!” Except, sad? Oh no…. 

We watched as he leaned in and whispered with his security guard. Suspenseful murmurs. In the silence, you could almost HEAR the crowd peeing their pants. 

Then, he turned away. The King of the North turned away… and walked off.  

“Unfortunately Kit is feeling under the weather and can’t do signings today,” announced the foxy security guard.

Nooooooo!! YOU KNOW NOTHING, JON SNOW!!!!! I later pieced together that this was the evening he had gotten in massive trouble in the media for claiming male actors were also “sexual objects”. Not a great chapter of sweet Kit’s life, I’ll tell you.

And so, defeated, the crowd dispersed, eager (I’m sure) to air their grievances over Twitter.

In my grief, I began my walk of sadness towards the Tube. I walked no more than a few blocks to see another mob of fans, no different from the one I had just bitterly exited. Feeling like I had nothing to lose, I asked an excited gaggle of girls in line “What are you waiting for?” 

Their answer? “ROBB STARK! HE’S PLAYING ROMEO!” 

……… Iiiiiiiinteresting. 

Like a well-trained robot, I claimed my spot in the Robb mob. 

And not even 10 minutes later, the play ended, the crowds emerged and our mob doubled in size. Another 10 minutes and Robb Stark was there – right before our eyes, smiley, charming and beautiful as ever. 

Somehow I had weaseled my way into the front of the mob, literally a foot away from him. Bear in mind I hadn’t even watched the play, so had no ticket, no program, nothing for him to sign.

There I stood, deer in headlights, nothing to sign, just a fangirly glob of goo vaguely pieced together as a human being. As he passed me, he smiled, Sharpie in hand, then, seeing that I was just a motionless psycho who didn’t even want an autograph, he moved on as quickly as he came.

And so, I suppose I did end up meeting the King of the North, one way or the other.  Proof that sometimes fairytales do come true. 

… You just have to be a little shameless 😉 

It’s 5pm at Gatwick Airport and my pockets are filled with bacon.

Literal, raw slabs of bacon.

… as in, “salty fat strips plucked from the fluorescent freezer at Tesco’s” bacon.

I can admit this was a bizarre situation to be in, but allow me to pepper in a smidge of context. You see, for some time, one of my biggest gripes with life in Germany had zero to do with the red tape, the bureaucracy or the fact that it made me fat. Rather, my #1 complaint was simply the bacon: too thin, too flimsy and woefully unsatisfying. 

So when I found myself in London for a little break before retreating back to Germany, I immediately recognized an opportunity… 

“England has GREAT bacon” my brilliant mind mused. 

I could simply bring home a bundle of English bacon and then rid my new German life of its one mild (but troubling) imperfection.

I’ll take my Nobel Prize by mail, thank you.

Slow clapping at my supposed perfect plan, I set the wheels in motion. One cloudy London morning, en route to the airport, I slid my way into a fluorescent Tesco’s and got my claws on a few packs of sweet English bacon.

Fast forward to airport security. 

… I’m sure you can tell where this is going.

After dutifully removing my coat, my shoes, and my bag, I went through my usual security routine, perfected over dozens of airport visits and that classic Canadian fear of confrontation. 

Then it happened…

I watched as my backpack zipped into place on the secondary conveyer belt, the one intended for re-checks of delinquent liquids above 100mL and rogue electronics. 

Except my backpack wasn’t filled with delinquent liquids or rogue electronics. My backpack was filled with sweet, English bacon. 

Paranoid thoughts began to cloud my already questionable judgment. Oh god, what did I do? Was it worth it? Was I doomed to rot in airport jail, alongside other fearless smugglers of cured meat? 

I stood there, accumulating pools of sweat in my furry Uggs, as he swabbed my bag for classic things one might smuggle, like Columbian cocaine. All he managed to locate however were the tattered remains of my dignity.  

“It’s bacon,” I squeaked.

The look on his face said it all. If I could translate facial expressions, his probably translated to “daheq did you just say, child?” 

“It’s bacon. I hope that’s okay. I just… the bacon is Germany isn’t very good… so…” I continued to mumble. 

After the disbelief washed off his face, I watched in slow motion as Mr. Airport Security flashed a smile. “So the bacon’s no good then?” he confirmed.

I breathed a sigh of relief as he handed me my bag and moved onto the next delinquent in line. No airport jail, just a crippling sense of shame. Also known in my life as an average Friday night.

I wish I could tell you the rest of the commute was smooth. Unfortunately, I found myself at the mercy of EasyJet’s strict one bag policy, meaning my backpack had to be stuffed in my carry-on suitcase, which simply wouldn’t shut for one reason: 

That damn bacon. 

So that’s how it ended up in my pockets. All of it. There was nowhere else to put it.

Boarding that flight, I threw on my big burly coat, pockets precariously stuffed with bacon, as I climbed into my narrow seat, I prayed for mercy from the gods of embarrassment. “Please don’t let a pack fall out… please don’t have anyone tell me Miss, you’ve dropped your…….. bacon?!” 

I am forever indebted to the gods of mercy because thankfully, dear readers, all of said bacon did manage to stay unseen, all throughout the 2 hour flight and the subsequent 1 hour commute home… 

Success: My sketchy meat smuggling remained secret for another day. 

And yet, amidst all that chaos…. I can still say: I have zero regrets. That well travelled bacon (who has travelled to more countries than some actual humans) turned out to be just as delicious as I hoped. Just maybe next time, I’ll bring a bigger suitcase.

I often speak about my travel experiences with a fairly a rosy lens – with words like magical, enchanting and postcard-perfect getting prominent use in my (admittedly) Disney-fied vocabulary.

But there are travel experiences that jade even me, the token overexcited corgi of the travel blogger world. 

Today I’d like to share with you one of those times.

This is the untold story of when my boat in Venice vanished, and the whirlwind hell that ensued.

Once upon a time, when I was still interning for a river cruise company as a photo reporter, it was my actual job to visit magical places, live on boats and document the whole thing. 

My 5 th cruise brought me to Venice, one of the most romantic cities in the entire world. 

I had been there before once as a high schooler, and I couldn’t wait to see it again in my more mature form. As I rode from the airport to the docks, I passed through an industrial side of Venice I had never seen before. Giant loading zones for mammoth cruise ships, and woah – roads. The Venice I knew didn’t have roads. 

As we reached our stop: “San Basilio Dock”, my taxi driver pulled into an empty parking lot and gestured unhelpfully towards the water. “Boats there!”  

At the time, I was confident I’d figure it out. There was no time to clarify or press. I was in Venice! There was pasta to be eaten! Gondoliers to fall in love with! Or you know, at the very least, many tourist pictures to photo bomb. 

And so, I made my way along the water, passing super yachts, cruises, little dinghys. I didn’t know how long I’d have to walk but at this point, I had seen these cruises multiple times, I thought I’d recognize it instantly, so I wasn’t worried.

… About 15 minutes later, that delayed worry began to kick in. Where was this stupid boat? 

Nervously, I dragged my rolling suitcase across the rickety cobblestones, demolishing the romantic ambiance with my utter lack of grace.

I still do wonder how many proposals I ruined that night. 

Up and down, I searched for my boat. I doubled back twice as the sun sank lower and lower behind the rippling waves of blue.

In my panic, I ducked into the only official looking building around, showing someone a print out of my boat’s name, and the printed instructions to visit this exact dock. 

The burly Italian man, with orange, sunburnt skin squinted at my papers… Then with 4 words, destroyed my already shaky sense of confidence.

“MS Michaelangelo? No here!” He accompanied his harsh words with an even harsher X made with his arms, to really hammer in the fact that no, this boat was not here, I was kinda homeless in Venice and I had no (real) idea where I actually was. 

All I could muster was a weak “okay” as I escaped outside to contemplate my demise. 

Searching through all my papers in a panic, I finally found the boat’s phone number. A fast-talking Italian woman greeted me on the other end. 

“No no no, we are not at San Basilio. Walking will take 1.5 hours, take the vaporetto and….” The rest of her directions came out in a jumbled, frenzied mess, capped off with an “okay bye”. 

It turned out the boat had not simply vanished, but was docked elsewhere for the night due to scheduling/water levels.  

But how the heck was I supposed to get there?! 

Nervously, I waddled to the first vaporetto spot I could see. I didn’t know how to read the timetable, so I just stood there, and literally stared. I was the definition of helpless. The vaporetto schedules made no sense, it was getting dark, I had no idea how to get to this boat, and I was (quite honestly) certain of my imminent death. 

Then a voice came from nowhere. 

“Do you need help?” 

There stood a short, thin man, teeth so bright they practically glowed.

Over a short conversation, I found out he had lived in Montreal for 10 years, now in Venice for 20 and knew the city like the back of his hand. I told him the name of my new location, and he explained the complicated route to me, which required two vaporetto transfers and a short walk in the dark. My eyes were glazed over. I had no idea what he was saying. 

And so Mr. Mysterious Montreal stood with me as countless boats passed. “Not this one”, he would repeat. He probably had kids wondering where the heck he was all night. “Helping a useless Canadian girl, kids… helping a useless Canadian girl.”

Then, it came. Vaporetto #2. Like an action movie right before an impending explosion, he held his foot down on the boat, extending his hand and shoving me on board through the exit. 

I sat there in fear the entire time, clutching my suitcase like my first born, as the Venetian sun came down. For a brief second, the worry dissipated as I caught glimpse of the final shreds of orangey sunset in the sky. I followed the steps as advised, and arrived to the boat like a traumatized puppy – drained and in need of a good cuddle.

And so, as I entered my tiny cabin home for the next week, I set my bags down and heaved a sigh of relief. I didn’t die in Venice that night, but what happened the day after made me wish I had. 

… but of course that’s a story to be continued. 

I embarrass myself often, but there are times far worse than others that make me wish I could buy a secluded cabin in the woods and never see another human again.

This tale of a chocolate goatee was one of such times. 

When I arrived in Venice to find my boat was nowhere to be found, I was traumatized (to put it lightly) and in need of some serious dessert therapy. 

With a free day before my cruise was set to begin (I was working on board as the resident blogger/photographer), I decided to embark on a personal mission to eat the woes away: find the largest gelato I can find, and eat it. 

So that’s what I did. 

If my life were a coming of age film, this would have been the montage scene of me living my best life to upbeat music, dancing through the streets of Venice as a liberated solo female traveller. I escaped into narrow streets, skipped across bridges and you know, embraced a day of feeling pretty darn pleased with myself.

I felt like James Bond gliding through the streets, only with a much less serious mission: to find and consume a gelato the size of my face.

And I found one! 

A perfect, giant gelato cone the size of my face – 4 whole scoops – for only 5 euros. 

I ferociously wolfed it down, realizing I had only 15 minutes to get back to the boat for boarding and introductions. I would soon be officially meeting the crew I’d spend a week with, alongside all the passengers I’d be tasked with interacting with. I wanted to make a good first impression. Riding off the sugar high, I was rocking my favourite dress and I felt on top of the world. I was ready to impress.

I walked up to the boat, many passengers already boarding. I introduced myself to passengers, to crew, to pretty much anyone that would listen because I WAS JUST SO HYPED UP ON SUGAR.

I thought I did great.

Feeling mighty proud of myself for successfully interacting with humans, I walked back to my room, still riding that sugar high (and now a grossly inflated sense of self-confidence). 

That’s when I looked in the mirror. 

And oh god… it even hurts to type this right now…

I had a flipping goatee. 

A GIANT, CHOCOLATE GOATEE. 

What had happened? Who had I pissed off in another life to warrant this kind of karma?!

I had a slow motion flashback to my first voracious lick of that gelato. My chin landed right on the chocolate scoop. I must have been too enamoured by the treat to notice. I had just met everyone on the boat, passengers and crew, had full-on CONVERSATIONS, all with a chocolate splat the size of Mt Vesuivus firmly stained on my chin.

It was my worst professional blunder to date. 

But it didn’t retain that honour for long.

Because less than a week after, I would do something far, far worse. 

Though again, that’s another story to be continued…. 😉 

When people lightheartedly ask if I’ve ever missed a flight, my entire body cringes. 

Because my dear readers, the answer is Yes…. Yes I have. By an entire 24 hours. 

You might be wondering how this is even possible… well, here is that story.

During the summer of 2015, I worked as an intern on board European river cruises, documenting the experience for the company’s blog and social media channels.

My 5 th cruise brought me to Venice, where I encountered a rough start (the boat had vanished) and an even rougher middle (when I introduced myself to everyone while rocking a chocolate goatee).

Little did I know, the end of this cruise would by far take the cake… and it still goes down as one of my worst travel fails in history. 

My next destination was Croatia, the cruise I had been looking forward to most. I had heard time and time again that this was one of the company’s best cruises, and I even had a friend I met on a previous cruise set to work that route with me.

So on my final day in Venice, I was excitedly awaiting my taxi when I got the worst phone call I’ve received (probably) in my entire life.

Sat in the ship’s lounge, sipping a too-sweet cocktail, my phone began to shake, quickly lighting up with a string of mysterious numbers.

Nothing could have prepared me for what came next.

“This is the captain of your Croatian cruise. Where are you????” an angry voice shouted on the other side.

My heart sank. My stomach dropped. I might have peed a little, who knows.

Over the course of a panicked conversation, I was made to realize I had somehow missed my plane by 24 hours, that the crew had been expecting me since yesterday and that they were set to depart in a few hours, without me on it.

Through a further round of panicked phone calls with my supervisor, I went through rounds of apologizing profusely, them saying they would get back to me and then, the gutwrenching blow: There was no way I could make it to Croatia in time for this cruise.

I felt like I could literally see my dreams get thrown out the window. 

I ended up staying in Venice an extra 3 days, and placed on a cruise in Berlin in lieu of Croatia and the Loire Valley in France. Of course, things could have been much worse, but I couldn’t shake that feeling of complete failure and humiliation.

Of course, in time, as most things do, this story resolved itself. The first fully sponsored trip I was offered on this blog was, you guessed it, a sailing trip through Croatia. It felt like my life had come full circle, and you know what – things do (no matter how mortifying) happen for a reason. 

I guess, sometimes happily ever afters come a little delayed.

For many, the prospect of hitchhiking sounds like an enchanting shortcut to getting murdered. 

Having grown up on movies and TV shows where hitchhikers were exclusively murder-bait, I too subscribed to this belief.

But when a few friends and I attempted a really poorly planned hike in Bosnia & Herzegovina and missed our last bus in the process, we had no choice but to give it a try.

After all, we were three nervous girls stranded in Blagaj with no more buses until the next day. The sun was setting, the hanger was imminent, and times were getting desperate.

So with a deep breath, we stuck out our thumbs.

Within minutes, a BMW began to slow as it came up to us, and it truthfully took everything in me to not immediately run for the hills screaming for my mom. 

Luckily, my friends were brave.

“Mostar??” we collectively said, trying to sound as non-threatening as possible. He nodded wordlessly and then waved us in. 

And so, like the start of any good horror movie, we three girls piled into a stranger’s car. 

As we drove, the language barrier became clear immediately. 

Attempting only with excessive gesturing to get his point across, our driver admitted to knowing zero English and continued to furiously blab in a language we knew zero of. 

But soon, his tone changed. We turned onto a vast county round and his eyes lit up.

 “Lavanda!” he proclaimed. 

“Lavanda, lavanda! MY lavanda.” The repetition was Pokemon-esque, and deeply confusing. 

He whipped out his ID card, and in minimal English tried to explain to us his roots, his religion and what he did for a living.

Tough topics to tackle when you know like 3 words. 

But nonetheless he persisted and continued the drive, which was scenic and somehow pleasant despite the broken conversation.

The short drive passed uneventfully, and as he pulled up to the curb a few blocks away from our hostel, he ejected himself from the driver’s seat and popped open his trunk.

“This was it! He was gonna throw us in the trunk and never look back!!!” The paranoid freak in me lamented.

But no. None of that happened. Instead, he flashed a toothy grin as he unveiled his roomy trunk…

Which was filled with tiny draw-string packets of dried lavender.

Lavanda. Lavender. This man was a lavender farmer!

“Lavanda!” he said for a final time as he waved us off and got back into his car.

Relieved and dazed, my friends and I continued our walk home, laughing to ourselves that we had just rode through Bosnia & Herzegovina with a baller lavender mogul. 

And true fact: he’s the reason why to this day, I still smile every time I see lavender.

Once upon a time, I drove through the Dolomites with a burst appendix.

Except just kidding – my appendix hadn’t burst, though for some time I was very convinced it had. 

You see, being a drama queen and mild hypochondriac has troublesome consequences. 

For one, WebMD will literally keep me up at night. By my own diagnoses, I should have died twenty seven times. 

Another consequence, clearly, is interpreting mere stomach pain as a serious medical condition, whilst among the mountains in a foreign country.

It was while driving through the stunning Dolomite mountains in Northern Italy that the latter happened. 

And it’s painfully embarrassing to recall, even now. It was an early morning and we had been driving for about an hour, en route to the Tre Cime di Lavaredo hike, one that has dominated my bucket list for years. That’s when it hit me. 

“Ow. My stomach hurts.” I whined to my boyfriend as he diligently weaved through the route’s hairpin turns.

It could have been all those winding roads, or perhaps the fact that I was practically inhaling a bucket of yogurt because I wanted to save time on breakfast… but my stomach started to clench, like someone had clamped over my intestines and just started twisting. 

I couldn’t tell if I wanted to vomit, cry or what.

We pulled over to a scenic viewpoint, and as I opened the door, I keeled over like a little baby.

Truly, without exaggeration, I had never experienced this level of pain before in my life.

“I think maybe my appendix burst” I declared to my all-too-worried boyfriend as I sprawled out on a luckily placed bench.

Here’s a hot travel tip for you: when you literally pull out Google maps and search “hospital”, there’s a high likelihood you could in fact be in trouble. This is what he began to do just in case.

Then came the WebMD. A list of vague symptoms that apply already to most people. 

“Do you feel nauseous?” YES 

“Do you need to pee?” I DON’T KNOW, MAYBE.

And while I was ready to speed off to an Italian hospital for what I was sure would be an emergency surgery, my boyfriend, every the rational one, tried to calm me down. He encouraged me to lay still for a few moments and try to breathe. 

Within minutes, the pain began to ease.

He then suggested we go for a walk around the lake to hopefully “walk it off”. 

Indeed, a loop around the lake and I was fine.

As we headed back into the car, appendix (most likely) in tact, I realized maybe I was indeed being a bit of a drama queen.

But if there’s one thing you take away from this story, it’s this: do not eat yogurt in a fast moving vehicle. The symptoms may lead you to believe that death is imminent.

My Top Travelogue Stories

If you’re looking for more journal-style travel stories complete with photos, here are some of my best ‘travelogues’, from Verona to Istanbul!

“So, how did you meet your boyfriend?”

For me, that’s always a fun question to answer. I could tell you that I met my boyfriend halfway across the world while dressed as a teddy bear (which is true), or that our first date involved building an IKEA table (which is also true).

I could detail the very random circumstances that led to our meeting, and the string of punny conversations that promptly followed… but the reality is: I probably  would not have a boyfriend if it weren’t for one thing: Flixbus.

Yes, the budget bus company.

I guess, in the random tangled mess that is my life, this odd choice of Cupid makes sense. Here’s how a simple bus trip landed me a new leading man.

Let me start by saying the obvious: dating in the 21st century is a  very  interesting thing, full of secretive codes, unspoken rules and bucket loads of uncertainty. I’ve never been good at these kinds of games, especially since my first relationship started at the bright-eyed age of 15 and lasted… well, until last September.

Call me rusty, call me out of touch, but one thing I pride myself on is that I’m not a complete and total maniac.

… Well at least I thought so… until I booked a VALENTINE’S DAY  getaway to  ITALY  with a  GUY WHO WASN’T MY BOYFRIEND.

Yes guys… raise those red flags.

To be fair, I’m a spontaneous exchange student.

When you’re doing study abroad, weekends away are pretty much on par with grocery shopping in terms of frequency.

So naturally, one day, while chatting with a new boy in my life, the conversation switched to a cheap sale that Flixbus was having. 10 euro tickets for almost all their routes. It was a tempting offer indeed.

With a midnight cutoff pending, we proceeded to plan a trip at lightning speed.

“Where do you want to go?”   Uhhh Verona. “Let’s do the weekend of the 12th?” Okay. 

30 seconds later, we were booked. Sure, a weekend away seemed a bit committal for two 20-something ‘seeing each others’, but we got along really well, so what could go wrong?

Well…

Turns out that was Valentine’s Weekend.

Valentine’s weekend in Verona, to be precise… one of the most romantic destinations in Europe.

There would be red wine, beautiful art, cheesy candles, and many guitar serenades from men named Pablo.

The result of our epiphany was not panic or cancellations… on the contrary, after bouts of nervous laughter and jokes, a mutual decision was made to embrace clichés and make this the cheesiest weekend we possibly could.

So, with this mindset, I packed a suitcase decked in red and black, channelled my inner rom com heroine and embarked on a ‘romantic getaway’ for the ages.

We arrived on Friday afternoon and soon learned the hard way that storms do not press pause for anybody, not even two dummies on a ‘special romantic getaway’.

We arrived at our bed and breakfast in the state of two drowned cats.

Our chatty host Vittorio (a burly Italian man with a perfect beard) welcomed us in, at which point I could have passed out. In an unexpected turn of events, our room was gorgeous . I mean, for a last-minute booking on Hostelworld, I definitely did not expect this: 

Gold-framed mirrors, dreamily draped curtains, and wall motifs of books and clocks… There was even a tray of snacks, aperitifs and wine to welcome us.

By the end of our first interaction, it’s safe to say we were both head over heels for Vittorio, who sang Rihanna at the top of his lungs when he thought we couldn’t hear him (another true story).

After collectively fangirling over our room, we hit the city, armed with a map scribbled with recommendations from our bearded Italian angel. Hence began Operation Romantic Getaway.

It wasn’t until we arrived in the city centre that we realized just how Valentinesy this trip was going to be. Strolling through Verona was like getting punched in the face with red, hearts and chocolate.

The city was brimming with festivities for the annual ‘Verona in Love’ celebration, which meant heart lanterns, an endless parade of couples and chocolate-dipped everything.

While we weren’t quite Romeo and Juliet, we did spend our first day #coupling pretty hard, wandering around Verona’s gorgeous little streets, exploring picturesque piazzas and cozying into cafes for gelato and drinks.

The rain only got fiercer as the day went on. By dinner time, we were a shivering mess of wet boots and numb fingers… which prompted us to seek refuge in the closest restaurant on Vittorio’s recommendations list.

We ended up in Ristorante Maffei, one of Verona’s top-rated restaurants – a place where fancy waiters wore white and we walked in (literally) on a red carpet. The verdict? We left very full, and very bankrupt.

The next day was a maniacal whirlwind of sightseeing. With Verona being a small city, we were able to cover an impressive amount of ground.

In the span of 10 hours, we explored grand churches like San Zeno and Sant’Anastasia , scaled the Torre di Lamberti for incredible panoramic views, got our culture on at the  Achille Forti Gallery of Modern Art , soaked in the grandeur of the Verona Arena and walked through the Teatro Romano . 

Of course, we capped things off with a mandatory stop at Juliet’s House, where we did NOT rub her statue’s boobs for good luck, in case you were wondering…

… But you know what? We didn’t need Juliet’s boobs. (Now, that’s a sentence I never thought I’d say). Instead, it seemed the magic of Verona was enough.

Throughout the two days of extreme coupling, we had indulged in all the cliches: running through the streets while holding hands, watching the sunset with a bottle of red, eating at fancy restaurants that we couldn’t afford. 

Despite this story having all the trappings of a classic rom com, it wasn’t… this was my actual life.

A life that did, against all odds, get more cliched… because the weekend wasn’t over.

We were going to spend Valentine’s Day in Venice. 

And it was there that he popped the question.

… to be his girlfriend though. Obviously. Read on for Part 2 of this Valentine’s Saga.

I’m a cheesy person, I really am.

BUT, sometimes, I’ll do things that even I find tremendously cringeworthy.

Spending Valentine’s Day in Venice was definitely one of those things.

A few weeks ago, a boy and I planned an accidental romantic getaway to Italy… ( backstory here ), and yes, if you’re still reading this, it was a genuine accident.

And, to clarify, we did not murder each other.

On the contrary, we decided to embrace the cheesiness of our circumstances, and inadvertently became an official couple in the process. I mean…  Valentine’s weekend in Italy.  We were kinda asking for it, weren’t we?

A visit to Venice is quite possibly one of the world’s most romantic holidays… I mean, come  on.  There’s the beautiful canals, the picturesque houses, and enough gelato to feed ten armies. Apart from the kitschy souvenir stalls, this city feels like a step back in time, and yes, it is extremely, heartachingly romantic.

But enough about Venice. You’ve probably read a million stories about it already.

You’re here for the stories of a psycho girl who dragged a guy to Venice on Valentine’s Day. 

So how did that play out exactly?

After two days of non-stop red and hearts in Verona, we boarded a train to Venice, only a short hour away.

As far as romance goes, it seemed we had the odds stacked against us.

We arrived to an absolute downpour of rain, with a long drizzly walk from the train station to our canalside AirBNB. Surrounded by poncho-clad tourists and jabby selfie sticks, this was hardly the romantic vision that taunted us from the city’s many postcards…

But, you know how we dealt with it?

Alcohol. No, just kidding – optimism… and creativity! As it turns out, there’s no shortage of romantic things to do in Venice, even when it’s pouring rain.

Sure, you can’t laze out in sunny piazzas, but you can still explore the countless hidden backstreets that make this city so mysterious and wonderful. Along the way, you can still discover the hidden gems that give Venice its inexplicable magic, places like the Libreria Acqua Alta (one of the prettiest bookshops in the world) and the many mask shops that fill the Venetian streets.

And sure, with the rain, at times the gondolas don’t run, but you know what’s perfect rain or shine? The delicious comfort of a perfect, Italian meal.

So I guess what I’m saying is: Venice can be amazing with or without rain… you just need to find what makes it special for you.

And so we spent our time experiencing Venice differently… Instead of trudging around the main tourist sites, we ducked into cute cafes and shops whenever we could, enjoying the simple joy of perfect cappuccinos and crazy masks we could never pull off.

We took a day trip to Burano , rode up to St Mark’s Campanile and ate until we were human blobs. Genuinely, the city seemed void of V-Day gimmicks, a welcome relief from the heart explosion seen in Verona… Although I did have to run from a rose salesman (or ten).

And as for Valentine’s Day dinner? A cozy table for two, in a tiny restaurant where we were the only customers the entire evening. That’s the funny thing about Venice – no matter how crowded and touristic it gets, there’s always little pieces of this city that you can call your own.

And despite the torrential downpours, the rain-soaked crowds and the many many silly encounters with rose salesmen, I had the best time exploring Venice, the most cliched city in the world to spend Valentine’s Day.

… all because of a boy that I invited to Italy by accident.

A boy that, at the end of the weekend, formally asked me to be his girlfriend.

Which I now am.

So you know, sometimes life throws you a curveball, annnndd you get a boyfriend out of a Flixbus seat sale.

Seriously guys, never underestimate how random life can be.

You know what? I have to admit, sometimes I love it when things go wrong.

Tales of misadventure are my favourite because they’re the funniest, and well, like any optimist who hates dealing with their problems, laughter is my coping mechanism of choice.

You see, when things go awry for me (which, I admit, is often), I remind myself that no matter how scary, awful or random things are at the moment, a hilarious new story is waiting at the finish line.

With that in mind, I want to tell you about one of the most ridiculous nights of my first backpacking trip in 2014 – my accidental foray into Berlin’s alternative nightlife scene.

In a single night, I braved a gothic horror bar, a boozey Ping Pong pub, some punk rock tavern and a gay club nestled in an underground parking lot. An epic adventure for sure, which, like all great journeys, began because of a mistake.

This is the story of how I accidentally ended up on Berlin’s 666 Anti-Pub Crawl.

Truth be told, it was pretty much all my fault. As cliched and touristy as it was, I had my heart set on attending at least one pub crawl during my time in Europe.

After all, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it right? When we arrived at our hostel in Berlin, it seemed like it was fate that the welcome chalkboard wrote in bold letters: “PUB CRAWL TONIGHT – MEET IN THE LOBBY AT 8:45”. I figured, of all places, why  not  Berlin? Despite my travel partner’s reluctance, she gave into my puppy dog eyes.

That was her first mistake, because I should not be trusted with decisions.

A few hours (and coats of makeup) later, I had my party girl disguise on, eager to blend in with the throngs of cool, Berlin partygoers.

We were led to our first bar by a slightly-out-of-it tour guide, who rolled his cigarettes on his lap as we sat on the tram. Ha, oh Berlin, you so alternative. 

Our night began at Yesterday , a quirky cocktail bar decked out in a crazy, over-the-top mish-mash of decor. Sunflowers topped the blue ceiling, with assorted knick knacks clinging to the walls.

There was just about anything you can imagine filling the corners of this place – even pinball machines. Our group appeared to be the only ones there, so we took this opportunity to get acquainted with everyone, shouting introductions over the mellow mix of 60s-80s oldies.

So far so good, I thought to myself. I’m so freaking hip! These people have no idea I’m a 20 year old granny.

A few potent cocktails later it was time for us to venture into the great unknown of Berlin’s nightlife. We were ushered outside, and huddled around our tour guides, one of which began with a compulsory spiel on what a great night we were going to have.

But, we knew something was off when he ended this pep talk with  “Welcome to the 666 Anti-Pub Crawl!”

Wait, whaaaaaaaat?

That didn’t sound right. 666? Anti? It seemed like there was a simultaneous epiphany on our parts that this wasn’t what we had signed up for.

My group exchanged confused glances… Hmmm, the hostel never mentioned that this was, in fact, an “alternative” pub crawl and that we would soon be whisked away to solely off-the-beaten path nightlife destinations in Berlin.

Full disclosure: I’m not much of a partier. Yes, I’m a huge fan of wine and beer, but even at home in Canada, clubbing and going out is not my activity of choice.

This chronic homebody syndrome was probably a huge source of my discomfort throughout the night. Luckily, I’m a much braver soul when I travel, so I wasn’t too phased initially… I mean, what was the worst that could happen?

We were promptly separated into three groups, our new friends ripped from our clutches as we were dragged separately into the glittery abyss of Berlin’s party scene. With enthusiasm, our tour guide informed us of our first stop:  Dr. Pong!

If the name doesn’t give it away, Dr. Pong is a ping pong bar. What exactly does that mean? It is literally what it sounds like – a bar where people play ping pong.

Immediately as I entered, I got the feeling that I wasn’t supposed to be there.

It had a seedy garage feel to it, with bare decor and a single blue ping pong table in the centre of the room. “ Oh my god we’re in a crack den”,  exclaimed my travel partner.

She tends to be a worrier, and maybe she was being a little dramatic, but I felt some truth to her words. The bar’s windows were suspiciously covered, and the entire space had a grungier feel than us innocent girls were used to. No doubt, we were out of our element.

But alcohol could fix this right? A minimalist bar was set up in the back, so I grabbed myself a beer and took a seat on a creaky plastic chair.  Drink until this feels okay  was kind of the motto for the night.

After watching some sweaty men circle around the table playing ping pong, we were whisked off to our next stop. But first,  we were treated to some free shots on the sidewalk! No doubt, I wasn’t in Canada anymore… But again, drink until this feels okay , right?

The next stop of our adventure was  Last Cathedral,  a heavy metal-blasting gothic horror bar.

… Talk about not fitting in.

The decor of this place was crazy. With skulls lining the bar counter and torch lighting on the walls, I felt like I was in Dracula’s basement. I’m pretty sure the locals could smell my nervous sweat from miles away.

Apparently it was singles night too, so yay lucky me.

Berlin’s gothic horror crowd (is that even a thing?) was out in full force, and they sure were singles ready for minglin’. I’ll never forget trying to dance to heavy metal that night, a feeble attempt at fitting in with the lone dancer – an enthusiastic German headbanger who flung his majestic mane like nobody’s business.

To ease my discomfort, I ate nachos here. I like nachos.

