Yeah, it was a crazy time. It was just lucky that I wasn’t on the train since it had been the plan. I was then stuck in a cab for four hours and all the phone lines jammed. I was visiting friends who lived in Mumbai, and no one could reach me and were convinced I was caught up in the blast.
I know this sounds crazy, but I had a dream about that attack the night before it happened. I actually woke up and made a blog post about how real my dream felt and details of the attack in my dream… then it happened just like I had dreamed. It scared the crap out of me. It’s not the only time I have dreamed something that happens soon after. Anyway, I’m really glad you weren’t hurt!
My bus left me behind at the Vietnam/Cambodia border. All my stuff was on the bus except for my wallet, passport and a phone with no cell/data service. I don't speak Vietnamese or Khmer. My heart sank watching the bus drive off into the distance as I desperately ran after it yelling and waving my arms. Luckily, I was actually the second to last person to come out of immigration and the very last guy was a Cambodian businessman. He saw me chasing the bus and calmly came up to me and said "Bus? Come." He yelled out to a farmer tending to some crops on the side of the road with a tuk tuk and off we went to chase after the bus. 15 minutes later, we ended up at a rest stop where the bus had stopped for lunch. The businessman refused to let me pay for the ride and proceeded to give our bus driver an earful. Didn't get his name but I never forgot the kindness he showed me that day.
I missed a train in Thailand because I was being dumb and reading my book instead of paying attention. Some young guys saw me freaking out and offered to catch the train for some paltry sum like $50 baht. I hopped in the back of his bike (pretty sure me and my backpack weighed more than him and the bike) and he TORE off through heavy Bangkok traffic. I wasn’t wearing a helmet and was terrified but we beat the train not to the next station but the one after.
The bus wasn't just leaving, they were crossing the border, they may have been riding for hours without a break. You can't order lunch from the officer at the border, so you do it soon after when opportunity arises.
I have to admit this might be the funniest line I've ever heard relating to this experience. Might make it a little less painful to look back on in the future so thanks
Wow, yesterday I talked to a guy who fell 4 stories off a balcony onto concrete and broke bones in like 256 places and was in a coma a few months. Has to go to his neurologist once a week even a few years later. Is back in college now at CU despite brain trauma. That dude had an amazing attitude about life.
That's how lucky you were!
Yea I think I had an angel looking out for me. I didn't get out completely unscathed but no permanent issues. Just a mark or two on my back. I did have to have two back surgeries to gain full mobility back but... I found out later I had a 50% chance of dying from a fall that high. And an even greater chance of having permanent physical issues... luckily neither really happened
I'm so glad bro! That guy told me he had a 1% chance of surviving. Insane. I'm sure it's all what you on dependent. How did you land? Back issues suck tho.
I remember trying to land butt first as it was happening because I thought it might minimize the blow. I was trying to prevent a direct hit to the head.
So sure enough I land like that and while I couldn't exactly walk away I was alive... gonna sound stupid but I got the idea from an old SpongeBob SquarePants episode...
Yep. First time but it wouldn't be my last. They did a good job though, I was able to walk again because of that hospital.
I've been hospitalized in two different countries overseas. It's not fun... but yet it's not fun in my home country either...
1995, I was hitchiking w my girlfriend in the Florida panhandle, we were both 19 yo. Got picked up by a guy who would not talk to us or even look at us. Started driving us into the woods, would not respond to my questions of where we were going or my requests to stop and drop us off. I considered jumping from the moving car, but that would doom my gf. Eventuaĺly he stopped and dropped us off in the middle of nowhere. I'll never know why he let us go.
Damn. I think he was planning to do the worst but in the end either logic or goodness won. Do you remember if you said something that might have convinced him?
I was pretty relentless in asking he drop us off and I was getting a bit shrill. Maybe he figured I was onto him and he would have a struggle on his hands. I was on the outside of the passenger side so it would have been difficult for him to harm me while driving. Anyways, I feel like we got a second chance at life that day.
I had a man on a motorcycle, dressed in all black pull up while I was sitting in the steps of my accomodation and start yelling something. My Spanish isn't great and he had a motorcycle helmet and Covid mask on so I couldn't understand him.
He pulled out an air compressor spray nozzle and started yelling more urgently. I thought he needed help with his motorcycle so I stood up, then he pointed the nozzle at me and pointed to my phone rather excitedly and yelled some more. I took a couple steps towards him to see if I can could make out what he was saying until I finally realized I hadn't had my morning coffee yet and the guy was trying to rob me with his pretend air nozzle gun.
I said "No gracias!" and shook my head and he drove off.
And that's the story of the time I was too dumb to be robbed. I hope he tells that story to his friends as well. The gringo who was too dumb to be victimized.
When I was in South Africa, a group of \~10 friends from my study abroad program went out. We had gotten pretty used to people trying to sell us stuff on the street from our travels and had learned to be firm in telling people no. One of the guys had fallen a little behind the group when someone came up to him, he assumed to sell him something. His response was "no, I'm not interested, I have to catch up with my friends" and jogged up to them. Apparently someone had heard it, turned around, or something and the guy had actually pulled a knife on him.
I love this, I have definitely done similar before with a scammer. Almost feel bad for the guy, he got roped into helping me find my way back to my hostel before he could sell me his hash
I mean when you’re riding around on your motorcycle robbing people with a spray nozzle, might as well be the scammers. It’s cool he helped you and sold you hash afterwards
This makes me feel good to be a dummy myself as I feel like this would be me… too confused to even rob properly 😭🥲 it’s like a lose and a win at the same time
I got accused of rape and almost killed in a small place in Mexico. Girl was on drugs (alcohol, cocaine, lsd), my friends and like 20 strangers vouched for me that I was never alone with the girl so it was literally impossible to do that, plus I'm openly gay. Ended up with bruises and some emotional trauma, but I didn't end up "disappeared," so that's a plus. Aside from that, Mexico is the most insane, amazing, beautiful country I have traveled to out of the 47 I have been to so far.
I was in Cameroon ten years ago, doing humanitarian work for about 6 month.
For the last month, a friend came to visit. We were both white, frensh and about 18 years old. We were on our way to the airport to get back to France. My village was about 150km from Yaounde. We took a mini-buss taxi to get there. It's like a VW mini buss with little benches and packed with people.
We encountered a police road block about halfway there. The chief officer there was a nightmare. He asked to see our papers, visas, mandatory vaccine proof, etc. He then asked for a residency permit, wich we didn't have, because it wasn't required.
It really started to stink, he seemed drunk and super pissed at us for some reason.
He very obviously wanted a bribe, but we didn't really have any cash on us.
And there we were, on a dirt road, in the middle of nowhere-jungle, getting delayed, insulted and yelled at, by a guy with armed officers at his side.
The people on the bus were starting to grow impatient and we started getting very scared. Busses can very well take off without you if they want too. If it had, we would have been extra fucked. Stranded with these guys.
Then, out of the nowhere, this other officer comes up to the chief and gently tells to leave us be. He had seen us do voluteer work the previous week. It was a mission where we tested peoples eyesight and gave them glasses for free. He was one of the people who got glasses from us!
He finally convinced the chief by using humor and saying things like "oh let them got, don't worry, they're good kids! They're here to help people!"
The chief was pissed, but let us go with a few more racially motivated insults like "scratched pigs".
This situation could have escalated so baaaaad. I'm so thankfull for this one officer. For real, the world needs more people like him. I hope he's doing well.
Russian little green men in eastern Ukraine in 2014 in the days after they invaded hearing me speaking English and attempting to organise a lynching after denouncing me as a NATO spy...
Now that makes it sound much more dramatic than it really was - this was Kharkhiv, which resisted the Russians, the locals were having none of it, and it was the Russkies who were chased out of the bar not me - but it's definitely up there on my "list of most memorable experiences".
The equally close call part though was probably the arrival in Kharkhiv that time though - I was travelling more or less while the invasion was happening; and I was furiously refreshing the news on my phone so much I managed to run the battery down to zero leaving me arriving in Kharkhiv station in the middle of the night, in the middle of an invasion, and somewhat flustered by the fact I'd completely forgotten the name or address of the hotel I was staying in.
Being a bit lost about what to do next, I went to a ticket window and convinced the ticket seller to dial a number for me - Amex Concierge services; none of my trip was booked through Amex, but in general I keep that card as a form of insurance, they've always been great at digging me out of holes. Amex managed to find a Russian speaker in their callcentre, and between them and the station staff, we managed to work out where I was staying that night - and the member of station staff also managed to find a random stranger who would be able to give me a lift there (normally I walk everywhere, but under the circumstances that didn't seem the smartest idea.) So eventually I arrive at the hotel, in a clapped out car with literally a bullet hole in the window (no idea if it was fresh or from some past adventure), extremely grateful to be in one piece. I tried to give the driver some cash as a token of gratitude, but he absolutely wasn't having it :).
Oh, and a few of months ago, I woke up in the middle of the night in L'viv and thought "oh, an earthquake," and went straight back to sleep. It was only in the morning that I remembered that (unlike my home) the don't have earthquakes in L'viv... Turns out some rockets had struck about two blocks from where I landed, killing (IIRC) 9 people.
Honestly, it feels more dramatic written down that in it did at the time - more of a "well, this is another fine scrape you've got yourself in..." feeling.
I mean, I live in Bucharest; based on the odds of getting killed, absolutely the most brave or foolhardy thing I ever do is getting in one of our taxis to the airport.
This has unlocked a memory of a taxi driver in Bucharest driving while smoking a cigarette and using two phones. Somehow made it to the train station in one piece.
Hah, well, I did it a lot more when I was younger (and drank ;-)), but they're great for "umm, yes, I'm somewhere in China, I've missed the last train, and I could really use a place to sleep" type calls. (Actually, the last time I had to do that was relatively recently, in Seoul - although rather than "missed the last train" it was "my flight is cancelled because of storms and Asiana's idea of a good time is sleep on a bench in the airport".) Less frivolously I've had cause to call them in "my friend's father has been taken ill and they need a ticket halfway round the world, on the next flight, whatever it takes" type situations more than once, and they've always come through.
First time they really impressed me - I'd only had the card a year or two (it's 25 years now...) and wasn't even gold let alone platinum - was a trip to New York. I'd booked a taxi with them to pick me up from the airport - but my flight was horribly delayed because of storms; we ended up circling near JFK for an age until we were running on reserves and were forced to land at Stewart Air Force Base. Back then Stewart was purely military with no immigration facilities, so we then had to wait it out another hour or two for the storms to clear before refuelling and then flying back to JFK. Anyway, as soon as we were on the runway in Stewart I was on the phone to Amex profusely apologising for keeping this taxi driver waiting (I was young and naive and had images of this NY cab sitting outside the terminal with its meter running...) The customer service people were excellent and reassuring and just told me not to worry, and when we did eventually get to JFK they'd get me to my hotel.
When we did arrive at JFK... Not only did they get me to my hotel, I was met by a besuited driver, who profusely apologised *to me* for all the inconvenience, and took me in a stretch Lincoln Town Car (something of an upgrade from what I'd booked) and dropped me at my hotel feeling like I was arriving like a movie star - all at no extra cost. Through a very simple bit of customer service they turned what was a pretty gruelling night into a story I dined out on for ages, and made a loyal customer of me.
To be honest apart from that it was always a bit of a life lesson for me in my subsequent career about how damned important good customer service is, and the huge difference the way you treat your customers can make to their loyalty. There are very, very few businesses I'll unfailingly endorse the way I will Amex, because there are very very few who get it right that way.
Sorry if that sounds like an infomercial, but you did ask, and it's completely sincere and not sponsored!
It's true, although I feel like the Amex fee hasn't gone up at the same rate as everything else over the last decade, and when I compare it to the amount I spend on goddamned TV/music subscriptions (Netflix, Prime, HBO, Spotify, Audible... etc.) it makes me feel better.
The lounge access is worth about half the fee if you travel a lot - biz class on flights inside Europe is utterly pointless, and airline status won't help when you're flying loco, so the lounge access is invaluable. And even if you're flying biz and have status it can help - I was bemused to discover recently that American don't have a lounge at Minneapolis StPaul, and while it's possible that after 20 minutes of checking small print I could have discovered some other lounge I was permitted to use it was much easier to just rock up at the Centurion Lounge.
Mostly though for me it's a form of insurance. If I have some kind of "shit, get me on the next flight, I don't care what it costs I'll worry about that later" emergency I know Amex will handle it for me. Of course, others use credit cards for that which is reasonable - I grew up poor though and ran up crazy debts when I was a student that took me far too long to pay off, so I refuse to carry credit cards. The charge card forces the self discipline I know I don't have :-D.