I didn’t take down the names of our last two stops, but nonetheless, we journeyed onwards. The first was a tavern featuring a live punk rock band. I think this spot was the most in my element. I love live music, and the band playing was pretty cool.

Save for the eye-stinging smoke machine, I was rather into it.

This stop gave us a chance to relax a bit, especially after braving three bars that were  way  different from what we were used to.

My travel partner was no doubt ready to murder me for this accidental adventure at this point, but I tried my best to laugh it off.

After all, travelling is your time to live a little and try something different. Even though some of the stops felt sketchy and unsuited to my taste, I learned a very valuable lesson that night:

Sometimes you just gotta go with the flow.

After our chill punk rock session, we headed out to our last stop of the night, where we were reunited with our entire hostel group.

What magical place marked the end of this wonder tour, you ask? Of course, it was an underground gay night club! And when I say underground, I mean they literally brought us into a small elevator and lowered us into a smoky parking lot.

Well folks, I guess it doesn’t get more Berlin than that, right?

With blaring electronic music, glittery drag queens and an alarming lack of ventilation, it was a thoroughly interesting end to a crazy night.

As we trekked back home, I couldn’t help but laugh to myself about the last few hours and where I had been. Sometimes, travelling brings you the most random moments and adventures.

Absolutely, I was out of my comfort zone and felt totally sketched out half the time, but there was honestly no reason for me to be scared.

I was in a completely different part of the world, spending time where locals do, taking in new cultures (and subcultures!) that I would have never otherwise encountered.

At the end of the day, isn’t that what travelling is all about? Looking back, I could (and should) have been more openminded… and that’s a big lesson I learned for sure.

And although this little nightlife adventure was a bit much for my prudish, Canadian heart, it is still to this day one of my favourite memories from my Europe trip.

There’s something about Berlin’s nightlife that you just don’t forget. Regardless of whether or not I’d do it again, it’s safe to say: I had my taste of Alternative Berlin, and a great story to toss around for the rest of my life.

It’s 2pm on a Tuesday, and I’m strolling through the streets of Munich in a banana suit.

There are times when I do really question my life decisions, and no doubt, this was one of those times.

Now, before you assume I had some kind of mental banana suit breakdown, let me inform you that there was a reason for my fruitlicious garb. 

One of the best things about living in Europe is the many reasons to celebrate and have fun, and this past Tuesday (recognized as Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras elsewhere in the world) was one such example of mad celebrations at their best!

I mean, with Lent about to begin, it’s a common occurrence that good boys and girls get together and unleash all their madness before giving something up.

In Munich it’s called Fasching, elsewhere in Germany, it’s Karnevale… Carnival in Brazil, etc. etc. No matter how you name it, it’s a fun excuse to get out, be ridiculous and have a good time. It’s serious stuff though: Bavarians even get a half-day at work for the occasion!

So, eager to get in the Fasching spirit, I zipped up my teddy bear onesie, layered on my floppy ‘too long for me’ banana suit, and clasped the hand of my boyfriend, dressed up as a tropical version of Frozen’s Olaf.

What a pair.

Our plan was to visit Munich’s main square, where we heard there were tons of stages, festivities, dancing, etc. happening.

With a 15min trek to Marienplatz, we couldn’t wait to get out and see everyone’s vibrant costumes and onesies! My mind was dancing with images of all the awesome party photos I had seen from the year prior, and I was certain the streets would be abuzz as soon as we stepped out.

And so, the banana and snowman hit the town.

… and there was nothing.

Well, besides some judgemental German frowns, there was nothing.

It was SO weird!  Besides our ridiculous outfits, everyone else was cloaked in the unofficial Munich uniform of black waterproof coats and boots. For the 15 longest minutes of my life, we walked through town to reach Marienplatz…

A number of questions ran through our heads, namely…

“… Did we get the date wrong?”

“Are snowmen and bananas offensive???”

“How quickly can we run if a hypothetical mob chose to attack us?”

Even as we crossed into Old Town, through the (usually lively) Hofgarten, we didn’t see a single soul dressed up. We were 100% sure we had somehow gotten the traditions or dates mixed up, and were already thinking up an escape route that would minimize our public humiliation.

Then, we saw it.

A tiger onesie here, a crazy clown there…

We had found our people!

Despite a shaky (and paranoid) start, we got to Marienplatz and finally found the party. The weather might have been grey and soggy, but the next few hours were an absolute blast.

Even better was the fact that there were all these traditions that we had no clue about, which made things all the more fun. From the many kids aggressively throwing confetti (AT us, by the way) to the red-faced partiers hollering German hits that I didn’t know the words to… it was all in all, a pretty wonderful way to spend a Tuesday.

We ate crepes, chowed down on Hungarian langos, bobbed in the crowd during a bunch of musical performances and in true Bavarian fashion, drank plenty of beer. The periodic rain and dreary Munich grey didn’t seem to deter anyone from being their craziest selves.

I even got stopped for a few photos, because clearly I’m one irresistible banana.

Maybe one day I’ll make it to the big Karneval celebrations in Cologne or maybe  (let’s dream big), even Rio! 

Until then though, I’m pretty happy with my first Fasching experience. In fact, I’m already brainstorming the costume ideas for next year…!

I need to make it known that I am the absolute worst road trip partner (possibly in the entire history of road trips).

Not only am I an inept driver, it seems I was also born without any inner compass, which means maps are (ironically, as a travel blogger), my kryptonite.

I had high hopes and dreams of exploring Germany’s romantic road last weekend, a plan quickly dashed by my lack of navigation skills and complete inability to stay awake in moving vehicles. You know how children unfailingly doze off in cars? That’s me, except far less cute.

This is how I ended up 100km off course during said road trip. The initial plan was to grab a bus up to Frankfurt, rent a car, take a detour to Eltz Castle and then onwards to Würzburg, where we’d drive along the Romantic Road down to Munich.

These were great plans, except for one fatal flaw: they counted on me being able to accomplish basic tasks … which I am not. After loading up the Google Maps route, I perked up as chief navigator and informed my boyfriend “It’s only 1.5 hours away!”. We got on the ever speedy Autobahn and those were the last words I remember, until I was gently nudged awake about an hour later.

“Are we almost there?” my boyfriend asked. I felt silly (but not surprised) that I fell asleep, but I assumed there weren’t many turns or exits anyway. I picked up my phone and realized that… nope, we were nowhere near Eltz Castle, and were in fact, en route to Cologne, about 100km away from where we had intended to go.

SOOO, I guess we were going to Cologne!

Now, this accidental detour wasn’t my first time in Cologne, but it was the first time I’d seen it so empty. I have to admit – it was really nice to step into the epic Cologne Cathedral without a huge crowd mobbing the front square.

The city was setting up for Karnevale (with big festivities this weekend), but there was barely anybody on the streets. With shops not yet open, and because apparently I hate myself, I decided to climb the cathedral’s tower, which was a thigh blasting 533 steps. A good morning workout to jolt me out of my zombie-like state!

We spent a little while exploring the city centre. I have to say, Cologne’s Old Town is ridiculously pretty, with picture-perfect sights like this that we got to enjoy all to ourselves. Not a bad place to chow down on a pretzel, I’d say. It was a short stop (mostly for a driving break/sustenance) but a pretty happy accident all in all.

After fuelling up with some breakfast and (maybe 10) energy drinks, we made the drive to Eltz Castle, our initial 1st stop.

I have to say: Eltz Castle is a sight truly worth the detour. I mean, hey, after all, this is travel guru  Rick Steves’ favourite castle (sorry for that nerd fact), and for a guy who’s travelled a ton and seen (I assume) his fair share of castles, that’s a rather big deal. We visited knowing full well that it would be closed. After all, it’s super off-season for them, but I desperately wanted to prance around, play princess, and see the prettiness for myself.

To reach the castle actually requires a 15-20min walk through the forest (which, I promise, is much less shady than I make it sound). The suspense was killing me. Every time we turned, I expected to see the castle towering above me, Disney intro style. When we finally caught our first glimpse of it, we saw the castle from the side, and I have to admit, I was a bit surprised by how normal it seemed….

It was a very quiet day to visit, with no more than 2 or 3 groups of people there at a time. All the better, since I hate crowds and had lugged a helium heart balloon with me (for a rather cheesy Romantic Road photo shoot I had planned).

As I shamelessly posed #forthegram, I got the craziest surprise ever…

I was almost run over by a van!

Like huh?? Where did it even come from?! It was the most bizarre sight, seeing a regular van pull up to the old wooden door of this fairytale castle.

An old man climbed out of the car, opened the door and proceeded to drive in, worriedly peeking at me to ensure I wasn’t going to follow them in.

Yeah it’s okay man, I’d be terrified of the crazy girl with the balloon too.

Since my boyfriend is more of an athletic explorer type, we went on a little trek around the grounds to get a new perspective on the castle. That’s the thing – Instagram ever only shows you one side, so it was really cool to be able to climb up some hills and dangle my feet off some (very muddy) rocks and see the castle from a whole new perspective.

After bidding farewell to my dream home, we made a quick detour to Frankfurt to visit Chipotle (where all my burrito dreams came true) and then continued onwards (in the night) to Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

Naturally, this didn’t go according to plan either. Thanks to yet another Google Maps disaster, for an hour, we drove towards another Rothenburg that wasn’t actually where we meant to go. For a variety of reasons (including severe sleep deprivation), I lost it.

And I started bawling like a baby.

“I’m… just… so… bad… at… MAPS!!” I remember heaving through the lamest sobs known to man. It was at that point that my tears mixed in with my day-worn eyeliner and I started looking like I’d been dumped at prom.

Some Class A consoling later (gold star for boyfriend!), I picked up the shambles of my dignity and watched Google maps and every sign like a hawk.

By some miracle, we made it to Rothenburg ob der Tauber before midnight, through its epic city walls and into the cozy bed of our guesthouse, strategically positioned above a lovely Italian restaurant.

When in the morning, it was a blue sky day in Rothenburg and I finally got to see the medieval town that we had driven into, I could have cried (out of happiness this time). I’ll have full guides on Eltz Castle and Rothenburg ob der Tauber coming soon, but for now, just take a peek at these picture-perfect photos:

So in all, despite many wrong turns (literally) and more than a few missteps on my part, what started as a romantic weekend did end up being one… with a few unexpected stops, 100% more Chipotle and much less of the Romantic Road than expected. Still, it was one for the books.

It might surprise you guys to know that at one point in my life, I absolutely  hated  Rome.

*gasp* I know, how could I? Rome?   “But Gladiator was suuuuch a good movie!”

Trust me – nobody was as shocked as I was.

Call me a starry-eyed backpacker, but the first time I set foot in Rome, I was ready to be swept away like the heroine of a cheesy rom com. I had all these dazzling images of Rome in my head ( thanks Lizzie McGuire ) and I had my heart set on loving the city as much as I always thought I would.

But, following a mucky week of thunderstorms, sketchy guesthouses, sweaty crowds and one pickpocketed purse… I was done. I shook my fist at the unfair travel gods and left in a huff, vowing never to return.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago: I was swept away in my usual 3am Skyscanner binge (#rowdyFriday), testing all sorts of dates and combos for a quick January escape. Because Munich had turned me into a walking popsicle, I craved a visit to someplace warmer. That’s when a suspiciously cheap flight caught my eye.

… a cheap flight en route to Rome.

It seems my impulsivity outweighed my pettiness, and I decided that Rome was worth a second go. A week and a half later, I had recruited a travel buddy and soon found myself in the mecca of carbs and glorious architecture. And you know what? In an unexpected turn of events, Rome won my heart in four short days.

Here’s how.

Visiting Rome in January was drastically different from June.

For one – you only get stabbed by a selfie stick once every few hours, rather than thrice per minute. Second – the insane heat fizzles out, and you feel much  less  like a melting slab of dough. For the first time, I felt like I could see Rome for what it was – a glorious city with epic history and sights, rather than a cesspool of fannypacks and tripods.

It’s genuinely incredible how many  amazing things you can do in Rome for free .

Our first day was devoted to exploring all the tourist must-sees, starting off with the  Trevi Fountain, which recently re-opened after a 2 year restoration. 

One of the most bitter moments from my last visit was when I trekked to the fountain, excited as a puppy to see it for myself, only to discover (upon arrival) that it had been drained out, covered in ugly scaffolding and shut down for (literally) 2 years without a word.

For me, this visit was redemption time, and you know what? It was worth the wait.

The fountain was absolutely stunning, and while I felt embarrassed throwing my coin in, I later learned that 3000 euros are collected from the fountain each day, and are then put towards social programs.

So hey, cheesy photo opps for a cause!

After an amazing lunch where we ate our weight in pasta, we rolled our food babies to the Pantheon , Rome’s most famous temple.

The inside was absolutely gorgeous, and substantially less crowded than in June. With bright light flooding through the oculus, the entire temple was lit up with unbelievable golden tones…

Like an idiot, I stood there with my mouth hanging open, trying in vain to capture the beauty on camera. We lingered here for a few minutes, soaking it all in before we pried ourselves away to our next stop: the Piazza Navona.

Truth be told, it almost felt like the universe was saying “yo Christina, your last visit really sucked. Have a balloon and let’s make this right.”

But actually though, when we arrived at Piazza Navona, it was decked out in gorgeous balloon arches (in heart form, no less) and all sorts of carnival booths with colourful toys and prizes. Coupled with kids running around having the best day ever, it was quite a different vibe to the Rome I remembered.

Sadly, all this hub bub wasn’t actually to appease me, but rather to celebrate Epiphany, the 12th day after Christmas. My favourite bit? The live band looking dapper in their matching outfits.

All love’d up from the buzz at Piazza Navona (where we coincidentally ran into a classmate of ours from Germany), we raced to our final stop off the day – Castel Sant’Angelo, the cylindrical beauty at the end of the Sant’Angelo Bridge.

The views at this museum (formerly a mausoleum, fortress and castle) were just ok. No, I can’t lie to you – they were amazing. So amazing that my SD card filled up.

When Day 2 came, I had already formed an odd attachment to the city. I just couldn’t believe how much better it was the second time round.

According to my phone, we logged almost 20km of walking on Day 2 alone… but don’t worry – the calories lost were promptly replenished with oversized gelato cones the size of my (already rather large) face.

Our long walking day took us from Termini Station onwards to  the Spanish Steps, passing gorgeous attractions like the Santa Maria Maggiore, the Opera House, Piazza di Republica and more along the way. While the Spanish Steps themselves were sealed off for restoration (oh Rome), we were able to walk up to the Villa Medici, where we got the most gorgeous view ever of the city:

As we climbed back down, we made our way past Piazza del Popolo and then to the quaint neighborhood of Trastavere,  an amazing subset of Rome with the laidback vibes of small town Italy.

The lovely cafe-lined streets were a welcome change from the heavy tourist bustle, so we decided to rest up in the coziest possible way – sipping foamy cappuccinos while wolfing down cups of panna cotta.

We held nothing back on Day 3, when we conquered Ancient Rome with the agility of badass gladiators. One combo ticket was all we needed for access to the Coliseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill.

Pro tip: if you purchase your combo tickets at Palatine Hill (which usually has little to no lineups), you can then jump ahead in the queue at the Coliseum.

That alone saved us 1.5 hours in line! If you’re looking for an opportunity to improve your smug face, this would be an excellent one.

The logical reward for all this sightseeing was an unnecessary amount of food.

On this particular day, my waistline was heftily expanded through the following events: a pre-lunch sandwich that ruined me for other sandwiches, a delicious seafood pasta lunch and a post-lunch suppli (a deep fried rice ball oozing with tomato sauce and melted cheese).

Yuh huh. It was as good as it sounds.

And rather than give into a food coma afterwards, we lugged ourselves to see the  Altare della Patria  (the massive typewriter-esque building that Romans love to hate) and the  Galleria Borghese,  one of Rome’s most well-known art galleries.

And for our final day, we crossed into the world’s smallest country: the Vatican. Our first order of business was climbing the dome ( cupola)  at Saint Peter’s Basilica, a feat not suited for the claustrophobic or exercise-averse.

After cramming myself through some  pretty  narrow passages, I survived the 551 dizzying steps up and came head to head with this stunning view:

And then onwards to the impossible grandeur of the Basilica’s interior…

Even though it was my second time inside, I still couldn’t believe how incredible it all was. For real, I was getting neck pains from staring at all the ceiling’s fine details. I even saw a few people who were so moved, they were crying. If there’s one thing you can’t miss in Rome, to me this is it.

By 2:30pm (after a long lunch of course), we had made it to the Vatican Museum, surprisingly void of crowds. What’s it like getting a massive museum like this all to yourself? Well, it was tough to resist the urge to just slide down this epic stairwell, but I assure you: I kept my cool and acted like a proper adult.

We ended our last night in Rome with a lovely outdoor dinner beneath the twinkling lights of a Roman side street. On our way home, we picked up our final scoops of Italian gelato (dulce de leche and stratiatella to be precise) and headed home, 10 pounds heavier and with the fondness of Rome I always knew I had.

And so, for those thinking of visiting Rome in the off-season,  do it.  Just remember to pack stretchy pants.

Further reading:

A Local’s Guide to Rome

Sometimes in life, you just have to trust your gut.

Truth be told: when I found myself with a plane ticket to Istanbul only 48 hours after a terrorist attack, I didn’t know what to do with myself.

Frantic pacing was involved of course, alongside incessant Googling and nervous wine guzzling… but as I’m sure you can appreciate, “TERROR ALERTS ISSUED FOR ISTANBUL” weren’t the most comforting of headlines to read.

It didn’t take long for my travel buddy to cancel her trip, prioritizing safety over the lost cash from our bookings. Simultaneously, the panicked phone calls from home began to pour in, with my parents urging me to play it safe and (essentially) lock myself at home in panic position.

My ever-so-lovely parents even offered to fly me home from the chaos, despite the fact that I was in Munich, miles and miles away from where the bombing even occurred. But… you know how logic can often escape worried mothers.

So I did what I thought was right: I assured them of my safety, cancelled my hostel booking and went to sleep in a huff, feeling robbed of my dream trip to the beautiful city of Istanbul, which had glittered for ages at the top of my bucket list.

I’m not quite sure when or why I woke up and said “screw it”… but I did. Maybe I dreamt a particularly adventurous dream… but something in my gut told me I would regret not taking this trip of a lifetime. So, with a few white lies told and a quick panic packing session, I found myself all alone on a plane bound for Turkey’s capital.

And it was the best decision I ever made.

I can’t lie to you and say it was all Turkish delight and free apple tea… although my waistline can attest that there was much of both. Instead, I’ll say this: it was one of the most amazing, but challenging travel experiences of my life.

Istanbul is a stunning city oozing with depth and culture. I ate some of the best food of my life here, and saw some of the most beautiful sights and architecture.

I originally wrote this post in 2016, leaving the story at that – the good stuff, but I feel I’d be doing you a disservice to not tell the whole truth. I adored Istanbul and I adored being out of my comfort zone, with zero clue how to do anything properly (even buying a ticket for the metro)… but as much as I’d like to romanticize this experience as a whirlwind adventure, it was also the same trip that I got hopelessly lost, partially stalked, a few times followed and as a result, became more of a badass solo traveller.

So here’s a (rather long) photo diary of my trip – a review of the good and the bad. This experience is by far one of my most memorable, not just for the impossible beauty that is Istanbul, but because it reminded me of why it’s so important to travel, and to try it solo every so often.

Traveling is  supposed  to challenge you – your assumptions, your limits and of course, the boundaries of your comfort zone. I’m beyond thankful that I got this chance to learn, grow, and eat baklavas til near-implosion… here’s what I got up to:

The culture shock began as soon as I arrived at the airport. Without even a clue of how to buy a metro ticket (or token, I guess), I realized just how out of my element I was.

I’m used to travelling on my own, but mostly through Western/Central Europe where most systems are the same, and cater to dummy tourists like me.

After a great deal of confusion, I took the long ride from the airport and got off at my stop, realizing all too quickly that I never saved walking directions to my hostel.

It was at this point that I got hopelessly lost navigating the steep streets of Istanbul’s Galata neighborhood, following a zig zaggy blue dot on my iPhone.

It took over an hour of searching (and a terrifying roaming bill), but I finally found my home for the next few days.

After resting up, my first full day was dedicated to seeing all the sights. Even in the winter, Istanbul was absolutely breathtaking, and unlike any place I’d ever been. 

The byproduct of this beauty was of course, utter distraction, which led to me walking straight into a poor old Turkish man en route to the Old City, whose tea did an impressive splat across his entire body. I apologized profusely, he smiled, and I felt bad for the rest of eternity. #CanadianProblems

One of my first stops was the  Basilica Cistern, a famous underwater reservoir known for its appearance in “From Russia with Love”. In full tourist garb, I didn’t feel much like a Bond girl, but I did manage to sneak a few glorious long exposure shots.

It was an eerie but fascinating setting, with long illuminated columns lining pools of still water. Wonderfully tranquil (bar the many other visitors who thought flash photography was a good idea…)

I then emerged from the darkness (which is a cool sentence I never thought I’d say) and set my sights on one of Istanbul’s biggest attractions: the  Sultan Ahmed Mosque  (AKA the Blue Mosque).

With its close proximity to the bombing site just a few days prior, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Sure enough, there were security guards all over the place, patting people down, plus a sea of police officers and civilians making their way to the mosque.

I had arrived at prayer time (during which it’s closed to visitors), so I explored the area, made friends with stray cats and people-watched from a gorgeous courtyard nearby.

When I was finally able to go inside, I got dressed in the robe, skirt and headscarf that they provided and stepped inside.

Truly, wow.

The detailed tile work was absolutely mindblowing, and was of course a recurring theme in all my Turkish sightseeing. After grabbing myself a quick lunch (did I mention how cheap and wonderful the food is?! They even gave me free tea as I waited!), I set my sights on my next big attraction of the day: the Hagia Sophia.

Once the world’s largest church (before it became a mosque), the Hagia Sophia today is a badass museum that will truly make you stop and stare. 

I’ve seen a lot of churches throughout my time in Europe, but this one genuinely blew me away.

The sheer scale and beauty of the place is borderline unbelievable, with ornate mosaics and towering pillars everywhere you look.

Coincidentally, it was while lining up here that I ran into one of my hostel roommates who I had met earlier that day, along with two guys he had met while sightseeing.

It’s always interesting how quickly plans can snowball when you’re a solo traveller. Case in point: within a matter of seconds, I went from roaming solo to conquering Istanbul with 3 friends (two of which were apparently entertainment moguls who knew Jet Li. … or so they claimed).

We spent the evening together, sampling Istanbul’s best sweets while sipping gallons of apple tea. My new friends even treated me to a dessert of my choice, and after an agonizing few minutes staring holes into the menu, I chose a delicious Burma Kunefe  (a swirly pastry wrapped with layers of pistachio).

It was oh so perfect.

After completing the night with a smoky local shisha bar (where I most definitely did not blend in), I spent my next day doing something I’m a bit better at: shopping.

As a female travelling on her own, and one that’s visibly not Turkish, I wasn’t surprised at all that I’d be subject to much hollering and swarming at the local markets. I wasn’t bothered by it – more amused by the eyebrow swaggles and “HEY LADYs” that became the soundtrack of my day.

After getting attacked by pigeons at the New Mosque,  my first stop was the  Egyptian Spice Bazaar , where I was greeted by picture-perfect spice mounds, sparkly tea sets and stand after stand of unknown treats.

Here, I learned about the Turks’ very liberal sample policy (which meant I ate my weight in Turkish delights) and moreover learned flavours like cheesecake DO exist!

Of course, despite my earnest attempts at haggling, I still walked away with a much lighter wallet, and a camera bag crammed with spices, teas and treats.

Ugh,  weakness is me.

Mourning my monetary losses, I made my way to the  Süleymaniye Mosque,  the 3rd largest mosque in the city.

It was probably the quietest and most peaceful spot I visited in Istanbul. Right next to the mosque was a gorgeous Ottoman cemetery and a big courtyard boasting the best ever view of the Bosphorous.

While admiring this viewpoint, I caught a photographer using me as a prop for his photos, his ninja snaps not being as subtle as he thought.

Recognizing that I do have a pretty good “staring out wistfully” pose, I pretended to not notice and instead tossed the guy a few gramworthy poses. You’re welcome bro, I know the struggle.

From oddly peaceful to hopelessly touristic, I made my way from the Süleymaniye to Topkapı Palace, where swarms of tour groups had arrived to snoop around, just like me. Once a main home for the Ottoman sultans, today the palace is a museum and tourist magnet.

It’s not hard to see why. All I can say is: dang those Ottomans knew how to  live. 

Sprawling over four courtyards, this place was like getting smacked in the face with opulence. Especially in the Harem (my favourite part of the visit), I was surrounded by an endless display of elegant tiles, intricate patterns and vibrant colours. Needless to say, I wouldn’t mind moving in.

Of course, a little retail therapy was needed after all that hard sightseeing work.

Off to the  Grand Bazaar  I went,where I came face to face with a Turkish movie starlet.

… except well, not quite.

Passing by my 10000th rug shop of the trip was when I met a dapper mustached salesman who with a prideful tilt of the chain, waved me over. I had gotten pretty good at dodging salespeople at that point, but something about him seemed intriguing.

He gestured at my giant Nikon and beckoned “Take my photo… I’m a famous Turkish movie star!” This guy couldn’t be for real. I laughed, ever the skeptic, but indulged him in a mini photo shoot.

After showing me a few of his rugs, he sheepishly confessed to me that he wasn’t in fact a movie star,  but  was happy to have some company for once.

Well shucks. I of course forgave him quickly.

Going through the markets was a really interesting experience for me, mainly because it was so much emptier than I expected.

While chatting with a shopkeeper (a young guy who got sucked into the family biz selling lanterns), he told me that tourism had been going down a lot in the area… but that for locals, life went on as normal. “What are we going to do, stop our lives?”

Over a few cups of tea, he told me about how he just came back from studying in Australia, and how he hated the way Turkey was portrayed in the media.

I opened up to him about some of my safety concerns… like how I avoided being out on my own at night “just in case”. He laughed and asked what I was afraid of. “If you’re afraid of being robbed, I can promise all these guys are richer than you are”, he said as he gestured to the shops around us.

Despite how lighthearted our conversation was, it did make me think.

While I loved Istanbul, there were definitely moments where I felt uneasy being on my own.

There were some men who approached me on the street, walking with me and asking me questions for several blocks.

There was the shopkeeper who shook my hand as an introduction and then didn’t let go for an unsettling amount of time… There was even, in my own hostel, a guy who waited for me to wake up so we could hang out (another story for another time), but all these experiences did (as much as I hate to admit) make me wish I wasn’t travelling on my own.

My new shopkeeper friend dismissed my worries as paranoia. I’m still not so sure it was. When he decided to close up shop early and invite me to another place for tea, that’s when those same worries began to settle in.

“We’ll go for shisha at a local place too, I’ll show you!” The sky was getting dark, I was pretty far from home and this guy, while very lovely, wasn’t someone I actually  knew.

So I declined the invitation. The offense he took was clear. A quick, snappy goodbye later, he stormed away in the opposite direction.

Maybe I should have been a bit more openminded… but if there’s anything I’ve learned from my travels, it’s to trust your gut. I love venturing abroad with friends, but one of the perks to solo travel is that you develop assertiveness, thick skin and an ability to fend for yourself. 

Our interaction may not have ended so well, but I’m still thankful for the eye-opening conversation, whether or not I was being paranoid.

On my final day, I had just a few short hours left to explore the city before heading to the airport.

I had been eyeing the Galata Tower all throughout my stay, mostly because it was part of my daily walk back to the hostel. My last day seemed a fitting time to finally visit.

Unlike most tower views in Europe, this one omits the typical leg blasting climb and opts instead for a quick elevator ride that zips you right up. It was a very quiet morning, which meant yes, I felt like the queen of Istanbul with this view all to myself:

The rest of the day was dictated naturally by food. I had a few remaining liras in my wallet, and the most accurate description I can use is I went full Pacman through the streets of Istanbul.

It was, without exaggeration, a marathon of Turkish street eats, with me buying essentially every item that caught my eye.

After leaving the tower, I made my way to  Karaköy Güllüoğlu Üretim Tesisi , renowned by many as the maker of Istanbul’s best baklava. 5 flaky, gooey baklavas later, I can confirm that it was a most heavenly experience, one that made me melt into a puddle of caloric joy.

This proceeded with many cups of fresh fruit juice and creamy ayran (a Turkish yogurt drink) , plus a doughy simit (a circular bread encrusted with seeds) and lamb köfte (spiced meatballs). Not a bad consumption record for like… 3 hours. No regrets, because every bite was absolute bliss.

It was with that eatathon that I ended my time in Istanbul. I hopped back on the metro (my pants feeling much snugger than before), and promptly made my way back to the airport.

In hindsight, I am so extremely glad that I went with my gut and boarded that plane.

This experience taught me that fear should never hold you back, and that despite all the risks and dangers everywhere in the world, it’s still important to venture out there and experience what the world has to offer. It won’t always be easy, especially if you’re travelling alone, but you’ll widen your perspective

Thanks for an unforgettable visit, Istanbul… I hope to be back someday soon.

my Travel Update Archive

Once upon a time, this travel blog had a ton of Dear Diary type posts that I eventually phased out. Looking back on these updates though make me smile and realize how far I’ve come, so if you’re also curious to see snippets of my life from years ago, feel free to flick through these old travel stories and updates.

Surrrprise, guys… I’m alive!

Okay, I really have to own up to it…  it has been an embarrassingly long time since I’ve blogged.

I could make up a million excuses for this bit of Internet silence, but the simple truth is this: since packing my bags for Munich three months ago, I’ve been caught in a whirlwind of new friends, new experiences and jam-packed days.

I’ve been trying so hard to soak up every single moment that I’ve gotten a little neglectful… erm, lazy even… with documenting them properly for the interwebz.

That said though, with 2016 just around the corner, I figured it was finally time to resurrect this little site of mine… hopefully, for good 🙂

So what’s new?

Well… On September 1st, I left Vancouver to live abroad on my own for the first time in my entire life! I am now more than halfway into my exchange semester at LMU in Munich, where I’ll be studying until the end of February.

After that, I intend to travel around Europe for a few more months before settling back in Canadaland.

I’ve been sitting here for about 20 minutes trying (in vain) to explain how much I love my life here in Munich. Do you know those moments in life when everything seems to just fall into place?

That’s exactly how the past few months have been. From randomly meeting the greatest group of friends to landing an unexpected job, my exchange has been an absolute dream. I have so so many stories to share, and I can’t wait to blog them up for you soon.

Onto more site-related news, some of you might have noticed the name change!

As of now, Hello Guanster is no more, and here’s the simple reason why… You know that cringey feeling you get when you revisit your first email account? (e.g. ahh [email protected] … what was I thinking??)

That’s the feeling I was starting to get about Hello Guanster. It seemed catchy and cute at the time, but I definitely feel like I’ve outgrown it.

My plan is to orient this blog more towards travel in the coming months, and beyond just a place to offer tips and guides, I want it to be a place where I document how my adventures have helped me grow.

My plan is to turn this blog into a space where curious optimists can get together and fangirl collectively at how great this world can be, so here it is…! I think Happy to Wander has a pretty nice ring to it… don’t you?

To sum things up, 2015 was hands down the best year of my life so far, and I’m determined to make 2016 just as great.

With trips in January to Rome, Istanbul and Marrakech, I think I’ll be off to a good start.

And on a more bloggy note, I plan to spend a lot more time working on Happy to Wander, writing up stories, tips and all that good stuff for you. Finding a good balance between ‘living in the moment’ and documenting moments can be tough, but striking that happy medium is undeniably rewarding.

Like all good things, travel blogging takes a great deal of dedication, hard work and patience, and I’m making it my goal for 2016 to really give my all to this site. I hope you’re ready!

I’ll have plenty more posts for you soon. Until then, enjoy the rest of 2015!

With an overflowing backpack on my shoulders and an unshakeable grin on my face, I’m thrilled to announce that I am officially on the road again, and will be travelling full-time for the next 1.5 months.

While I’ve travelled quite a bit in the last few months, this will be the longest trip I’ve taken in a while. Going back into ‘constant travel’ mode will take some getting used to, but it’s a challenge I’m s ure I can handle. With eight new countries in the pipeline, here’s a sneak peek at where I’m headed in the next few weeks: 

1. Finland and Scandinavia

I’ve seen quite a bit of Western Europe, but never the North, which is why I am so excited for this part of my trip. I just stopped for a long layover in Riga and am now in Helsinki for a few days.

From what I’ve seen, this city oozes ‘cool’ and I can’t wait to spend a few days museum & restaurant hopping. From here, I’ll get a chance to relax at a friend’s summer cottage near Turku before working my way through Scandinavia. See you soon, Stockholm, Bergen and Copenhagen!

2. Amsterdam and Rotterdam

After wrapping up my mini tour of Scandinavia, I’ll be spending Easter Weekend in Amsterdam at my first music festival! This will be my third year in a row visiting the Netherlands, but hopefully this time around I’ll get to dig into more ‘off-the-beaten-path’ itineraries for both Amsterdam and Rotterdam. If all else fails, I’ll just stuff myself with Dutch cheese and apple pie. I’m pretty good at that.

My excitement for this trip borders on ridiculous. Iceland has been a dream of mine for years, and finally ,  at the end of March, it’ll become a reality!

From Amsterdam, I fly to Reykjavik, where I’ll be driving across the country with two friends in a cozy camper van.

From the Blue Lagoon to mindblowing nature at every turn, I’m pretty much ready to vomit from excitement. If you want to see why, here’s the video I watched years ago that inspired my Icelandic obsession:

4. Ireland and Scotland

Last but not least, before returning to Munich, I’ll be flying from Reykjavik to Dublin! This part of my trip is still a bit fuzzy on details, but I definitely plan to see Dublin, Edinburgh, and many undecided places along the way. Any recommendations would be much appreciated!

Ahhh… I am  so ready to take on these next few weeks! I hope you’ll all follow along by catching updates on  Instagram , Twitter and Facebook . Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a  lot  of planning to do…

Apparently I do monthly updates now!

I know this is pretty random, but the past few months have been packed with existential crises, the most recent of which made me realize my blog has been severely missing a personal touch.

While I LOVE writing guides and photo diaries, sometimes it’s nice to remind you that there’s a human potato who’s behind these giggly words, which is why I’m now committing myself to monthly updates that catch you up on what I’ve been up to, AKA which countries I’m currently pillaging for carbs.

And so, for the creepos interested in tracking my movements, this one’s for you 😉

Now, why two months bundled into one?

Well, I just came up with the idea now (#showerthoughts for the win), plus March and April have been absolutely insane months packed with travel, which will make me seem a lot more exciting than I am 😉 I am so painfully behind on blogging about all the beautiful places that I’ve stumbled through in the past two months… but I’m slowly working my way through! For now though, enjoy some highlights!

You know those major bucket list destinations that haunt you from the corner of every Pinterest board and Instagram? Since moving to Munich, that has been Slovenia for me.

No joke – some days I would just stare longingly at a map, daydreaming about how close I was and how easy a weekender would be. Mid-March, I finally did it!

A short road trip later, I was able to do a sunrise hike around Lake Bled, discovered the unreal beauty of Ljubljana and found zen at Bled’s less famous cousin, Lake Bohinj. The verdict? Not enough time at ALL. I’m already plotting my return.

After Slovenia, I took the slow route back to Munich and spent a few days in the all-too-underrated Croatian capital of Zagreb.

I’m a rather stubborn person, so after repeatedly hearing that Zagreb was boring, I set out to see for myself. People, Zagreb is so far from boring !

At the end of March, I headed off to Malta for a press trip and it was absolutely incredible. One of the coolest, most interesting countries I’ve visited in a long time in terms of architecture, history and food. Four days of pure bliss, I came home with a full SD card and a little extra cushioning around the tummy. I guess some sacrifices need to be made eh?

PS: The swishy hotel I stayed at even had a tanning bed in the bathroom (which I did not use) and a Jacuzzi on the balcony (which I used plenty). My lifelong dream of eating chicken nuggets in a hot tub? Fulfilled at long last.

MONTENEGRO, CROATIA AND BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA

After catching my breath for a few days in Germany, I headed off again for a week in the Balkans. For the first time in my life, I went in with absolutely no plan, embracing a go-with-the-flow spontaneity that would make any backpacker proud.

This was my first solo “backpacking” trip in ages and was such a great reminder of why I started travelling in the first place. From Podgorica, Montenegro, I had a week to make it to Tuzla, Bosnia. Besides that, no fixed plans!

That’s how I ended up hiking fortresses in Kotor, meeting friends who convinced me to stop over in Dubrovnik for a night, then falling absolutely head over heels with Mostar. So much that I kept extending my stay, leaving only one day in the capital of Sarajevo.

I’ll be writing more in-depth about how this trip affected me, but truly – there is no country in the world like Bosnia. Besides its stunning beauty, it is a genuinely captivating country that will simultaneously break your heart yet fill it up with hope.

Mushy and vague I know, but I’ll elaborate further in some future blog posts. While here, I did some wild things… I climbed an abandoned sniper tower for sunset, scaled a mountain on all fours in a dress and even hitchhiked for the first time. I know, right? Who have I become?!

Hey you guys wanna hear a funny joke? I ran a half-marathon.

For real! Me! I am now officially Christina Guan – human potato / half-marathon runner. My packed travel schedule meant almost zero training, so it’s a miracle that my knees didn’t just snap off. Here are some fun screen grabs of the awful photos they got of me at the finish line. I know, I look like a thumb.

And now, as I type this rambly mess of an update, I’m sitting in a beautiful artsy café in Bulgaria, a country that has challenged and surprised me daily. I’ve been here since the end of April, and will continue making my way through the country until mid-May, when I’ll be in Bucharest, Romania for an awesome event called #ExperienceBucharest!

I’ll be joining over 100 other bloggers, vloggers and influencers who will be storming through the city to experience what it has to offer and showcase the epicness of Bucharest.

It’s my first blogger event ever – can you imagine? I’ve got my business cards ordered and have been practicing being a normal human daily in the mirror, but we’ll see how that pans out. I’ve never been one for networking, but this will be interesting!

SO if you’ve made it this far… congratulations and thanks for reading! I’d love to hear in the comments what your travel plans are. Talk to me, friends! 🙂

When the other day, I had the epiphany that we’re over halfway into 2017, I might have peed a little.

Here’s the thing – I don’t deal well with time passing. It makes me feel old and weirdly vulnerable. I mean, despite my “early 20s status”, there are some days when I feel ready to just procure a rocking chair, learn to knit and call it a day.

That said, after I staved off my existential crisis, I realized how long overdue I was for a monthly update! I have to admit, when I valiantly promised monthly updates back in April, I didn’t expect my plans to unravel so quickly.

To be fair though (as will be revealed in this post), May was non-stop go go go and June was packed in a different way. Hence hello, yet another “monthly update” – 2 for the price of one 😉

May was a month spent entirely on the road, which sounds really cool and romantic, but in reality was just a mix of poor nutritional choices (I’m nursing a prominent #BalkanBulge around my midriff as I type), coupled with wearing the same 4 shirts over and over.

BUT, if that’s the tradeoff for seeing and doing epic things, I guess I’m okay with that.

Here’s where I went in May!

When I first told people I was visiting Bulgaria, initial reactions consisted mostly of “why” and “ where?? ”.

But seriously, I need you to know this: Bulgaria is ridiculously awesome.

I’ll admit, I endured a shaky start travelling solo in a country where I couldn’t even read the alphabet, let alone carry any kind of conversation.

But in spite of initial struggles, Bulgaria amazed me . It is hands down one of the most beautiful countries I’ve ever visited. My two weeks took me through Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, and Veliko Tarnovo – the unsuspecting city that completely rocked my world.

It was here that I met the coolest group of friends who adopted my little scaredy cat self and transformed me into a (slightly more) adventurous badass.

With them, I shimmied into abandoned Communist monuments, went night time swimming in waterfalls and hiked trails that would make former-me cringe.

It was the best experience ever, and the biggest “eff you” I could have given to my comfort zone.

I plan to write way more in the future about Bulgaria, but here are some photos of the amazing things I saw. If you get the opportunity, please go. I’ll pay you a good chunk of my savings to bring me back some  banitsa  and  tarator  soup. *drools*

Waddling into Bucharest, I felt like the chosen one.

Chosen for #ExperienceBucharest that is – the largest ever tourism campaign the city has ever seen, and run entirely by volunteers to boot. It was my first time at an event of this kind, where I got to rub shoulders with over 100 other bloggers and influencers, many of which I have stalked  admired for years .

I mean… business cards were exchanged, so you can imagine how important and fully “adult”ed I felt.

But I bet you can also imagine also the 50 shades of awkward I breezed through, because I am me, and cope poorly in social situations.

Here’s an actual photo of me awkwardly sipping wine at a networking event:

Blue wine aside, the main focus of this trip was about discovering Bucharest, and I have to say: this Romanian capital was a wonderfully unexpected surprise.

From cool hidden cafes to colourful, secret passages – Bucharest was absolutely nothing like I imagined. If you’re looking for a unique getaway that’s more off the beaten path, book a flight to Bucharest and you will be smacked in the face with awesome. I promise!

Plus, despite initial networking anxiety, I met some really cool blogger friends along the way. Woah – I have real (non-Internet) friends again. #bigstep

Straight after Bucharest, it was onwards to London.

Oh, London… AKA that time I went bankrupt. I can’t lie, my budget had ten heart attacks jumping from Romania to England, but in the spirit of “hey it’s expensive anyway”, I decided to go 1000% wild and treat. mah. self.

I’m talking: fancy brunches with ridiculous views, high teas where the pastries looked like makeup (lol) and all sorts of frolicking around neighbourhoods I couldn’t afford.

Here, I met up with some friends from home and just tore through the city’s food scene with Pacman-esque enthusiasm. I have zero #ragrets.

Exploring England by Train

After a few amazing days in London, I spent the next week city hopping around England thanks BritRail . I admit, train travel is not the cheapest option for seeing the country, but I’ll be damned if it ain’t amazing and convenient.

Oxford was my first stop, and it was just as gorgeous as I always imagined. I got the chance to tour a few of the colleges and realized, Hogwarts is REAL. (Well, pretty much anyway). The architecture in this city is both droolworthy and photogenic – a must visit when you’re in England.

After that, I caught the train to Liverpool , a place I now affectionately dub as “my spirit city”.

I always knew I would love it because my Beatles fanaticism knows no bounds, but beyond that – I discovered a buzzing and vibrant hub for food, culture and entertainment.

Plus, it was here that I accidentally went on a date with a 70 year old who grew up in Liverpool during peak Beatlemania. No joke. 

We met at a hostel, and with so much excitement, he told me what it was like growing up in the city during such a crazy time. I then asked if he’d ever seen the tribute band that plays at the Cavern Club every Thursday (where the Beatles themselves played hundreds of gigs). He paused, then was like “great idea! LET’S GO!!!”

SO that’s how I spent the entire evening at a (pretty convincing) Beatles tribute concert, while this crazy 70 year old jammed out and relived his youth next to me. He knew every lyric to every song, and kept saying “I’m so glad you dragged me to this!!”

Well, I didn’t, but okay.

My little England tour was capped off with my greatest travel fail to date – or rather, my boyfriend’s (FYI, my actual boyfriend, not the 70 year old Liverpool guy). He was joining me for the weekend and had literally one job: book a hotel.

He ended up booking a hotel in the wrong city.

(And people wonder why I swim in trust issues).

Ending up in Eastbourne rather than Brighton, I soaked in the serendipity of this booking gone wrong. Though my time in the city was brief, I got to enjoy a cotton candy sunset, a pretty walk along the water and a rather unexpected tribute concert for one of my favourite bands, the Killers. Random, but very wonderful.

We did end up in  Brighton the next day, where I ate my weight in sweets at Choccywoccydoodah and soaked in the buzzing atmosphere of the seaside, crowded despite the cloudy skies. I’ve always admired the Brits for their optimistic weather outlooks! Brighton was a really cool city – I mean, it was no Eastbourne , but I liked it alright. 😉

[FYI – that was a joke. Both cities were great. You can put those tomatoes away.]

London (Again)

Before flying home, I returned to London for one last nerdy hurrah.

… at a fan convention!

Yes, I’m a geek and I refuse to apologize for it. I mean, a chance to breathe the same air as some of my favourite TV stars? *swoon*

Wrapping up my London celebrity bingefest, I caught John Bodega in Woyzeck, an amazingly powerful play where as a bonus, I had Steven Ogg from the Walking Dead sitting at the end of my row, much to the gleeful joy of my TWD fan-boyfriend. He never mustered up the courage to talk to him, a fact that I am confident will haunt him until the end of days.

A Month Back Home

In June, I returned to my hometown of Vancouver with a sole purpose: vengeance.

No just joking, I really just needed to graduate and get my degree. Or, you know, the pricey piece of paper that tells the world I’m apparently worth something.

I officially walked the stage on June 9th, after a week of rejuvenating naps and eating all the sushi within eyesight. Without a doubt, Vancouver sushi joints have learned the wrath of Guan.

Fun story about my graduation: after years of buildup and moral support, my parents somehow managed to miss the crucial moment they’ve waited so long for – me crossing the stage.

They heard the announcement of my faculty “Communication, Art and Technology”, heard only the “technology” part, thought: “oh she’s not studying that” and decided on that exact moment to take a washroom break and not pay attention.

Oops. I also managed to be the only girl out of the hundreds of grads to receive the wrong hood pinned on her by accident.

We were all properly lined up, ready to walk out when another girl noticed my hood was a different colour. They had (obviously foreseen my genius) and decided to give me a Master’s hood. I had to waddle in heels to get a repin, but made it out just in time. Only me, am I right?

After my grad fiasco, June was mostly a homebody month, apart from…

A Road Trip to Alberta

Father’s Day weekend was a really special one for me. It was the first time in over ten years, I went on a vacation with my dad… and I got to make it ridiculously special by surprising him with his dream hotel, a promise I made when I was a silly nine year old girl.

His reaction was priceless. You can watch it here.

Onwards to a Journey Across Canada

And now, as I type this, I’m on a shaky Canadian train eastbound to Saskatoon, where I have literally no idea what awaits me.

This month, I’ll be crossing Canada by train (a dream of mine for ages) so I’ll be on the road, being ‘interesting’ again.

Then, at the end of the month, I’m jetting off to a mystery destination… and I can’t wait to tell you where. HINT: it’s a country I’ve never been to before… and it’s in ASIA!

I can’t wait to submerge myself in noodles.

What can I say? Miracles do happen.

Every once in a blue moon, something truly extraordinary graces the planet with its rarity, an unexpected anomaly disrupting the fabric of existence itself.

Today marks that moment… because Christina’s monthly update is actually on time, and finally for a single month, rather than two.

Please be wary of the flying pigs on your way out.

I apologize for the dramatics, but I am (quite frankly) shocked that I actually published this on time, and I can’t wait to share my crazy month with you… which I spent entirely on the road.

Before we begin, don’t forget to follow me on Instagram  for real time updates/stories, since that’s my go-to platform when I’m travelling. Wait what? Was that a desperate grab at followers? Shhhh – just let this happen.

July: All about riding the train across Canada

Long story short: Canada’s national rail company this year released a few thousand special edition tickets celebrating 150 years of the Canadian confederation…  This meant the lucky fools who got one (me included!!) received unlimited train rides in July for the swoonworthy pricetag of $150.

Ripped straight from the pages of the Willy Wonka playbook, this publicity stunt worked, and when July hit, thousands of bushy-tailed backpackers descended upon the country with blankies in hand and snack-stuffed backpacks.

Truth be told, it wasn’t exactly a glamorous experience.

After all, we had no access to showers or proper beds on board, making dry shampoo and baby wipes the most precious things one could own. Plus there were often delays exceeding 12 hours… but hey who was keeping track? 😉

Luckily, I stopped every few days to explore a new city, particularly ones that I never thought I’d see. This turned out to be the best decision I ever made.

Canada is one beautiful, badass country. Here are some of the places I visited by train. Let me know in the comments if any of these were new to you!

If you’re wondering Saska- where,  I feel you. Honestly, Saskatoon, located in the Canadian prairies (read: the middle bit) is a city that I never in my life thought I would visit.

I grew up being told that it was a boring place with nothing to offer. For the two days on board that it took to get from Vancouver to Saskatoon, I had countless travellers laugh at me for stopping there at all.

And so, I skipped into the city expecting a barren wasteland of tumbleweed nothingness.

Instead, I discovered a colourful city with hip neighbourhoods, crazy good food and fun events going on all over the city.

From open mics and DJ shows, to watching a bluegrass  twist on Shakespeare, I found myself unexpectedly falling for the underdog. Saskatoon won me over, and is solid proof that “boring” cities are some of the most fun to explore and discover.

Onwards from Saskatoon, I rode a day-long train to Winnipeg , found in the heart of the Canadian prairies.

Similar to Saskatoon, common west coast snobs will dismiss Winnipeg for being flat, boring and uneventful. After 48 hours there, I can confirm that these west coast snobs  sit upon a throne of LIES.

I mean, in a mere two days, I saw polar bears, relaxed in a stunning Nordic spa, saw dozens of epic street art murals and visited some truly unique museums (including the world’s only museum dedicated solely to human rights awareness).

I was also given the opportunity to dine like an absolute queen, with a food scene just as diverse as Winnipeg’s multicultural population. 2 days wasn’t enough! Pouty and whiny, I forced myself to move onwards East, AKA…

From Winnipeg, I caught the train through Ontario back to Toronto, where I was given a day to explore and frolic around (with an open heart and even more open mouth).

With only 24 hours to spend, I had a wildly baller time digging into the best of Toronto’s food scene. Among the casualties were a beautiful sushi donut, (more than a few) rooftop cocktails, and a shake-inducing combination of sweet coffees from gorgeous cafes around town.

For a day, I pretty much adopted the life of a socialite, meeting up with friends as I ate my way through social gatherings and overdue catchups. It was pure caloric chaos, but nothing compared to my time in…

I have two words for you about my time in Montreal: poutine pregnant.

Those of you familiar with the glory of Canada’s favourite drunk snack will understand what I mean, and those who aren’t, well…. Imagine a heaping serving of crispy fries, topped with squeaky cheese curds and mounds of savoury gravy. NNNGH. On those days, I thanked the universe a million times for loose clothes.

Montreal for me has always been a city of indulgence.

The last time I visited, it was at frigid winter temperatures during which the air legitimately hurt my face. This time, in the summer sun, Montreal was more alive and buzzing than any city I’ve ever seen.

Every two blocks marked the start of a new festival and with the sunshine on my skin, I couldn’t have been happier just walking for hours, seeing all the sights again in a whole new light.

[Give me a gold star] I also managed to sneak away to get some work done at the coolest concept cafe of all time – the Anticafe, which bills you by the hour rather than by your purchase.

Basically, you pay for the time you spend there (at a maximum of $9 for the day) and then you get to hang out in their cozy living room-esque space, drinking up all the caffeine and inhaling all munchies your little heart desires. Yes, it is as splendid as it sounds. Be sure to go if you’re ever in Montreal!

Atlantic Canada: Halifax and… PEI??

Up until this trip, Quebec was the farthest east I had ever been. This time, hopping on a train, I crossed through New Brunswick and into Nova Scotia… a region known as Atlantic Canada.

My original plan was to spend four days in Halifax, but then spontaneity got the best of me, and within 24 hours, I went from “hi what’s your name” to sharing a car/bed with total strangers.

… wait, that sounds bad, but let me explain!

You see, in travel, things tend to escalate quickly… and you can go from being strangers to family in the matter of days.

Essentially, I met up with some fellow travellers on my train who were keen on the idea of visiting Prince Edward Island, the smallest province Canada has to offer.

Quite simply, this is a place that young travellers don’t often visit, which, for the curious George in me, made it all the more appealing. Some last minute planning later, we found ourselves squished together in a little car, en route to PEI for a night.

It was a gorgeous trip that played out to the background of rolling green fields packed with hay bales and golden canola. It was here in PEI that I had a lobster roll so good, I almost cried, and also where I frolicked across red sand beaches with Grand Canyon-esque rock formations.

I feel so grateful to be from a country with so many unexpected tricks up its sleeve.

After this spontaneous jaunt, I had two days left to #DiscoverHalifax.

… and it was seriously nothing like I expected. In place of a quiet, maritime town, I found myself in a buzzing city crammed with cool museums (the Canadian Museum of Immigration and Maritime Museum were my favourites), awesome sights (like a hill-top citadel overlooking the city) and of course, fresh seafood that could make a grown woman cry. I mean, look at this lobster poutine and tell me it isn’t a true work of art:

And from bright rainbow chairs scattered around town, to comfy orange hammocks dangling by the water, this city showed to me that there’s way more to Halifax than its port. I’m already plotting my return… *ominous music*

And now for the ultimate plot twist: from Canada to… Indonesia! I left Halifax ten pounds heavier and headed back to Montreal, where I caught a ridiculous 24 hour commute over to Jakarta.

Why am I here? Weeelll, for the next two weeks, I’ll be venturing around Indonesia for #TripOfWonders alongside 9 other awesome bloggers from around the world.

I’d love if you followed along on Instagram (and all the better if you turned notifications on because the time difference is killing my reach).

The focus of this trip is on cultural discovery, and I seriously can’t wait to dig deeper and see what Indonesia has to offer across its 18,000 islands…. (though I’ll only be visiting 4!)

I keep pinching myself that this is really happening. I’ve always joked that I’m the only travel blogger in the universe who has never been to Bali, so I am beyond stoked for that to change.

… Just get me one of those big hats and I’ll be a walking cliche 😉

Hello my name is Jetlagged, and I am very Christina.

… wait. I think I mixed that up.

*trembles while sipping 10th coffee*

It goes without saying: August was a ridiculous whirlwind, and I am now one very tired coffee bean. 3 continents, 1 transatlantic move, starting a new business and lots of awkward dancing along the way.

But you know what? Despite the fact that I’ve shoved my inner body clock into a rickety blender, I’m grateful for every second and opportunity. This month was a big game changer for me, so without further ado – here’s what happened in August!

You might remember that last month, I decided to travel across Canada by train. A sensible person would have gone home first to pack up and regroup, but instead, I acted like the overexcited corgi that I am, flying straight from Montreal to Jakarta, Indonesia.

In total, I spent 2 weeks in the country, the first ten of which were exploring the country’s cultural wonders with the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism for their #TripOfWonders campaign.

… and it was SO MUCH FUN.

This was my first time in Indonesia and I loved that we visited so many lesser-visited spots and saved Bali for last. Yes, this deprived travel blogger finally  made it to Bali, where all the cool kids apparently hang out. Many smoothie bowls were consumed, I can confirm.

But while I did like Bali, the highlight of my trip was getting to explore the culture and cool sights/history elsewhere in the country.

We started off at Lake Toba, the world’s largest volcanic lake, then moved onto other cultural hotspots like Surakarta (AKA Solo), Semarang, and of course, the epic Tana Toraja (known around the world for their fascinating burial rituals).

After the press trip wrapped, I spent a few extra days in Bali living THE Instagram-perfect life at Alila Villas Uluwatu with Sher from Sher She Goes . It involved a lot of posing, photoshoots and awkward candid laughter.

It was as glam as you’d expect, although I quickly realized just how tough and staged the “IG perfect” life really is. Nothing makes you question your life decisions more than when you call hotel reception asking for rose pedals and extra fizzy bubble bath for the gram.

I am 100% certain the hotel assumed that Sher and I were lovers.

Surprise: I moved to Germany! … again.

After spending less than a week back in Canada, I was on the move again and set my sights on Munich – my new homebase for (at least) the next year while I make the most of my working holiday visa.

I absolutely love it here… the beer gardens, the lakes, the mountains, the beer gardens, the beer….. 😉 Being based in Central Europe is such a dream.

A few hours in any direction and I can be immersed in a whole new culture! Quite legitimately, it’s like unleashing a rabid child into an all you can eat candy shop.

My days have been consumed by 4am Skyscanner/Flixbus binges to see where I should go next. There are too many options, guys! Someone please put a kiddie leash on me.

So, as you’d predict, it didn’t take me long to head somewhere new (48 hours to be exact). My first stop after moving back to Europe was…

Let’s be clear: the first rule of living in Europe is, you ain’t wasting your weekends. 

With that in mind, still groggy from 2 major time zone changes, I sped off to my first destination only 48 hours post-landing.

My first adventure? A glamping weekend in Slovenia with BIG BERRY.

An accurate summary of the weekend would be to tell you that I’m well on my way to unlocking Slovenian housewife status. I drank a ridiculous amount of wine (aka a typical Friday), learned to make bread and even had some time to relax with my main girl, Mother Nature.

Because BIG BERRY is located right on the border to Croatia, I actually got to canoe over to a new country one morning, which (trust me) sounds much more impressive than it really was.

I had an awesome time with BIG BERRY. Read more about my experience here: 

Hyperlocal Glamping in Slovenia: Soaking in The Big Berry Experience

Plans for September

And now? I’m fresh off the heels of a little family weekend in England (where, no big deal, I kinda won a trophy for trivia despite not technically being part of the family #braggingrights).

I’ll be off to Austria for a weekend of hiking in the underrated Vorarlberg region and soon after that, it’ll be a non-stop flood of guests coming into Munich for Oktoberfest.

It’s going to be a busy, beer-filled month but I’m ready for it. Bring on September!

Talk to you crazies soon,

Sometimes when I think about the past month, my head spins a little.

Part of it might be due to the weeks spent at Oktoberfest, sipping elegantly (lol jk – chugging) on beers the size of my torso. But also, it was a crazy month packed with a lot of life changes.

There were exciting things (like gaining momentum on a new business venture ), fun things (like the many days spent at Oktoberfest) and also very sad things (like losing my best friend, my sweet pup Rodeo who I’ve had since I was 10 years old).

And while admittedly, I did spend many days sulking, soaking in my grief thousands of miles from home, it reminded me that travel and life abroad isn’t always rainbows and comically large pretzels. Inevitably, there will be times when it sucks… like when you’re forced to say your last goodbye over Skype.

But that’s life, with all its ups and downs.

And while I admit yes, it has been a tough few weeks, I’m quickly bouncing back to my usual (caffeine-crazed) self.

This isn’t meant to be a sad, pity party type post (after all, Rodeo lived to be almost 100 in dog years – a legitimate shock as he never exercised, much like me) BUT I just wanted to take a second to let you know that life on the road certainly has its lows, and if you ever need to talk about it, I’m here for you 🙂 <3

With that out of the way, the rest of this post will be wayyyyy more lighthearted! Here’s where the month of September brought me.

My month started off with a quick weekend break in England to visit my boyfriend’s extended family.

As in like… cousins, aunts, uncles, random little children… all in one swoop.

It was a bit nerveracking, meeting so many family members at once, but I stifled my ironic (and phony) English accent for the weekend and tried my best to emit some kind of Canadian charm. According to insider sources, I did alright, and even managed to snag a “FAMILY WINNER 2017” trophy out of it, after getting weirdly competitive at trivia.

My ego was quickly knocked down a few pegs when I tried to be cute and teach one of the little kids my name. At the end of the afternoon, when I asked him “Heyyy Leo, who am I?! his answer was a blunt “nobody.”

It was a big win for my self-esteem.

Travel side-note: I learned on this trip just HOW CHEAP it is to get from Bavaria to London if you plan right. The airport at Nuremburg runs budget flights that literally cost 10 euros if you book early enough. That’s cheaper than a day ticket to travel around Munich. You can bet my UK friends will be seeing me a lot more often 😉

A few weekends after (I needed time to nurse my bruised ego), I spent a weekend in Austria’s stunning Vorarlberg province, specifically in the Bregenzerwald.

I love Austria. I’ve been to Salzburg, Vienna, Innsbruck and a few towns along the Danube during my old river cruisin’ days. It’s a stunning country and I always look for excuses to go back.

Here’s the thing though: Vorarlberg is not at all like the rest of Austria. Bordering Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, this province is known for its modern adaptations of longstanding tradition, which means so many different things, like surprisingly contemporary architecture, an exciting food scene and all sorts of events like you’d never expect from a sleepy Alpine region.

I spent the weekend enjoying an array of cool activities, like culinary hiking (where you hike from course to course in the Alps), doing self-guided scavenger hunts through town, eating my face off and even jamming out to a rock concert in the clouds (or well, at the top of a mountain).

Highlights include zapping my butt on an electric fence and eating cake for breakfast (before a 4 hour hike). All in all, a solid weekend. I would definitely recommend checking this region out if you find yourself in Central Europe!

Oktoberfest in Munich… over and over

When Oktoberfest hits Munich, every resident can expect at least one drunken friend to crash on their couch.

… it’s practically part of the rental agreement.

And this year, I think I maxed out my limit when I fit 9 people at once in the tiny shoebox apartment I call home.

Yes, nine. I was basically running an unlicensed hostel.

Here’s the thing: I’m absolutely rotten at goodbyes. I will literally say anything and everything to avoid the awkwardness of saying a forever-bye to someone.

This applies to friends met while travelling… and last May, when I spent 2 weeks in Bulgaria, I met some ridiculously awesome travellers I soon came to recognize as family. During our sad goodbyes, I inevitably blurted out “COME VISIT ME DURING OKTOBERFEST!”

The crazy thing is: they did. Friends from 3 different continents managed to align their schedules again to come visit…  and it was absolutely wild.

Besides my Bulgaria fam, I also had two friends from home visit for a weekend. I think I terrified them a little bit with my enthusiasm for the city. I honestly love living in Munich so much, it borders on weird. I swear the city only gets prettier every time I walk through it, and my “tour guide spiels” pour out more like creepy fan letters. It’s okay though, when your city looks this nice, I reckon you’re allowed.

I had a total of one night without houseguests before I set off for my last stop of the month –  beautiful Romania!

Back in May, I spent some time in Bucharest  and ended up really falling in love with the country. Every day since then, I’ve been plotting my return, so when I was invited to explore an underrated gem in Transylvania known as Covasna County, I signed up quicker than the Energizer Bunny on steroids.

Covasna is a quiet, undiscovered county in Romania with a lot of different nicknames – Land of Mansions being one.

That’s because there’s almost 200 different castles, manors and mansions in the region, many of which have been restored and repurposed for tourism. We got to stay in one and it was awesome – I felt like I was in some old timey murder mystery!

Over the span of a few short days, we explored the best of what Covasna had to offer, visiting local artisans, soaking in the unspoiled nature and going full Pacman on the wide range of food and drink. Naturally, I enjoyed a cotton candy 4x the size of my head and attended a festival dedicated to cake. We also watched bears and painted gingerbread cookies. What can I say – it was a packed itinerary!

It was also during this trip that I (low key) became a local celebrity. In the span of a few days, I was interviewed for two national TV channels (speaking about cake, of course), once for a local newspaper and I even attended a press conference where I did not realize until we arrived that I WAS SPEAKING AT the conference, and not just attending. Why is my life so strange?

Anyways, take the hint Romania, if you’re looking for a hype gurl, hit me up.

Onwards to October…?

I’ve been more inclined to take it easy these days with travel. Constantly being on the road burns me out, and now that I have a new business to worry about, my main goal is on productivity (shameless plug: check out Slaying Social here!). I do have two trips planned for the end of the month (guess where?!) but that’s still a few weeks away. So, my next (mega-exotic) destination is a James Blunt concert. #wanderlust

I’ll also be partnering with Eurail to discover some of Europe’s most scenic train rides. I have my pass for the next two months, but I haven’t made solid plans yet. Let me know if you have any recommendations for me!

Now, allow me a few seconds to be super basic, but ahhhh, I’m so excited for Autumn! I’ve been watching the leaves change colour from my window while I happily sip tea and bundle on increasingly fuzzy scarves. My life might be a chaotic mess right now, but at least it’ll be a sweet pumpkin spice mess in the coming months 😉

Sorry for that longwinded update. I hope you enjoyed it! Talk soon.

We all have that one ridiculous friend that is fifty shades of pumpkin by the time Autumn arrives.