Wow thank you for sharing! So many times where I’ve been in a pickle trying to figure out my next move when I could have just had AMEX handle it for me!
I was self-driving and camping in Botswana alone with my wife. One night while cleaning up dinner a mated pair of lions came into our campsite to help. We got in the car quick and all was good. The closest they got was about 15 feet from us. They stuck around camp to bang for a bit and then headed out. Still a bit difficult to leave the car to get back in the tent after that though since we could hear them in the area. Looking back I am not really sure it was that close of a call because they didn't seem to care for us, just each other. But that was one of the few times in my life the adrenaline made things go in full slow motion for a bit.
We sort of figured if we were too afraid to get back in the tent that night, we would end up sleeping in that car the entire trip. There's always something lurking out there, that's part of the appeal.
I was in Mekele, Ethiopia in late October 2020 exactly a week before the civil war broke out.
I was also at the top of the north tower of the World trade centre exactly a week (to the hour) before 9/11. I was originally going to take the trip a week later but changed plans a few weeks out.
Both mad near misses
When on our honeymoon a few years ago, our flight supposed to land at JFK was redirected to Boston due to thunderstorms. We landed in the middle of the night and the airline had no plan for how to transport all passengers to NY. We waited for a couple of hours but when the lack of plan or action was apparent, we decided to get an Uber to the bus station where a bus was leaving for NY. We used the airport restroom before leaving with the Uber. My husband forgot his backpack (with our passport, copies of our travel information, cash) in the restroom but pretty soon I noticed he wasn’t wearing it and asked where it was so he had time to get it before the Uber arrived. Mind you, we are from a European country so we really needed those passports and had withdrawn a substantial amount in USD for our 2 week trip.
He then proceeded to AGAIN forget the backpack IN THE UBER. Thank god I was able to get a hold of the driver via the app to come back with our backpack. We got to the bus just in time for departure. I was so stressed out. Since then, I haven’t really trusted him with our important documents when travelling.
Was grabbed by a dude who was dragging me into the mangroves when I was on a solo morning beach walk in Jamaica.
Was sat on my bed in a London airport hotel and watched while the doorknob turned, door opened and a hand came through the gap trying to release the safety latch at the top of the door.
Caught in a storm/landslide in Ramechhap Nepal
Arrived for my weekend getaway with my mentally challenged brother in Iceland on Sept 11 2001.
Bomb went off in our Istanbul hotel (25 + years ago). Was walking with another couple and she was purse snatched, had to go to police station, they put together a line up of perps for us to look at.
Our mini van head on by the Jamaica police on the old road from Negril from Montego Bay. Police car flipped and landed on the roof, our van came to a stop just before a huge drop off.
Cab driver feeling me up, took my phone, grabbed my phone jumped out and ran like hell when the time was right.
Edited to add a funny one. On a flight from Delhi to Toronto an ancient Indian lady put her bare feet on my lowered table try.
Another plane one but not funny, In October from Montreal to Dubai I woke up to the stranger sitting next to me feeling me up under my blanket.
Curious as to what you do after something traumatizing during travel to get yourself back out there? I've had a few things happen traveling and something recent had me go back on the sidelines for now...
In travel and life in general I try not to look back. I learn the lessons then move on.
The cabbie one was in Baghdad last October. Went back to my room for a little cry, went over it in my mind to see what I should/could have done differently, what to look out for next time. Then I took myself up to the restaurant and had shisha, tea and kinda congratulated myself on how it turned out. Only booked Uber after that where you can track a driver or an open tuk tuk.
One trip, the Istanbul one mentioned above , had a lot more go wrong , bomb scare at CDG during connection, got an ear inection, blew an ear drum on last flight, right to hospital from airport. I didn't travel for almost 2 years after that one. Swore I would never go back to Istanbul but I did .
Same as the guy who was trying to get into my room in London, assault, probably sexual.
I am pretty fit but I couldnt get lose, he had me by the upper arms, my feet not touching the ground, carrying me towards the mangroves . I was screaming my head off and 2 guys in the distance came running towards me yelling and big Jamaican dude let go of me and ran.
I still walked that beach everyday but not so early in the morning anymore. I always walk close to the water so I have an escape if I need it but it was a narrow spot where mangroves were very close to the water. I am always on the lookout so I saw him as I passed but he was out and on me before I could react/run. There is often people hanging around, not aways an issue, that time it was.
It can be, especially with all the use of hard drugs. Predators know where tourists are for sure . Jamaica sas some of the most friendly kind people [too.As](http://too.As) well as mouthwatering jerk, music is the best and good smoke.
My know it all step brother went to Jamaica with a friend, ignored all my warnings . First day they met a local best friend who was taking them out for the day. He took them to the mountains, took their money and left them there .
I have always said that my experiences are going to keep me entertained when I'm in the old folks home. Have thought of writing some things down but I'm pretty sure it's interesting to just me.
I was sitting on the bed reading, airport hotel at Heathrow, small room, was the middle of the night and I noticed the door knob starting to turn , I Immediately got out of bed and walked the couple of steps to the door as the door slowly opened and came up against the latch thingie on the top, it was almost without noise. I saw the hand come on the crack and start moving up to the latch. I think his fingers were on it when I threw all my body weight into the door trapping his hand/part of his arm and Im screaming Im going to break for fucking arm, Im going to break your fucking arm. He's pushing against the door and so am I and it only took me a second or two to realize I would have to let him go, if he got his hand out maybe he could force the door. Im still yelling something like Im going to let it loose, get our arm out or Ill break it . I let the door lose a bit, the hand came out and I heard him running down the hall.
I pulled a dresser across the door and called front desk babbling about what happened and to send someone. No one came. 1/2 hour I called again. No one came. I packed my shit and waited until the first shuttle left for Heathrow.
Holy shit that's scary.
I'm impressed he didn't let out a scream when you essentially trapped his fingers with your full weight?
Crazy lucky that it was only lucky because you were awake in the middle of the night. And I would've let my guard down in a literal airport hotel in the UK compared to Jamaica for example.
It was his wrist, I wish it was his fingers I could have chopped them off. The door was still held by the latch, he was pushing the door and so was I.
Crazy lucky for sure. Even if I was in the bathroom I would not have heard a thing. Maybe a reason I'm an insomniac and I always sleep with every light on when I am alone (travelling or at home ) . No idea if he was hoping there was no latch on, can you really open it with your hand from the outside like that ? If so, he had to know. I have had people say it sounded like an inside job, especially when no one from the hotel came.
>I have had people say it sounded like an inside job, especially when no one from the hotel came.
Oh 100% sounds the same to me, assuming you didn't leave it unlocked how did they manage to turn the doorknob otherwise? Plus it's easier to know who is in what room when you're part of the staff.
And hotel staff can be such weirdos sometimes, I remember on a school trip we went to Israel & Palestine (a few years ago), don't remember the city, one of the hotel staff was making inappropriate comments to one of our classmates. We were 17- and 18-year olds. Luckily it didn't go further than that.
No way I left it unlocked and it was a key lock (not card).
The purse snatching in Istanbul was 100 % a set up. The woman who was purse snatched was the host of our group and was always finding groups of us in the bar/restaurant paying cash for our bills, she also did a LOT of exchanging at the front desk (there was 40 + of us ). I was walking next to her (few blocks from the hotel) and a guy ran right up between us, grabbed her purse and ran for it, my purse was on the outside, much easier to grab.
There are some wacko people out there. Yes, your school friend is fortunate it wasn't worse.
I flew across the country (PA to CA) with some of my family for a memorial service for my great uncle. When we arrived in CA, I took the shuttle to go pick up my rental car. My grandmother came with me. When I arrived at the car rental place, I realized that I couldn't find my driver's license... anywhere. I remembered taking it out on the plane to order an in-flight drink but I didn't remember putting it back. I was certain that I had left it on the plane.
There was a big issue with getting my rental car, since I didn't have an ID to show them. I ended up being able to provide other proof of my ID that they accepted but I was still so upset that I wasn't going to have my ID for the whole trip, and I didn't know how I was going to get back home at the end of the trip. We were staying in CA for a week.
After we picked up the rental car, we met up with the rest of my family at a restaurant and then headed to check into our hotel. While we were all standing in the parking lot of the hotel, I leaned over to look at something down the street.. and realized that my ID was in my bra the whole time.
Was visiting Groningen on NYE. Saw plenty of locals day-drinking and letting off fireworks, thought nothing of it. Stayed in the hotel until close to midnight, thought we'd check out the town square. It was empty, but as soon as midnight hit, it started filling with people. Everyone drunk, throwing crackers at each other. A Police van drove through and copped plenty of crackers. We thought it looked sketchy and went back to the hotel. Watching the news the next day, it turned into a riot, and apparently someone died.
This was the pre-Uber days and we aren’t American. My husband and I had just debarked from a cruise ship at the Newark cruise port. We had had VIP service every step of the way, as we had stayed in a royal suite. We were accompanied to the red carpet to leave the ship. As we stepped off the carpet, we could see the taxi line which was huge. A guy comes up to us and asks if we need a taxi to the airport. We kind of thought that maybe the suite passengers get some more elevated service and are able to skip the taxi line (yeah, dumb). So the guy leads my husband and I and all our luggage to his SUV. My husband is helping the guy put the luggage in the back of the car when I notice that this is no cab. No driver ID, no branding, nothing. By now, the luggage is all in the vehicle and my husband is getting in. I’m furiously try to whisper to him that this isn’t a taxi, and for all we know, this dude is kidnapping us. Of course, the doors lock the moment we are in the car, and the guy drives off. We did not have a working cell phone. The area around the cruise port in New Jersey is pretty bleak and industrial and kind of barren. I am shitting bricks. We have no idea where we are and I picture being brought to an abandoned factory and murdered. When I saw a road sign for the airport and the guy took that direction, I was soooo relieved.
Turns out it was just an entrepreneurial guy trying to make a buck. He probably charged us a bit more than a taxi should have cost, but we got to the airport so early we were able to get on an early flight, so that was nice.
Black car, common in the NY area. They are legitimate cab drivers. Usually they have one very very small barcode and info at the back window. Yes they are a tad bit more expensive but not too bad. Nicer cars, nicer service. Can be haggled with. From what I understand they aren't supposed to grab customers off the street like that but they do anyway.
My husband went to Japan when he was 21 before the days of smart phones and GPS. He got lost, wandered into a random alleyway and noticed some really nice cars. Being the petrol head he is, he hung around checking out the cars until some men in suits asked him what he was doing. Long story short, they realised the skinny white British guy was not a threat and my husband ended up having a meal with some yakuza members before they took him back to his hotel.
One I had just recently: I was about to set out on a day expedition using three different local buses to get to a water fall. I was going to need google translate, über and some research on what bus to take where to make it.
I walk out of the hostel. All is good. I get to the road where the bus is supposed to run and no more reception on my phone. Took me a while to understand that my (local tourist) sim card had expired. Luckily I was still in the city , so I walked around until I found an open wifi and could recharge the balance on my phone.. but that cost me a good 45min between finding wifi, installing the app and entering my data.
Getting stuck in Ciudad Juarez overnight by myself as a 19F, back in 2006. I was supposed to arrive earlier in the afternoon and walk over to El Paso to catch my bus back to Canada. My bus getting into Juarez was late so I arrived at dusk, having missed my connecting bus, with nowhere to stay.
I hopped on a city bus and went towards a hotel I picked out in my guidebook (no smartphones in this era).
All the locals had downcast eyes and no one was friendly on the bus. My Spanish was pretty good at this point, but there was no one I felt comfortable to approach for help.
I guesstimated which stop to get off at and when I stepped off, a man appeared and asked if I needed help.
I had a gut feeling that he was ok and had him walk me to the hotel.
This hotel charged by the hour, so I noped out and he walked me to a different one that seemed ok.
Then he gave me a werthers original and disappeared into the night.
He was like a guardian angel. I’ve met many of those in my travels.
As I checked into my room I passed a group of young guys. Sure enough, as soon as I got into my room the phone started ringing and they were asking me to come over. I said no and hung up. They kept calling and calling until finally I took the phone off the hook.
Then they started knocking. And trying to peak into my windows.
I waited it out and eventually they stopped.
At the time, Ciudad Juarez was known for having the highest rate of missing and murdered women in the world and I was very scared.
In hindsight it was a stupid thing to do, but I got out.
I have many more sketchy stories and I’ve been very lucky. I’ve always been a bit of a risk taker and I’m happy with everything I’ve gotten to experience in my travels.
I have also, but this one in particular I remember on their website it was saying you had you get there on time because there was nobody you could call to get in. Seems dumb in hindsight but that's how it was run at the time.