*awkward wave* Hi, Christina here, and  I’m that friend.

Honestly though, October is always a sure recipe for joy in my books, between the chance to throw my boots into crunchy leaves and burrito myself into layers of blankets… Yes, this month I’ve been a happy, happy girl.

Of course, watching the leaves change in Munich (with a stalker-esque intensity I must add) has brought on a whole new set of feels. I feel so lucky to call Germany home, and it’s really hitting me now (2 months in!!) that this is  home for the next little while. That doesn’t mean I stayed put too much though. Here’s where the wonderful month of October brought me:

Life in Munich

Let’s be real: this blog mostly shows you the adventurous traveller side of me.

The other side that goes woefully undocumented is the Domestic Human Blanket Burrito side, the one that needs Netflix as much as oxygen itself. This was the side of me that I happily indulged for the first half of October, as I soaked in the cozy colours of Fall and became one with my sofa.

Here’s what I’ve learned: settling in a place for a while allows you to recapture the joy of simple “little thing” type pleasures.

Hence why one of the highlights of my month was a meatball + showroom pilgrimage to IKEA, which in some ways, made me just as happy as hopping on a plane to Stockholm. Hi, broken travel blogger here – reporting for duty.

That’s not to say I didn’t go insane exploring my own “backyard”.

I mean, when your backyard is a bucket list destination in itself, there’s no time to waste.

One of the highlights was doing a (ridiculously gruelling) hike from Heimgarten to Herzogstand, one of the most scenic routes in Bavaria. For me, it meant 8 hours of almost passing out. Still, it was worth it… for extraordinary views like this:

Another highlight was reaching ‘peak basic’ when I found out Germany was home to the world’s largest pumpkin festival. Guys, I am not making this up. This incredible event takes place every year in Ludwigsburg, Germany, only a few hours from Munich by train. Naturally, I sped there like a sugar-crazed child.

You can’t blame me. This festival is hosted on the grounds of a spectacular palace, and pays homage to all things pumpkin – from spectacular sculptures and foods, to delicious products and every shape of gourd you can imagine.

This year’s theme was Rome, which meant tons of Rome-inspired pumpkin sculptures. I couldn’t believe it. Definitely a worthwhile trip if you find yourself in Germany next year! 😉

The Netherlands

After literally rolling around in pumpkins, I took the train up to Utrecht to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Everyone always describes Utrecht as a mini-Amsterdam, happily without the bucketloads of confused tourists.

I can confirm that Utrecht is, indeed, a selfie-stick free zone, bursting with beautiful architecture and charming Dutch streets at every turn. I was sold, and look forward to visiting again sometime soon to explore properly.

I even caught a few rainbows along the way 😉

From ‘dam to ham, I found myself on a short press trip to the Sierra de Aracena region of Andalucia, Spain. This lesser known part of Andalucia (only 1 hour away from Seville by car) is packed with the cutest villages and enough ham to turn one’s blood into pure lard.

… That was not a complaint, by the way.

I had so much fun visiting this underrated slice of Spain, the highlight of which was the spectacular food and natural magic. I can’t wait to share more about this region with you soon!

Last but not least, I am crushing  hard  on Mother Nature right now after a ridiculously spontaneous trip to Northern Italy to hike the Dolomites.

Here’s the thing: Bavarians get a ludicrously wonderful number of holidays. This year, two holidays came stacked back to back, with only a Monday between them and the weekend. This meant my boyfriend was able to only take one day off work, allowing us to skip off into the Italian sunset for a magical long weekend.

Hiking through the Dolomites has been my dream since forever, and it was every bit as wonderful as I always dreamed. We hit the road in our tiny Volkswagen, pulling over at every opportunity, hiking for hours until the sun came down… I’ll be writing up more details soon – but for now, enjoy these photos!

Plans for November

And now you might be wondering: what’s next?! Well, I’m typing this from the Nuremberg Airport just before midnight, with my sights set for London tomorrow to attend World Travel Market, one of the biggest travel industry events of the year. Will I fall flat trying to network my face off? Only time will tell. Until then, I hope you enjoyed that update, and I’ll chat with you all soon!

Sooo, monthly updates still count when they’re 6 months apart right?

Hi guys! *awkward wave*  It’s Christina, here to claim the title of “actual worst”. Around this time last year, I vowed to write a monthly travel update for you all, and dutifully, no matter how painful, I kept it up.

But then (as they usually do with me), things got a little wacky, and my plans went off the rails.

The truth is, I iced the updates because I thought nobody was reading them. Sometimes it felt like I was typing up all these muddled thoughts, sending them up to cyberspace only to receive virtual crickets and the occasional pity comment from my mom.

But when (from time to time), I started getting questions about my next update, where the personal posts had been, I realized maybe there’s like 1-2 of you that actually read them.

So here I am… for you!  If you do happen to enjoy these more personal posts, please let me know 🙂 A quick emoji in the comments… a virtual high five. Something to rescue me from crying myself to sleep, maybe? Thank you!

Desperation aside, if you want jokey, play by play updates of my travels, your best bet is to follow me on Instagram and watch my Stories.

Now, onwards to the update…

An Exciting New Partnership with Omio

First thing’s first, I announced on Instagram a few weeks ago that I have officially joined Omio as their Munich local expert! For any of you travelling in Europe, Omio is an awesome, free site that allows you to compare prices, times, etc. on transport routes all around the continent, which means you can quickly and easily see the best ways to get from Point A to Point B. You can check them out here.

I’ve been using Omio for years (since my first backpacking trip, if I remember correctly), so this partnership is a total dream come true. I can’t wait to produce monthly content with them all about my beautiful city, things like this insanely detailed guide to public transport.

My New Travel Partner

Next, I need to introduce you to my new travel partner: Alphred! He’s dark, handsome, takes amazing photos, and….

Okay, fine, he’s a camera. Alphred is a camera.

But not just ANY camera… My Alphie is a shiny new Sony A7iii , a full-frame mirrorless beauty that takes THE dreamiest photos. It has been a full four years since I’ve bought a new camera, and while my Nikon D3200 (my first ever DSLR) served me well for a long time, an upgrade was long overdue. Friends, say hello to Alphie! 🙂

My 2018 Travels so Far

Okay, now onto this long overdue travel recap. Honestly, sometimes I scroll through all my photos from the past three months and wonder how I survived without becoming an actual coffee bean.

In the past three months, I’ve hopped through three continents. Here’s a quick recap.

February brought me to India for a very exciting collaboration with Incredible India. As one of 60 bloggers invited to take part in the  Great India Blog Train , I got a chance to experience one of India’s top luxury trains: the swishy Golden Chariot, which took me through the South Indian provinces of Karnataka and Goa. You can read a full review in this post.

Immediately after that, I did a surf camp in Fuerteventura with Planet Surf Camps . Trading in a sumptuous luxury train for a surfer hostel was interesting to say the least. I think the princess in me withered up and died a little. Overall it was good fun, and you can read my full review here . I survived, but my dignity remains in tatters.

Trading in a wetsuit for a business suit, I flew directly from Fuerteventura to Berlin to attend ITB, the world’s largest travel trade fair. Of course, I arrived ten shades tanner thanks to the Spanish sun, and so my first stop was to buy myself some new foundation that didn’t make me look like a surprised ghost.

To my shock/horror, I was officially the darkest shade offered in Germany: so-called “chestnut”.

For the next few days, I scooted my chestnut butt around ITB, catching up with great blogger friends, getting barraged with “YOU’RE SO TAN?” and making some great business connections along the way. If you’re a fellow blogger, I can’t stress the importance of attending in-person events. It’s so important!

Arriving back in Munich, I had all of two days’ to myself before my best friend from Vancouver flew in for a visit. Basically she decided to like, parachute in while my whole world was in flames.

Sleeplessness aside, it was great to have a familiar face in my new hood, and after showing her all my favourite spots in Munich . Together we then jetted off to Porto (one of my favourites) and Lisbon (a new favourite, despite an unlucky brush with pickpockets ).

We managed to visit during a freakish rainstorm as well, which locals found comically unusual. Oh, and a seagull stole an entire omelette off my friend’s plate. Against all odds, I still had an amazing time.

On the way back from Portugal, I stopped for a quick city break in the beautiful fairytale city of Bruges, where I drank from mugs larger than my face, gawked at a vial of Jesus’ blood and stood over top the world’s first beer-filled pipeline.

Guys, Bruges is cool. You can copy my 48 hour itinerary here , check out some alternative things to do, or read about the top, beautiful must-sees .

I only had a few days after that trip to repair my trust issues, when another friend decided to drop in on a parachute: Penelope from the The Flyaway Girl !

After a whirlwind visit in Munich, we flew off together with AirBaltic to visit Vilnius, Lithuania . There, we partnered up with the awesome team at Travel Addicts Club and they showed us a side to Lithuania I never knew existed. Guys, Vilnius is amazing.

You need to go. Here’s a post I wrote explaining why I fell so hard, and of course a great roundup of things to do in the city.

Now, I can’t lie to you – my main reason for visiting Vilnius though was that I had booked a very very cheap flight deal from there to visit home in Vancouver for two weeks (like, 300 euros cheap), two weeks filled with a non-stop parade of sushi and international eats I can’t get my grubby hands on in Munich.

I also happened to be home just in time for peak cherry blossom season, a happy coincidence that resulted in one of my most popular posts this year – where to find cherry blossoms in Vancouver .

My days were filled with blossom chasing with my parents as co-pilots, and it was pretty darn awesome and after a brief Insta-training, my dad is getting weirdly good at photography.

The blossom trend continued as I returned to Europe.

My flight home stopped in Amsterdam , which made a brief foray into the famous Dutch tulip fields a must. With my spontaneity being costly (what, on a holiday weekend in APRIL in the Netherlands), I looked for alternative accommodation outside of Amsterdam, which is how I found myself in the magical little village of Giethoorn .

It was crowded, but lovely, and staying the night there made all the difference (especially for super vain pics like these):

I then got to meet up with a friend off Instagram, Kristy from Tassie Devil Abroad, who gave me the okay to third wheel a romantic tulip adventure with her and her partner.

We skipped the oh-so-popular Keukenhof in favour of lesser-known tulip fields around the province of Flevoland. It was bliss!

Then came Paris. Spring time in Paris has always been a dream of mine, and so I couldn’t resist a quick break here. Side note: I know it sounds like I’ve been making it rain euro bills all over the place, but travelling around Europe can be SO affordable ( here’s my guide to cheap transportation options ), and I actually hopped on a bus from Amsterdam to Paris for less than 50 euros. Amazing.

In Paris, I was blessed with brilliant weather, spring blooms, and the most perfect few days in one of my favourite cities. For those of you who hate Paris or think it’s overrated, fight me.  Yes it’s cliched, yes it’s touristy, but if you know how to do it right, it’s also pure magic. It helps of course that I got to work with Hotel Le Pavillon while there, a brilliant boutique hotel with the most absurdly stunning view. I didn’t want to go home!

My last stop before going back to Munich was a press trip to the amazing butterfly-shaped province of Trentino, a beautiful area in Northern Italy between the Dolomites and Lake Garda. Genuinely, I think it’s one of the most underrated spots in Italy I’ve been to – all the beauty and sights, without the crowds 😉 I can’t wait to share more of my trip with you soon!

So… What’s Next?

I really want to slow things down for the summer. Dial it down to a slow mo, light some candles, yenno, the good stuff. I genuinely believe that travel is best appreciated when there’s balance and ample time to reflect.

I have a few short weekend press trips lined up, but apart from that, I want to make the most of my time in Munich and the European summer… maybe try to get back in shape, because although round is a shape, I’m getting noticeably doughy, a not-so-ideal consistency for bikini season.

This time last year, I had just finished a half marathon, and now this year, the only half I’m finishing is half a cake. Then the second half.

I also need some time to focus on work. I’m a workaholic by nature, so the inability to sit down and get things done is really weighing down on me. I guess you can expect a loooot of content coming your way.

To be honest with you, I’m still struggling to find the balance between travel and work, an especially troubling issue given that I’m a full-time travel blogger.

The issue is this: when I’m in a new place, I always try to do it all, experience it all, often to the demise of my productivity and sleep patterns. The amount of times I’ve fallen asleep, mouth-open in bed while editing photos or writing is far too many… but it’s a 1st world problem I’ll happily take if it means I get to do what I love.

So anyways, another “short” updated that has turned into a novel. I guess I really am back 😉 Talk to you all again soon!

I hope you enjoyed my list of Travel Stories!

I don’t write a ton of narrative type posts anymore, but let me know in the comments if you’d like me to add more.

My Go-To Travel Favourites:

🧳 Eagle Creek: My favourite packing cubes

💳 Wise: For FREE travel friendly credit cards

🍯 Airalo: My go-to eSIM

🏨 Booking.com: For searching hotels

📷 Sony A7IV: My (amazing) camera

✈️ Google Flights : For finding flight deals

🌎 WorldNomads: For travel insurance

🎉 GetYourGuide: For booking activities

2 thoughts on “My Funniest, Cringiest & Most Embarrassing Travel Stories”

Firstly I have to say you are such a great story teller, you had me in stitches from the go! It is so refreshing to read something so different to the usual “Top 10 tips” type of travel blogs! I think I can top your grandad date though…. I inadvertently went to an erotica with my dad. Now that is awkward!

Great fun to watch your Christmas markets guide, and to read some of your stories! I will definitely be coming back for more

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• 1 That time we talked dirty in Italian
• 2 That time we hired a male escort
• 3 The time we set a hotel on fire
• 4 That time we got stabbed by sea urchins
• 5 That time we got stranded at sea...well, kind of
• 6 That time we got thrown off a horse
• 7 That time we got lost in the desert
• 8 That time we sprained our ankle because of a puppy
• 9 That time flirting didn't quite work out
• 10 That time an unexpected visitor visited our
• 11 We showed you ours ...

Our Most Embarrassing Travel Stories

At Jetsetter, embarrassing travel moments come with the job. And considering how often we travel, you can bet we have our share of them. Here are our most cringeworthy, from lighting a hotel on fire to hiring a male escort (no, really.)

See recent posts by Jetsetter Staff

That time we talked dirty in Italian

"One summer I was traveling around Italy, and after a few weeks there, I felt confident enough to try my hand at ordering lunch in Italian. It seemed simple: Voglio un calzone, per favore . Easy, right? Not so much. As the word calzone exited my mouth, my tongue stumbled, blending the L sound into an elongated Z, which came across as cazzone . To my horror, the 80-year-old Italian man sitting next to me burst out laughing as his modest wife (apparently Catholic) crossed her chest. Had I butchered the phrase that badly? I was too embarrassed to ask. The man, trying to catch his breath between gasps and guffaws, finally said in broken English, "You... you say... you like a.. big.." and gestured to his lap. All I wanted was an innocent sandwich, and instead — thanks to one misspoken letter — I asked for a slang word so crude, even Urban Dictionary would be ashamed." —Anonymous

That time we hired a male escort

"For spring break, a group of my college friends and I drove down to Miami for a cheap week of fun. Our first night there, we went to a club on Ocean Drive, and after some much-needed liquid courage, I finally worked up the confidence to talk to a guy I'd been eyeing all night. He was tall and handsome—a local, I presumed, from his tanned skin and wind-tousled hair. After grabbing a drink and joining him on the dance floor, we really started to hit it off. Save for the memory of entering the number from his business card into my phone, the rest of the night was a drunken blur. The next morning, my friends and I hit the beach and I decided to call up crush. He arrived looking fit, smoldering, and categorically out of my league, and the afternoon was spent swimming, drinking and soaking up the sun. At the end of the day, as we were packing up, he turned to me and said, “Did you want to settle up now or after?” “Settle up for what?” I asked, confused. He looked at me and shot up an eyebrow, “...the day? You did look at my business card, right?” Apparently, I had missed the fine print (MALE ESCORT), which resulted in a $500 "service" fee. The best part? My broke ass couldn’t pay for it… so I had to call my parents"—Anonymous

The time we set a hotel on fire

"My sister met her fiancé in Thailand and in a nod to their time there, I purchased floating lanterns to light and release at her bachelorette party with good wishes for their marriage. It would have been a great idea, but her bachelorette was in Palm Springs…during a drought. After a drink or six by the pool at the hotel, we went to the empty lot next door, wrote down our wishes, lit the lantern and released it into the air. It rose beautifully against the pink sunset…until a gust of wind picked up and slammed the lantern into an electrical wire over the hotel where it burst into flames, spraying sparks and fire onto the roof. RUNNNNNN, someone screamed. Everyone scattered while a security guard with a walkie talkie called who we imagined to be the police. As lifelong rule-followers, we huddled behind bushes and in alleyways near the hotel, convinced of our impending incarceration. Since I was the instigator of this ill-fated plan, I eventually decided to take the fall and confess. I strode from behind the bush about to approach the security guard, who was still screaming into the walkie talkie beneath the fireball. As I rounded the corner, it flamed up again…then went out completely, a small puff of smoke the only remaining evidence. I kept right on walking and from that moment on pledged my allegiance to Smoky the Bear. After all, only you can prevent wildfires."—Anonymous

That time we got stabbed by sea urchins

"I stupidly decided to swim near a bunch of rocks on the Costa Smerelda and was knocked in every direction by some heavy surf. I dragged myself out of the water and onto shore, with dozens of black spikes embedded in my hands and feet. We drove to a nearby town, my hands and feet throbbing, and stopped in the pharmacy staffed by precious elderly women—as they are in all small Italian towns. I couldn’t find the word for “sea urchin” in my Italian-English dictionary, so I drew them a picture. The chorus of ladies—kerchiefs on their heads and everything—grabbed my hands and shouted various curses and/or prayers to the Holy Family, passing my palms off to the next and the next, each examining them in turn. Then they sold me some ointment that smelled like gasoline and sent me on my way."—Anonymous

That time we got stranded at sea...well, kind of

"My then boyfriend, now husband, and I were vacationing in Mallorca and he insisted on taking me sailing. It was really windy and I resisted at first, but he convinced me the weather was no match for his skills. We took out a catamaran and within 10 minutes the perfect storm appeared — I swear the sky looked like the end of the world! The boat capsized and no matter how hard we tried, we couldn't flip it back around—we were literally both hanging on the sail with all our weight in pouring rain, but nothing helped (and my husband is 6.4"!). After a couple of hours, we figured we were going to die out there—we couldn't see land anywhere—and we sat on the top of the boat, talking about our lives together as the sky got darker and darker. Another three hours past (at this point it was pitch black) when we suddenly spotted a little fishing boat and started screaming, "Ayudya, Ayuda (help, help)." The boat threw us a rope and brought us to shore—the funniest part was we were just about a mile from land! Two things I learned that day: 1) Never trust a man who claims he's an amazing sailor. 2) If you want to get a man to marry you, have a near death experience with him."—Clara Sedlak, Executive Editor

That time we got thrown off a horse

"I worked briefly at a horse farm in New York, where I was hired to exercise backup horses during shows. During one big show upstate, I had to take a particularly jumpy pony out for a ride. We started off and everything was going just fine—that is, until he spotted an obstacle that would require him to jump over a large pool of water. Too spooked to clear it, he stopped right before making the jump, which sent me flying over his head and into the water. Soaking wet and covered in sand and mud, I had to first chase after him and then walk from the ring dripping wet, as top coaches from around the world looked on." —Anonymous

That time we got lost in the desert

"My then boyfriend, now husband, and I were on a 4-corners, southwestern, US of A road trip. We arrived at our destination by dusk and after setting up camp, watched the sky set against the dunes of White Sands National Monument. The next day we rose early to explore. We spent the whole day out there—even after our water supply ran out and the sun slipped dangerously low in the sky. When we finally decided to head back to camp, we set off in the wrong direction and got lost. White Sands National Monument is surrounded by a mountain range—there are no landmarks and everything looks the same. Panicked, we started towards the tallest dunes we could find, figuring that we would have a better vantage point from high up. After what seemed like eternity, we spotted a hiker far away and began yelling and running in his general direction. (Bear in mind, that at this point, I'm so parched that I can barely make sound.) We lost him, but somehow ended up on the main road and were able to hitch a back to camp from a bunch of Europeans. Looking back, I guess I'm thankful for that experience, because once you've tackled something like that as a couple, everything else is by comparison smooth-sailing."—Anonymous

That time we sprained our ankle because of a puppy

"Over the summer I was lucky enough to go on a whirlwind two-week trip to Malaysia. Dead in the middle of my trip was a hiking jaunt to Gunung Mulu National Park, a super remote expanse of caves, karst formations and equatorial rainforest. On my first day at the park, I successfully hiked Deer Cave, the world’s largest cave open to the public, and in 100 degree heat, no less. So come day two, I was pretty confident in my hiking. After taking a four-person motorboat down the Melinau River, we stopped at a small handicraft village. Once out of the boat, I immediately spotted a tiny, fluffy black puppy just off the sidewalk. Determined to pet him, I blindly stepped off the sidewalk and directly into a foot-sized hole, audibly cracking my ankle. The pain hit me immediately, and with my group ahead of me already perusing crafts, I crumpled to the ground, ugly sobbing and watched my ankle swell to crazy proportions. Soon, locals began to move towards me and while I couldn’t understand what they were saying, a kind man tried to comfort me by bringing me the exact puppy I had sprained my ankle for. In the presence of perfect strangers, I continued to cry and hug the puppy until my group noticed I was missing and circled back to find me."—Chelsea Stuart, Assistant Editor

That time flirting didn't quite work out

"I flew to Mumbai a few years ago to attend a college friend’s wedding. During the mehendi at her house, the groom’s college roommate and I immediately hit it off, but I took things slow since I knew I’d see him later on at the cocktail party being held at the Trident Hotel . That night, our group of friends were dancing on the elevated dance floor when he excused himself to get us more drinks. I saw the moment to make my move. Once he reached the bar, he turned around and we made eye contact—then suddenly, I took a full-on stumble off the dance floor. Smooth." —Anita Ng, Photo Intern

That time an unexpected visitor visited our

"It was the end of a two-week trip through New Zealand and my travel group was staying at a hostel in Christchurch. All was well until we were woken up in the middle of the night by a man who'd run into our room from the hallway wearing a bandana over his face. He pulled my friend off his bed like a robber and then ran out of the room laughing. It was a prank (he was also staying in the hostel), but we were ready to go home afterwards." —Elizabeth Mullen, CRM Marketing Specialist

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45 Funny, Heartfelt, Unforgettable Travel Stories

Adventurous Kate contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I will earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks!

I tell travel stories for a living. I do this because I can’t NOT tell travel stories — every experience I have is shaped in the moment and waits in anticipation to shoot out of my fingertips.

And I live to share those stories with an audience. As humans, we’re hard-wired to be influenced by storytelling, and I feel like stories are what inspire people to actually book a trip.

To be honest, though, compelling stories are what’s missing from most travel blogs today, where SEO-driven travel planning posts make up the majority of the content.

We have SO many great travel stories to tell. But we’re not telling them as often as we should. So I decided to share some of the best stories in one place.

I reached out to my travel blogger friends to share their most entertaining posts of all time. Nothing travel planning-oriented, nothing keyword- or affiliate-stuffed — just fun, entertaining stories that would make a stranger smile or laugh. And did they EVER pay off!

Each of these stories is a treasure. I hope you enjoy them.

Note: Due to COVID-19 and a dwindled demand for travel worldwide, travel bloggers have lost significant portions of their incomes. Between people not researching or booking travel and advertisers reducing their spend, many travel bloggers will be making a small fraction of their usual income for months.

The best thing you can do right now is find a story you like on this list and visit several pages on their blog. It costs you nothing, but your eyes on their display ads (no clicks necessary, we get paid by views!) will earn them some much-needed cash in a difficult time.

Want to help out even more? If you love one of these blog posts, sign up for their email newsletter. You can find mine here.

Table of Contents

Funny Travel Mishaps

Are you looking to read about crazy mishaps that happened on the road? Here are some good ones!

Possibly My Favorite Travel Poop Story Ever

Nomadasaurus

OMG. I had never read this one before but this is one of the funniest travel stories I’ve ever read!

Jared tells the story of when diarrhea hit at the worst time ever — on a Chinese bus — and where he ultimately ended up pooping!

Embarrassing Stories From My Travels

Legal Nomads

Jodi is well-known for being pooped on while traveling — 14 birds and one bat so far — but this post shared plenty more of those stories.

If you’ve ever wanted to know the most embarrassing way to ask where to catch the bus in Argentina, here it is.

Hooked on the Cook Islands: My Giant Wedgie

Neverending Footsteps

Lauren is well-known for her extensive list of disastrous “travel incidents” around the world.

This one involves a snorkeling trip where she accidentally flashed her vag to an entire boat of people, including a family with young kids.

I Have a Confession to Make

Journalist on the Run

Imagine being a travel writer who gets paid to stay in a luxurious resort in the Maldives. Dream job, huh?

Now imagine that you get hit by the worst diarrhea of your life while pretending that everything is normal as the staff gives you a tour! Janet lays out her experience in excruciating detail.

When a City Girl Goes Camping

Suitcase and Heels

I may be a city girl who took her first steps in a tent — but not all city girls take to camping so easily.

Melissa shares a camping adventure in Newfoundland that did not go as planned! (NEVER forget the bottle opener!)

An Ode to Señor Frog, The Worst Car in Cozumel

Emily Luxton Travels

What happens when you rent a weird pea-green car that looks like an emaciated Volkswagen Beetle? Well, you definitely get an adventure out of it, Emily shares.

Know this before you rent a tiny car on a Mexican island!

How to Have the Worst Day Ever in Phuket (and How to Turn It Around)

Why Wait to See the World

Sometimes you have a travel day when you hit disaster after disaster after disaster — and sometimes it’s when you’re on your first full travel day with your boyfriend, ever.

That happened to Steph in Phuket, but soon she found a way to turn it around.

The Time I Got Pissed On in Manila

Aussie on the Road

Continuing the bodily fluids theme, Chris shares a rather disgusting late-night incident in a hostel dorm.

This proves that sometimes fellow backpackers are the most horrifying thing you could run into on the road!

Terrible Travel Tales: Mishaps, Setbacks, and Comical Foibles of Globe Trotting

Year of the Monkey

From missing a flight at the last minute due to a nosebleed to getting mistaken for a child at the age of 32, this is a big list of stories.

Paroma shares her favorite travel mishaps she’s collected over the years, all in excruciating detail.

That Time We Got Held Hostage by Monkeys in Ubud

Bridges and Balloons

And I thought I was terrified in the Monkey Forest in Ubud — Victoria and Steve got TRAPPED in a house surrounded by monkeys and couldn’t escape!

One of my worst nightmares. They seemed to handle it well.

My Embarrassing Driving Experience in Ourzazate

Norbert had never driven stick before in his life — so when the car he rented in Morocco turned out to have a manual transmission, he figured he could just wing it and learn to drive stick that day. NOT SO MUCH!

As a fellow driver who has never driven stick, I felt this one.

Ayurvedic Massage, Not for the Modest

Jessie on a Journey

If you had the chance to get a massage for just $16 in the heart of Kerala, India, you would go for it, wouldn’t you?

Then Jessie found out that this massage was done naked. COMPLETELY naked. With lots of oil and boob massage.

Scary Travel Mishaps

Sometimes mishaps can be on the dark side — though often you’ll find aspects of them humorous in retrospect. Either way, you won’t want to miss these posts.

Disaster Strikes

Escape Artistes

When horseback riding in rural Mongolia, Theodora’s son fell and severely broke his arm…in the middle of absolute nowhere.

This kicked off a breathless emergency of trying to find healthcare in one of the most remote places on Earth. It’s a gripping read.

When Traveling Sucks: A Hospital Visit in Fez, Morocco

Foodie Flashpacker

What’s worse than getting bitten by a bunch of bugs in the night? Getting bitten by giant mutant insects whose bites swell up enormously…right in the middle of your forehead.

Nathan details the story of his medical incident in Morocco and a doctor’s office that looks straight out of Chernobyl.

When a Man Comes Knocking

Borderline Crazy Bloggers

One of the scariest things while traveling is when a man has fixated on you — and because the culture is so different, you’re not sure whether you should be afraid or not.

In this story, Marieke shares the story of an Indian man who showed up at her door and kept refusing to leave.

Tales of Romance and Love

Do you love stories about love? I bet you do!! Here are three stories that will make you believe in finding love on the road.

The Last Time I Saw You (Part Five)

This Battered Suitcase

This is an ongoing series on Brenna’s blog where she tells the stories of the loves she’s met while traveling.

This is a short story that feels like it’s much longer — an incredibly romantic dalliance with a French man on a tropical island, then how it all crashes down once returning to real life.

10 Love Stories From My Travels

Adventurous Kate

It’s been years, but this is still one of my favorite posts I’ve ever written. I share ten different love stories from my travels, and tell you the ten locations where they took place — but you have to use logic and deduction to figure out which location matches with each story.

Nobody has ever guessed all 10 correctly. Maybe you will.

Nacpan and Calitang Beach: One of the Last Starry-Eyed, Lovestruck Journeys of the Previous Chapter

Nomadic Experiences

Looking back to days on one of the most beautiful beaches near El Nido in the Philippines, Marky tells the story of a special girl and the sweet moments they shared on one of the most idyllic islands in the world.

They’ve long since broken up, but he gently holds the experience in his hand, frozen in time.

Unforgettable Travel Experiences

These are the moments that got us out of our comfort zone, introduced us to memorable characters, and turned us into better travelers — and people.

How I Met Gunther, The Best Taxi Driver in Vienna

Budget Traveller

Every now and then, you meet someone who restores your faith in humanity. Gunther the taxi driver was one of those people.

Not only did he defy the odds to get Kash to his bus on time, he was unbelievably kind about the dilemma that happened next.

The Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Done: Two Weeks Hiking Japan’s Kumano Kodo Iseji

Adventures Around Asia

The Kumano Kodo hike in Japan is one of the most famous spiritual pilgrimages in the world. Richelle was excited to get out of her comfort zone — then ended up doing the hike in convenience store waterproof pants.

Despite a very tough start, it turned out to be a fantastic experience.

Hiking in the Atlas Mountains, Morocco

Inside the Travel Lab

Sometimes the most magical travel experiences take place in the most remote areas.

Abi extols the romance and beauty and culture of these isolated villages of Morocco, yet wonders if bringing more travelers here would be a good thing.

What I Learned From Giving Up Meat, Alcohol, and Complaining in India

Ashley Abroad

When Ashley went to Rishikesh, India, for yoga teacher training, she went out of her comfort zone by staying sober, sticking to a vegetarian diet, and giving up complaining.

Did it work? In some ways, yes, and she learned a lot about herself from the experience.

The Thrilling Adventures of Super Boyfriend

No Place to Be

So your girlfriend has dropped her camera in the Nam Song river in Laos. Surely a lost cause, isn’t it?

Not for Poi — a.k.a. Super Boyfriend — who leaped to the rescue, underwater among the sharp rocks.

Alaska Road Trip: Our Top 12 Adventures

Alaska is a destination that so many travelers dream of — but the reality ends up looking different from what you pictured.

Mike and Anne share gorgeous photos and stories from their multi-year honeymoon.

Controversial Takes

A lot of bloggers swear that controversial posts are the way to get traffic. I agree, as long as you go about it the right way. By that, I mean make a point, be fair, and defend it well. And PLEASE don’t trash the Philippines just to get crazy traffic.

5 Reasons to Stop Hating on “The Instagram Girl”

Follow Me Away

It seems so fashionable to hate the “Instagram girl” with the popular travel account — after all, who really wears a ball gown on top of a mountain?

But in this post, Victoria points out why the hate is misguided and the reasons why we should be supporting women with unconventional careers.

8 Reasons Why You Should Never Go to Wales

A Dangerous Business

Sure, Wales is beautiful and fun and interesting to explore, Amanda writes — but do they REALLY need all those castles and myths? Come on, now.

(Let’s say some people didn’t quite get the sarcasm.)

5 Reasons Travel Just Totally Isn’t Worth It

travelingmitch

I’m sorry, why are we even traveling, anyway? It’s so annoying, Mitch says!

What if people don’t speak English? What if you’re forced to challenge your preciously held views? WHAT IF YOU GET LOST AND CAN’T GET UN-LOST?! Better stay at home.

Is a Backpack Just Another Word for “Female Mid-life Crisis”?

GrrrlTraveler

Turning 40 and continuing to backpack around the world as a single woman with no kids. It’s what Christine enjoys — but is this what she really should be doing at this age?

For her, the answer is yes — and this post really shows how deep our cultural norms can set.

8 Reasons Hiking Sucks

Food Fun Travel

When people love food and wine and music as much as Tommo and Megsy, it’s not surprising that they’re equally passionate about what they hate: hiking.

Who needs to go back to nature? Who likes going somewhere without pubs? Is it a bonding experience? Bonding in misery, maybe!

How-To Guides You Never Thought You’d Need

Travel blogs are a great place to learn something new! And often it’s something you NEVER thought you needed to know…

How to Throw Out Your Garbage in Germany

Ali’s Adventures

Who knew just the act of throwing out your trash was so ridiculous and complicated in Germany?!

Ali shares what she’s learned as an expat in Berlin. Also, the comments are a gold mine.

How to Use the Toilet in India

BreatheDreamGo

Worrying about stocking up on toilet paper? Indians don’t use toilet paper at all!

India expert Mariellen shares all the tips for using the toilet in an unconventional (better?) way, and shares a hilarious video from Wilbur Sargunaraj.

How to Survive a Power Outage like a Puerto Rican

Indecisive Traveler

Reese spent years living in Puerto Rico, and during that time she went through quite a few power outages, including a four-day outage in 2016.

Step one? Immediately buy all the cold beer you can and take it home!

Big on Bidets: How Do You Use a Bidet and What is a Bidet For?

LL World Tour

Have you ever stopped in your tracks at the sight of a bidet in a bathroom in Italy or France and not known exactly how to use it?

Lisa shows you what you need to know. Because there’s nothing better than a clean anus!

Quirky Stories from the Road

All of us love to travel for the unusual things we discover on the road. Here are some of the best stories of unusual discoveries while traveling.

The Peens of Pompeii

Domestiphobia

Did you know that the ancient ruins of Pompeii are filled with penises? WELL, YOU DO NOW!

Katie visited the ruins for a day and was struck by how you can find a peen outline just about everywhere you look.

The Funniest Farm Market Sign in Southwest PA

Around the World L

Proof that there’s lots to be loved here in lesser-known parts of the US.

I love this sign that Lillie shared from a farmer with a side of sass!

Pictures of Cats and Dogs in Naples, Italy

2 Food Trippers

Naples is one of the greatest food cities in Italy — if not all of Europe — so it’s no surprise that the felines and canines of this city are as plump as they are adorable!

A cute post from Daryl and Mindi.

Sheep Driving Distractions in the Lake District

Raulerson Girl Travels

The Lake District of England is a wonderful place for a scenic drive…if it weren’t for the kamikaze sheep who leap right in front of your car!

I didn’t believe how fearless the sheep were until I saw Heather’s crazy photos.

How Creepy is the Ringling Brothers Circus Museum in Sarasota, Florida?

My Wanderlusty Life

You don’t have to be afraid of clowns to be creeped out by this weird museum, Ashley opines.

If you’re a hardcore circus fan, sure, knock yourself out! Other people? You don’t know what you’re getting into…

Lady Fails at Grocery Shopping

A Lady in London

Who knew it was so hard to grocery shop in the UK as an American? (Me. Boy, do I know that.)

Turns out none of the items are the same as what you would look for in the US (no tomato sauce ANYWHERE!) and Julie struggles to find normal items she just wants to cook.

Transportation in India: What the Tuk-Tuk?!

Traveling Canucks

Tuk-tuks are one of the most common forms of transportation in India — and they can be TERRIFYING.

Nicole and Cam vividly share every detail of a typical tuk-tuk ride, from near-accidents to carefully maneuvering around cows, and you’ll be white-knuckling it along with them.

That Time Angie Made Us Stay in a Sex Motel

Living the Dream RTW

When Jeremy and Angie had to spend the night in a Colombian border town, Angie chose a nondescript hotel.

Well. Turns out it was filled with a wide cadre of “hourly” guests all night long — and the walls were paper-thin.

You know…these funny posts don’t fit anywhere else, so here they are.

50 Amazingly Achievable Things to Do Before You Die

Fevered Mutterings

Forget those usual bucket list items — go skydiving! See Machu Picchu! — and focus on things that you CAN do. Trip on a shoelace. Use a leaf as a bookmark. Walk into plate glass.

Mike makes sure you’ll finish this post with a smile on your face.

8 Places to Travel in Case of a Zombie Apocalypse

Amateur Traveler

So once the zombie apocalypse actually hits, where should people be going? Chris shares his favorite spots, including Louisville, home to the famous baseball bat.

I have to admit, the isolated Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha is an inspired choice.

8 Funny Facts About Traveling With Your Twin

Slow Spirit

Guilherme and his twin brother Gregório are identical twins who travel together — and they are VERY distinctive-looking. They get photographed nonstop, people who meet them individually refuse to believe there are two of them, and yes, they play a lot of pranks.

I laughed out loud at their hostel prank!

Thanks for reading! We loved sharing these posts with you.

Which one of these stories was your favorite? Share away!

a collection of my wild and embarrassing travel stories

my #1 love in life is traveling. i would trade all the seitan, tarot decks, and ayurvedic herbs in the world if it meant i could travel forever.

since traveling is my main priority, i have so many amazing stories about incredible food, kind strangers, and beautiful places.

these are not those stories.

this is a collection of my most embarrassing travel stories. traveling is not all rainbows and butterflies. sometimes it’s running through airports and being drenched by rain.

when i read travel content, i always see the beautiful pictures and curated stories from influencers. there’s nothing wrong with those posts, but i wish that there was more realistic travel content on the interwebs. travel is messy and fun and some of the best memories are made when things don’t go well.

so here’s a collection of my wild and embarrassing travel stories!

why i can never go back to soul shine cafe

if you’ve followed me for any amount of time, you probably know about my voracious love for san diego. in fact, i wrote a whole ass vegan guide to my favorite city. i go there often, pandemic permitting.

in mission beach, there is a teeny tiny cafe called soul shine . it’s my hippie dream restaurant. the menu is full of amazing whole foods plant based creations. they have teas infused with crystals, raw desserts, and a+ vibes.

i was on a weekend trip to san diego to go to a conference, and after watching the sunset i decided to pop in and get dinner. everything was amazing, including their peanut noodles. everything was fine and dandy until i got up to pay.

i’ll try to explain the set up the best that i can. you know how some point of sale computers swivel so they turn towards you, and then can swivel back to face the cashier? they had one of those.

i give the cashier my card, she runs it, and turns the computer towards me to fill out my tip information. i try to turn it back to her, but i guess i was a little too forceful. i push the whole computer off the desk and on to the floor.

i have truly never apologized so hard in my life. luckily the computer was fine and the cashier was very nice about it, but i can never go back out of pure embarrassment.

being stubborn in the bali rain

if you weren’t aware, it rains a lot in bali. and very spontaneously.

it was a friday, and if you’ve spent any amount of time in ubud you know that friday is ecstatic dance at the yoga barn . it’s a whole event. it was my only friday in ubud and i was sooo hype to get my dance on. i got all dressed up in my dance garb, and decided to go to zest to drink cacao and nourish myself before dancing my ass off.

my accommodations were about 40 minutes away from zest by foot, so i set off. foolishly, i forgot my rain jacket.

i got to zest, had a very strong cup of cacao and a raw quesadilla. it was fab, 10/10 recommend. while i was there, it began to lightly sprinkle. i didn’t think much of it. but as i got up to leave it started down pouring.

i am not a wimp about the rain. i used to be a lifeguard in florida, and have literally stayed on stand during hurricanes. i am used to hard rain and getting wet. but this was craaaazy rain. 30 seconds outside and i was drenched.

for some reason, i decided against using a driver and just decided to walk back to yoga barn, which is 30 minutes. along the way i got a bit lost, which added another 30 minutes to my adventure.

by the time i got to the yoga barn, i was a wet sponge. my hair, clothes and shoes were dripping. i could wring water out of my skirt.

the best part was that nobody cared! everyone took one look and me and was like “yep, typical bali tourist” and went about their day. by the end of the night, i had danced so hard and long i had replaced the water with sweat.

even with the cray rain, it was still one of the best nights of my life.

waking up a whole ass airplane

i’m a really hard sleeper, to the point where i have to set 5 alarms to wake up in the morning. i’m sure you know where i’m going with this.

i was on a 17 hour flight to singapore, and i was very lucky to be upgraded to business class. being the person i am, i settle in for a long winters nap.

i’m waken up by a flight attendant shaking me awake.

“ma’am, your alarms are going off"“.

i had 100% forgotten to turn off my numerous alarms before getting on the plane. apparently they had been going off for about 5 minutes before i heard them. i had woken up most of first class.

it was truly one of the most embarrassing things that have ever happened to me.

i will do anything for vegan food

i don’t fly through lax very often, but when i do there is one place you will find me: real food daily. i mean c’mon, is there anything more l.a. then a vegan restaurant in their airport?

on one of my layovers, i only had about an hour to make my connection to san diego. the gate was at the other end of the airport, and this was when lax had an insane amount of construction. it was going to take me about 20 minutes to walk to real food daily, stand in line for my food, and twenty more minutes to get to my new gate. the responsible thing to do would be to go straight to the gate and board.

nope. i full out sprinted through the airport. i have never ran faster in my life, i felt like an olympian.

i got to real food daily, got my seitan wrap, and bolted to my new gate.

some of you may think that i was just speed walking. no. i was full out running in the airport. i wasn’t even late for my flight, i just really wanted vegan food.

i made it to my gate just as they started to board, got on, and very much enjoyed my wrap while watching a beautiful sunset flying into san diego.

thanks for experiencing my crazy stories! leave your embarrassing stories in the comments, or send me a message on instagram for a chance to be featured!

Not quite ready to travel check out 5 ways to beat the travel bug at home., pin it for later.

hello people of the inter webs! i’m grace, and i’m here to spread the freedom focused lifestyle through sustainable travel, growth mindset, and vegan health. read more.

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WHEN TRAVEL GOES WRONG: Best Funny & Humorous Travel Stories

In BLOG , FUN CORNER by Clelia Mattana 18 October, 2018 88 Comments

Contents - Open To Read

DO YOU WANT TO READ SOME AWESOME FUNNY TRAVEL STORIES? 

Then, my friend, you are in the right place because not only you’ll read some truly funny stories here, but I am actually The REAL MASTER OF DISASTER! They should give me an Oscar for  “Best Funny travel story” category. Yes, I’m that bad! 

But as someone wise once said:

“The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.” 

  Mark Twain

A  good funny travel story is usually the result of something that has gone (terribly)wrong. So there shouldn’t be anything to laugh about right? Except for the fact that you not only survived the accident but now you’re actually secretly proud to tell your friends all about your funny story over and over. I know I’m right…Confess! 😀

Those “Huh oh” moments can be quite unpleasant experiences, but you instantly know that they will make to the collection of excellent  and interesting humorous stories for years to come ! Heck, you might even score a date or two if you find an ironic person (Just saying!)

I love funny travel stories so much! They show the less glamorous part of traveling and are an important part of travel itself. They represent the challenge, the adventure, the thrill. The real deal, not those perfect Instagram shots we ALL know are staged. DUH!

So to quiet them down a bit I started to write a few humorous stories on FB and now I’m trying to collect them all and transfer my funny moments (disasters) while traveling in here too. 

I just added the infamous one I had this year (2019 as we speak) when I first arrived in Australia for the first time 😀

But back to this article: I had a mission!

To search and collect all the funny or at least humorous stories related to travel around the web and put them together in a top ten post, easy right? Not quite!

To reach my goal I started extensive researches on blogs and various websites. I even searched the most remote pages of Google to spot them and it wasn’t as easy as I thought!

But, at least, what I found and selected in the end, is definitely worth reading ! Someof the ones I’ve discovered are incredibly funny and humorous stories, others are creepy or beautifully written, whilst some others are quite spicy (stay away if you are a prude).  

No matter how different they are, they all have one thing in common: They made me laugh or chuckle a bit . And in any case, if something goes REALLY WRONG, there are legal ways and consultancies services you can count on (which is a release! phewwww).

BEFORE GETTING TO THE FUN STUFF, A SERIOUS NOTE:

As a Master of Disaster other than the funny ones, I have so many horror stories to tell! I got injured and sick during my trips and they stole my possessions during a bus ride in Thailand once (including 1000 euros cash).

So a word of advice is in order: be extra careful when you choose the travel insurance for your trip ! (Click here to see what I use , they literally saved my life and finances more than once).

I never go without it and even if in some of these funny stories it might not be necessary, trust me that in other cases… it most certainly is!

SO BACK TO THE FUNNY STORIES FINALLY!

Yeah, that would be me, with a whole tomato in my mouth in a pub in Amsterdam. WHY? There is no why, I simply like being silly 🙂

For each story, I will insert a quick excerpt to give you a glimpse of what the fuss is all about, and I’ll put the relevant link to the article if you want to read the filthy details 🙂

BONUS MATERIAL:

Scroll till the end to find an article that seriously cracked me up! It’s not technically a story, but it’s definitely travel related!

1| 24 HOURS TO GET TO MELBOURNE (AND ALMOST SLEEP UNDER A BRIDGE)

Category: Funny Stories

“I had dreamed of that moment for hours… That fantastic moment where I was given the key to my room and I would have seen the most precious thing in the world: A BED. What I see instead is a sofa in the living room of an unknown house, located in between the entrance door and the kitchen door. I swear I was about to faint. “

This is a new series of my blog. Given that my friends and followers on Fb love the live chronicles of my horror-funny travel stories I decided to start posting them here.

In this occasion… well, this is how the land of Kangaroos welcomed me on my first night Down Undernight, after 24 hours in the air, lost in space-time and angry like a stray cat 😀

Source   Keep Calm And Travel :  Humorous Stories turned into horror ones: Me, David & The Taxi Driver

1| ALMOST KILLED BY A TURKISH HAIRDRESSER IN GERMANY

Category: funny stories

“The hairdresser proceeded to shave around the perimeter of my hairline, focusing mostly on the back of my neck. He moved the razor in quick little strokes, handling its edge with feline grace. I made the mistake of picturing how easily he could take my eye out, or how quickly he might give me a Sweeney Todd, and it was then my complexion faded from ‘Eggshell Uncomfortable’ to ‘Chartreuse Sputum.’”

This is an absolutely brilliant story, reporting how a simple question about politics can change the course of a simple hair cut from magic to tragic.

Will our hero succumb under the claws of the Turkish hairdresser?

SOURCE: Oh God My Wife is German

2 |THE MYSTERIOUS EUROPEAN SHOWER 

Category: Humorous Stories

“There were no knobs or handles of any kind that I could turn to get the water running. There was this little console inside, which I tried to use. At first, it seemed self-explanatory. It had dials for water temperature and water pressure, and a start/stop button! Plus, it was all in English ! Surely I could figure this out, right?”

The mysterious shower

A very Funny insight on how an innocent European shower can become a mysterious sinister object for the poor American Tourist.Will Geraldine figure out how to handle a “highly technological” European Shower? Click on the link below!

This is a must-read tale from a  super talented writer. Geraldine would be able to make you laugh even by writing on how she drinks her coffee!

Source: Everywhereist

3| CULINARY EXPERIMENTS

Category: Funny/Quirky stories

“While in Vang Vieng, Laos, two other travelers and I decided to visit the local market one evening. The idea was that we would each purchase some kind of food item to bring back to the guesthouse and share with the group for a nice local dinner”

The post I’m linking to is a collection of stories from Derek Baron. He decided to put together a list of the dumbest things he did during his 14 years of extensive traveling.

The result is a quite hilarious post where, among other funny experiences, Derek tells us how he decided to eat a Rat, in an attempt to try the local cousin. How did the experiment go? Read on to discover it!

Source: Wandering Earl

4| THAI MASSAGE OR THAI TORTURE?

Category: Humorous stories

Her black eyes examined me closely, wrinkles forming in her chestnut brown facial skin as she visually assessed me prior to my massage. “You big boy. I think you need two hours.”  “No, I’m good with one.”

Would you like a massage??!

Beware of who you put your trust in. A relaxation massage turned into a Karate match against an old Thai lady. Who is going to be the winner?

Source: One dad one kid

5 |CHASED DOWN A MOUNTAIN BY SOME LOCAL WOMEN

“Wow, these people are so friendly!” I thought to myself. This is exactly the kind of cultural encounter every traveler hopes for – walking down a mountain en route to a rural village, water buffaloes munching away on shrubs, women from a local hill tribe joining for a walk. Why this is the kind of stuff makes the feature story on the National Geographic! Right?

We’ve all been there: captured by the innocent smiles and kindness of the locals in a foreign land… Be careful when putting your pink glasses on, as you will also probably need a good pair of shoes to run away as fast as possible! Click below to read Audrey’s escape plan!

Source: That Backpacker

6 |DEATH ON THE BOAT

Category: Black humor / quirky Stories

“I immediately felt my chest tighten and my heart began to race as my mind replayed the events of the past few days – had I been using insect repellent? Had I been covered up? Had I been bitten?  I was suddenly convinced that I was about to die too”

Lauren Smiling before the nightmare begins

What would you do if you find yourself trapped on a slow boat with a poor dead body lying next to you? This is obviously not a funny story, but a rather creepy adventure on the Mekong river. Lauren has an entire anthology of weird and funny-tragic stories on her website.

There I am, bumming at the airport before my flight and reading Lauren’s book!

A must-read! And now she has a book! Well actually I also have her book because her stories are just super fun, I totally recommend it, check it out in here !

Source: Never ending Foot Steps

7 |”MONKEY BUSINESS”. ON A CHICKEN BUS…

Category: Spicy Travel Stories

“As the bus ride progressed and the chicken bus going like crazy everyone sliding back and forth in every direction I noticed something weird. I kept feeling his leg purposely touching my leg so I, of course, started making my leg touch his as well”

Warning: Spicy Adventure ahead! 🙂 Some travel bloggers are quite adventurous and brave enough to tell us all about their hot encounters…

This story is probably one of the most popular spicy tales of the past few years. No need to get embarrassed tough. I actually admire those people who can be very open about their life, and the story is pretty hilarious! want to know more? Put the kids to sleep first 🙂

Source: Breakaway Backpacker

8| FLATTERY GOES A LONG WAY

“Hello! You are beautiful,” he began. While my first reaction was to keep on walking, I stopped to listen anyway. Because you have to admit, the man had a valid point.

Honestly? I didn’t know which post to choose from Sally’s dozen funny stories! She just drags you into her clumsy funny world so easily!

This time, she writes about how flattery seems to be her weak point. Apparently, she can’t resist a compliment and she was convinced to join a group of Chinese tourists, that treats her like the star of the hour!

Do you want to know how she ended dressed like a local on a rice terrace? Click on the link to read about her adventure!

Source: Unbrave Girl

9| FUNNY STORIES: OUTRAGEOUS PICTURES

Category: Visual Funny stories

Instead, I’ve decided to share some of the more quirky, bizarre, outrageous, outlandish, humorous, funny, ridiculous, absurd & truly off-the-charts moments I’ve experienced while traveling over the years, as summarized in a photo essay.

Indian-Man-Cleaning-Genitals

In a post about funny/weird stories, I couldn’t certainly forget to add a photographic essay on some funny/irreverent pictures from around the world! Get ready to chuckle! 🙂

Source: Nomadic Samuel

10 |SPANKED AT A FISH MARKET

Category: Funny /spicy /Humorous stories

“It was hot. Korean summer hot. Melting makeup hot. Seriously, summer in Korea gets up into the 30s and feels like plus 40s with 100% humidity and not a drop of rain. I had undone the top of my shirt to let a little air in and I suppose I should mention my breasts”

This is a funny short travel story on how you need to be extra careful whilst traveling in a different cultural environment. Especially in terms of clothing! 🙂

Source: The Escapism Artist

THE MOST HILARIOUS LIST OF FLIGHT ATTENDANTS ANNOUNCEMENTS

1) “Flight attendant on a Virgin Australia flight “And today we have someone who is celebrating their 21 st birthday, please stand up xxxxxxx……Fancy that, 21 and never been in a Virgin.”

2) “Please feel free to leave behind any of your items in the overhead compartment; I’m having a yard sale this weekend.”

3) “Hi, I’m Captain Amanda Smith. Yes, I’m a female pilot and as a benefit, if we get lost on the way I won’t be afraid to stop and ask for directions.”

4)On an early morning flight, “I noticed a few ladies who forgot to put on their makeup this morning. I’ll be dimming the lights for your convenience.”

5)“How about that landing? Not bad for his first day.”

Do you want to read more?! Check out the full article, to die for!

Flights and Frustration

So here they are, the 10 of the funniest/weirdest travel stories  I found on the web and let me tell you, It’s been a real challenge to find them!

Why is that? don’t people write enough about their weird adventures? am I a bad researcher or it’s just Google trying to hide them really well??

Whatever the reason, it’s a pity because these are the kind of stories that transform the average traveler in a real Indiana Jones!

If you have a very funny or humorous Travel story to share, please leave a comment with your link or a quick recap! I’d love to discover other Crazy adventurers out there! Come out from your shell and share your stories with us! 

Superb and valuable knowledge information because of useful updated for me, thank you so much for share this wonderful article.

this is freaking funny but this is common hacks everyone faces thanks for this interesting article.

Oh God My Wife is German :p What was it???

Hahahah That story is pretty hilarious 😀

Wow, wonderful weblog format! How long have you been blogging for? you make blogging look easy. The total look of your site is magnificent, let alone the content material!

Thanks Sonia, I’ve been blogging for 7 years and it’s not easy at all especially considering that English is not my native language, but I try my best 🙂

What a nice experience when traveling !

A Great Info about to travel and so Funny. Happy to share this info to my friends which are very useful. Thanks for sharing

Sooooooo funny! Great share!

Thank you! Glad you liked it 😉

It is truly a great and useful piece of info. I’m happy that you shared this helpful information with us. Please keep us up to date like this. Thanks for sharing.

Such a Great Information about to Travel I really liked your article, your article is very frightened me in the learning process and provide additional knowledge to me, maybe I can learn more from you, I will wait for your next article, I’ve really enjoyed reading it throughout. Thanks for Sharing.

Thank you for your kind words! here is always something new to learn when traveling, even for veterans 🙂

This was an awesome post. it inspires me to send it my mother whenever I decide to travel overseas alone. She freaks out everytime.

hahahah I’m 41 and my mother still freaks out! No matter that I left my parents house at 19, we are always kids for them 🙂

Nice post! Thanks for sharing!

Thanks Anna! Glad you liked it!

This makes my day. I enjoy every single story in this post.

ADMIN NOTE: Please don’t include any link to commercial websites in the comment section as they will be removed. Thank you!

Loved every single story! I’ll have to write down some accidents that happened to me while travelling as well.

Hey Vincent, thanks for your comment! I’m sure you’ll have plenty of travel story, everyone has them and they are the best part of the trip 😀

Your post had gave me ideas that how to share funny video. Thanks for sharing

The index is really helpful. I love how you edit the post Glad you find the information useful. Thank you very much for share this great helpful information with us.

Uhmm there is no index? maybe you should read the article first 😉

I’d love to travel too! Thanks for sharing your experience.

Thanks for stopping by! 🙂

Dear Lord! 4 years since the post was published but the comments just keep coming and for a good reason! Thanks for putting together this list and interesting read! The accident on the boat is truly a creepy experience!

Ahahah yeah, Travel gone wrong is an evergreen topic! 🙂

Superb and funny post..! Really loved it… Keep posting….

Thank you 🙂

Love this blog…the main reason being is as travelers we ALL have something happen during our adventures. Regardless if they are truly bad or bizarre my thoughts on these events turn out to be some of our biggest highlights! These are the stories we will find ourselves repeating to eager ears back home and on the road, if you visit Vietnam, you will get it !

Hey Hong, you’re so right, these are the stories people want to hear 🙂

I’ve had so many crazy experiences travelling. Once in Cambodia I was caught on a bus where the drivers were smuggling drugs behind my chair! Just last week I was hitch hiking and I got caught up in the middle of a street race on a single motorbike with two other people, two bags and no helmets. You can read about it on my blog

Admin note: Please avoid linking to articles (even if they can be of good quality, it allows spammers to do the same and it would become a real nightmare). People can already check out your website by clicking on your name in the comment. Thank you for your understanding! Clelia

Thanks for adding your own travel nightmares! 🙂

Brilliant stories! If you’re doing anything similar in the future, hit us up, we have a lot to tell from our worldwide experiences! Great site by the way 🙂

Thanks Katie!

Yeah, Thank you for sharing, greating..:)

Thanks for stopping by!

I can totally relate about the European showers. During my trip to Europe, I was flummoxed by them.

Ah Sophie! I didn’t realize that the European shower could be so complicated 🙂

Nicely put…i like the MYSTERIOUS EUROPEAN SHOWER 🙂

ahahah Is it a mysterious tool for you too Vicky? 🙂

Hello my name is Daniel I’m a stand-up comedian from Edinburgh Scotland.

Admin note : I removed the link as I don’t allow them in my comments as per my comment policies. If you want to help another user, please leave your email and ask to be contacted directly.

Thank you! Clelia

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I love the way you interpreted other people’s blogs with yours. Not only it is smart for your website but it gives a link to other website giving that person more followers. My blog is about traveling but in my eyes and the events that have happened to me during vacations.

Hey Tailor, thanks! I actually wasn’t thinking about my own website when I wrote this piece. I just loved the stories and wanted to share them all in one place 🙂

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Between last minute visa cancellation and getting stuck in a cave with a cobra I had my fair share of bad experiences, but I can see that I’m in good company! LOL!

Oh, and that announcements are hilarious! Ahahah

Gettin stuck in a cave with a COBRA?! Oh my!! 😀

Your style is very unique in comparison to other folks I’ve read stuff from. Thank you for posting when you have the opportunity, Guess I will just bookmark this web site.

Thank you for your kind comment! 🙂

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I thought travel always goes wrong. Maybe that’s just me…

Not always..it depends on how much risk are you willing to take!

Even tho I’m European I can totally relate to European shower trouble 😉 Love this post!

European showers rock! 🙂 glad you liked the post Anna!

Is that a rat? Ewww!

Yes it is! I have to say Earl was very brave to try it 🙂

Funny stories and unforeseen mishaps are always part of traveling. This is what makes it more memorable for us. Despite these, I know we can all say that without these funny stories, your travel wouldn’t be as fun as it was.

Hey Helen, if you have any funny story to add, feel free to do so 🙂

I love funny travel stories – and writing about them. My favourite lately was called the Perils of Potties in Japan – or something like that – featuring a hitech toilet that wouldn’t stop spurting water all over the place.

Hey Anabel, i’ve heard tat Japanese toilets are deadly.. I will search for the article, must be quite something!

I went on a road trip in Iceland in June and absolutely loved it! I would tell people (and did in a blogpost) to register with a free app that alerts search and rescue people if you vanish. Register at http://www.safetravel.is and download the free 112 Iceland app before you go. It could literally save your life – a lot of people wander off and get themselves in bad situations every year but if you use this they will save you from yourself (for free but a hearty donation should be considered if it’s your own fault!).

Thanks for the tip Kay!

Thanks for collect these stories.Will subscribes to get more story from you.

Glad you enjoyed it Louis!

Cool tales. I only travel so I don’t run out of dinner party conversations.. ;P The things that don’t go quite right are often the best stories!

true…people are more interested in the accidents than our amazing travel tales..

Love this blog…the main reason being is as travelers we ALL have something happen during our adventures. Regardless if they are truly bad or bizarre my thoughts on these events turn out to be some of our biggest highlights! These are the stories we will find ourselves repeating to eager ears back home and on the road. Of course they seem devistating as they are happening but we always have to look for the best in these situations and the most positive way out of these awkward moments. Cherish them – One Life, One Planet. @monkeyslick

Hi Evan, Very true…these are the best stories to showcase upon our return home!

We’d got our own funny travel stories following experiences close to home. Here’s one from when we visited a hotel in the south of the island: http://www.puretravel.com/Guide/Travel_writing_competition/Travel_Writing_Competition_2012_Entries_Page2/Cock_and_ball(s) . After reading, you’ll be relieved to discover that there are no photos.

ahah i’m actually pretty relieved yes 🙂

Thought you might be.

I saw your request in our FB group and was sorry I couldn’t contribute any! These are hilarious though; the image of Talon and the old lady cracks me up 😀

Hei Aleah, pity you couldn’t contribute, i was hoping to have a top 20 but was quite difficult!

I appreciate the mention above and link to my post!

My pleasure!…Eating a rat is not something you see everyday for sure!

Thanks for featuring my story Klelia!

These are a great collection of quirky tales.

Great finds! I love these quirky stories and that could well be me trying to figure out how to use that shower!

Yeah some of them are really brilliant, it surprised me that i couldn’t find more of them on the web!Oh and for the shower…even if i’m european, i struggled with it at first too!

Thanks also for including my funny quotes article, they certainly make flying more enjoyable.

As for the Thai massage I can certainly vouch for that. I had a one hour head massage and was screaming pain with every touch. I promise you, never, ever again!

hahaha tell me about the Thai Massage, I totally understand why you don’t want to try again! I also had some quite unpleasant experiences…now I only go for a more relaxing oil massage 🙂

Loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooollll…when finished barking loudly with laughter, I might share a story or two…

Fire away! You can’t imagine how difficult has been to find these stories around! 🙂

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Travel Fails and Embarrassing Moments

Nearly every seasoned traveler will have a slew of stories to tell about thier travel fails, mishaps, and embarrasing moments. It’s part of the experience, and generally something that can’t be avoided.

Whether that’s a missed flight, a broken down bus, or an excruciatingly long Uber ride (true story), things are not always going to go as planned.

Over time, we learn to navigate these travel fails and mishaps with ease, while hopefully preventing them from ruining an otherwise wonderful trip.

With experience comes the ability to find the humor in one’s travel fails. Well, most of the time anyway.

Just for fun, I thought you might like to read about some of the many things that have gone wrong for me while on the road.

I hope you enjoy these stories of travel fails and embarrassing moments, courtesy of my own inexperience, poor planning, and a dose of bad luck.

Table of Contents

My top travel fails and embarrassing moments

That time I fell in Reykjavik (2019)

More of an embarrassing moment than anything else, I was enjoying some time walking around downtown Reykjavik one evening.

I had most of the major tourist hot spots to myself since it was both late and cold.

I found myself alone at the waterfront looking up at the Sun Voyager sculpture with the light from the Imagine Peace Tower in the background. It was peacefully quiet. The kind of quiet that falls over a city after a fresh snowfall.

I made my way over to the sculpture to get a better look. As I walked around to the far side, the ice got the better of me. Yup, that’s right. I fell on my a$$.

As I fell, I heard a faint gasp in the background. Sure enough, I look over and a small crowd had gathered. Just my luck.

I waved. They waved back. Whrere did these poeple come from? So much for being alone.

I stood up, dusted the snow off my rear, and continued taking pictures.

Nothing to see here folks.

That time I crashed my bike into the bushes while looking for alpacas (2019)

I was nearing the end of my trip to Copenhagen and was looking for a few more unique things to see before I had to leave.

I saw on social media that someone had posted pictures of a herd of alpacas in a park near my hotel. Of course I decided then and there that I needed to find these alpacas.

What I didn’t know is that the alpacas were not confined to a specific area of park. Instead, they roamed the area freely and could be anywhere at any time.

While I’m sure many of the locals know where to find them, this tourist did not.

As a result of my committment to finding these fluffy, long-necked cuties, I peddled my bike through the park. I made my way along muddy rain soaked trails, for the better part of two hours. Not one in sight.

During one particularly steep section of trail, I decided to allow gravity to do its thing. I peddled as hard as I could to the top of a hill hoping to build enough momentum to cruise down the other side.

As I reached the top of the hill and began my descent down the opposite side, I quickly realized I would need to change course.