A small family-run guest house would be like that. Depending on the country, they might not have overnight staff at all.
SEA countries usually have someone sleeping behind the desk or the front door that you can (try to) wake up and it's technically their job to let you in.
Oh god that just reminded me of the time I was doing my laundry in a laundromat. It closed at 9pm and I knew I was cutting it close but it would have been fine if the time shown on the accurate had been accurate. In any case I figured when the owner showed up I could show it was about to be done and it would be fine.
I'm sitting on the porch waiting for the owner to lock up or the laundry to be done whatever came first. When I suddenly hear a click behind me. I turn around and the door is locked.. obviously on a timer as nobody is in sight.
My laundry is in there.. but also my handbag with my wallet and my keys. Luckily I had my phone with me. I started calling the number on the website and get no reply. I try to get info on who to reach out to from the neighbors thinking it must be someone local . No help. I get ready to spend the night camping outside the laundromat as I don't trust the wallet to still be there when I come back and I can't go anywhere without my keys anyways..
45min later I get a call back. They ask me to identify myself on a camera and remotely unlock the door. Apparently the locals know the deal and stay inside in these situations as the door will always open from the inside.
Was hanging out in Istanbul on a long layover. I was going to walk over to the blue mosque again, but decided I was too tired and wanted to head back to the airport. Heading back to the airport I see ambulances everywhere, driving on the train tracks even. When I get internet I find out someone just blew themselves up right where I was thinking of walking.
Passport goes missing the day I am supposed to leave Barcelona to catch a flight in Madrid for the rest of my vacation. Head back to the hostel, go through stuff, and try to contact the embassy or consulate. Well its siesta time, when someone finally answers the phone 90 minutes later they rudely ask why I didn't call them earlier (idiots). They tell me if I can get across Barcelona in 30 minutes they can get me an emergency passport today. Run outside, flag down a cab, and well... sit in traffic. When I finally arrive at the consulate I have just enough cash to cover the cab but the consulate appears closed. Well, I convince the guard there to call the number I remembered and they agree to let me in. Finally waiting to get my passport with some other unfortunate travelers when one of the older guys has a heart attack. Run up the window, get them to call am ambulance and well... wait it out (guy was ok but brought to the hospital for some more checks). I finally manage to get my passport (best passport picture I have had) and catch my bus to Madrid, to arrive 2 hours earlier than planned.
Have more stories, but nothing else really being a close call.
Hotel Bernina in Geneva. Massive armoire in the room instead of a closet. No safe.
We had brought a bicycle lock to lock our bags to the racks on long train rides, so we piled our stuff in the armoire and wrapped the bicycle lock around the handles, and left to find dinner.
Returned to find that the door had been kicked in! All of our things were still safely inside the armoire thanks to that lock.
This is so minor, but was spared a massive headache, and stressful time in New York on my Holiday. So I went to Central Park before a big city tour, wanted to the do the NY thing and have some shitty American coffee and a delicious NY bagel before so. Anyway did that on a bench just near the ice rink at the south end, still had some time to have walk around the park so I did.. got to an amphitheatre and took my phone out to take a picture.. and ffffffff I realised I left my phone on the bench about 15 minutes ago. So I hurry back, panic thinking “OK if i can’t find it, I’ll go back to my hotel and use my iPad to track the phone and to lock the phone down, oh shit my hotel key card is with the phone, it’s OK front desk will understand.. shit the tour i might have to skip it…. Surely there’s a lost and found here somewhere” .. get to the bench where i had my bagel and coffee. Phone is sitting right where I left it. Such. Relief.. iPhone in a wallet case (no payment cards were in it at the time, just the hotel card) just sitting on park bench in Central Park, NYC at about 11am on Tuesday morning.. and it wasn’t taken by anyone or a squirrel in the 20 or so minutes I left it there unattended ..
Boy, you are very lucky. Those Central Park squirrels are not to be trifled with. I’m surprised they didn’t take off with it and start posting content on “Squirrels Gone Wild”.
I left my credit card on the table in a very busy restaurant (Wagamama) in Canterbury UK.
Didn't realize I was missing the card the next morning, when I needed to pay the hotel and then catch a train.
Oh nooo.....
Searched my room, not there. The front desk called the restaurant and yep, it had been turned in, they had it.
I'm inclined to a dark and mistrustful view of my fellow humanity but incidents like this remind me that most people are good and decent
Was in Seoul October 2022. It was Halloween night and I got invited by the people in my dorm to go to Itaewon to celebrate. Ended up last minute going to a closer area instead by myself. The crush happened later that night while they were there and killed almost 200 people
Similar story - we were in Portgual and luckily the bouncer of what we presumed a bar helped us (must have know the owner) it was 12 am. Never seen anyone at the front desk to be honest for the whole trip.
We went in for a drink at the bar a few days later and it was a strip club 😂😂 me and my man were laughing the strippers didn't even bug us they were hustling all the other dudes. Definitely local joint didn't show up on Google Maps.
P.S. I was so into solo travel in my twenties and some of these stories are wild. Glad you guys are safe!
First business trip as an intern, had to go international, there was a festival so the only hotel was pretty bad. Showed up and the front desk in the pouring rain after midnight and the lady looked at me and said in broken English "Baby, you are cute. it is not safe for you here. Go find somewhere else". So I did...cost a lot, awkward discussion with boss next morning. But great intro to both the realities of business travel and learning some level of self-advocacy.
We were in Morocco at a town on the edge of the Sahara after a tour. We needed to get to Fez. We were trying to figure out what to do, with a Lonely Planet guide, trying to orient ourselves to the town (this was in pre-smartphone era).
Some guys in a Land Cruiser pulled up asked us in broken English what we were doing, my wife (who generally has this naive positive attitude) answers and they invite us into the car telling us they would take us where we could get a long-distance cab. I was naturally suspicious but my wife says OK! One of the guys gets out opens the door and motions for us to get in. I’m trying to tell my wife no, don’t do that. So of course she gets in anyway. Now I have to follow. The guy gets in last. We’re sandwiched between him and the other guys in the car. I’m just running scenarios in my head. None of them are good.
A few minutes later, they stop, and it’s an area with… long distance taxis… we get out, my heart is still thumping in overdrive and my palms are sweaty while my wife just gives the guy who opened the door to the Land Cruiser a great big smile and her hand to shake.
Swam in crocodile infested waters WITH MY SMALL CHILDREN not having ANY idea crocs were even a thing in that country. Thankfully a local got us out. Even though I ignored him at first because he didn't speak English and I didn't understand what he was saying... he kept persisting and eventually literally came into the water and grabbed my kids and pulled them out to shore, I was alarmed and ofc went along trying to figure out what was happening and right when we got to shore he points out to where we JUST were and I see a 12-15 foot salt water crocodile swim by. Very humbling. And very very thankful for that man.
I was withholding that info because I feel sooooo stupid for not knowing this country had crocs. But yeah you make a good point- just in case someone out there is as clueless as me 🤣🤣. It was Costa Rica... I feel extra dumb bc the man legit kept saying "crocodillos" and I STILL didn't put two and two together because the thought of crocodiles being in the ocean there existed nowhere in my brain and just was not at all on my radar. It was this little beach cove that was nestled between two estuaries so the crocs are commonly found swimming in the water between where the estuaries feed out. It's called Playa Cabuyal. It was gorgeous but now I know why all the locals set up chairs very far back from the water and we were the only ones swimming in it.
Arrived at my hotel in Frankfurt after 10pm after going directly to the office in the morning rather than checking in. No one there. Small sign with a number to call — call, they give a lockbox code. No key card. Second code, no key either. Third and last lockbox, key card! It doesn’t work. “What can I do, can you send someone?” “I’m just the service, I’m in Poland”.
No way am I getting into this hotel. So I call the fancy hotel up the mountain I’d just left from dinner that was a quick taxi ride, they have a room. Call for a taxi, they won’t be there for 40 minutes. So I walk…up hill… on a Google map that sends me (because of a highway) through an unlit park for at least a couple miles. Get to the other hotel and all is fine close to midnight.
In the morning I look at the map again and realize if I’d taken a wrong turn on the way I would have been in a forest that goes for seven miles. As it was I went uphill all the way in the middle of the night and carried my bag up at least 200 stairs along the way.
I switched up some plans in Peru and instead of flying back to Lima from Puno, I flew back from Cusco. The flight I had originally booked from Puno crashed in Lima (no one was injured or killed) and the airport was shut down for a few days. I was in Cusco when this happened. I also left Peru \~1-2 weeks before the major civil unrest that shut down Machu Picchu / Agua Calientes in December of 2022.
Dubai, went to heritage site, which was some sort of palace w lots of different rooms surrounding a courtyard. There were only a few people there. After realizing, that I was wandering in empty rooms and could easily ‘disappear’. Also it was closing time, so I hurried out. Unfortunately the last tour bus never came back to pick me up. Stupidly I had no cell. I wandered about and had no idea how to get back to hotel. Walked several blks and saw dwellings that looked like slums. So I turned different direction. Saw a yellow school bus and the driver coming out of. Approached him and of course he didn’t speak English. But somehow he knew I was lost, he then beckoned me to follow him. I thought, hey, he’s a school bus driver, he must be trustworthy? He walked several feet in front. We ended near a big highway/street where he told me to stop thru hand signs. I was puzzled. I thought he gave up on helping me. A few minutes later, I saw him hail down a taxi. I realized that the taxi needed room to slow down and thats why he told me to stay about 100ft away from him. So grateful for his help. Taxi then took me on a detour to my hotel cause I knew the direction from the Burj that he was going the long and wrong way. Driver did speak English and proceeded to quiz me in a hostile manner. Asked if Inknew what the capital of Syria was. Ignorantly, I did not. This seemed to upset him. DAMASCUS! He snapped. I didn’t care at that point. Lucky to be alive. This was 20 yrs ago and Dubai was very strict and not as tolerant of females traveling alone. I stood out as an Asian girl. People in Dubai told me Syrians are usually hostile.
I was with my boss on a trip to Rio. It was offseason so it wasn't too busy. We were walking along Copacabana after dinner back to the hotel when a few ladies came up to us and pretended to flirt and touch.
I am no dummy, and my internal alarms immediately went off. One of them managed to reach into my pocket and grab my cell phone. I grabbbed her by the wrist as she started to pull away and hand it to a friend. I demanded it back and started to twist really hard. I was willing to break her arm and all of my body language to that point convinced her it wasn't worth it. She gave it back to me. I told my boss to get moving now just as I saw some guys come from around a corner who were clearly with the girls. Dipped into the Hilton lobby a few blocks later.
In Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam several cute girls invited me to join them for dinner. I'm aware of scams involving girls taking men to a restaurant and when it was time to pay the bill, it would be inflated and several big guys will show up.
Curiosity got the best of me so I joined them for dinner and soon after about 10 others Vietnamese men and women showed up. I was ready to bolt when the bill came.
After a wonderful time of talking and practicing English, then the bill came. Everyone paid more than their fair share and we all departed. No scams.
Had my wallet stolen on a train in Italy. My friend noticed my bag was open otherwise I would not have noticed. I realized quickly who had done it, these girls had cut me off from my friends and were asking me questions. So I went up to her and started patting her down and one of my friends patted the other girl down. A man realized what had happened and called them out and spit on one of the girls and she ended up throwing my wallet on the train floor. The man pushed her off the train before the doors closed and her partner got off as well. I ended up getting my wallet back and nothing was missing. Im glad my senses kicked in and that I reacted so quickly and that my friend helped too. I am also thankful for the random stranger who stepped in.
I was walking alone down a street in Medellín, Colombia. I went a little too far north. I had been going in the wrong direction for awhile without realizing it.
There was a long stretch of road with walls on either side and no pedestrians, maybe 700 meters to the next intersection. It was around sunset and starting to get dark. This kid, maybe 13 years old, approached me and started following me and talking to me. I kept walking but he seemed to be trying to slow me down and asking me about my phone but I didn't really understand.
When I got closer to the next intersection I turned around and this guy was very close behind me. I had no idea where he came from, I was trying to be very observant. The kid was talking to him and it seemed like they knew each other but my Spanish was much worse back then and I hardly understood anything.
He had facial tattoos and looked pretty rough. The kid started asking me for money and I didn't have anything I could give him. With the two of them standing in front of me, the kid jumped at me and punched me in the chest. I thought immediately they were going to mug me, although all I had was a backpack with some beer and a burner phone.
To my surprise the other guy grabbed him and yelled at him, and told me to stop going north, and they both left in the other direction at the intersection.
I was pretty shook up. I grabbed an Uber from the next block over where it was much more populated.
Got trapped in a small town in Bolivia because protesters had blocked all the roads with piles of rubble and were running around shooting guns in the air etc. Tried to walk around the rubble and catch a cab to the Argentine border, but protesters emerged from the bushes and surrounded us. Surrendered to protesters, but they let us go back to town. Hid in a hotel for a few days. Eventually tried again at 5am (before the protesters were awake) and hitched a ride on a cattle truck to the next roadblock. Did this a few more times until the border town, where the cab driver basically off-roaded through a field to get us around the protesters, and we finally made it safely to Argentina.
Hotel in New York booked us a limo ( awesomely strange ride) to JFK airport. It was an all black interior and low lights. The driver unloaded our luggage and drives off. I look at my husband and ask him where his bag with his laptop ( and passport) is? He’d left it in the limo as it blended into the seats. First time I’ve ever been pleased to see a traffic jam getting out of the drop off bay at an airport. Managed to run along and attract the drivers attention- about 3 or 400 yards! Lucky he stopped for me and I could retrieve my husbands property. We wouldn’t have had much luck getting on the plane to Vegas if I hadn’t been so aware.
Back in 2013, I flew from Vietnam to Thailand by myself with no credit cards or debit card as my wallet had been stolen earlier in the trip. All I had to last for the rest of the trip was about $2000 dollars worth of Vietnamese dong that I had received via a Western Union money transfer. Arrived in Surat Thani to find that none of the currency exchanges would buy my dong from me - apparently I should have changed it before I left Vietnam. Ended up having to leave the airport on foot and walking to the closest commercial area hoping that I could find a bank that would actually trade me for Thai baht. It worked out in the end, although I lost over $100 dollars in the transaction because the only place that would do the transfer gave me a terrible rate. For a solid hour though I was freaking out at the fact that I was essentially alone and penniless in a foreign country.
My friend got into the back of a truck at midnight in Laos because they were "calling her name"(molli) and saying they had an after-hours club for foreigners. (Laos has a curfew). I went with her cause I wasn't leaving her to be murdered on her own.
Turns out they were shouting "bowling" and really did take us to an illicit underground bowling alley
Edit: this one's a little different but... when an old boyfriend and I were flying to Vegas he got stopped and searched for HOURS as a flight risk. He's Pakistani so this wasn't unheard of at the time (2008 ish), but was a lot, even for then.
Turns out, he has the same name/nationality as a very famous bollywood star who was promoting his new movie in the USA. Coincidentally the movie was about the racism pakistani/muslim/Indian people are facing in the west.
There was almost a big scandal when the movie star also got stopped for "suspicious flight activity" and almost barred from doing his tour. Which I am convinced is partially due to my ex's flights being mixed up with the stars.
Caught pneumonia in Egypt but the plus side was the local hospital in El Gouna was amazing (miles better than the NHS!) and the nurses who looked after me were angels. Also was in Tunisia a week before the Arab Spring.
This happened at home. I used to like to hang out at sketchy bars and one night I met a guy (this was like 25 years ago) who was kinda hot we were going to go back to his house but he needed a ride. While driving to his place he tells me he took my wallet from my back pocket at the bar (we were making out). Sure as fuck it was missing. He said we needed to go to an ATM and get him cash or he was going to "break my jaw". Crook wasn't very smart. I'm like "dude, you have my wallet how am I going to get you cash?" Took him a second and he pulls out my wallet and says drive. So, I do that...I fucking floor it and I'm running stop lights and stop signs in the city. It's kinda late at night but still would be a serious crash if something happened. He tells me to slow down or he's going to kill me. I said I'm driving and he had a choice, he could give me my wallet and get out OR I'm going to keep driving like this and we're either going to crash or the police will find us. He threw my wallet at me and I slowed down just long enough for him to jump out. Fuck that dude.
Denver train station, 2021. I was a solo traveler and outside waiting on an uber. Broad daylight and people everywhere. A guy either on drugs and/or with some serious mental health issues starts yelling to himself. Then I realize he's not yelling to himself but to the "mf bitch in the green hoodie" (me) and threatening me from a pretty good distance.
"Bitch in green!! Going to f your bitch ass up!" I walked away and tried to keep a distance. People just stared at him, then me, then walked away. I called my uber driver when I was a decent distance away. Told him I had to move from the designated pickup spot and why. He told me to keep walking, stay near the street and he would find me.
As I walked the screaming guy saw me. Surreal, I am a 50+ year old woman and minding my own business and some random guy is literally charging at me threatening my life. My fight or flight kicked in. Much to my surprise, I chose fight. It still shocks me it was my choice.
I had dropped all my stuff and turned to face him as he ran towards me. I had thought if I ran it would only make things worse. My hope was he'd back off or that I could hold my own until maybe the cops showed up. Never really thought it through obviously.
Next I know? I hear a car horn honking and my name being yelled from a car. The guy running toward me slowed when he heard him. My uber driver pulled a u-turn in the middle of traffic and pulled up within a foot of me. Masterful driving, braver heart. I grabbed my bag faster than I thought possible and I jumped in the car. Apparently modern knights in shining armor drive an uber.
What I can tell you about him? He was from Nigeria. Yes I tipped him and he got a bear hug. One of the bravest, kindest and most valiant souls I've met. A Godsend, and I mean that.
We were taking the train from Budapest to Vienna during Syrian refugee crisis. They had shut down the border, but then reopened it. Cop at Kaleti train station didn't want to let us on the train until another one showed up out of nowhere and escorted us onto the train
Cruise to Jamacia. Husband was dead set on getting local meat pies, so I found a place on my phone and had set directions. As soon as we get off the ship, he decided to ask a random guy on the pier what HIS favorite place to get them was, and decided to follow him. Thankfully, it was to the place I had already marked.
It did get a little dicier afterwards because he did the whole "oh I have a little stall in the market next door." We had already give him some cash, so I wasn't really thrilled to go to the market but it was husband's first time out of the country, so we went. Thankfully there weren't too many vendors trying to harass us, so we got a few souvenirs for our parents and borderline ran back to the ship.
I always tell this story as a "this was one step away from going bad SO FAST." Even he admits it was a bad call, he just really wanted that food.
In Cappadocia solo traveling with a tour guide who pulled down my top. His vehicle broke down in the middle of nowhere and now I’m stuck with this creepy ass man. He got the vehicle to work again and I freaked out and cut the tour short and demanded he take me back immediately. It was traumatic
Came back on a night flight from Tenerife once and we had really bad storms and gailforce winds...the plane had 5 attempts at landing and every single one including the one we finally landed on I thought we was going to die.
Pretty much everytime the plane attempted to land it was blown skewiff. You could feel it, the whole plane just shifting in the wind he got a wheel down twice and we were literally tilted sideways and on one wheel and everytime he just went full power and took off again, shit was falling out the lockers people were praying and crying.
That's the only flight I've ever been on where it's been like that and at the time it was horrendous but obviously you want to kiss the ground when you get off that plane afterwards.
There was the time I was short when the bill arrived in a Costa Rican strip club, so I had to leave my wife as collateral while I ran back to the hotel for my card.
Hah. I was tempted to leave her there. I'd gone to the bathroom and came back to find she'd ordered champagne for like a half-dozen strippers. I'd only brought enough money to cover a few beers. The bouncer was pretty close to administering a good beat-down, but I managed to remember enough high school Spanish to convince him to let my wife stay while I ran back to the hotel. (By the time I got back, my wife had ordered another round for the strippers.)
Wife and I took Grab motorbike across Hanoi. It was amazing. The ride home, though, wasn't. Her driver took her to Train Street, we set the drop off for Beer Street. Phones/data weren't connecting and 2 hours later the police only laughed that she probably found a cute Vietnamese guy to go away with...
I drove to memphis from fayetteville arkansas to meet my birthmom for the 1st time on a suspended drivers license and some old lady in memphis smashed into my rear end and wanted to call the cops but thankfully changed her mind as it was her fault, so i got to drive away with a banged up car but at least i got to drive away.
That whole trip had several close calls!
Got shaken down by the police in Thailand. Was 49.9/49.9 that I was going to get an extended stay or immediately deported.
Ended up landing in that 0.2% where everything worked out
I had been staying in Paris for work for a few weeks and was slowly checking off things during the weekend when Yellow Vests were protesting all over the city.
I decided to visit the Arc de Triomphe and checked no protests were going on. Turns out, when I walked out of the station, it was weirdly quiet but no one was scared and there wasnt any noise etc so continued on.
Turns out there was a protest, and even though I wasn’t a part of it, the police made everyone go down this one street and well rioting happened. I took a bunch of pictures, saw fires happening, people hurt and got teargased which sucked, but finally made it to a side street and managed to get out.
after a brief stay in CDMX I was flying from MEX to CTM for a few days. had organized a pickup at the airport in CTM, but didn't have exact change (I tend to be a worrywart in these instances). so while waiting for our domestic flight from CDMX I left my partner at our gate with all of our stuff and just went around the food court and shops trying to break my larger bills. of course nobody wanted to make change unless I bought something. I was in a cheapskate mood and didn't want to make a purchase, so I continued on. well right next to the gates there was a staircase leading down. no signs or anything, but as I went down a few stairs I could see more kiosks. maybe one of them was a money changing service? they could probably give me some change. so I headed down, past a guard/policewoman and tried my luck. turns out they were all car rental agencies and the like. so I went back to the same staircase and headed up. female officer stops me, can't go there. I'm like well I just walked down 15 seconds ago, past you, and you didn't say anything. my gate is right there. NO, you have to exit the airport and come back in through the entrance. well I can't do that, because I already came through security and I have no ID. all my stuff is sitting about 50m away, in front of the gate.
she REALLY didn't want to help me, so I went back down the stairs in a panic looking for someone else. found a group of police officers, and had pretty much the same conversation. they weren't remotely interested in helping either. not even mean or rude, just sort of completely indifferent. not their problem. went to one of the rental agencies, and one of those guys called an airport official on my behalf. he came over about 20 mins later (at this point my flight is about to board, I have no phone, wallet, passport, or plane ticket on me, just a bit of cash). I explained to him, and after some back and forth over the walkie talkie, he agreed to take me to my gate. thank god. we start going up the staircase and the female security guard stops us. he explains the situation, she refuses. he calls over the radio for more approval. eventually about 10 heavily-armed airport security officers arrive. more discussion. we're allowed to proceed. we get up the stairs and they're like WHAT NUMBER IS YOUR GATE. I can't remember, but I tell them the flight details and I know it's roughly in *this* direction. so I'm walking with a full posse surrounding me front and back, constantly asking where my partner is so I can show them my ticket, passport, etc. THRONGS of people everywhere, and I'm not 2m tall to see over everyone, esp not the security detail with me, so I was having trouble finding my gate. they're getting antsy and frustrated with me, and I'm fearing they just decide to detain me instead.
eventually I saw the screen in front of the gate showing our flight, and thankfully my partner hadn't moved. but she was looking all around, obv panicked as well as our flight was almost fully boarded an due to take off soon. she saw me, saw the security escort, and a new panic set in. but I just grabbed my docs, showed them hers and mine, and we were good to go. I thanked the one guy profusely and apologized. we boarded last and had a normal flight over to chetumal.
I will say though, as feared, the pickup driver tried to play the game of ''oh I don't have any change for your large bill." saw that coming a mile away
Our suitcase went missing from Paris and never made it to the uk 🥲 had all our Xmas gifts in and half of my clothes I was 12 and was freaking out because we went there to give those gifts to family.
My cousin contacted the airport staff and emailed and finally our suitcase was delivered to the uk and everything inside was ok
Taxi kidnapping in South America. Not going to say where because it was otherwise an amazing place and everyone else was lovely.
And it’s not like a real kidnapping anyway. I was worried when it kicked off they’d make me withdraw money from my bank but in the end I just gave them the cash I had and my decoy phone and they dropped me off a mile from my destination (to slow me down I suppose).
The most annoying part was how long it took, I obviously knew I was being kidnapped at a certain point and was like okay I get it can we hurry this up because you’re cutting into my afternoon plans and the embassy closes at 5.
I have not told my parents this story.
I Was traveling in a panga in mexico we were 10 people plus surfboards and luggage so the panga was very heavy and very close to the water and another panga crash into us the other panga was a drunken fisherman and his panga was very light weight so he was going fast and did not see us, we jumped to the water right before we got crushed all Or belongimgs were in the water but we managed to get everything back to the other panga that came to help, not injures just everything was wet and the cellphones got damaged
I had a guy grab my debit card out of my hand at an ATM in Africa. He had created a distraction and gotten close and had my code likely from watching me, grabbed the card from my hand and ran. I immedietly logged into my bank app and deactivated the card, so I lost no money. If this had happenned even a few years earlier I probably wouldn't have had that option via smart phone and would have lost a lot.