Apparently, gravity had also “done its thing” with the rain water too. Covering the path at the bottom of the hill was a massive puddle of water. The kind one shouldn’t ride their bike through.

I attempted to steer my bike around the outer right side of the puddle and then make my way back onto the trail. What happened was a little different.

While I succeeded in avoiding the puddle of water, I was unable to steer my bike back onto the trail as planned.

Instead, my front tire slipped in the loose gravel that lined the path. Both the bike and my body came to a halt when I drove my bike into the bushes just off the trail.

I turned around to see another man riding down the hill behind me. He did not acknowledge me standing there in the bushes.

Instead, he gracefully steered his bike around the left side of the puddle and kept right on going. Further evidence that the Danes are better at just about everything.

As for me, I dragged my bike out of the bushes, taking several branches with it. I pulled the thorns out of my jacket sleeve, and hopped back on my bike.

I never found the alpacas.

That time I took the world’s slowest Uber ride (2018)

I stood alone in the rain on the streets of Paris’ Gare de Lyon neighborhood at 3:00 a.m.

I was trying to request an Uber to the airport for my flight to Marrakech, Morocco at 6:00 a.m.

Since it was Paris, and it was 3:00 a.m., people were just finishing up their partying from the night before. So as luck would have it, surge pricing was in effect.

I decided to wait 5 minutes and try Uber again to see if I could get a better deal. It worked.

I managed to save about 15 Euros when a driver finally accepted my ride request. The Uber app told me the driver would arrive in 5 minutes. He did not.

Instead, my driver arrived 15 minutes later even though I could see on the app that he was just around the corner, sitting there, not moving.

Once my driver finally made his way over to pick me up, I hopped in the car and pulled up the directions to the airport. Great, I thought to myself. We’ll be there in about 30 minutes.

What I didn’t know, is that my driver held no sense of urgency whatsoever. Even with the knowledge that he was picking up a passenger at 3:20 in the morning who was headed to an international airport. Nope, no hurry at all.

For the next 45 or so minutes, my driver was the slowest car on the freeway. And this is by a long shot. Cars were flying by at twice our speed, maybe more.

The driver was so focused on using Google translate to ask me mundane questions, that he was swerving all over the road while driving at least 30 mhp below the acceptable speed limit.

I rationalized that if we did eventually veer off the road, there was little chance for injury since we were moving so slowly.

Eventually, I arrived at the airport stressed out, but just in time to be the last one to check my bag in for the flight.

My plane was boarding as I approached the gate, but I had a moment to pick up a quick snack before I got in line to board.

Never again.

Lesson learned: Always leave at least 30 minutes more than you think you need when taking an Uber to the airport.

This was one of my most worst travel fails, but mostly because of all the stress it caused. I was meeting up with a tour in Morocco, so a missed flight would have been a signficant and costly mistake.

That time I flew to the wrong city in Mexico (2018)

Back in 2018, the boyfriend and I were planning a trip to Mexico. I had always admired the country’s colorful Dia de Los Muertos holiday, so we were planning our visit around that time of year.

While doing my trip research, I learned that Oaxaca was a particulary beautiful place to experience this holiday.

After reading all about the celebrations around the city and the beautiful decorations on display, I booked us a hotel for three nights. The boyfriend was in charge of booking the airfare.

At some point after he booked our flights from Mexico City, but a few weeks before we were to depart, he realized he had booked flights to the wrong destination.

So instead of spending three fabulous nights enjoying the food and culture of Oaxaca, we instead enjoyed the beach life in the coastal city of Huatulco.

In the end, we were happy we got to visit Huatulco, but I never did get my Oaxacan Dia de Los Muertos experience.

That time I got stuck at the airport in Venice (2018)

The boyfriend and I were on our first international trip together in Italy. We had made our way north from Rome and were spending a night in Venice before flying up to Paris for two nights.

Everything I read beforehand about Venice told me it was too touristy, it was not worth visiting, and that the food was terrible. EVERYTHING I READ WAS WRONG.

Venice was amazing.

But anyways, after our day in Venice, we woke up the next morning and headed to the airport for our flight to Paris.

We boarded our flight in the early afternoon. After our plane pulled away from the gate, we proceeded to sit on the tarmac for 3 hours. No joke. We sat there for 3 hours.

In fact, we were stuck on the plane for so long they started beverage service. I believe they even fed us a snack.

After sitting on the tarmac for three hours, they finally brought us back to the gate so we could get off the plane. Needless to say, our flight was cancelled.

As we retrieved our luggage, I called the airline to try and snag a spot on the next flight. I managed to get through rather quickly and was placed on the next departure later that night.

The issue with this whole ordeal though, is that after we were rebooked on the new flight, we ended up just sitting in the airport for the next six hours.

We were stuck in a total dream destination, and elected to just sit in the airport.

The Venice airport is close enough to the city center that we could have easily gone back and explored some more. I really wish we had.

Lesson learned: Don’t spend your day in an airport if you don’t have to. Flights get delayed and cancelled all the time. Don’t let it ruin your day.

That time I broke the toilet (2014)

This is one of my favorite travel fails and favorite travel stories to tell.

I had just spent the past several hours traveling from Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica to Bocas del Toro, Panama. It was a trek that included multiple vans, a border crossing, and even a boat ride.

I had spent the night before drinking wine at a local Italian restaurant with some friends I made. We closed the place down as young backpackers do.

Despite the late night, I was up early and ready to move on to my next destination.

About an hour or so into the trip, my stomach started to bother me. The roads were full of potholes, so the ride was on the bumpy side.

As a result, I was looking forward to getting to my hostel in Panama so I could just relax for a bit.

When I finally arrived at the hostel and got checked in, I was shown to a room with three other bunks.

All the beds were taken except one, so I placed my belongings down on the available bed, then made a bee line for the restroom.

I’ll spare you the details here, but when I went to flush the toilet, it did not flush.

Unsure what to do, I attempted to flush multiple times, pulling the handle in all directions. No luck.

I lifted the lid from the back of the toilet, but nothing looked familiar to me. I know, it’s a toilet, how complicated can it be? But believe me when I tell you, I would have done anything to get that toilet to flush.

With no other options in sight, I accepted defeat. I left the toilet, unflushed, just sitting there.

As my luck seems to go in these situations, as soon as I walked out of the restroom, one of my roommates returned to the room. He walked right into the restroom.

I cringed as I heard him messing around with the toilet. A few moments later it flushed.

I was so embarrassed I did what anybody else would do, I grabbed my belongings and got the heck out of there. No seriously, I picked up my bag and left, never to return again.

I made my way to the other side of the island, unfortunately only a short walk away, and checked into a hotel room. A hotel room with my own bathroom and my own working toilet.

That time I learned what bed bugs are (2014)

I was visiting Puerto Viejo on my first international solo trip back in 2014. I was traveling with some girls I met when I landed in the capital San Jose.

Originally, I had booked a room in a tree house, but upon seeing how to enter said tree house, I asked for a different room.

My new friends and I were offered one of their largest rooms if we wanted to share. The shared room would save us money, so we agreed.

It was an upstairs room with lots of windows and a private balcony with a hammock. It seemed perfect.

We dropped off our things, put on our swimsuits, and headed out to enjoy Puerto Viejo’s beautiful Caribbean beaches.

At night, we returned to our room, got ready for bed, and passed out.

In the morning, my travel partner in the bunk above me asked if anyone else was feeling itchy. We did.

At this point we all crawled out of our beds and started ripping the sheets off our prison style mattresses. We were in a hostel after all.

We all found what we believed to be bed bugs crawling around our mattresses. Our solution? We tossed all three of our mattresses outside on the balcony.

We stood them up in a row against the railing, then proceeded to continue getting ready for the day.

It was as if we thought the bed bugs would realize they were outside now and they were free. Free to escape the confines of our mattresses.

We returned to our room late that night intoxicated from the party at the hostel bar. So we did what any drunk twentysomethings would do. We put our bed bug infested mattresses back on our beds and went to sleep.

The following morning, my bunkmate and I bonded over the bug bites appearing all over our arms and legs.

Was it gross? Yes it was. Did we do anything about it? No we did not.

That time I hiked to the summit of Mt. Whitney with a hangover (2012)

One of my most epic travel fails was the result of some seriously bad decision making.

My boyfriend at the time and I were spending two nights in Lone Pine, California so we could hike Mt. Whitney as an out and back single day hike.

For those of you that don’t know, Mt. Whitney is the tallest peak in the continental USA standing at 14,505 feet tall.

It is also one of the tallest mountains you can climb without moutaineering skills or climbing equipment. The round trip hike is 22 miles and takes anywhere from 12 to 16 hours to complete, depending on one’s fitness level.

It’s a hike one should prepare for well in advance.

One should not however, spend the night before drinking and playing ping pong at the local bar. But that’s exactly what happened.

Predictably late for our sunrise wake up call, we finally set foot on the trail around 8:00 a.m. Much too late to have any hope of returning by nightfall. But that was not the worst part.

It was the hangover that got the best of me.

My pounding headache started to go away after the first two hours or so, but the nausea remained with me for the majority of the day.

As late afternoon approached and the temperature began dropping, I acquired yet another headache. Not a pounding headache, but a dull, constant one.

This my friends, was an altitude headache.

This altitude headache paired perfectly with the nausea, and stuck with me for the remainder of my day.

However, despite these obstacles, I managed to see the summit of that beautiful mountain.

Climbing Mt. Whitney in a single day is an incredibly difficlut feat for most people, but doing it while hungover with an altitude headache is a different beast entirely.

I’m proud of this accomplishment and it remains one of the most stunningly beautiful hikes I’ve ever done in my life.

The views from the summit were worth all the pain I put myself through that day.

If you’re an avid hiker, I encourage you to look into hiking Mt. Whitney. Just please don’t visit the bars the night before. Save yourself from my same travel fails and learn from my mistakes.

That time I booked a rundown motel in the middle of nowhere – (2010)

One of the first trips I ever took by myself was to Washington D.C. to attend a rally on the National Mall.

I booked my flights and reserved a bed in a hostel just a short walk from all the major sights.

Just a few days before my trip, I received a call from the owner of the hostel. He informed me they were cancelling my reservation because they were overbooked and gave my bed to someone else.

I immediately began looking for somewhere else affordable to stay. Since there was a major event happening in the city, all the hostels and affordable hotel rooms were long since sold out.

As a result, I ended up in a run down motel somewhere in Maryland in the middle of nowhere. The hotel was depressing and there was nothing around to do. It was incredibly sad.

To make matters worse, the train ride from where I was in Maryland, to the National Mall in Washington DC, took about 90 minutes each way. If that wasn’t bad enough, my hotel was also a 30 minute walk from the train station.

So I basically had a two hour commute, each way, everyday I was there.

I can’t begin to tell you how bad this sucked and it completely ruined my trip. I spent the majority of my time and money commuting to and from this crappy hotel.

To this day this remains one of my biggest travel fails ever.

I can now look back and laugh at how awful this experience was, but the memory of this trip remains depressing.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my many travel fails and embarrassing moments over the years. If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing. It really helps me a lot. Thanks for reading.

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The Unknown Enthusiast

19 Funny and Crazy Travel Stories From My Own Personal Travels (The Misadventures of Traveling)

I love traveling! The new places, cultures, and people! The food! (Oh, the food…) It has the potential to be more than just “time off”; it so often feels like an epic adventure! That is… until something goes awry and your idyllic vacation starts morphing into one of those unexpected or crazy travel stories.

Then you’re scrambling, adjusting, and hoping things don’t go from bad to worse. And yet, sometimes those MISadventures make for EXCELLENT stories later on!

The 19 Funny and Crazy Travel Stories

These are my best and more unexpected crazy travel stories over the past several years of traveling. Some of these are funny stories of cool and unexpected things that happened on vacation. And many of them are crazy travel stories about some kind of misadventure we experienced.

Several relate to some kind of physical illness on vacation. Others are from our own mistakes – things that looking back on, we could have avoided with maybe a little more precaution. And others are just plain ole bad luck.

However, all of them make for a funny travel story now, and are certainly things that we have learned from!

Here are some of the memorable crazy travel stories we’ve experienced while globetrotting:

1. Got an Infection in Iceland

Oh boy, this was a crazy travel story that was definitely stressful. We were doing our big Iceland road trip , and I woke up from a quick nap in our campervan to the unmistakable (I’m unfortunately no stranger to this situation– TMI?) burning feeling of a UTI. Craaaaaaap.

It was particularly bad timing because we were about to go on a 5 hour guided glacier hike , where we would be on a glacier, in a small group, with a harness on. So, no place to pee and definitely no privacy.

I was stressed and literally praying like crazy that I could make it through the hike okay. I went to the bathroom several times and chugged a ton of water to help flush things out as best I could, and then we just went for it. And, I made it through the hike with absolutely no problems (and it was one of the coolest experiences, ever). 

However, within a day it was a BIG problem (the classic UTI stuff of needing to go to the bathroom every 2 minutes) so we stopped in the city of Höfn and found a doctor’s office to get a prescription.

Not my favorite experience ever, but I also definitely feel like a boss for managing that while on vacation. 

2. Puked out the window of our car in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco

I find the older I’m getting the more I’m becoming prone to carsickness (NOT COOL, INNER EAR!)

When we started our road trip through Morocco , we quickly learned that there are basically no straight roads in the whole country, they wind and swing back and forth constantly. Those first few hours out of Marrakech and into the Atlas Mountains I got nauseous – really nauseous.

After moaning for a while, I finally got to the point where I knew I was going to hurl. We were in the tight switchbacks of a rather steep mountain road at that point, with no shoulder and definitely no place to pull off. I ended up rolling down my window and puking out the car while we were going up and through the mountains – the first and only time I’ve ever had to do that!

At one point as my head was still out the window, we passed a road construction crew and the only thing in my mind was “don’t throw up in front of the crew. Don’t throw up in front of the crew.” 

While I obviously felt pretty awful during those couple hours, and no one wants to upchuck out the window of the car, for some reason it was also extremely funny to me, even in the moment. As in a “I can’t believe I’m throwing up in AFRICAAAAAAA! WOOOOO!” moment. I was just super stoked to be on the continent, I guess, ha!

It also helped that even though we continued to have winding roads, once I threw up, I was fine from there on out. Thankfully, this was one of the crazy travel stories that resolved quickly and was a really funny story to me, even as it was happening!

3. Took 9 Covid Tests Solely for Travel

As soon as countries began re-opening their borders to travel following the covid-19 pandemic, Matthew and I were chomping at the bit to explore.

Generally speaking, this period of travel was fantastic – we enjoyed much lower crowds and the accompanying lower prices.

It also meant, however, that we had to take a lot of covid tests. Some countries required testing upon arrival at the airport, some required a covid test to be taken in the US prior to boarding the airplane, and we always had to test for re-entry into the United States.

It was a decent number of tests, but SO WORTH IT. 

4. Car Was Towed in France

While most of the crazy travel stories in this article are just due to bad luck or circumstances beyond our control, this one was definitely the result of a not-so-smart move on our part. This experience happened during our European Christmas market tour, where we traveled through Germany , Luxembourg , Switzerland , and finally France , hitting up a new market every day.

We were trying to maintain a really tight budget on this trip and were looking for ways to save money, so we were always on the hunt for free parking.

In the little village of Colmar , we parked next to a church that had free parking, and was about a 10-15 minute walk from our VRBO. Well, it was indeed free every day, but… on Saturday a local farmer’s market set up shop and the lot was closed. There were signs at the lot saying you couldn’t park there from 6-12am on Saturday, but they were very small and not obvious at all, and so we showed up Saturday morning around 10 to get our car, and found a market there instead. 

We talked to some of the vendors there about the situation and they said it’s actually pretty common to have cars towed because of the poor signage. They were also super, super nice and really helpful with helping me figure out where to go and what to do to get our car back. I was also particularly proud of myself for having that more technical conversation in French!

It took us several hours to get our car back, which involved walking back into town and to the town hall to get some paperwork at the police precinct. This actually took us several hours, because, being a Saturday, a lot of things were closed. It took quite a while to figure out where the police precinct was and how to get in.

Then it was another chunk of time to walk down to the towing company, pay the fine ($120), and collect our car.

We got delayed several hours and definitely did not end up saving money on parking in Colmar, but we were just incredibly grateful that we got our car back on a Saturday in France.

I’ve only heard bad things about French bureaucracy, so while it sucks to get your car towed anytime and really sucks to get your car towed in a foreign country, I’m SO GLAD we came out of that situation as well as we did.

Funny Travel Stories #5. Took Some Hilariously Bad Photos

One of the fun parts of running a travel blog and Instagram account has been learning how to take better pictures. We’re not professionals at all and are still learning a lot!

We take a lot of pictures specifically with blog posts in mind (horizontal, capturing the area more than the people in it) but we’ve also tried to get better at taking cute pictures of me or Matthew and me together.

Usually we end up with a whole bunch of not great photos and then FINALLY one or two good ones, but the most epic fails we had were in the Sahara desert of Morocco . I had seen this awesome inspo picture on Instagram that I wanted to copy and didn’t look too hard – we could totally do it!

View this post on Instagram A post shared by DIANA | Travel Tips✈️💃🏻 (@dwanderess)

We tried for the same type of sand flipping picture. Here’s what we got (my face LOLOLOL):

This memory is such a funny travel story to me – I legit cannot stop laughing at my faces!

6. Inexplicably Bruised My Big Toenails 

What’s funny to me about this travel story is that I don’t even know how I got injured! I’m still a little baffled even looking back at it.

We were in Disney World for a week and I was wearing some cloth sneakers around. The first couple of days were totally fine, but then on day 3 and 4 my toes, in particular my toenails, were really hurting, which seemed… weird .

The very last day, I noticed a little bit of bruising on my toenails. The bruises got darker over the next couple of days and then stayed bruised for the NEXT 9 MONTHS until they finally fell off. 

The whole thing was so bizarre, partly just because I had dark blue toenails for the better part of a year, but mostly because there wasn’t any specific injury to them, and my feet had felt fine walking around those first days!

Crazy Travel Stories #7. Crossed the German Border in an Unexpected Way

Like the story of getting our car towed in France, above, this story also comes from our tour of Christmas markets where we were on a budget and trying to minimize parking expenses.

For this story, though, we were arriving in Basel , Switzerland. Basel is a unique city because its right at the intersection of the borders of 3 different countries: Germany, France, and Switzerland. Basel is really close to both Germany and France – in fact, if you arrive at the Basel airport, different airport exits lead to different countries!

Anyway, if you are driving into Switzerland from another country, there is a 40 franc (about $40 USD) fee you will need to pay as you enter the country. Then, parking in Basel is extremely expensive – as we were researching ahead of time, the least expensive option we could find that was at all close to our hotel was going to be around 30 CHF a night (and we had two nights)

. So we were looking at 100 CHF just to be able to drive into the country and park, so we could spend one full day in Basel!

We were feeling extra frugal at this point, and were just not enthused about what felt like a crazy high cost just to drive literally a couple miles across the border.

Knowing that Basel is so close to the German border, and learning that there are, in fact, free parking lots on the Germany side of the border, we thought – hey, why don’t we just park in Germany at the free lots and then take the free tram across the border?

That was the plan, except we ended up arriving at the parking lot very late – at midnight. There were no more trams for the day.

No worries! It’s only 50 minutes on foot, we’ll just walk!

So, to paint the picture, we are crossing the German border into Switzerland, on foot, at midnight, to avoid paying a fee. The situation hearkened back to many a World War 2 novel I’ve read (except, for the small point that our lives weren’t in danger and the border wasn’t actually guarded. Details schmetails!)

Thankfully, it worked out totally fine, the route felt safe and straightforward, and we arrived at our hotel in good shape after the refreshing late night stroll. It ended up being a pretty funny travel story!

8. Regularly Exceeded our Initial Travel Budget

As someone who kind of makes it “my thing” to travel on a budget and get great travel deals, and I almost always write a “travel budget” post for our destinations (see Colombia , Morocco , Iceland , Rio de Janeiro , Vietnam , and Costa Rica ), it is a little embarrassing to admit that we do regularly end up spending over our budget when we’re in a destination.

I will say though, that I don’t really regret those extra dollars spent (especially since it’s usually not more than a couple hundred, and not like we’re blowing our budget by thousands of dollars), and they are almost always spent on fun experiences we decide to do in the moment. 

A few examples? Well, doing the Patriot Point museum in Charleston ended up being a highlight of our time there, going ATVing in the Sahara was wicked awesome, and parasailing for the first time in Costa Rica , with a running beach start, was so fun and rather unique for parasailing.

These costs were all late additions to our budget and EXCELLENT uses of our money. And okay, okay, this may not really qualify as one of the “crazy” travel stories, but I think its definitely a relatable experience (ha!), and for sure are times when things don’t go exactly as planned.

9. Frequent and Very Long Road Trips

As people who like having control over their schedule, and as a couple who has four kids, we end up roadtripping A LOT!

The amount of time that we spend in the car, and in particular the amount of time we spend in the car with our kids sometimes baffles people! We really think nothing of an all-day driving expedition, regularly doing 15-20 hours in one day.

This summer we did a massive road trip around the US with our kids, which involved over 100 hours of driving time, and 24 hours in the car just to reach our first destination!

We’ve also regularly done international road trips, like our 7 day Iceland road trip (still one of my top 3 travel experiences, ever!), my southern Spain road trip , driving around southern France , and even our smaller Costa Rica road trip . We love getting on the road and checking out new places!

10. Got Tear Gassed in Rio de Janeiro (Our Funnest Crazy Travel Story!)

As far as crazy travel stories go, this one was actually, beginning to end, the COOLEST experience and one I feel extremely lucky to have had.

But let’s set the scene. We’re in Rio de Janeiro and going on a favela tour (an activity I found enriching and incredibly interesting).

While on that tour, our guide was wearing a Vasco de Gama shirt and talking about how excited he was to go to the big game tonight – apparently there was a big rivalry match between two of the biggest clubs in Rio: Flamengo and Vasco de Gama.

We had REALLY wanted to go to a futbol match in Rio since Brazilians love their soccer, and the Maracana stadium in Rio is a pretty big and famous spot for futbol/soccer. However, we had had a really hard time finding information about tickets, or even a schedule, online, and had given it up as not possible.

So I jumped at the opportunity to get information from a local who clearly knew things, and asked him if he could give us any information about how to get tickets for the game.

He immediately invited us to go with him – he said he was going to scalp tickets there for himself anyway and could definitely find 2 more for us. At first, we were like, “Um are you sure?”, but then happily (but cautiously optimistic- would it really work out?) accepted his offer. We exchanged numbers and made plans to meet up at the stadium later.

At the Stadium

When we got to the Maracana stadium about an hour before gametime, there were big crowds of people congregating, singing songs and getting SUPER hyped up before the game, setting off firecrackers, and getting absolutely plastered (ha!).

We met up with our new Brazilian friend and in fact he had gotten us tickets! We were golden! He introduced us to all his friends and in we went. Going in was an experience unto itself, too. We go in with a big crowd of people and as we’re entering someone sets off another firecracker right in front of us, everyone backs up really fast, and we get pushed back and against the walls.

Then we had to find the rest of the group, since we had to go in at different entrances. We were with a couple of the Brazilian friends, who were all really nice to the foreigners they had just barely met that night.

However, it was REALLY crazy because there’s no assigned seating and we were going into the area behind the goals, where the most intense fans sit. Everyone is crowded really close together.

People were standing in the staircases so we had to wind our way up and really squeeze past people. Then almost everyone was standing two 2 deep in the rows – meaning someone was standing on the seat and another person standing on the ground in front of them.

People were super sweaty as we were squeezing past them (but everyone was also really, really nice about it) and beer was literally flying as people tossed their cups in the air as the game started.

Normally, I am not into this kind of vibe, but we were at MARACANA so it was all just part of the fun!

During the match, the fans literally were singing songs nonstop. There were massive flags being waved in our section, and a group with drums playing beats. I’ve been to college and professional sports games in the US and fans are intense here too, but this was a whole different beast of nonstop singing, cheering, and yelling the whole game. We loved it!

We don’t speak Portuguese really at all, so we just clapped and jumped and cheered with everyone and sang along to random words with their songs. It was awesome and just such a fun and crazy travel experience!

After the Game

So then, the match is over (the side we were with, Vasco de Gama, lost to Flamengo, which was pretty much expected because Flamengo is known to be the better team), and we figured we would just walk out and grab an Uber. Easy peasy.

Oh, no no no.

We hung out in our seats with the group for a while after the game to let the crowd dissapate, specifically to avoid most of the troublemakers, because fights can and do break out after games.

Still, as we left, we heard some more bangs, like the fireworks that were going off a lot before the game, but we were told afterwards there wouldn’t be fireworks and that was not a good sign.

As we left the stadium, our Brazilian friends were keeping us close and making sure we stayed together, and they were more serious and intense than anytime up to that point. At the street corner, we found out what the bangs were – not firecrackers, but tear gas that the police were using to disperse some fights and troublesome crowds.

We got the tail end of that tear gas (it spreads a lot), so everyone in the area just huddled and covered noses and eyes for a few minutes. Even not being in a direct hit area, that tear gas stung!

Then we carefully skirted by a Flamengo fan holding a handgun and walking menacingly (the only part of the night where I actually felt nervous).

Then we hustled by a whole bunch of riot police looking threatening, in full-on riot gear, including some on horses, and into the metro station. Of course, here some Vasco fans began hurling insults down at Flamengo fans. The police came running by and decided to break up that ruckus with more tear gas as we got on the train, and we got part of that tear gas, too.

Then, the metro started and we rode back to our stop in peace and calm. The whole thing was one adrenaline rush to another, and one of my craziest travel stories to date. Despite what was definitely a tense situation after the game, we actually felt pretty safe – the Brazilians we were with were super nice about watching out for us and got us out without incident.

When we were on the train and going, we asked them, “so, was that actually dangerous?” And they just laughed and said oh, no it’s always like this (REALLY?!) and it’s usually fine as long as you aren’t in the middle of the main, crazy group.

That was our baptism by fire into Brazilian football! It was seriously so fun and wild and such a different and authentic experience that just fell into our laps. The guys we were with were unbelievably nice and welcoming – we loved having that experience.

When we got back to our hotel, we just looked at each other and laughed – a night like no other, to be sure.

11. Last Minute Food Poisoning

The crazy thing about this travel story is that we had been very careful in Morocco, in particular paying attention to the food preparation techniques at the stands in the famous Jemaa el-Fna square (where accounts of getting food poisoning are common). 

But then in the very last hours of the very last day we spent in Morocco, we visited the stunningly blue city of Chefchaouen. And there we bought a cup of freshly squeezed orange + lemon + sugar cane juice.

I drank some of it, but Matthew drank most of it. Now, you wouldn’t normally suspect juice to be a food poisoning culprit, but it is the only thing we had that day that makes any sense of giving us food poisoning. Perhaps the fruit or sugar cane was unwashed, or the guys hands, or maybe it was the water mixed in. Either way, our insides were soon unhappy.

We flew from Morocco to Paris for the next 3 days. My stomach felt a little off for a little bit in Paris, but Matthew got pretty sick basically the whole time we were in Paris – boo! 

Thankfully, he was not throwing up all the time, but he was also not feeling great a lot of it, either. Oh, and news flash, Paris does not have a lot of public toilets! At least the juice tasted good.

12. Kidney Stones at an Incredibly Unfortunate Time

Back in 2006 my parents surprised my brother and I with an international senior trip to France! This was the first time I would be leaving the country, I had been studying French in high school, and had been wanting to go to France.

They surprised us with the plane tickets about two months before departure, leaving enough time for me to plan basically everything else (which they knew I would love to do!)

So, after all this anticipation for this big, international senior trip, literally the morning we were supposed to leave, my dad starts getting severe stomach pains and quickly ends up in terrible, terrible pain and in the ER. Diagnosis: massive kidney stones. 

In fact, these kidney stones were so big that he had to go to surgery to get them blasted out. As our plane that we were supposed to be on was leaving, he was in surgery. While we were most concerned about my dad’s wellbeing, all of us were absolutely devastated about the trip. 

By some miracle, Dad actually got to go home after surgery that night, took some pain pills, and was seemingly better in the morning. We were, very surprisingly, able to rebook our tickets for no additional cost for the next day, and ended up going on our big France trip after all. 

We had THE best time together, although there were some definite adjustments we had to make to accommodate my dad (he had a stent put in as part of the surgery, and had to be careful to walk slowly and eat and drink very, very small amounts to prevent the stent from moving). We actually had a few scares while we were in France!

This was really my very first crazy travel story and one that actually had some unexpected benefits for my dad! A client who my dad had worked with heard that story from another co-worker and said, “That guy has six kids and went around France with a kidney stone? He’s too tough for me.”

That street cred actually helped my dad negotiate some really favorable contracts with the client later on – who would’ve thought?!

13. Lost a Cell Phone… and a Remarkable Ending (TWICE!)

We were on our way to a cooking class (one of our top favorite activities in Marrakech ) and had taken a taxi to the meeting point. After we got out and had walked down the street, Matthew reaches into his pocket to double check the map only to realize that he doesn’t have his phone – it was gone.

Cue STRESS!

We frantically searched the square and the spot where we had gotten out – no phone. We figured it had either gotten left in the taxi, or had dropped on the ground and someone had scooped it up already.

We tried calling the phone, but it rolled to voicemail – Matthew hadn’t been getting great cell service in Morocco, and we figured if someone had grabbed it, they would’ve turned it off or taken out the SIM card. We tried calling it many times with no success, and finally just had to accept it: the phone was gone .

We tried to put it out of our heads and enjoy the cooking class. An hour or two later, I got a text on my phone from a friend back home, saying “Matthew left his phone in a taxi.” I responded with, “Yes, I know… but how do YOU know???” Apparently the taxi driver had found the phone, and been calling contacts, trying to get a hold of someone to return Matthew’s phone to him, and had been able to talk to this friend of ours.

With that information and a spark of hope, we tried calling Matthew’s phone again, and long story short, with the help of the cooking class instructor, we were able to get in touch with the taxi driver and meet up with him to get Matthew’s phone back (and give the driver a very big tip).

Losing the Phone Part II – Medellin

Then, less than a year, later, we did the exact same thing in Medellin , Colombia.

We got out of a cab and 30 seconds later Matthew realizes he doesn’t have his phone. Again, we just thought it was gone, no hope of getting it back.

We do start calling his phone from my phone non-stop, and after several calls, the taxi driver picks up. He doesn’t speak English, and we don’t speak Spanish, so Matthew says a little bit in English, and then just keeps repeating the name of the place where we got dropped off, over and over.

The driver said “uno momento” and then a few minutes later we see him pull up, Matthew’s phone in hand. We thank him profusely, give him a big tip, and say goodbye. After that, every single time we got out of a cab or Uber, we always did a “okay, you have your phone, wallet, and keys?” check before I shut the door of the taxi.

In my opinion, the main reason these experiences qualify to be on this list of crazy travel stories isn’t even that we lost the phone, it’s that we actually got the phone back. And twice! We got so incredibly lucky both times that the taxi drivers were both so honest and helpful, going above and beyond to make the situation right for us.

Crazy Travel Stories #14. Blustery Days in South Dakota

The setting was the beautiful Badlands National Park – a spot that was rugged and gorgeous. We were loving the striated hills, watching the prairie dogs run from hole to hole, and the wild bison sightings. Everything felt so raw !

…Including the storms.

We spent 2 days and 3 nights in the Badlands and were camping just outside the entrance to the national park. When we arrived at the campground, we were warned that the winds can get strong and to stake down our tent really well, which is exactly what we did.

However, that night, when the winds started picking up, our big family tent was not able to withstand the 40+ mph gusts. The stakes kept getting pulled out of the ground, the whole tent was just billowing in the wind, and on particularly strong gusts, half of the tent would just collapse into itself.

We were working on the tent for over an hour in the middle of the night before we finally realized there was nothing we could do at that point. We moved our 4 kids out of the tent and to the car, pulled our suitcases out, collapsed the poles, put the suitcases on top of the now flat tent to weigh it down, and slept in the car.

Certainly not ideal, and thankfully the next night the wind was much calmer and passed without incident.