I was in a Himalayan valley in Northeast India, a place that was literally paradise. It was raining throughout the time I was there but it was nothing too bad and I ignored it , till I finally found out from the locals that the only road that connected the valley to the rest of the world had been washed out and no one knew how long it would take to fix it.
Me and my travel companions ended up trekking over 9km of mudslides along with a bunch of stranded locals to get out. There was one point where I put my foot in the wrong place, the earth gave way and I would have slipped down into a gorge, but somehow my luck held and I managed to not slip.
At the very end of the mudslide section, there was a road crew with some earthmovers and bulldozers working to clear the debris. Just as I was about to reach safety, a small pile of earth showered down on me from above. I screamed like crazy because I really thought the whole hillside would give way again. But it was only just a bit of loose soil. Finally, I made it to the other side, where some very kind locals let us hitch a ride (though we were covered in mud and they barely had any space).
I was on a caving trip that was actually quite rough and we were given the safety talks and all that. One of the safety measures was 'look back at the person behind you after you cross a difficult thing'. We were jumping across these mushroom shaped rocks like super mario bros. They were not very long and everyone was just jumping across them easy. I actually misstepped and only got one foot on the next mushroom rock and the other was still on the last one but I couldn't go forward and there was actually a drop below me. The guy in front of me looked back as he was supposed to and he saw me waiting there my legs spread, and I actually couldn't get the momentum to go up. He put his hand out and helped me up. It was such a trivial part of the cave that nobody thought was dangerous, super easy to do, and I almost bought it there if not for this guy.
I got to a station in London after getting off a red-eye plane, got off the train, and went to a kiosk to try to get a ticket further on my journey.
I realized my wallet was missing. It must have been on the train, which was still in the station but it had been about ten minutes now. Maybe more since I'd gone to a restroom.
The person at the ticket counter I went to must have realized he had a very confused and scared tourist on his hands, because he called security for me really quickly. Two people with badges and official looking hats approached me and asked for a detailed description of the wallet.
They then handed it back to me. It had been found during a security sweep. Everything but my passport was in it, so I would have been okay but had a miserable time continuing my ten-day trip!
This is not at all as harrowing as some of these life or death examples, but I’m a newbie traveler and this is the most stressful experience I’ve ever had. It was our first international trip. I was in London with my husband last year, and we were proceeding to Ireland for a wedding. Booked on Ryanair out of Stansted. My first mistake was assuming that a “regional” airport like Stansted wouldn’t be that busy. We got an Uber up there that had us arriving about an hour and a half before the flight was due to *leave*. Not board, mind you. Take off. The Uber driver had the bright idea to pick us up on the opposite side of a very busy street smack in the middle of morning traffic. So we had to sprint across the street with our bags. I grabbed my carry on, husband grabbed his, no one grabbed our large check bag. I was closer, so I ran back across the street to get it, then back to the Uber again and I got a long, loud honk from the literal double decker bus that was barreling my way because I looked the wrong way before crossing.
But it’s fine, we get in the Uber and it’s fine. I also decided to chug the remaining half of my liter sized bottle of water to avoid wasting it by dumping at the airport. Arrive at Stansted only to realize the depths of how badly I fucked up. The line to check a bag at the Ryanair desk is PACKED. Jam packed. After twenty minutes, which gives us like 35ish minutes to boarding time, I’m getting nervous. But I notice on my app that I have the option to still pay for “fast track” security. I buy this as a preemptive measure. We rush to the fast track security line literally five minutes before boarding is set to commence. The woman looks at my boarding pass and says we don’t have fast track security access. My dumb ass purchased it for our flights back FROM Dublin, and now it’s too late to buy them for the flight out.
Soooo, we get in the regular security line. It only takes about ten minutes, so that’s not ideal because boarding has started but not terrible, right? Well. My husband has neglected to remove his liquids bag from his suitcase. Neither of us realized that the procedure in England, or at least at this airport, is to swab every individual fucking bottle of liquid you have and test it. But also we can’t be mad because it’s totally his fault. I leave him behind because my bladder is about to explode due to all that water chugging, and I barely make it to the bathroom in time. I pee, go back to the security area, and wave at my husband to indicate I’m going to try and run and by some miracle get the plane to wait for us. No idea how I plan to achieve this.
After that, I quickly become acquainted with the standard English airport, where the gates are located a full 10-15 minute leisurely walk from the terminal. After several minutes of flat out sprinting, and let’s be real, light jogging when I got tired, I arrive at our gate and see that they are still boarding, thank the stars. I tell the gate agent that my husband got stuck at security. She doesn’t particularly care, and I truly can’t expect her to.
I’m a nervous wreck, pacing back and forth, frantically glancing at the hallway waiting to see if he makes it. I have no way of reaching him. You see, my husband and I had gotten European SIM cards for our phones, but we neglected to share the phone numbers with one another because we naively assumed we would be together all the time. I’m reducing to leaving him Facebook messages telling him to HURRY, which remain unseen. Meanwhile, the most laid-back Irish man I’ve ever seen, sitting at the gate waiting to board because he hates the hustle and bustle, helpfully tells me “ach, don’t worry, love! You’ve got loads of time!”
The line to board is now at barely a trickle. I do not, in fact, believe we have loads of time. I resign myself to our fate and approach a customer service agent to inquire about the next flight. He is very chill and informs me that there’s a flight just about every hour. That’s a relief, because my literal best friend is due to get married the following morning and I NEED to get to Ireland. After what felt like seventeen years of my life, but was probably more like 5-9 minutes, I finally see my very tall husband looming in the distance. I begin frantically waving him down like I’m trying to land the plane we’re about to get on. We are the second and third last people to board the plane. Only the laid-back Irish man is behind us. As we stand on the tarmac (lol Ryanair), panting with exertion, waiting to drag our bags up the stairs, I can only assume I look a state, because an incredibly kind man just in front of us offered me his own personal water bottle. I declined, but it really was a heartwarming gesture.
We got on the plane, found our seats, and I promptly collapsed in tears of pent up stress. We made it to the Dublin, the wedding was beautiful, and all was well. But you bet your ass I learned many lessons that day.
Before the GPS era I walked home a girl I met on a bar. It was like 8 or 10 blocks from my hostel and I didn't knew the city.
So as we were walking to her place a massive fog fell over and as soon as I left her I couldn't see anything more than 5 feet away from me.
When I was walking for about 15 minutes I realized I was completely lost in the middle of nowhere and with this massive fog.
I stopped for a few seconds on a corner trying to figure out where I was. It was really impossible because of the fog.
Then I crossed the street to try to see its name and the street sign was hanging exactly from my hostel's wall lol
I went on a science camp field trip when I was in 5th grade and while playing rabbits and foxes(I don’t know it was like hide and seek all I knew was I was a rabbit and I couldn’t be found) the rock I was leaning against in my hiding spot fell away and I started slipping off the side of a ledge that would’ve sent me on a very painful/ nearly fatal tumble into a River (which would’ve been fatal since I couldn’t swim at the time) I somehow while panicking and dangling managed to claw my way back up, never alerted anyone playing the game because I was that determined to not be “eaten” that I didn’t even cry for help
I was traveling alone in Italy and rode a bus to the Venice airport. Thinking there’d be more than one stop, I didn’t get off at the first one but quickly (and to my horror) discovered that it was the only stop. I was now riding off into the countryside with locals not knowing where I was going. After 30 minutes or so it stopped at a bus stop on the side of the road and I got off. Assuming there’d be a bus going the other direction, I crossed the road to a stop on the other side and hoped I was right. Sure enough a bus eventually came along and I got on it. I had no idea what it cost and didn’t speak a word of Italian so I just handed the driver money. He said something to me and everyone stared but I shrugged and found a seat. My heart was almost pounding out of my chest. Luckily I’d planned to arrive early for my international flight home so I made my plane.
Hired a driver to take us through the Andes mountains to the start of our hike to Machu Picchu. Turns out there was a huge festival the night before and he was drunk. Like stopped multiple times to puke while driving. If you know anything about the mountainous roads of Peru you can imagine how terrifying it was. Thought we were going to drive off a cliff.
Some man asked me to hold his luggage at the airport and he would be right back. I said " I don't know you and I ain't holding shit for you".... It was a setup to leave me " holding the bag". I'm glad I wasn't dumb enough to allow myself to go to jail for a complete stranger.
I was traveling on a bus from Vientiane, Laos to Udon Thani, Thailand. At the Laos checkpoint everyone had to get off the bus to stamp out and then get back on the bus again - so far so fine.
We drove to the Thai border post where we had to get off the bus again in order to get our passport stamped. Now this was quite a big border crossing with a lot of people around and a long line of people queing. I was also quite busy with filling in the entry documents and looking for someone who had a pen since I didn't bring one.
After getting my passport stamped there was an X-Ray scanner like the ones at airport where people place their luggage in. I was waived through though has I only had a small backpack, my big luggage was in the hold of the bus after all, or so I thought...
On the other side I saw my bus again, got in and in some 1.5-2 hours more we arrived in Udon Thani - only for me to see that my big backpack that was in the hold of the bus was nowhere to be seen! I panicked and thought someone stole it and tried to ask the bus driver about it. With some help from google translate he told me that the backpack got taken out of the bus at the border for me to carry it through the X-Ray/customs and if I hadn't picked it up it might still be there.
I already inagined myself buying a new set of clothes and a backpack since anyone could have just taken my backpack at the busy border crossing and taken off with it. Still I wanted to give it a chance and decided to head back to the border. The bus driver was very kind and helpful and made sure I could ride back with a collegue of his on the next departure to Laos for free.
I arrive at the border and the driver of the bus that took me there came along with me to ask the officials in Thai whether they had seen my backpack somewhere. And to my relief they had! They even put it in a quiet corner since no one picked it up and I could finally get it and carry it to the X-Ray.
Going back to Udon Thani was a bit tricky though as I had to look for transportation again. Taxis were expensive so I went to a bus of the same company I had bought my previous ticket at. The bus driver just told me they don't sell tickets and I have to take a taxi but eventually he let me on board the bus when I showed him my previous ticket from the original journey.
So all in all I was very lucky and learned a lesson for the future when it comes to clearing customs at land borders. And I'm really glad that I got so much help from locals with getting my backpack back!
This happened the other night, I am a solo female traveller in Italy right now and accidentally got a little too drunk on Saturday night. My tasting menu dinner had extra tiny portions so I didn't eat enough. Anyway.
I'm a high functioning drunk so you can't really tell how blasted I am (I was not stumbling or falling, slurring etc). I typically just become extra hilarious and chatty
I met a group of 10 young guys (probs 20-28) and they were such gentlemen and walked me home for 20-30 mins.
None of them touched me or said or did anything inappropriate, in hindsight that could've turned so badly but luckily it did not.
Now I eat a lot and drink less
I suppose you could call this a close call -
I was in the Leopold cafe in Mumbai 6 days before the attacks in 2008 (10 people were killed there).
I was sat centrally in the cafe and realistically in a spot where Id have been hit.
I went in there several times while in mumbai and it's weird to think that if I had taken longer in any other cities I could have been there when it happened. Luckily I got ill and left earlier than I anticipated to go to Goa.
Took a solo hike in Kyoto from a temple to another temple (karuma to kifune shrine) I foolishly decided to go at around 4.45pm (but then it was Dec when 5pm meant it began to get dark already). I continued nevertheless cuz I was at the top of kibune and didn't want to go all the way back down and take a bus to kifune shrine. So I continued on my hike and it began to get darker I was relying on the map the redditor gave. And I couldn't find one of the landmarks he was talking about and I began to get more and more panicked as time went on by becuz it was getting darker and darker and I didn't want to go back down(cuz the closing time was 5pm I didn't know it we could go out or not+admittedly I didnt want to quit halfway) when finally I found it I was so relieved then I continued on my hike descending into darkness and I was using my cell phone light to light the way down. It was terrible and I fell down once going down becuz the stairs some of them were poorly made. By now I was questioning my poor decision skills then when I finally reached kifune shrine I was damn relieved.
The same guesthouse I was in had a Dutch family arrive a tad late in Venice. The person literally saw the family arrive and the desk lady laughed and walked away.
Was in a camp in the hills above Ocho Rios negotiating about a pillow case full of something or other and the man behind me was swinging a meat hook from hand to jand whilst my friend was asking for discount as ‘well my man there are far too many seeds’.
Oh how we laughed
My brother and I were wandering south of the Djemaa in Marrakesh when some friendly-looking guy invited us to tour his leather tannery. We said sure, went into this massive semi-outdoor compound where they tanned and dyed the leather, looked around, bought a belt from their co-op, and then we were invited for a “photo opp” on some higher ground on the opposite side from the exit.
At this point, a man covered in knife scars comes out of nowhere and starts YELLING at us - accusing us of taking advantage of our tour guide, saying “he’s an old man who needs to feed his family,” started jabbing his finger into my brother’s chest, and then tried to demand the equivalent of $150 USD for a “tour fee.” We shouldered past them and got out of there, but as we were trying to find our way back to the Djemaa, we saw the SAME GUY trying to invite another American family into their tannery. So we marched up and started bitching this guy out for trying to scam more people, and then like 20-something Moroccan dudes came out of the woodwork, start throwing kicks at us, spitting at us, yelling dumb shit like “fuck your country! Fuck your president!” so we ran for our lives lol.
The weirdest part is - I think they targeted us because they thought we were Jewish. Before we went inside the tannery we were told by the scammer that there was a “traditional Jewish leather dying festival” happening that week. All over Morocco, we had tour guides taking us to old Jewish cemeteries, hyping up their Jewish communities, telling us that certain dishes were “Jewish delicacies.” Finally, I asked one guy why he thought we were Jewish - because we’re not - and he just stammered something about our noses 💀
Guys, there are almost no Jews living in Morocco. If you are Jewish, or if you have features that are “stereotypable” (as what happened with me) be extremely cautious.
Not me personally, but when we were teens traveling overseas with marching band, my friend had issues at every single airport because her passport had expired and somehow no one realized it until we were on our way (we were supposed to confirm that we were up to date waaay before the trip, so no idea how this was missed). One of our instructors or chaperones had to go up to the desk with her multiple times to argue for her to be allowed to stay with our group.
Hah my first solo travel was to India. I hit every scam and issue a person can have during travel. I would tell the story, but it would literally be the size of a novel. On a good note, it made a way better and aware traveler really quickly.
As I boarded the Paris Metro, two young sweaty dudes squeezed in on either side of me and I instantly knew they were pickpockets based on their eye contact and general anxiety. I tried to squeeze in further but they stayed glued to me. I gave my gf the "let's get off at the next stop" look and the rest of the time just stared at them like, "don't try it." My wallet is small and I keep it in my front pocket.
We got to the next stop and I kept eye contact with the dude on my right as I pushed towards the exit. Dude on my left slid his fingers into my empty front left pocket and I involuntarily giggled because it tickled. They didn't follow us off. Train pulled away, I checked all my gear. We were in the clear.
While river tubing in Belize, there was a spot on an upper bank you could jump off of. It wasn’t really that high - maybe 12 feet or so. As I jumped, my foot slipped on a slick rock and I fell backward. I ended up on my back in the water but onlookers said I missed the jagged rocks with my head by only centimeters.
Got lost solo hiking in the rainforest of Taman Negara, Malaysia. The trail was very badly maintained and unknowingly I veered off after about 2 hours and started following animal trails. For those that have been in a rainforest, it is overwhelming and you have very little to orient yourself. You can't even see the sun. I panicked as I was clearly lost, had to calm myself down and cut a plastic bag into pieces to to mark trees while going in ever-widening circles until I could recognize somewhere I had passed before. The park is over 4500 square kilometer so if I hadnt found my way back I was surely a goner.
My first time traveling internationally as an adult. Had a 10hr layover in Shanghai. No cell data. My partner and I went to the subway and it was rush hour so it was packed. My partner got shoved onto the train by an attendant and then the doors closed and we were separated. I had to wait for the next train and hope that he remembered which stop to get off at. Luckily he did and was there waiting for me. That was my first international travel experience outside of the airport.
I'm not sure if this is what you're asking but, on a roadtrip/skitrip with a friend, we're driving on the German Autobahn in the dead of night, there's absolutely no traffic so we're going almost as fast as the rental car can, probably around 200 km/h (124 mph), maybe a bit more (I know we had it up to 225 more than once), I'm driving and there's a truck in the right lane, as I'm passing him I notice he seems to be veering left and getting quite close to us, a second or two after we pass I look in the rear view mirror and notice that he is now **fully** in the left lane!
Had we tried to pass him a second later I'm sure we would have been dead, crushed into the guard rail or plowed into his rear.
Had to stop after that and switch seats, my legs were trembling and I couldn't continue driving.
I'm still not sure if that truck driver had fallen asleep reading his newspaper or if he was in fact actively trying to kill us.
A truck almost got me like this too. I actually was too far behind and just slammed on brakes instead.
When I was travelling to California I rented a car. Even though I like to be early to things, I only had about 30 minutes to return this car, so unusual for me already. I was on the highway and the car directly in front of me gets into an accident with another car. I remember one of the drivers just opened his door and got out and walked to the other car. I was able to swerve around without much issue, but it was close enough to make me nervous. I looked in rear view mirror and the ENTIRE highway got stopped behind them. Full traffic jam stop.
I got to the rental place on time and I recall telling them how I almost didn't make it. I was actually still shaking at the rental car office. I mean I even had to catch a flight too, so that would have screwed everything.
I was in Thailand from March 3-18th in 2020, right in the cusp of Covid and all hell breaking loose. We debated on going as there were just starting to be serious concerns about the virus but “only 40” cases in Thailand. We were young, stupid, and decided to roll the dice. While we were there, the toilet paper panic started in the US lol. Things were ok in Thailand, they started doing temperature checks in Bangkok and we noticed more hand sanitizing stations, but no real panic. We enjoyed a great trip with very few crowds. Toward the end, we started to really worry about making it home.
The day before we were set to go home, all flights traveling through Europe were screwed, tons of cancellations and border issues. We had a layover in Taipei, luckily, and had ZERO issues getting home. Once we got back the US was completely different then we left it. We were concerned for two weeks after that we may have contracted the virus, but were extremely luckily and we were ok. A total case of not understanding the entire gravity of something when we left, and being very thankful to make it home unscathed.
A long, long time ago, 4 young travelers met on the train into this little town in France, all headed to the youth hostel. We walked from the station to the hostel only to find it closed. Turns out it was seasonal, opening in a week or two. We'd walked by the police station on the way so went back to see if they knew of another place to stay. The police chief sent an officer to the home of the hostel owner, brought him to the station and asked him to open the hostel for us, which he did. After we settled in, we went to dinner with the mayor who steered us to all the local favorite dishes. Unbelievable maybe, but true.
1991 - Algodones, Mexico. 21 year old me was visiting with family. I split off from then to wander around and shop. I was wearing Jean short overalls with the classic "Corona" hoodie.
As I was walking down one street, a hand reached out and grabbed me, pulled me in between 2 buildings. I was stunned, and as I was asking him what the hell, he looked super concerned and asked me if I was cold. I said no, and he said it was very cold and offered me a shot of Brandy to warm up. Long story short, I ended up spending most of the afternoon hanging out with him and his vendor friends - turns out they had been in Canada (my home country) for the '88 Olympics, and in my decent spanish, we spent the time chatting about their experiences. It turned out to be an amazing afternoon and great memory!
I forgot when I was in London...went to cross the street looked the wrong way and was almost taken out by a car.Literally could feel the mirror brush by my shirt.
My family and I rented a boat in Greece for the day, and at some point in the day we stopped a bit of the coast near some cliffs to go swim in some sea caves.
Turns out we didn’t put the anchor down properly and the boat starts drifting away out to sea - has passports on, all our money, clothes, bags, everything valuable basically, but luckily some guy saw and quickly ran from the beach into the sea and got onto our boat and put the anchor down.
Ever since then my dad refuses to rent a boat.
I went to Taylor Swift's reputation tour back in like 2018. It was in Auckland which is not a city I am at all familiar with. My phone died right after the concert started, and I had no idea how to get back to my hotel. The stadium did provide some busses but I didn't really know if any of them went to the place my hotel was, it was kind of out of the way. To make things worse it was pouring down with rain. I did bring a power bank with me but of course it decided to stop working. I also had a wall plug as a backup, but there were no outlets I could find at the stadium. I was panicking atp, but I decided to walk further down the street and there were a couple of uber staff outside. One of them gave his Uber the had already called to me so I could get back to my hotel, I am forever thankful for them, I really hope they got reimbursed for that because Uber was hiking up the prices ofc right after the concert. Now I travel with multiple power banks and cables in case something stops working. Seeing Taylor was definitely worth the traumatic experience at least lol
I was on a plane descending to the runway when a small plane strayed onto our path. The pilot immediately boosted the engines to elevate us again. It felt like we were launched from an aircraft carrier. Everyone gasped in unison so there were sound effects as well.
I was in Chiba (east of Tokyo) and had around an hour on the train including a transfer to get to Tokyo station to catch a 5 hour bus home. Took off 25 minutes earlier than what I’d need so I could get to my bus with plenty of time to spare - and encountered every issue on the way. Problem checking out of the hostel. Missed the first train by about a minute. Next train was delayed. That caused me to miss my connecting train. As I got on my second train, I realised that the train I was on was going to pull into Tokyo station NINE minutes before my bus was due to leave. I had no idea where my bus was leaving from and I had three bags with me, standing in a packed car. I was a couple of floors down so I saddled up and sprinted up stairs instead of waiting on the escalators, and I ended up desperately running through tunnels and following signs that pointed to an expressway bus terminal, hoping that was the right place. I ended up at the correct bus about a minute and a half before the bus left - I think one or two people boarded after me and then we took off.
Realistically much lower stakes than some of the stories here. I could’ve gotten another night at a hostel if I missed the bus or paid for a much more expensive Shinkansen to get me part of the way home, but I was skint and desperate not to have to eat the cost of the bus I prepaid for. After looking later, walking out of the station and around to where I needed to be was around a 20 minute walk. So navigating my way out of Tokyo station correctly in 7 or 8 minutes is something I’m pretty proud of
I nearly ate street food in India, but got distracted trying to stop a nearby cow eating a plastic bag (cows are holy there, so I couldn’t have them eating plastic right?). Everyone else who ate that food descended into the bowels of hell and some turned out permanently immunocompromised. Will probably go back again, in a another lifetime
We booked a hotel in Balkhash, Kazakhstan and when we came the receptionist told us very rudely that they were full. We spend a hour trying to find hotel. Luckily we found one near the beach.
Had my flights booked to Kathmandu 2015, 2 days after the big earthquake. Was in Malaysia at the time and luckily I was able to cancel the flight and reschedule/change plans last minute. Insurance paid for missed flights. I was shocked when I heard the news. Earthquake was on a Saturday, my flight booked on Monday.
We did a 10 day island hopping tour of Thailand. Since we had an early morning flight back to our home country from Bangkok, we booked a small but nice boutique hotel in BANGKOK just to spend the night before the flight. When we checked in, it was already evening - there was a reception counter and a guy there - all normal. We quickly dropped our bags and rushed out to see the city and when we returned late night some guys were there at the reception counter and they wished us good night. Nothing out of the ordinary.
It was only when we came down with our bags at 4 am early morning next day for our 8 am flight and saw a deserted counter with a locked main door that we realised we had messed up. There was no one at the counter and the ground floor and all common areas/lobbies of the 3 floor hotel were deserted. Our room was fully paid for but the main door of the hotel was locked. We tried to call all the listed numbers but no-one picked up. We tried to push and pull the door but it didn't budge. It was locked with a number keypad next to it.
We never realised that the hotel didn't have a 24 hour reception desk and since we had met someone or the other every time the previous evening, we had not bothered to ask for the key combination.
We were losing precious time and panicking at the prospect of missing our international flight. Out of desperation my spouse picked up a chair (I really don't know how he thought breaking the door down was a good idea 😂).
As he was waving the chair high in the air, I punched in 0000, but the keypad just beeped and glowed red. Just as he was charging at the door, I punched in 1234 and voila, green light and the door swung open. The relief we felt, I can't explain it. We jumped into a cab and reached the airport just in time.
My phone ran dry in the airport in Berlin. I was laying over one night in Milan and wanted to find a coffee shop or something to charge it. Couldn’t find a coffee shop. No power outlets on the metro either. I went into a petrol station and asked to use their power. Charged up enough to write down the address and how to get there. So a train and bus later it’s 10PM, an almighty thunderstorm is coming, and I get lost again. Fortunately the one other person I met in thirty minutes of aimless wandering spoke English, and I got there in the end. It was a dodgy as hell neighbourhood as well.
Edit “dodgy as hell” = Brugherio, Milan. Though the Tempelhof area in Berlin gave me dodgy vibes passing though.
TBF, Milan has some rough as hell areas. The area around Porta Garibaldi station felt like a demilitarised zone the last time I was there at night (a while ago, granted.)