The Last Night

HOWEVER, on the third and final night of our stay in the Badlands, we arrived back at our campsite at 10pm after a long day of hiking, exploring, and star watching, to see that our tent had been basically destroyed in the afternoon thunderstorm that had rolled through.

All of the poles had snapped in half and the tent was totally collapsed in.

We had unthinkingly left the windows unzipped that day, so rain had gotten in and soaked all of our things. In fact, there was actually a good 2 inches of standing water inside the tent. Our sleeping bags and pillows were floating in water and absolutely sopping.

To put the cherry on top, we had also left our suitcases open and all of our clothes we had brought for this multi-week road trip were soaked.

We got out and just kind of stared at the collapsed, flooded tent, and said, “Well, crap.”

We pulled all our things out, spread them out to dry the best we could on the picnic table and threw some things in a dryer (so thankful for the camp laundry at that point!). We were almost laughing about it, because at this point it was either laugh or cry.

The funny thing about this was that even after all that, we still went back into the park at midnight to watch the stars (it was a clear, dark night with no moon and almost no light pollution – you can’t miss out on that!), came back to camp to sleep in our car (minus any pillows or blankets since they were all still dripping wet), and then woke up a few hours later to head back into the park to go watch the sunrise.

I don’t know if we otherwise could’ve pulled ourselves and the kids out of the tent to get in the car and drive into the park at 5am, but since we were already all in the car, it was easy to just drive in and park by a great sunrise spot. I’m so, so glad we did, because the sunrise by Big Badlands Overlook was absolutely spectacular.

This is also really the only of my crazy travel stories that involved the kids and a pretty difficult situation. I think it was a really good learning experience for them too! The younger two were asleep, but the older two got out and helped take care of unloading the tent and spreading all our wet things out to dry.

Definitely a character-building experience, and one that we can now always look back on and laugh about together as a family!

15. Got Hustled in Marrakech and Scammed in Bogota

Encountering scams is, unfortunately, a part of travel, particularly in certain destinations. Here are 2 that we somewhat fell for, one in Marrakech, and one in Bogota.

Alright, so we encountered a lot of scamming attempts in Morocco , mostly in the form of people on the street trying to take you places or give faulty directions. We knew what to watch out for, but we still fell for a scam our first full day in Marrakech. We were looking for the El Badii palace and the map seemed to indicate we could cut through a particular side street. 

A friendly young man stopped and told us that “oh, that way is closed” and ostensibly, it did look closed. Then he said “El Badii closes for lunch from 12-3 each day,” which sounded weird, but, hey, maybe it did. He kept chatting with us and then convinced us to let him take us to this “super great artisan market.” 

El Badii, as we double checked later, was certainly not closed from 12-3 each day.

Our second mistake was going to the “artisan” market with him, which was a huge warehouse of goods where the locals get a kickback when they bring customers. To underscore that point to us, he saw us again later, asked if we liked the store, and when we were like “meh” he said oh, you should go back later (and buy something so he could get his commission). 

We wised up a lot after this encounter, however, and the many other times we encountered a similar type of scam in Morocco, we just ignored them and continued on to our destination.

One of the days we were in Bogota , we decided to take a daytrip to the Zipaquira Salt Cathedral, that’s about 1.5 hours from the city. To do that, we took a taxi to the main bus terminal and caught the bus to Zipaquira.

The taxi we picked up outside our hotel decided he was going to try to take advantage of the international, non-Spanish speaking travelers. First, he took us to a spot that was nowhere near the bus station. It was a taxi terminal and he said, “oh, here you’ll get another taxi there to the bus station.” Wait, what? This is not what we had agreed to.

Second, Matthew noticed him messing with the meter as we were driving, but he didn’t register it as something to weird at the time. So, as we arrived at the spot where he dropped us off, he pushes the button that has the meter give the final cost, and the meter said 45,000 pesos (about $10).

Matthew, passed him a 50k bill, and the guy did some fancy handwork, and showed us a 5k bill. At first Matthew just reaches for it, as that should be the change, but the guy says “No, you gave me the wrong bill.”

We both recognized here that something funny was going on, both with the handwork, and his actual claim. Matthew was like “No, I gave you a 50. Plus, see, look, all my bills are creased from my wallet. That 5k bill you’re saying I gave you has no crease – it couldn’t come from my wallet.” We went back and forth with him about this for a bit (using Google translate), and then finally just got out of the car.

At that point, we realized the extent of the scam – not only was he trying to get us to pay an extra 50k, there was no way that the ride we took actually cost 45k pesos (we checked an Uber-type app which said the trip should have been about 14k). And of course, this was all to the wrong spot!

Even though we could tell things were getting weird on the ride, we didn’t put the whole thing together until about 1 minute after we got out of the cab. And by then, we were mad . We were real mad!

It’s a little crazy because we’ve traveled quite a bit and have encountered plenty of people trying to take advantage or be dishonest. Usually we’re quite good at avoiding getting scammed. And yet, there can still be situations that catch you off guard.

This is definitely one of those travel stories that I really wish didn’t happen, but that we’ve definitely learned from!

16. Days So Windy We Basically Couldn’t Go Outside

It was 2019 and Matthew and I were having a delightful time traveling around southern France.

However, we arrived in Marseille to strong winds, and the next two days we basically couldn’t do anything in the city – those winds were actually 50+ mph and were literally blowing us over. We tried to do some things, but halfway through the second day we just called it quits and spent the rest of the day in our rental apartment. 

Thankfully, we were staying in an adorable AirBnb that had all this old French architecture and a view over the water, so we bought groceries, cooked a meal, and hung out in our French apartment (unfortunately this apartment is not available to rent anymore).

It actually ended up being a really fun afternoon and evening and one I actually have very fond memories of, despite some of our plans being cancelled.  

In general, I try to not get too bothered by less than ideal weather and go with the flow rain or shine, but this was one time we really had to just ditch our plans for the day!

Crazy Travel Stories #17. Was Homeless in London for a Night

During my sophomore year of college I did a 3 month study abroad in Paris, and it was one of the most magical times of my life! I went with a group from my university, and we lived in pairs with French families around Paris. 

During these three months, we took advantage of living in Europe and did several weekend trips to different spots. We visited the Loire Valley chateaux and Normandy with our entire group, and then I went with a small group of friends on separate occasions to visit Brussels, London, and Rome. 

It’s pretty funny to me to look back on those trips, because we did so little prep and research before taking off for the weekend. (In contrast to the massive amount of planning I do before trips now!)

In fact, a few days before we spent the weekend in London, we were researching hostels to stay at that were less than $20/night – we were on a pretty shoestring budget and anything more than that felt exorbitant!

For our last night in London, we couldn’t find anywhere that felt appropriately cheap to stay, so we just put off booking anything, saying, “We’ll figure it out when we’re there.” 

Spoiler alert : We did not, in fact, figure it out.

We kept avoiding thinking about that pesky little fact all through the weekend, and when 9pm on that final night came, we just said, “Well I guess we’re not going to stay anywhere tonight.” 

So what did we do?

We ended up wandering around London for quite a while. Around 1am, we started riding busses. We rode the bus to the end of the line, and then would turn around and ride the bus back the other way to the end. At one point, I think around 4am, we ended up falling asleep on the bus and woke up an hour or two later to the bus driver saying “HEY! You can’t sleep here!”

Apparently while we fell asleep the bus driver finished his route for the night and drove back to the bus depot, where all the busses were stored and maintained, and we had slept through until he realized there were still some stragglers in the back.

We were jolted out of sleep and like “oh, sorry” as we stumbled out of the bus and made our way out of the bus station… to walk across the street and catch another bus back into London, ha!

This is one of those crazy travel stories that was pretty funny to us at the time (and I mean, I still think it’s a funny story), but also, we could have just paid $50 and actually gotten a good night’s sleep!

18. Our First Meal in Costa Rica

The first night that we were enjoying our meal in Costa Rica , my parents’ bill for dinner came to about $72. My dad gave our waitress his credit card and told her to run it in colones, which is the currency in Costa Rica. A few minutes later, he got a text from his credit card company that his purchase was denied because it was over his credit limit.

He understandably had a short heart attack before figuring out the issue – $72 is 23,000 colones, and our waitress had mistakenly run the bill as 23,000 DOLLARS!

We really believe it was an honest mistake and everything got sorted out just fine, and we never had this problem anywhere else in Costa Rica. But WOW that dinner got real bougie real fast!

19. Getting Lost in the Wilderness on a Snowmobile Trip

Back in 2010, Matthew and I went with my family (my parents and four of my brothers) on a snowmobiling trip in northern Minnesota. My family has lived in Minnesota for years – I was born and raised there! – but this was our first time snowmobiling up north. We couldn’t wait!

We stayed in a cabin in the middle of the forest and rented four 2-seater sleds to drive around. It was exhilarating zooming along the snow covered trails, with the pine trees coated in white snow.

One day as we were snowmobiling, Matthew and I were on a sled together at the back of the pack, and we had to stop real quick for me to adjust my scarf. The scarf had shifted, and the cold was hitting my neck and was absolutely freezing. I toughed it out for a while but then just had to stop and fix it.

While we did this, we got way behind the rest of the group, but figured they would notice and stop for us a little bit up ahead.

Well, we kept on going…. and going… and going… and never caught up to them. In fact, we reached the point in road that was a turnoff point and they weren’t there (which was extremely surprising because my dad would always regroup at any trail junctions).

We weren’t sure what to do. We were in the middle of nowhere, so we had no cell reception. We weren’t sure if they just made the turn, forgetting to check for everyone, or if they had just kept going straight. We decided to keep going straight for a while and see if we could find them, but after several minutes we still couldn’t see any sign of them.

Stumped about what to do, we decided to go back, make the turn, and continue on the planned route. The plan was to go to Hungry Jacks, an isolated restaurant up in the woods. We figured that wherever they had gone, they were also heading to Hungry Jacks, so we’d find them there.

Well, we show up to Hungry Jacks and… no family. We talked to an employee about if they had seen a family come through (maybe we had missed them? no luck), ate dinner, refilled our snowmobiles with gas, and made the 2-3 hour journey back to the cabin, thinking FOR SURE they’d be back at the cabin. It was night at this point, and the stars were bright overhead, light reflecting off the snow. It was beautiful!

But, when we got back, there was still no family. This was honestly the first time we were concerned — this whole time we had figured they were fine and had changed plans! About an hour later, the rest of the family pulled in. My mom walked in with this concerned expression on her face, saw us, and said, “OH THANK GOODNESS.”

My Parents’ and Brothers’ Side of the Story

The rest of the family had had quite the adventure. They were cruising down the straightaway, and because it was open and straight, everyone was just going full speed. Finally, they came to a point where there was a stop, and they were waiting for everyone to catch up.

Well, they were waiting and waiting for us to catch up, thinking “wow they are going really slow.” But of course, we never showed up.

So then mom and dad figured they should go back and try to find us. Some people stayed where they were, and some went back for several miles, realizing as they did how far ahead they had gone. They never ran into us though, and so they were really confused about just where the heck we had gone.

My parents were starting to get nervous for us, because we weren’t anywhere on the trail, so they thought we had made a wrong turn and were lost in the woods by ourselves somewhere.

They started going down some random trails, thinking maybe we had made a wrong turn somewhere, but then those trails became impassable, so it was obvious we hadn’t gone there.

Things Get Really Rough

Then, my dad’s snowmobile got low on gas while they were all still out on the middle of nowhere. It was weird because it was the only snowmobile running out of gas, while the other gauges were still high. Well, it ran out of gas, and now they had 2 people stranded on the dead snowmobile and two people (Matthew and me) who were separated from the group.

It’s starting to get dark now and Mom actually was starting to feel panicked, knowing that I have type I diabetes and was pregnant at the time, and what if I had a medical emergency while being lost in the woods by ourselves.

At this point, the three snowmobiles were split up: Dad and one brother were with the dead snowmobile, my two teenage brothers were still on the side of the trail (in the snow, alone, as it’s getting dark, so they could grab us in case we happened to come by) and my mom and 5 year old brother went to go find help somewhere, praying they could find something somewhere that would be open.

Thankfully, a little farther down, the trail ended at a road and on the road they found a B&B with the owners at home.

This couple was so nice and helpful – they had an extra gas can they brought back to my dad’s sled so he could drive again, they gave some directions to Mom and Dad, and they called around to the other resorts in the area – including Hungry Jack’s, who told them that yes, we had been there, gotten dinner, and had headed home.

It wasn’t until this point that mom and dad realized that they were, in fact, the ones who were lost, and Matthew and I were on the right trail. (In their defense, the maps of the trails were absolutely terrible. They were truly incredibly difficult to read – Matthew just happens to have an excellent sense of direction).

Mom and dad were incredibly relieved to know that we were okay. When they showed up an hour or so after we arrived back, I was really shocked to hear how crazy their afternoon and evening had been – it made ours feel so much tamer!

How to Prepare for When Travel Goes Awry

There’s a lot that we do to try to avoid bad, trip-interrupting experiences. We plan our itineraries instead of winging it, we download offline maps, and we bring some back ups of essentials.

We also practice good safety measures (e.g. keep our valuables secured, don’t wander into dangerous situations, learn about common scams in a destination ahead of time, etc.), and generally, that has served us really well! None of these crazy travel stories in this post have ruined our trips.

We also try to be pretty laidback and flexible when we’re on vacation. Have to make a detour to the doctor’s office in Iceland? It’s fine, it’s fine. Lose a phone in Morocco? Don’t stress, we can make it work. Tent collapsed and all our clothes, pillows, sleeping bags, and gear is sopping wet? Just laugh and shake your head at the absurdity of it all.

Always Have Travel Insurance

However, one of the biggest things we always do before any trip is get travel insurance. Securing some travel insurance is an important part of prepping for any international trip – you really never know when something might happen, and your regular insurance generally won’t cover you overseas. 

Costs for a medical emergency on vacation can add up extremely fast, so it’s just better to be safe than sorry. (If life, and especially covid, has taught me anything, it’s that you never know what could happen!)  

I like booking insurance at Insure My Trip, as they offer a variety of plans with different coverages to choose from, so you can find the right option for you. Plus, they have great customer support if you need help before, during, or after your trip.

Check rates at Insure My Trip here!

Final Thoughts on Experiencing Those Sometimes Funny, Sometimes Crazy Travel Stories

I’ll admit, many of these experiences were not exactly ideal, to say the least. They were often stressful or frustrating. But some of these were just really funny travel stories!

However, learning how to handle curveballs has definitely helped me a lot in life! Things happen, even (and especially) on vacation. Being adaptable to what happens, taking it in stride, and not letting it sour the entire trip has been a valuable lesson to learn (over and over again, ha!)

And I’m sure I’ll be adding more crazy travel stories to this list regularly in the coming years!

Stephanie is the author of The Unknown Enthusiast. She's visited 21 countries and 37 of the 50 US states (but her first love will always be France). When she's not traveling, she enjoys reading, taking naps, playing games, eating popcorn, and spending time with her husband (Matthew) and 4 daughters. Stephanie lives in Alabama, USA.

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

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

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

50. Crying Baby

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

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

49. Massage Went The Wrong Way

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

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

48. I Swear It’s A Neck Pillow!

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

47. Beach Boys

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

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

46. How Beautiful

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

45. Bad Connection

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

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

44. Paper Organizer

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

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

43. Grand Tour

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

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

42. Ferry Ride

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

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

41. First Time

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

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

40. Big Ben

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

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

39. True Crime

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

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

38. Accidents Happen

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

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

37. Smarties

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

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

36. Bad Timing

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

35. Airport Ride

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

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

34. Shoes Off

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

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

33. Scary Parade

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

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

32. Trip To Italy

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

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

31. New Profile Picture

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

30. Reindeers

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

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

29. Not Again!

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

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

28. Disney World Allergy

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

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

27. Still Looks Cool

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

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

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

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

25. A “Friendly” Bite

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

24. The Devil’s Bridge

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

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

23. Missing Kid

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

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

22. Sumo Competition

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

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

21. Rude Uber

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

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

20. No Shoes

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

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

19. The Best View Of Paris

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

18. Coat Bag

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

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

17. All-Inclusive

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

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

16. Shark Attack

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

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

15. Photobomb!

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

14. Cabin In The Woods

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

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

13. DIY Elephant

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

12. Photo For Reference

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

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

11. The Hotel Next Door

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

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

10. Almost There

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

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

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

8. Cheesecake

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

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

7. Beautiful View

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

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

6. Nice Trees

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

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

5. Fast Ride

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

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

4. You’ll Always Have The Memories

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

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

3. Lost In Translation

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

2. Airport Twins

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

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

1. Taj Mahal

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

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

Drift Destinations

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My Most Embarrassing Travel Story – REVEALED!

Last Updated on March 11, 2022

Get comfy, sit back, and get ready to laugh. Let’s talk about my most embarrassing travel story. Seriously. It’s not pretty. We all have them, and honestly, they end up making for some really great stories in the end! 

Alright, where do I begin? Well, I had just started dating this guy, Ryan, who happened to live in Italy. He had been in the states visiting me in New York and we just had made it official that we were going to be “a couple” before he left to go back home. I was getting really excited for my first trip out to see him in Italy. Long distance dating sucks, but when you have to divvy up your time between New York and Italy, it’s not all that bad. 

So, I board my plane at JFK and head out on my long 8-hour flight to Rome, where I would meet Ryan. We had a wonderful week together exploring Venice, Prosecco Road , Sacile (where he lived), and ended the trip back in Rome for a few days. The last evening in Rome before I had to head back to New York, we booked a Segway tour around the city. It was freezing cold out, so we were the only ones on the tour. 

I had never been on a Segway before and wasn’t sure how I felt about it, but I was getting the hang of it. The plan was to spend three hours touring the whole city at night. We made it to hour two and I was freezing cold. I couldn’t do it anymore. I asked Ryan if it was okay if we could ask our tour guide to end the tour early, and he was fine with that, thank goodness. 

Our tour guide started leading us back to the shop for us to drop our Segways off and grab our belongings. I was so excited to get back, it was unusually cold for that time of year. We turn down the small road that leads to the courtyard where the shop is. The tour guide is in front, I’m in the middle, and Ryan is behind me. The tour guide yells back, “watch out for the bird!”. I look down at where he was pointing and saw a dead pigeon in the middle of the road – yuck! I turn back to tell Ryan to watch out and as I approach it to swerve around the bird, I miscalculate how large the width of the Segway is and ram the side of it into the wall of the street we’re on. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end there. 

I try to swerve back to steady myself but just can’t control the Segway at this point. We have made it almost to the courtyard, but there is a cross road that divides the courtyard and the small street I’m on. At this point I’m in the cross road, maybe a foot away from this dead bird, and look up to see a car coming straight at me. I can’t control my Segway and try to pull back to stop, but somehow end up flipping over the front handle of the Segway heading straight for the car coming at me. I land pretty hard on my knee and am just inches away from the bumper of this car and the dead bird next to me. 

I try to stand up but the Segway is still on and stuck on my leg and keeps ramming into me. The tour director gets off his Segway and runs over to help get me up. He grabs my Segway and moves it out of the street so the backup of cars can pass. We are just a few yards from shop on the other side of the courtyard now, and the tour director asks if I’m okay. I tell him I think so, and his response to that is, “good, now we can’t end this tour on a bad note, so get back on your Segway and ride to the shop”.  Are you kidding me?! That thing just ran me over!  I tried to tell him no, but he insisted. I was shaking, upset, and embarrassed, and really just wanted to cry on solid ground, but instead I got to cry on a Segway.  Perfect. 

I managed to get off the Segway this time the correct way, and we headed into the shop to gather our belongings and assess the damage to my knee. There was a rip in my pants, but the legs of the pants were too tight to roll up to see much more. 

We hadn’t eaten dinner yet, so on our way back to our hotel, we found a little café in a square to grab some food. I spent the first half of our dinner sobbing while drinking wine and eating bread. I was beyond humiliated. We were still in the brand-new dating stage of our relationship. There was no way this guy was going to want to continue things with an embarrassment like me. There wasn’t even time for me to redeem myself, as I was leaving the first thing in the morning.

We got back to the hotel late and I had to get up early for my flight, so I didn’t have time to shower. I had a chance to briefly look at my leg, but decided to put-off dealing with it until I was able to get back to New York. I finally made it back after a long 8-hour flight and came home to shower and head to bed before work in the morning. 

I went to work and then to the gym afterwards. If you’re familiar with Equinox, there’s some “uppity” members who go there. I had just gotten out of the shower after my workout and one of the members, an older woman, was giving me an awful look of disgust as if to say, “why would you be allowed in here?”. I gave her a questionable look back, and she said, “what on earth is wrong with your knee?!”. I looked down to expect to see the ugly few scrapes that occurred from a couple evenings before but was shocked to see that it was covered in pus.  Gross!

I went home and quickly poured some antibacterial cleaner on the wound. It fizzed up a ton and burned like crazy. I applied Neosporin and hoped that it would be better the next day. Wrong. The scrape looked worse! I cleaned it again and even brought some medicine to put on it at work throughout the day. It was burning, achy and hot to the touch. I think my knee was infected! You’ve got to figure, I fell on one of the oldest cities in the world, that probably isn’t too clean, and inches from a dead bird. Who knows what could have been inside my knee between the time I fell and the time I cleaned it the next day after I got back to New York. 

The next day, my knee wasn’t doing any better and I didn’t know what more to do. I decided to go to Urgent Care after work to get it checked out. I sat down and waited for almost an hour before I was able to be seen. I rolled up my pant leg and pulled off the band aid I had put on the morning of and was shocked and relieved to see that it was looking so much better! The doctor looked at me and asked what the problem was. I tried to describe to him what it had looked like just this morning but he didn’t seem like he was concerned. He gave me a little packet of ointment and a couple band aids and had me on my way. 

Things were looking up finally! My knee was doing better and Ryan was still talking to me! A few weeks go by and we had both almost forgotten about the whole thing until I got a bill in the mail from the Urgent Care center I went to. $150 for a couple band aids…

Today, two years later, we are married! That’s right folks – Ryan, the guy who witnessed me flip over my handles on a Segway landing inches from a dead pigeon and almost getting hit by a car while being run over by my Segway, actually married me!  Maybe he just felt sorry for me, but I’ll take it!  Today, we laugh about this story and have even gone back to Rome and hunted out the location that the tragedy happened. My knee is finally better and I have a beautiful scar to always remember my favorite and most embarrassing travel story.  

Want more stories? Check out my Weekly Journal , where I post weekly updates of my time living in and traveling around South Korea.

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TravelAwaits

Our mission is to serve the 50+ traveler who's ready to cross a few items off their bucket list.

My 7 Most Unforgettable Travel Experiences

Heather Markel

• Activities and Interests
• Destinations
• Food and Drink
• History and Culture
• Sightseeing

I’ve just started my fourth year of nomadic life. In the past three years, I’ve been to 25 countries (if not for the pandemic, it would have been at least 10 more!) and had some of the most wonderful experiences of my entire life. Here are a few of my favorite experiences in some of the countries I’ve had the privilege to visit:

1. Seeing My First Leopard In South Africa

I was deeply moved by the visceral connection I felt with the land and the people while in South Africa. However, I didn’t expect to become obsessed with seeing a leopard before I left. I went out on several safaris, including Chobe and Etosha national parks, where I missed out on seeing a leopard the first time and was robbed of seeing leopards the second time. Thus began my obsession.

It wasn’t until I got to Kruger National Park that I finally saw one. In fact, I saw five. The first was a mother and cub, but it was dark so impossible to take good photos. The next day, we stopped for one by the side of the road, stalking an impala. Its perfect, sinewy muscles quivered in anticipation, and I felt like I saw the most beautiful animal I had ever encountered. Lean, the perfect killing machine, and yet also stunningly beautiful. Eventually, she walked with a swift, confident gait, and disappeared into the tall, dry grass. I will never forget that leopard.

2. Drinking Yerba Mate And Malbec In Argentina

Last year was my first in Argentina, and it became one of my favorite places in the world. Drinking yerba mate was an experience of sharing culture, intellectual conversation, and making new friends. In Bariloche, I took a class and learned the proper way to prepare it, and that there are many different brands and flavors. I shared many cups with strangers and learned about their lives, and even developed lasting friendships. In my opinion, you cannot truly understand the culture of Argentina without trying at least one cup of this drink, which boosts many healing properties as well!

Before heading to Argentina, I was an avid fan of malbec wine. But there’s no comparison to drinking it in Mendoza. I went to the Uco Valley, famed for the best malbec wines in the world, and they were all excellent. The experience is divine — you can take a bus, a local train, or a bike, depending which vineyards (called bodegas) you plan to visit. I had a glass most days of the four months I spent in Argentina.

3. Nail Art, Massages, And Learning Motorcycle Culture In Vietnam

Vietnam was a combination of sights, sounds, and smells. Prices were so cheap I simply couldn’t comprehend how I could make it through an entire day spending so little.

One day, a friend treated me to a manicure and pedicure with nail art. I pulled up complex nail art photos on Instagram I liked, thinking they would make a modified version. Instead, my manicurist made a perfect, highly detailed copy of the designs I showed her. In fact, they looked better on my nails than they did on Instagram. The whole process took her two hours, and cost $20 USD. It remains the most incredible manicure and pedicure I’ve ever had.

When I look back at my time in Vietnam, I still can’t believe I managed to cross a street, ever. And yet, somehow, I found the rhythm of the motorbikes and survived. Looking at my photos, I’m amazed that entire families rode their motorbikes together. The motorbike seemed to be a mode of transportation as well as a way families spent time together. One of my favorite photos is of a woman kissing her son as she drives along.

Who doesn’t love a massage? How about a really excellent, hour-long massage for less than $10? I got a few massages a week, they were so good and affordable. My favorite massage parlor was in Hanoi.

4. Eating Honey And Red Kiwifruit, Seeking Greenstone, And Learning About Maori Culture In New Zealand

Now marooned in New Zealand for almost a year, I’ve had a lot of time to get familiar with the culture. I’ve had a few surprising lessons on the food front. Firstly, being raised in America, I thought kiwifruit only existed in green. As it turns out, it comes in gold and red as well. The red is the sweetest, and perhaps one of the best, fruits I’ve ever tasted. It is only available during March and April, so you have to time your visit to New Zealand just right! The other surprise for me was honey. When I’ve gotten it at home, it crystallizes long before I finish a jar. In New Zealand, I’ve learned to use honey almost every day. Whether that be in my tea, on toast, plain, or as a skin remedy, I’ve gone through many jars.

When I first arrived, I noticed all the stores sold jewelry made out of a green stone. I learned it’s called pounamu and is found on the South Island. While, at first, it seemed like a tourist souvenir, it now seems like a rite of passage. I had no idea the greenstone came in so many shapes, colors, hues, and varieties. I’ve already bought two pieces because they represent a deeper connection to the country for me, and my time here, which I will never forget.

I didn’t realize the movie  Moana  was based on this area of the world. Locals I’ve spoken with believe the fictional Polynesian island of Motunui is based on New Zealand, since the story is partly based on Maori legends. Looking at the landscapes, I can certainly believe a demigod pulled mountains out of the sea!

The indigenous people came here via the sea, as Moana’s community did in the film, and their history and culture are fascinating. This is the first country I’ve been to where tattoos signify family and tradition and are specific to the tribe each person descended from. In fact, the Maori tattoo artists have to study the designs of over 100 tribes to do their job properly.

5. Playing With Highland Cows And Getting Heathergems In Scotland

If you’ve read any of my other articles, you may know that I love cows! I have to admit that the Highland cow stole my heart. With a crop of hair over their eyes leaving one to wonder how they see past it, and babies that look like giant blobs of fur, it’s impossible not to fall in love with them.

Scotland is also known for my namesake growing on hills. I’ve seen the Heather plant, but what’s wonderful in Scotland is that a company found a technique to color the roots of the Heather plants and make beautiful jewelry. Heathergems is located in Pitlochry, Scotland, where you can visit the factory store, but their jewelry is available throughout the country. I still treasure the pieces I bought there.

6. Seeing The Moai On Easter Island

Easter Island struck me as one of those places most people see photos of but don’t actually go. It’s a tiny island, a four-hour flight from Santiago, Chile, and seems so remote and impossible to get to from the U.S. that I’m sure I wouldn’t have gone if I didn’t quit my job. On my way to Santiago, I found a round-trip flight on a Dreamliner for less than $300 USD. I snapped it up and had an incredible experience.

The island is expensive and touristy, but no matter, there are layers of intrigue to it. Most people stay only a few days, but I stayed almost a week, giving me more time to see the stone statues, called Moai, and learn about the island’s history and people. Seeing the Moai in person, you really understand how huge they are — and that they weigh a lot. Therein lies the intrigue. They were built long before we had the modern technology to move them (and it’s still not easy, proven by the tsunami that knocked many down in the 1960s). All the statues were built in the one quarry on the island and then moved to their current resting places. But at the time they were built, there were warring tribes inhabiting the island. So not only did the statues get moved, they got transported safely. The mystery will make you believe in aliens.

7. Learning Monks Aren’t That Different Than The Rest Of Us In Cambodia

While in Asia, especially in Cambodia, I developed a minor obsession with the monks. I loved the orange color of the robes most of them wear, and the energy they carry with them as they walk. Even the young boys with shaved heads seem somehow dignified and full of purpose. Their robes provide a beautiful contrast to the aging stone of the temples they live in.

For me, it was the contrast of holy and normal life blending together that really fascinated me. Seeing a monk shop for groceries like any non-holy person was humbling. For a moment, we had something in common. I had some silly idea that monks still led more sequestered lives, so seeing them smoke cigarettes and use smartphones was a real surprise! I enjoyed their presence everywhere I went.

There are so many beautiful experiences to be had in every country. I feel lucky and blessed to have had these, and know many more await me!

Inspired? Here are the destinations mentioned in this article:

• South Africa
• New Zealand
• Easter Island

Heather is a full-time travel coach who is passionate about helping professionals seeking more freedom and flexibility to ditch their desk and discover their destiny through full-time travel. She provides her clients with the path to the mindset, money, and mastery to make a full-time travel lifestyle possible. Since quitting, she's become an international best-selling author and is about to do her first TEDx talk! Learn more about Heather's travel adventures on her website, Heather Begins.

19 Inspiring Travel Experience Stories About Life-Changing Trips

Love inspiring travel experience stories ?

Then you’re in the right place!

Grab a snack and your favorite beverage and get ready to settle in, as you’re about to read some truly inspiring travel stories about life-changing trips.

In this roundup, some of my favorite bloggers share their best travel stories.

You’ll hear about travelers embarking on sacred pilgrimages, growing after a first solo female travel trip, deeply connecting with locals on the road, and getting out of their comfort zones in ways that completely alter the course of their life.

And if you’re looking for a unique travel experience, you’ll likely find it in the short stories about travel below.

Table of Contents

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On that note, let’s dive into the inspiring travel stories .

1. Travel Experience Stories In South America

My travel story takes place in South America, back when I used to travel solo for months at a time.

I was in my mid-20s, and even though I’d backpacked Europe, Southeast Asia, and China and had studied abroad in Australia, the mix of intense excitement and nerves I had leading up to my South America backpacking trip was different.

And despite family and friends warning me that South America wasn’t a place for a solo female traveler , it ended up being my best trip ever.

There are so many interesting short travel stories and unforgettable travel experiences woven into this trip, like:

• Getting invited to have dinner with my Brazilian plane seatmate and her grandma
• Having a group of complete strangers on Couchsurfing take me out for dinner and dancing on my birthday in Mendoza
• Attending a small house party in Argentina and learning about the tradition of mate
• Getting stuck on a broken-down bus and having an impromptu language exchange with an elderly woman in Peru
• Having a love interest back home break up with me via text, and then experiencing the kindness of strangers as a woman in my hostel who I barely knew treated me to ice cream to cheer me up
• Having a romance with a hostel mate in Ecuador and then traveling through the country together
• Living in a giant treehouse with a group of strangers during a solo trip in Brazil and spending our days exploring hiking trails and swimming and our nights drinking and exchanging stories about traveling
• Taking a 4×4 from Chile to Bolivia across the Siloli Desert to see otherwordly sites like rainbow lagoons and train graveyards in the middle of nowhere
• Experiencing some of the world’s most incredible natural wonders, like Iguazu Falls, Torres del Paine, the Amazon River, Uyuni Salt Flats, and Perito Moreno Glacier

At times the trip was also challenging, from dealing with long bus rides and car sickness to flipping over my bicycle handlebars in Peru and getting my body (and ego) badly bruised.

But, I was okay.

In fact, I was more than okay, as the trip showed me how independent I could be and what I was truly capable of. It also showed me the beauty of immersing yourself in cultures different than your own and connecting with locals who want to share them with you.

Years later, when people ask what my best travel experience has been this is the trip that comes to mind.

-Jessie from Jessie on a Journey

2. Traveling With An Open Mind

Many people think of travel as an experience and rightly so. Sometimes, however, you cannot choose the places you travel to.

This happened to me in 2019.

My husband found himself posted in Brunei for work.

Three months pregnant meant that I had a choice:

Either stay with him in Brunei for three months before returning back to India or remain in India, alone.

I chose the former. Not because of my love for the country but because I wanted to be close to him.

Brunei had never held any appeal to me. Whatever research that I pulled off the Internet showed me nothing other than one beautiful mosque.

The flights in and out of the country were expensive so traveling frequently out was not an option either.

I was engulfed by a sense of being trapped in a remote place.

Needless to say, I reached Brunei in a pretty foul mood. I think one of the things that struck me the most even in the midst of that bad mood was the large swaths of greenery that surrounded us.

Mind you, we were not staying in the big city but as far away on the outskirts as you could imagine. I’m not a city girl by any stretch and the greenery eventually soothed my nerves.

It took a week, but I soon found myself interacting with people around me. Fellow expats and locals all went out of their way to make me feel comfortable.

The more comfortable I felt, the more we explored. We trekked (yes, while pregnant!), we joined the board game community, and we enjoyed the local cuisine.

Three months later when it was time to leave, I found myself reluctant to say goodbye to the warmth of the country I had called home for a short while.

I think that my time in Brunei taught me a valuable lesson:

Don’t judge a place by what others say or a lack of information.

Sure, you may not always like what you see, but there will always be something that you will like. You just need to look hard enough to find it!

-Penny from GlobeTrove

3. From Half-Day Hiker To Walking Holiday Enthusiast

I’ve always enjoyed walking but never in a million years did I imagine I’d end up walking over 200 kilometers (~124 miles) in 10 days, become a fan of walking holidays, and end up developing self-guided hiking routes in Portugal with a local tour operator as part of my business.

The shift from being someone who was content with an easy three-hour walk to an experienced multi-day hiker began with a brief taste of the Portuguese Camino de Santiago, an ancient pilgrim trail through Portugal to Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in Spain.

Back in 2013 I did a guided one-day hike along one of the most beautiful stretches of the Camino, north of Ponte de Lima. It’s also one of the most challenging sections so it was hard work, but the views from the top of Labruja Mountain made the climb worthwhile.

My guides were so enthusiastic about the thrill of arriving at Santiago de Compostela Cathedral after the challenges of day after day on the Camino that I began to think I might want to give it a go, despite not being religious.

Fast forward a few years and I set off from Barcelos with a friend of mine to follow the Portuguese Camino de Santiago.

Apart from suffering from chronic back pain, I thought I was quite fit but nothing had prepared me for how utterly exhausted I would feel at the end of each walking day.

This was truly a slow travel experience, as we were averaging about 20 kilometers (~12 miles) per day and by the time we reached our hotel, I would barely have enough energy to get cleaned up and find food before collapsing. I had envisioned plenty of sightseeing but that ended up being minimal.

Quickly, I realized the moral of this unique travel experience:

The Camino was all about making the most of the journey rather than the destination.

For me, that was quite a shift in thinking as I am usually all about getting to where I want to be as soon as possible so that I can start exploring. It was, perhaps, also my first step on the path towards mindfulness.

I will never forget the sense of achievement and progress at the end of each walking day, and the relief and pride I felt when we finally made it to Santiago de Compostela.

We met people who had walked the Camino several times and I can totally understand how it can become addictive. 

-Julie from Julie Dawn Fox in Portugal

4. A Story About Traveling & Its Ripple Effect

Tucked away in far eastern Indonesia is a tiny archipelago of islands called the Banda Islands.

Apart from world-class snorkeling and some crumbling colonial buildings, the Banda Islands are mostly forgotten and would be described as a backwater by all accounts.

However, the Banda Islands are possibly the main reason that I am who I am today. 

Well, the Bandas are the original Spice Islands.

Nutmeg used to grow on this tiny group of islands alone and nowhere else. The Dutch colonized Indonesia and promptly became the owners of islands where money grew on trees.

The only problem was that Indonesia was so far away that they needed a halfway stop to and from Indonesia.

That’s where my travel experience story comes in.

The same Dutch East India Company that traded in spice set up a halfway station at the foot of Table Mountain to break up their long journey. As a result, my Dutch ancestors arrived in the southernmost point in Africa , and generations later we are still there.

When I visited the Banda Islands, it dawned on me how something happening on the other side of the world can ripple out and affect people on the other side of the planet.

And I’m not the only one!

The spice trade was so important to the Dutch that they even traded a tiny island in the Banda archipelago for a much bigger island…Manhattan.

Yes. That Manhattan.

Before visiting the Banda Islands I never really knew about this part of my history.

Along with the spice that the ships carried back to Amsterdam, it also carried slaves. These slaves, more often than not, ended up in Cape Town.

Just like my European ancestors, they too became a part of Africa and added another shade to our beautiful Rainbow Nation.

It was in the Banda Islands that I realized how much of my culture, food, stories and even words in my mother tongue, Afrikaans, actually originated in Indonesia.

Because of these tiny islands, I am a true mix of Europe, Africa, and Asia. While I always thought I knew how all things in life are somehow connected, I didn’t really grasp it until my visit to Indonesia.

This could have been a resort travel experience story, as I went to Indonesia to swim and snorkel and relax on the world’s best beaches. And while I did get to do that, I also learned a lot about who I am as a person, my people, and my country…on another continent. 

My visit to the Bandas has sparked a fascination with Indonesia, which I have visited seven times since. I’m already planning another trip to this spectacular country!

-De Wet from Museum of Wander

5. Awakening My Spirit In A Costa Rican Cloud Forest

In February 2017, I was just coming out of a decade of mysterious chronic illness that had shrunk my world.

And one of the things that finally helped me to resurface during the previous year was an online Qi Gong course I stumbled upon: 

Flowing Zen .

To the casual observer, Qi Gong looks a lot like its better-known cousin, Tai Chi — the ancient art of moving meditation — but it’s actually energy medicine for healing.

In fact, it’s commonly used in Chinese hospitals.

My daily practice that year made such a difference for me that I dangled a reward for myself:

If I stuck with it all year, then I’d head to Sifu Anthony’s annual retreat in a cloud forest in Costa Rica the following February.

And I did! It was my first trip out of the country for more than a decade.

Just like that, I booked a solo trip — something I hadn’t done since I was an exchange student to Europe 30 years earlier — to San Jose where I met up with a dozen strangers and Sifu Anthony, our Qi Gong master.

We boarded a tiny bus and rode up, up, up around carsick-inducing curvy mountain roads into a magical cloud forest jungle where we finally arrived at The Blue Mountain (“La Montana Azul”) for a weeklong Qi Gong retreat. 

There were no Internet or distractions here — just delicious organic vegetarian meals made with love and shared with the community under a gorgeous open-air palapa.

There were also colorful tropical birds singing in the jungle, as well as the largest arachnid I’ve ever seen in my gorgeous (but also roofless) room for a little extra adventure.

I’d felt a little energy movement during my year of online practice, but during that week on The Blue Mountain, my body began to really buzz with Qi — life force energy — as I Lifted the Sky, stood in Wuji Stance, and practiced Shooting Arrows.

I felt electrified and joyful. 

And that was when everything changed for me.

At home, I had a successful career as a freelance writer, but I decided during my week in the cloud forest that I wanted more from life.

I wanted to explore the beauty, diversity, nature, and culture in every corner of the world.

And I wanted to share this intoxicating joyful feeling of life-giving freedom and adventure with anyone who wanted to come along for the ride.

Shortly after that, at age 53, I launched my travel blog.

Dreams really do come true. They are just waiting for you to claim them.

-Chris from Explore Now or Never

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6. From Rome With Love

This wasn’t the way I wanted to see Rome. 

Sure, I was happy to spend Christmas in Rome and stand in awe of the city’s many iconic attractions. But, life wasn’t meant to turn out like this.

I was supposed to go to Rome with my mom back in 2012; however, life had different plans, because a week before our trip, I got a double kidney infection. A condition that required a week of hospitalization.

Although I was annoyed I had missed my trip, it wasn’t the end of the world since I was fine and everything seemed okay…until my mom developed a cough.

A cough that later became a heartbreaking diagnosis of stage four ovarian cancer. 

My mom spent the final months of her life in chemo, desperately trying to fight a horrific disease so that she wouldn’t let her family down.

And she didn’t.

Instead, she showed us how to never give up on life, even if it was a losing battle. 

So, when she eventually passed away, I booked a trip to Rome. 

Sure, it wasn’t the trip I had hoped for. But, I knew that as her daughter, it was my job to live enough for the both of us. 

And that’s exactly what I did.

Was I an anxious, sad, angry mess of a person?

Absolutely. I was still getting used to a world that my mother wasn’t a part of. 

And honestly, you never get used to that world. You just deal with it because you don’t really have a choice.

But I also knew that I wanted my mom to live on through me and that I didn’t want to live a life where the haunting phrases “should of,” “could of,” and “would have” swirled through my head and ate away at my happiness.

So, I went. I packed a boatload of tissues, sobbed my heart out, and attended Christmas mass at the Vatican. 

I also threw a coin in the Trevi Fountain, walked through the Colosseum, chowed down on gelato, and spent two weeks doing all the things my mom and I had wanted to do. 

And that’s when it hit me. I had never gone to Rome alone because my mom had always been there with me. Maybe she wasn’t physically there, but I thought of her and felt her presence every minute of every day. 

Her presence also reminded me that life isn’t about the things we buy or the money that we have.

It’s about making memories with the people we love; people that never really leave us since they are constantly influencing our lives in countless ways.

And after my trip to Rome, I finally knew that my mom would always be there because she had forever changed my life in the best possible way. 

-Kelly from Girl with the Passport

7. Studying In Finland

One of my major life-turning points happened during my exchange studies in Finland.

Until then, I was studying at a university in Prague, had a part-time job at a renowned management-consulting firm, and thought I was on the right path in life.

At the University of Economics where I studied it was notoriously difficult to get on an Erasmus exchange trip abroad since the demand was huge. Everyone wanted to go!

Regardless, I decided to sign up early for my last semester, just to see what the process was like to be better prepared for applying again in a year.

I did make it through all the three rounds and surprisingly got a spot at a University in Turku, Finland! I was ecstatic. The success brought its own challenges, but once you set your eyes on the goal, nothing can stop you.

And I had the time of my life in Finland.

I met the most amazing people, traveled a ton, partied a lot, and bonded with friends from all over the world.

Given I was one of the few people there who really needed to pass all her courses and additionally write her thesis, I managed to run on an impossible sleep schedule of four hours per night. But I made it!

My studies in Finland opened up my horizons, too.

The summer after, I wrapped up my life in Prague and went on to study in Germany and China . The whole time I traveled as much as possible, often going on solo adventures. It was only a matter of time when I’d start my own travel blog.

My Finland adventure led me to a life of freedom made up of remote work, travel blogging , and plenty of traveling. I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. And it gave me one of my favorite true adventure stories that I can now share with others.

-Veronika from Travel Geekery

8. How Cuba Changed My Life

One of my favorite inspiring stories about travel takes place in Cuba.

I visited Cuba in February 2013 and it changed my life — and I like to think it did so for the better.

Interestingly, I expected a completely different country and was compelled to write about it when I got back home.

But let me tell you more.

I read copious amounts of blogs and travel diaries to prepare myself for the trip to Cuba so I thought I’d go in with a fairly good idea of what to expect. Each and every post I read spoke of marvelous landscapes, pristine beaches, crumbling but charming cities, and welcoming locals.

All of it was true, in my experience — except for the locals.

I didn’t find them so welcoming. At least, not genuinely so. They only seemed to welcome me as far as they could get something in exchange: money, clothes, pens, soap, you name it. 

Each and every day in Cuba was a challenge to avoid the scams, to avoid being ripped off, to fight off each and every attempt of people trying to take advantage of me. I usually managed, but it was exhausting and it left a sour taste in my mouth.

Once I got back home I felt the urge to write about my experience — not for other sites or papers as I’d often do. This time I was afraid I’d be censored.

So I opened my own blog. With zero tech knowledge, zero understanding of online content creation and SEO, I started writing and telling people what they should really expect during a trip to Cuba.

I’d put up the occasional post, but continued with my usual job.

At the end of the year, my contract as a researcher in international human rights law at the local university ended, and I decided to stop pursuing that career for a while.

I packed my bags and left for a long-term trip to Central and South America . I started writing on the blog more consistently and learning, and eventually took my blog full-time , turning it into a career.

As of today, I have never looked back and have no regrets.

The one thing I’ll do, as soon as I can, is travel to Cuba to say thank you — because it changed my life in a way nothing else has ever done. 

-Claudia from Strictly Sardinia

9. A Short Travel Story About Finding Inner Peace In Patagonia

Life in London is hard.

Life in London as a gay single brown refugee is harder.

Juggling between work, my passion for traveling, and the prejudices that I dealt with on a daily basis eventually took their toll on me and I reached a breaking point.

The fact that I couldn’t return home to see my family and being away for them for almost nine years was enough to hammer in the final nail in the coffin.

I almost had a nervous breakdown and in that moment of desperation, which I knew would define the rest of my life, I took a month off and headed to Patagonia.

It was probably the best decision I’ve ever made in my life. The 36 hours it took me to get to El Chalten from London were tiring but Patagonia blew me away.

On my first day there I did a 28-kilometer (17-mile) hike which included a steep mountain climb. It was incredible how moving through the forest helped me clear my mind. And as I stood in front of Laguna de Los Tres, the rain and clouds gave way to sunshine and a rainbow.

I felt at peace.

The countless hikes, great food, and the warmth of locals in Chile and Argentina helped me get back in my skin and find the peace I was missing in my heart.

Nature is indeed the best medicine when it comes to stress relief and I won’t be coy about hugging trees to speed up the process (it did).

Patagonia was life-changing for me.

The beauty of nature struck me at each point and every time I thought it wasn’t possible to beat the view, the next one did just that.

I came back a changed, resilient, and most importantly, a happy person.

-Ucman from BrownBoyTravels

10. Looking Inwards & Making Connections With Strangers

It was decades before I traveled solo for the first time in my life.

This trip — a six-day escape to Colorado — was the first trip that was not for business or family reasons but just to travel and discover.

As I prepared for it, I had a strange feeling of excitement and nerves at the same time. I had all sorts of thoughts and doubts:

Would it be fun?

Would I be bored?

Would I stay in bed all day or would I bounce with excitement to do the next thing?

I wasn’t sure. Little did I know that it was going to be a memorable journey of self-discovery. 

As a good wife and mom, for me travel is always about the family; always thinking of who would enjoy what. It’s about family time and bonding. It’s about creating memories and travel stories together. It’s all so wonderful.

But on a solo trip who would I connect with? What would I say?

Well, I found that I got to do anything I wanted!

Usually when I travel with my family, if I feel like going on a drive that’s not on the itinerary or getting a snack no one else is interested in, we simply don’t do that.

So it was weird to just go do it. Really, that’s a thing?

As for making connections, it was so easy to meet locals while traveling and also to connect with other travelers. Honestly, I had conversations everywhere — on planes, while hiking, in restaurants, in the hotel lobby.

It was quite an eye-opening experience to meet a mom of 18 kids and hundreds of foster kids, a cookie baker, a professional photographer, a family of Fourteener hikers, and an internationally ranked marathon runner.

The inspiring stories I discovered were amazing and nothing like my wonderful safe life at home. 

In terms of travel safety , I got to go rock climbing, solo hiking, driving up a Fourteener, eating alone.

And it was all fine. Actually, it felt surprisingly normal.

It was was just me, my SUV, and my backpack for a week. Most of all, it was a breath of fresh air that I didn’t know existed. 

It’s wonderful to be back home and know that possibilities are endless and there is so much more out there to explore and be wowed by!

-Jyoti from Story At Every Corner

11. A Solo Hike To Find Connection

I have traveled solo many times, but I admit I was a bit uneasy booking my trip to Colombia . In part, due to the country’s dark past. But also because I desperately wanted to do the Cocora Valley hike, and if I’m honest, I was terrified.

This hike is located in the Coffee Triangle, an area recognized for its beauty as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It features both rainforest and a stunning green valley speckled with cartoonishly-tall wax palms rising 200 feet or more.

It’s incredibly beautiful.

It’s also a long hike and quite challenging — it generally takes between six and eight hours and there is a steep area with over 3,000 feet of elevation within a quarter of a mile.

I wasn’t in hiking shape, so I was a little concerned. But, worst of all for me were the seven dodgy-looking suspension bridges. 

I’m terrified of heights.

And, I’d be going alone.

I decided to go anyway and I met an incredible woman on the bus to Salento, the town near Cocora. She was also traveling solo and we agreed to hike together.

The town is a backpacker enclave and we met up with a small group of people all traveling solo. As the days passed, our group got larger and it was such a magical experience.

As much as I love city travel, this small town won my heart.

My new friend and I set off on the hike and met two other women who were nervous to do the hike. We all went together.

When we got to the first suspension bridge, I paused. I was embarrassed to admit my fear, but the bridge swayed widely and there was nowhere to hold onto.

When they realized how out of my comfort zone I was and how scared I felt, everything changed. Instead of me dealing with it alone, they were all there to encourage me.

One crossed the bridge to encourage me from the other side and they stayed off of it to limit the sway. Crazy enough, I not only crossed the seven suspension bridges, but I also crossed one an extra time when we went the wrong way on the trail.

I did it! 

I was prepared to be blown away by Cocora Valley’s beauty, but what I wasn’t expecting was what a life-changing travel experience my time there would be.

 -Sam from My Flying Leap

12. How A Pet Sitting Travel Experience Led To A Passionate Career

We wanted to go to the Caribbean but didn’t know much about the islands or how we were going to afford it.

By chance, a friend of ours in Australia mentioned “pet sitting” and that it is something you can do all over the world.

We quickly created an account on a pet sitting website and began searching for options. There were only a couple of sits available in that part of the world, but we tried our luck, sent a request, and to our surprise landed a three-month gig in a beautiful house in the US Virgin Islands — with an infinity pool overlooking the British Virgin Islands.

A month into our sit, we had explored the destination pretty well and so had a lot of time on our hands. We managed to secure another sit in Grenada, so our year was going to be taken up with Caribbean pet sits.

Inspired by a Canadian couple that had previously stayed at our Grenada housesit, we decided to start our own travel blog. We began by writing about The Virgin Islands, highlighting the beautiful beaches and funky bars.

But for every photo of a beautiful beach there were 10 photos of trash.     

It was hard to ignore the plastic pollution issue, especially on such pristine and remote beaches.  So, we began to share photos of the trash we saw and how much we could pick up on our daily dog walks.

The more we looked into plastic pollution, the more we realized the severity of the global plastic pandemic. From that point, we used our platform to create awareness and highlight ways to say no to plastic and travel plastic-free .

We changed our daily routines, our way of living, and even our diets to accommodate more organic foods and little to no plastic packaging.

It’s been over three years now and we continue to do what we can. This journey has led us to some amazing places, working with great conscious brands and even organizing a country-wide beach clean-up campaign in Grenada.

Our aim now is to keep on going.

We love connecting with like-minded people and love the shift over the last few years that brands have made towards creating more sustainable products and services.

It’s been an amazing few years that was sparked by a conversation about pet sitting. Who would have guessed?

-Aaron & Vivien from The Dharma Trails

13. Learning To Slow Down The Hard Way

On Christmas of 2017, I was born again.

We like to spend our Christmas holidays somewhere warm abroad, and that year we chose Uganda.

Nature, wildlife, and sunny days were a blessing when it was so cold and dark in Europe. Life was beautiful, and we had a rental car and a busy schedule ahead to explore the country.

This is where this short travel story turns into one of my more scary travel experiences :

At Murchinson Falls National Park, we had a car accident.

I lost control of the car, and it rolled over, destroying windows, chassis, and engine.

But we were alive! My right arm was severely injured, but we managed to walk to our lodge, not far inside the park.

In the lodge, I was happy to learn that there was a pretty decent American hospital in Masindi that was just a one-hour drive from the lodge. Moreover, one of the lodge’s guests was a nurse who cleaned the wound while we were waiting for the taxi from/to Masindi.

The hospital took care of us, and after a couple of injections and stitches, I was ready to head to our new hotel in Masindi; however, my wound required daily dressing and more injections, so we were asked to stay in town for a few days.   

Masindi is the kind of place where you may want to stop to buy some food or water, but that’s it.

The town’s highlights were the market and our daily visit to the hospital, so we ended up looking for the small things, chatting with the medical staff, the hotel staff, the people in the market, and learning more about their customs.

We learned to slow down the hard way.

When we were allowed to leave, we took a road trip south through the country to see something else. We did not care about our travel bucket list anymore — we were alive, and we wanted to enjoy Uganda’s unique nature and its people. 

In the end, our Uganda trip was not about the places that we saw, but the people that we met. It was travel for experience vs sightseeing.

I hope to revisit Uganda one day, with a stop at Masindi for some food, water, and maybe something else.

-Elisa from World in Paris

14. A Cycling Trip To Remember

During the summer of 2019, I cycled solo from London to Istanbul. This huge bicycle tour took me 89 days and through 11 countries.

As you might expect, it was a challenging yet incredible journey, which saw me pedal along some of Europe’s greatest rivers, pass through some of its best cities, and witness some of its most beautiful scenery.

It’s becoming more and more important for us to think about the impact that travel can have on our environment. This was the inspiration for my bicycle tour; I wanted to find more responsible ways to explore the world and avoid flights where possible.

I discovered that bicycle touring is one of the most eco-friendly ways to travel, as using nothing but a bicycle and your own pedal power you can carry everything you need while covering surprising distances each day.

The simplicity of life and the sheer amount of time I spent cycling alone gave me a lot of time to just think . This really helped me to come to terms with some personal problems rooted in my past and, as a result, I arrived solo in Istanbul with newly found confidence, independence, and liberation. 

Cycling across the entire European continent may seem like an impossibly daunting task, but I assure you, it will make you feel like a new person, just like it did for me.

-Lauren from The Planet Edit

15. How The Caribbean Shaped Me Into A Fully Sustainable Traveler

One of my first international trips as an adult was traveling around the Caribbean .

I checked into my hotel in Jamaica and asked for a recommendation for a local place to eat. The receptionist told me that under no circumstances should I should go into the town because it was really dangerous, but that — to my luck — the hotel’s restaurant offered wonderful Caribbean food.

I pondered my options:

Did I really want to spend all my time on the beach without getting to know a single local?

I was a very inexperienced traveler and very young, but there was only one answer to my question:

Absolutely not. I was not going to be visiting a new place and staying hostage in a hotel chain. So out I went.

The poverty hit me in the face. After only seeing fancy resorts, the reality was hard to swallow.

A few locals approached me and were super curious as to what I was doing there alone, since most tourists didn’t go there.

I told them I was interested in meeting them and experiencing their culture. And just like that, I was embraced.

We met more people, had some food, and then we danced the night away. They had so little, yet they wanted to share it with me. They wanted to make me feel welcome.

And they undeniably did.

The next morning all I could think about was how all the money most tourists spend goes to big corporations. The locals have to be thankful if they get a job that pays minimum wage, while foreign businesses earn millions.

I have always been environmentally conscious, but this trip made it clear that sustainability goes well beyond nature and wildlife.

It’s also about communities.

From then on I always look for locally owned accommodation, eateries, guides, and souvenirs.

Sustainability, with everything it entails, became a motto for me and changed the very essence of the way I travel.

-Coni from  Experiencing the Globe

16. Lessons From My Students In Peru

One of the most life-changing trips I’ve ever been on was a volunteering experience in the stunning city of Cuzco in Peru.

I spent a month there teaching English and Italian to a group of local adults. And even though my time there was short, the travel experience was so humbling that it changed my outlook on life.

My lessons took the form of active conversations, which essentially turned into a massive multilingual cultural exchange between me and my students. Hearing my students talk about their lives — and realizing just how different they were from mine — made me look at my own life with a fresh new perspective.

One person spoke about the three years he spent living in a jungle with his dad, where they fed off of animals they hunted in order to survive.

Another student told me about her ultimate dream of mastering English so that she could become a tour guide and have a more stable future.

For me, these stories were a reminder of just how small I am in this world and how much we can get consumed by the small bubbles we live in. 

Most of all, my students showed a passion and appreciation for life that I’d never witnessed before.

This is true for the locals I met in Cuzco in general. The quality of life in Cuzco is very modest; hot water is scarce and you learn to live with little.

But the locals there do way more than just that — they spontaneously parade the streets with trumpets and drums just because they’re feeling happy, and their energy for the simple things in life is incredibly contagious.

It was impossible to not feel inspired in Cuzco because my students always had the biggest smiles on their faces, and the locals showed me again and again that simply being alive is a blessing.

I went to Peru to teach, but ended up learning more from my students and the locals there than they did from me.

Ever since I got back from that trip, I made it a goal to slow down and not take the simple things in life for granted.

Every time I get upset about something, I think about the Peruvians in Cuzco parading their streets in song and pure joy, and I tell myself to stop complaining.

-Jiayi from  The Diary of a Nomad

17. Braving Travel With Chronic Pain

Santiago de Compostela is a beautiful city with a prominent cathedral positioned centrally within the city.

While the historical cathedral attracts numerous visitors, even more well-known is the route to Santiago de Compostela, Camino de Santiago –- the world-famous pilgrimage route that has a plethora of trailheads and ends in Santiago. 

Home to locals, students, English teachers, and those on a spiritual pilgrimage, personal conquest, or a great outdoor hiking excursion, Santiago is a magical city.

My introduction to Santiago de Compostela doesn’t begin on the pilgrimage route, yet ends with a spiritual awakening analogous with those other unique pilgrimage stories.

It was my first solo trip abroad teaching English in Spain, a country that’s always been on my travel bucket list. A small town outside of Santiago was selected as the school I’d be teaching at for the year.

Unknowingly, this teach abroad program chose the perfect city for me to live in. 

A year prior, I suffered a traumatic brain injury that left me unable to function normally and complete average tasks. Migraines, headaches, and dizziness became my body’s normal temperament, a hidden disability invisible to the naked eye. 

Braving travel with chronic pain was the first lesson I learned during the trip.

The vast green outdoors and fresh dew from the morning rain enlivened me daily and reminded me about the importance of slowing down so I could enjoy traveling with my hidden disability. 

I also learned to stop often for daily tea breaks and to embrace the long lunch hour,  siestas , with good food, company, and a nap to rest.

Meeting locals , indulging in local food, and learning Spanish allowed me to connect deeply with the beautiful culture of Santiago. After all, my dream was to travel to Spain, and I more than accomplished that dream.

Difficult or not, I learned to own my dream and I was more than surprised with the results.

Who knew that a year after my injury I’d be traveling the world with chronic pain, and for that, I’m eternally grateful.

-Ciara from Wellness Travel Diaries

18. A Blessing In Disguise

2020 has been a wild year for all of us and foreign students in China are no exception. As soon as the malevolent virus began to make its rounds in China, our university sent us home for “two weeks.”

However, within a short time, countries began to shut their borders and these “two weeks” turned into months, a full year even.

Crushed by the burden of online lectures and virtual labs, my boyfriend and I packed our bags and caught one of the first flights to his home country of Pakistan.

I had always been an over-ambitious traveler. I believed numbers were everything — the number of countries I visited, the number of hours I spent on a plane, the number of international trips I took in a year. These numbers were what defined me.

My feet were constantly itching and I never liked to spend more than a few days in a place before heading to the next country. Revisiting a place felt superfluous to me.

That’s why I was hoping to spend a month or two in Pakistan and then continue to check new countries off the list — after all, my online classes finally granted me the freedom to “work on my numbers.”

But as is usually the case in 2020, things turned out quite different from what I had expected. Borders remained closed and worldwide infections stayed rampant. At this point, I have already spent nearly half a year in Pakistan.

During this peculiar time, however, an amazing thing happened:

My mindset about travel started to change and I began to look at my long stay in Pakistan as perhaps my most valuable travel experience ever.

I may not have visited dozens of countries like in previous years but my experiences were deeper than ever before.

From trekking to one of the world’s tallest mountains to sharing tea with heavily armed officers at nearly 5,000 meters altitude to exploring hidden beaches in the most secluded regions to spontaneously being invited to village homes, my adventures in Pakistan couldn’t have been more incredible. They opened my eyes to the sheer diversity of many countries and completely transformed my idea about traveling. 

It took me nearly a full year of heavy restrictions on international travel and a few months in one of the world’s most fascinating countries to give up on my superficial ideals and become a more mature traveler.

This time will always have a special place in my heart.

-Arabela from The Spicy Travel Girl

19. What The River Taught Me

My travel story takes place in the summer of 2017 — the final summer before I graduated university — as it continues to play a significant role in the person I’ve become.

When I say that, people ask me if it was the portion of the summer I spent solo backpacking in Europe . And to their surprise, it wasn’t. It was actually the latter portion of the summer where I stayed closer to home.

For July and August I worked as a canoe guide leading whitewater canoe trips on remote rivers in Canada. It was here that I got to canoe the powerful and iconic Missinaibi River, a river that continues to influence me all these years later.

The Missinaibi River flows from the powerful Lake Superior to the even more powerful salty waters of James Bay. Here, I led a group of eight teenagers through dozens of whitewater rapids over 500 kilometers (~311 miles).

With no cell service for 25 days, we were forced to disconnect from anything other than the river.

During this trip I learned two important lessons:

First, I learned to be confident in my own abilities as a leader and problem solver.

There were a few rapids where my campers’ boats flipped and I had to rescue the campers and the canoes. One rescue saw two boats flip on a mile-long rapid. It took six hours to make it down the rapid, and during this time I managed stuck canoes and crying campers.

And while this was one of the most difficult rescues I’ve done, I was amazed at how calm I was throughout it. I gave clear directions, prioritized effectively, and kept my campers safe throughout the entire experience. Following the rescue, I had a newfound sense of confidence in my abilities.

The second lesson I learned on the Missinaibi was the power of disconnecting from society and connecting with the people around you.

A wild river commands all of your attention. Each day, you and your group must take down camp, load canoes, paddle up to eight hours while navigating both rapids and portages, get to a new campsite, set up camp, cook dinner, and go to bed.

And without the distraction of technology, your attention has nowhere else to be. You focus on the river and your teammates.

As someone who had wrestled with anxiety and depression prior to this summer, I felt at total ease on the trip. Now I seek societal disconnection and human connection as much as I can. 

Sometimes the most profound, life-altering trips are the least expected trips closer to home.

-Mikaela of  Voyageur Tripper

More Short Travel Experience Stories

25 Crazy Travel Stories You Need To Read To Believe

23 Inspiring Travel Stories Sharing The Kindness Of Strangers

17 True Short Adventure Travel Stories To Inspire Your Next Trip

38 Inspiring Travel Love Stories From The Road

16 Short Funny Travel Stories That Will Make You Laugh

20 Embarrassing Travel Stories That Will Make You Laugh & Blush

21 Travel Horror Stories About Scary Travel Experiences

Do you have any inspiring travel experience stories about life-changing trips to share?

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These stories are so much fun to read! Thanks so much for putting a post like this together. It’s great to be able to check out other people’s blogs and read about other people’s experiences!

Always great to read about travel experiences of others. Some great stories to read over coffee. I’ve Pinned your post for future reference and to share with others. Will check out each story author’s blog as well. Great Job! 🙂

Amazing story for new traveler like me thanks for your contribution

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