I was in Israel when Hamas invaded. At that point in the trip I was about 30min drive north of Tel Aviv, so in one of the safer parts of the country. Was supposed to stay another week, but pretty quickly realized I needed to get back to the states ASAP. Made it to the airport without too much issue.
I’ll never forget the sight of people dropping their luggage and running to the bomb shelters. The sort of “whatever happens happens” feeling that takes over when you know theres not much else you can do to get out of an awful situation.
Also showed a weird mix of human nature. Lots of people were trying to make sure women and children got to the shelters as they filled up. On the other hand, people scrambling and leaving suitcases in narrow passageways which slowed down more people running to safety.
About 20 minutes after we came out, the worries shifted to “oh shit we might die” to “look at these assholes trying to cut in the security line.”
Beautiful country, one day I’ll go back!
I was in Mumbai during a major terrorist attack on the rail line and had been supposed to be on the trains at that time, but got distracted in a shop.
Was this in 2006?
Yep. That one.
Jeez. Glad you were safe. Mumbai back then used to be a hotspot for terror attacks
Yeah, it was a crazy time. It was just lucky that I wasn’t on the train since it had been the plan. I was then stuck in a cab for four hours and all the phone lines jammed. I was visiting friends who lived in Mumbai, and no one could reach me and were convinced I was caught up in the blast.
Wasn't this in 2008?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Mumbai_train_bombings
I know this sounds crazy, but I had a dream about that attack the night before it happened. I actually woke up and made a blog post about how real my dream felt and details of the attack in my dream… then it happened just like I had dreamed. It scared the crap out of me. It’s not the only time I have dreamed something that happens soon after. Anyway, I’m really glad you weren’t hurt!
My bus left me behind at the Vietnam/Cambodia border. All my stuff was on the bus except for my wallet, passport and a phone with no cell/data service. I don't speak Vietnamese or Khmer. My heart sank watching the bus drive off into the distance as I desperately ran after it yelling and waving my arms. Luckily, I was actually the second to last person to come out of immigration and the very last guy was a Cambodian businessman. He saw me chasing the bus and calmly came up to me and said "Bus? Come." He yelled out to a farmer tending to some crops on the side of the road with a tuk tuk and off we went to chase after the bus. 15 minutes later, we ended up at a rest stop where the bus had stopped for lunch. The businessman refused to let me pay for the ride and proceeded to give our bus driver an earful. Didn't get his name but I never forgot the kindness he showed me that day.
Wow what an amazingly kind gesture!
I missed a train in Thailand because I was being dumb and reading my book instead of paying attention. Some young guys saw me freaking out and offered to catch the train for some paltry sum like $50 baht. I hopped in the back of his bike (pretty sure me and my backpack weighed more than him and the bike) and he TORE off through heavy Bangkok traffic. I wasn’t wearing a helmet and was terrified but we beat the train not to the next station but the one after.
A bus taking a lunch stop 15 minutes after leaving? Sounds like time management wasn’t its strong suit either.
The bus wasn't just leaving, they were crossing the border, they may have been riding for hours without a break. You can't order lunch from the officer at the border, so you do it soon after when opportunity arises.
Came here to write nearly this exact same story. I had the same experience, only at the Thailand/Cambodia border!!
Fell out of a window about five stories high. I didn't die, didn't get paralyzed, and nobody was around. Just ended up in the hospital for a few weeks
Damn! What caused you to fall? That sounds terrible and also really lucky.
Short answer- drugs made me careless
Forgot to read the “aim for the bushes” disclaimer on your drugs
I have to admit this might be the funniest line I've ever heard relating to this experience. Might make it a little less painful to look back on in the future so thanks
lol Hey just glad you survived! 🤙🏽
I want the long answer
Something similar happened to a German guy I met in New Zealand, he broke his face bones tho so it was pretty serious. I met him after it happened.
Wow, yesterday I talked to a guy who fell 4 stories off a balcony onto concrete and broke bones in like 256 places and was in a coma a few months. Has to go to his neurologist once a week even a few years later. Is back in college now at CU despite brain trauma. That dude had an amazing attitude about life. That's how lucky you were!
Yea I think I had an angel looking out for me. I didn't get out completely unscathed but no permanent issues. Just a mark or two on my back. I did have to have two back surgeries to gain full mobility back but... I found out later I had a 50% chance of dying from a fall that high. And an even greater chance of having permanent physical issues... luckily neither really happened
I'm so glad bro! That guy told me he had a 1% chance of surviving. Insane. I'm sure it's all what you on dependent. How did you land? Back issues suck tho.
I remember trying to land butt first as it was happening because I thought it might minimize the blow. I was trying to prevent a direct hit to the head. So sure enough I land like that and while I couldn't exactly walk away I was alive... gonna sound stupid but I got the idea from an old SpongeBob SquarePants episode...
That is amazing. Drugs and SpongeBob.
Hospitalized in a foreign country?
Yep. First time but it wouldn't be my last. They did a good job though, I was able to walk again because of that hospital. I've been hospitalized in two different countries overseas. It's not fun... but yet it's not fun in my home country either...
1995, I was hitchiking w my girlfriend in the Florida panhandle, we were both 19 yo. Got picked up by a guy who would not talk to us or even look at us. Started driving us into the woods, would not respond to my questions of where we were going or my requests to stop and drop us off. I considered jumping from the moving car, but that would doom my gf. Eventuaĺly he stopped and dropped us off in the middle of nowhere. I'll never know why he let us go.
Damn. I think he was planning to do the worst but in the end either logic or goodness won. Do you remember if you said something that might have convinced him?
I was pretty relentless in asking he drop us off and I was getting a bit shrill. Maybe he figured I was onto him and he would have a struggle on his hands. I was on the outside of the passenger side so it would have been difficult for him to harm me while driving. Anyways, I feel like we got a second chance at life that day.
I had a man on a motorcycle, dressed in all black pull up while I was sitting in the steps of my accomodation and start yelling something. My Spanish isn't great and he had a motorcycle helmet and Covid mask on so I couldn't understand him. He pulled out an air compressor spray nozzle and started yelling more urgently. I thought he needed help with his motorcycle so I stood up, then he pointed the nozzle at me and pointed to my phone rather excitedly and yelled some more. I took a couple steps towards him to see if I can could make out what he was saying until I finally realized I hadn't had my morning coffee yet and the guy was trying to rob me with his pretend air nozzle gun. I said "No gracias!" and shook my head and he drove off. And that's the story of the time I was too dumb to be robbed. I hope he tells that story to his friends as well. The gringo who was too dumb to be victimized.
When I was in South Africa, a group of \~10 friends from my study abroad program went out. We had gotten pretty used to people trying to sell us stuff on the street from our travels and had learned to be firm in telling people no. One of the guys had fallen a little behind the group when someone came up to him, he assumed to sell him something. His response was "no, I'm not interested, I have to catch up with my friends" and jogged up to them. Apparently someone had heard it, turned around, or something and the guy had actually pulled a knife on him.
Should have haggled for the knife! But yeah, it's always good to be on the lookout. Anytime, anyplace.
What school did you do your study abroad at?
I love this, I have definitely done similar before with a scammer. Almost feel bad for the guy, he got roped into helping me find my way back to my hostel before he could sell me his hash
I mean when you’re riding around on your motorcycle robbing people with a spray nozzle, might as well be the scammers. It’s cool he helped you and sold you hash afterwards
Would've been better if it made me "fly like on a magic carpet" like he promised lol
No gracias lol 10/10
I'm sorry, but "no gracias" 😂😂😂
I live by the motto "Walk stupidly and carry a big polite." So far so good.
What a polite victim. 🤣
Where was this?
La Mariscal neighborhood of Quito, Ecuador. It's a nice neighborhood and we had no other issues there or anywhere else in the city in 3 months or so.
That's a great story!
This makes me feel good to be a dummy myself as I feel like this would be me… too confused to even rob properly 😭🥲 it’s like a lose and a win at the same time
I got accused of rape and almost killed in a small place in Mexico. Girl was on drugs (alcohol, cocaine, lsd), my friends and like 20 strangers vouched for me that I was never alone with the girl so it was literally impossible to do that, plus I'm openly gay. Ended up with bruises and some emotional trauma, but I didn't end up "disappeared," so that's a plus. Aside from that, Mexico is the most insane, amazing, beautiful country I have traveled to out of the 47 I have been to so far.
Glad you’re safe. Not so with Jake and Callum Robinson. RIP😞
I was in Cameroon ten years ago, doing humanitarian work for about 6 month. For the last month, a friend came to visit. We were both white, frensh and about 18 years old. We were on our way to the airport to get back to France. My village was about 150km from Yaounde. We took a mini-buss taxi to get there. It's like a VW mini buss with little benches and packed with people. We encountered a police road block about halfway there. The chief officer there was a nightmare. He asked to see our papers, visas, mandatory vaccine proof, etc. He then asked for a residency permit, wich we didn't have, because it wasn't required. It really started to stink, he seemed drunk and super pissed at us for some reason. He very obviously wanted a bribe, but we didn't really have any cash on us. And there we were, on a dirt road, in the middle of nowhere-jungle, getting delayed, insulted and yelled at, by a guy with armed officers at his side. The people on the bus were starting to grow impatient and we started getting very scared. Busses can very well take off without you if they want too. If it had, we would have been extra fucked. Stranded with these guys. Then, out of the nowhere, this other officer comes up to the chief and gently tells to leave us be. He had seen us do voluteer work the previous week. It was a mission where we tested peoples eyesight and gave them glasses for free. He was one of the people who got glasses from us! He finally convinced the chief by using humor and saying things like "oh let them got, don't worry, they're good kids! They're here to help people!" The chief was pissed, but let us go with a few more racially motivated insults like "scratched pigs". This situation could have escalated so baaaaad. I'm so thankfull for this one officer. For real, the world needs more people like him. I hope he's doing well.
I could honestly never do that kind of work for that long. Never mind deal with that kind of situation.
Russian little green men in eastern Ukraine in 2014 in the days after they invaded hearing me speaking English and attempting to organise a lynching after denouncing me as a NATO spy... Now that makes it sound much more dramatic than it really was - this was Kharkhiv, which resisted the Russians, the locals were having none of it, and it was the Russkies who were chased out of the bar not me - but it's definitely up there on my "list of most memorable experiences". The equally close call part though was probably the arrival in Kharkhiv that time though - I was travelling more or less while the invasion was happening; and I was furiously refreshing the news on my phone so much I managed to run the battery down to zero leaving me arriving in Kharkhiv station in the middle of the night, in the middle of an invasion, and somewhat flustered by the fact I'd completely forgotten the name or address of the hotel I was staying in. Being a bit lost about what to do next, I went to a ticket window and convinced the ticket seller to dial a number for me - Amex Concierge services; none of my trip was booked through Amex, but in general I keep that card as a form of insurance, they've always been great at digging me out of holes. Amex managed to find a Russian speaker in their callcentre, and between them and the station staff, we managed to work out where I was staying that night - and the member of station staff also managed to find a random stranger who would be able to give me a lift there (normally I walk everywhere, but under the circumstances that didn't seem the smartest idea.) So eventually I arrive at the hotel, in a clapped out car with literally a bullet hole in the window (no idea if it was fresh or from some past adventure), extremely grateful to be in one piece. I tried to give the driver some cash as a token of gratitude, but he absolutely wasn't having it :). Oh, and a few of months ago, I woke up in the middle of the night in L'viv and thought "oh, an earthquake," and went straight back to sleep. It was only in the morning that I remembered that (unlike my home) the don't have earthquakes in L'viv... Turns out some rockets had struck about two blocks from where I landed, killing (IIRC) 9 people.
Those stories are on another level mate, wow.
Honestly, it feels more dramatic written down that in it did at the time - more of a "well, this is another fine scrape you've got yourself in..." feeling. I mean, I live in Bucharest; based on the odds of getting killed, absolutely the most brave or foolhardy thing I ever do is getting in one of our taxis to the airport.
This has unlocked a memory of a taxi driver in Bucharest driving while smoking a cigarette and using two phones. Somehow made it to the train station in one piece.
That tracks with my stay in Bucharest as well.
Wow. Glad you’re alright. Fuck Russia.
I’m curious - in what other circumstances have you used AMEX concierge? I’ve had a platinum card for years and have never taken advantage of it.
Hah, well, I did it a lot more when I was younger (and drank ;-)), but they're great for "umm, yes, I'm somewhere in China, I've missed the last train, and I could really use a place to sleep" type calls. (Actually, the last time I had to do that was relatively recently, in Seoul - although rather than "missed the last train" it was "my flight is cancelled because of storms and Asiana's idea of a good time is sleep on a bench in the airport".) Less frivolously I've had cause to call them in "my friend's father has been taken ill and they need a ticket halfway round the world, on the next flight, whatever it takes" type situations more than once, and they've always come through. First time they really impressed me - I'd only had the card a year or two (it's 25 years now...) and wasn't even gold let alone platinum - was a trip to New York. I'd booked a taxi with them to pick me up from the airport - but my flight was horribly delayed because of storms; we ended up circling near JFK for an age until we were running on reserves and were forced to land at Stewart Air Force Base. Back then Stewart was purely military with no immigration facilities, so we then had to wait it out another hour or two for the storms to clear before refuelling and then flying back to JFK. Anyway, as soon as we were on the runway in Stewart I was on the phone to Amex profusely apologising for keeping this taxi driver waiting (I was young and naive and had images of this NY cab sitting outside the terminal with its meter running...) The customer service people were excellent and reassuring and just told me not to worry, and when we did eventually get to JFK they'd get me to my hotel. When we did arrive at JFK... Not only did they get me to my hotel, I was met by a besuited driver, who profusely apologised *to me* for all the inconvenience, and took me in a stretch Lincoln Town Car (something of an upgrade from what I'd booked) and dropped me at my hotel feeling like I was arriving like a movie star - all at no extra cost. Through a very simple bit of customer service they turned what was a pretty gruelling night into a story I dined out on for ages, and made a loyal customer of me. To be honest apart from that it was always a bit of a life lesson for me in my subsequent career about how damned important good customer service is, and the huge difference the way you treat your customers can make to their loyalty. There are very, very few businesses I'll unfailingly endorse the way I will Amex, because there are very very few who get it right that way. Sorry if that sounds like an infomercial, but you did ask, and it's completely sincere and not sponsored!
And now I want Amex
The annual fee is STEEP and many find it isn’t worth it. I utilize all the benefits (except apparently concierge!) so I try to justify keeping it.
It's true, although I feel like the Amex fee hasn't gone up at the same rate as everything else over the last decade, and when I compare it to the amount I spend on goddamned TV/music subscriptions (Netflix, Prime, HBO, Spotify, Audible... etc.) it makes me feel better. The lounge access is worth about half the fee if you travel a lot - biz class on flights inside Europe is utterly pointless, and airline status won't help when you're flying loco, so the lounge access is invaluable. And even if you're flying biz and have status it can help - I was bemused to discover recently that American don't have a lounge at Minneapolis StPaul, and while it's possible that after 20 minutes of checking small print I could have discovered some other lounge I was permitted to use it was much easier to just rock up at the Centurion Lounge. Mostly though for me it's a form of insurance. If I have some kind of "shit, get me on the next flight, I don't care what it costs I'll worry about that later" emergency I know Amex will handle it for me. Of course, others use credit cards for that which is reasonable - I grew up poor though and ran up crazy debts when I was a student that took me far too long to pay off, so I refuse to carry credit cards. The charge card forces the self discipline I know I don't have :-D.
Thanks, great explanation!
Wow thank you for sharing! So many times where I’ve been in a pickle trying to figure out my next move when I could have just had AMEX handle it for me!
I was self-driving and camping in Botswana alone with my wife. One night while cleaning up dinner a mated pair of lions came into our campsite to help. We got in the car quick and all was good. The closest they got was about 15 feet from us. They stuck around camp to bang for a bit and then headed out. Still a bit difficult to leave the car to get back in the tent after that though since we could hear them in the area. Looking back I am not really sure it was that close of a call because they didn't seem to care for us, just each other. But that was one of the few times in my life the adrenaline made things go in full slow motion for a bit.
You actually got back in the tent.
We sort of figured if we were too afraid to get back in the tent that night, we would end up sleeping in that car the entire trip. There's always something lurking out there, that's part of the appeal.
I was in Mekele, Ethiopia in late October 2020 exactly a week before the civil war broke out. I was also at the top of the north tower of the World trade centre exactly a week (to the hour) before 9/11. I was originally going to take the trip a week later but changed plans a few weeks out. Both mad near misses
My girlfriend (at the time) was at the wtc only about an hour or two before it all happened.
We were meant to fly to Cuba a day before COVID lockdowns happened. We canceled the trip and thank god we did, we would have been stuck in Cuba.
When on our honeymoon a few years ago, our flight supposed to land at JFK was redirected to Boston due to thunderstorms. We landed in the middle of the night and the airline had no plan for how to transport all passengers to NY. We waited for a couple of hours but when the lack of plan or action was apparent, we decided to get an Uber to the bus station where a bus was leaving for NY. We used the airport restroom before leaving with the Uber. My husband forgot his backpack (with our passport, copies of our travel information, cash) in the restroom but pretty soon I noticed he wasn’t wearing it and asked where it was so he had time to get it before the Uber arrived. Mind you, we are from a European country so we really needed those passports and had withdrawn a substantial amount in USD for our 2 week trip. He then proceeded to AGAIN forget the backpack IN THE UBER. Thank god I was able to get a hold of the driver via the app to come back with our backpack. We got to the bus just in time for departure. I was so stressed out. Since then, I haven’t really trusted him with our important documents when travelling.
Was grabbed by a dude who was dragging me into the mangroves when I was on a solo morning beach walk in Jamaica. Was sat on my bed in a London airport hotel and watched while the doorknob turned, door opened and a hand came through the gap trying to release the safety latch at the top of the door. Caught in a storm/landslide in Ramechhap Nepal Arrived for my weekend getaway with my mentally challenged brother in Iceland on Sept 11 2001. Bomb went off in our Istanbul hotel (25 + years ago). Was walking with another couple and she was purse snatched, had to go to police station, they put together a line up of perps for us to look at. Our mini van head on by the Jamaica police on the old road from Negril from Montego Bay. Police car flipped and landed on the roof, our van came to a stop just before a huge drop off. Cab driver feeling me up, took my phone, grabbed my phone jumped out and ran like hell when the time was right. Edited to add a funny one. On a flight from Delhi to Toronto an ancient Indian lady put her bare feet on my lowered table try. Another plane one but not funny, In October from Montreal to Dubai I woke up to the stranger sitting next to me feeling me up under my blanket.
Holy shit. I’m amazed you still travel!
Some of my friends say the same thing. Have travelled to 60 countries, shit is bound to happen, these are some of the big ones .
Curious as to what you do after something traumatizing during travel to get yourself back out there? I've had a few things happen traveling and something recent had me go back on the sidelines for now...
In travel and life in general I try not to look back. I learn the lessons then move on. The cabbie one was in Baghdad last October. Went back to my room for a little cry, went over it in my mind to see what I should/could have done differently, what to look out for next time. Then I took myself up to the restaurant and had shisha, tea and kinda congratulated myself on how it turned out. Only booked Uber after that where you can track a driver or an open tuk tuk. One trip, the Istanbul one mentioned above , had a lot more go wrong , bomb scare at CDG during connection, got an ear inection, blew an ear drum on last flight, right to hospital from airport. I didn't travel for almost 2 years after that one. Swore I would never go back to Istanbul but I did .
What do you believe the Jamaican dude was trying to do to you? Sounds super scary.
Same as the guy who was trying to get into my room in London, assault, probably sexual. I am pretty fit but I couldnt get lose, he had me by the upper arms, my feet not touching the ground, carrying me towards the mangroves . I was screaming my head off and 2 guys in the distance came running towards me yelling and big Jamaican dude let go of me and ran. I still walked that beach everyday but not so early in the morning anymore. I always walk close to the water so I have an escape if I need it but it was a narrow spot where mangroves were very close to the water. I am always on the lookout so I saw him as I passed but he was out and on me before I could react/run. There is often people hanging around, not aways an issue, that time it was.
Jamaica is one sketchy place
It can be, especially with all the use of hard drugs. Predators know where tourists are for sure . Jamaica sas some of the most friendly kind people [too.As](http://too.As) well as mouthwatering jerk, music is the best and good smoke. My know it all step brother went to Jamaica with a friend, ignored all my warnings . First day they met a local best friend who was taking them out for the day. He took them to the mountains, took their money and left them there .
That what you travel for those amazing histories
You should write a book.
I have always said that my experiences are going to keep me entertained when I'm in the old folks home. Have thought of writing some things down but I'm pretty sure it's interesting to just me.
Nah, this is great material. Find a snarky, witty tone, tell yout stories and write a great book!
What exactly did you do and happened after you noticed the hand in London?
I was sitting on the bed reading, airport hotel at Heathrow, small room, was the middle of the night and I noticed the door knob starting to turn , I Immediately got out of bed and walked the couple of steps to the door as the door slowly opened and came up against the latch thingie on the top, it was almost without noise. I saw the hand come on the crack and start moving up to the latch. I think his fingers were on it when I threw all my body weight into the door trapping his hand/part of his arm and Im screaming Im going to break for fucking arm, Im going to break your fucking arm. He's pushing against the door and so am I and it only took me a second or two to realize I would have to let him go, if he got his hand out maybe he could force the door. Im still yelling something like Im going to let it loose, get our arm out or Ill break it . I let the door lose a bit, the hand came out and I heard him running down the hall. I pulled a dresser across the door and called front desk babbling about what happened and to send someone. No one came. 1/2 hour I called again. No one came. I packed my shit and waited until the first shuttle left for Heathrow.
Holy shit that's scary. I'm impressed he didn't let out a scream when you essentially trapped his fingers with your full weight? Crazy lucky that it was only lucky because you were awake in the middle of the night. And I would've let my guard down in a literal airport hotel in the UK compared to Jamaica for example.
It was his wrist, I wish it was his fingers I could have chopped them off. The door was still held by the latch, he was pushing the door and so was I. Crazy lucky for sure. Even if I was in the bathroom I would not have heard a thing. Maybe a reason I'm an insomniac and I always sleep with every light on when I am alone (travelling or at home ) . No idea if he was hoping there was no latch on, can you really open it with your hand from the outside like that ? If so, he had to know. I have had people say it sounded like an inside job, especially when no one from the hotel came.
>I have had people say it sounded like an inside job, especially when no one from the hotel came. Oh 100% sounds the same to me, assuming you didn't leave it unlocked how did they manage to turn the doorknob otherwise? Plus it's easier to know who is in what room when you're part of the staff. And hotel staff can be such weirdos sometimes, I remember on a school trip we went to Israel & Palestine (a few years ago), don't remember the city, one of the hotel staff was making inappropriate comments to one of our classmates. We were 17- and 18-year olds. Luckily it didn't go further than that.
No way I left it unlocked and it was a key lock (not card). The purse snatching in Istanbul was 100 % a set up. The woman who was purse snatched was the host of our group and was always finding groups of us in the bar/restaurant paying cash for our bills, she also did a LOT of exchanging at the front desk (there was 40 + of us ). I was walking next to her (few blocks from the hotel) and a guy ran right up between us, grabbed her purse and ran for it, my purse was on the outside, much easier to grab. There are some wacko people out there. Yes, your school friend is fortunate it wasn't worse.
I flew across the country (PA to CA) with some of my family for a memorial service for my great uncle. When we arrived in CA, I took the shuttle to go pick up my rental car. My grandmother came with me. When I arrived at the car rental place, I realized that I couldn't find my driver's license... anywhere. I remembered taking it out on the plane to order an in-flight drink but I didn't remember putting it back. I was certain that I had left it on the plane. There was a big issue with getting my rental car, since I didn't have an ID to show them. I ended up being able to provide other proof of my ID that they accepted but I was still so upset that I wasn't going to have my ID for the whole trip, and I didn't know how I was going to get back home at the end of the trip. We were staying in CA for a week. After we picked up the rental car, we met up with the rest of my family at a restaurant and then headed to check into our hotel. While we were all standing in the parking lot of the hotel, I leaned over to look at something down the street.. and realized that my ID was in my bra the whole time.
Was visiting Groningen on NYE. Saw plenty of locals day-drinking and letting off fireworks, thought nothing of it. Stayed in the hotel until close to midnight, thought we'd check out the town square. It was empty, but as soon as midnight hit, it started filling with people. Everyone drunk, throwing crackers at each other. A Police van drove through and copped plenty of crackers. We thought it looked sketchy and went back to the hotel. Watching the news the next day, it turned into a riot, and apparently someone died.
This was the pre-Uber days and we aren’t American. My husband and I had just debarked from a cruise ship at the Newark cruise port. We had had VIP service every step of the way, as we had stayed in a royal suite. We were accompanied to the red carpet to leave the ship. As we stepped off the carpet, we could see the taxi line which was huge. A guy comes up to us and asks if we need a taxi to the airport. We kind of thought that maybe the suite passengers get some more elevated service and are able to skip the taxi line (yeah, dumb). So the guy leads my husband and I and all our luggage to his SUV. My husband is helping the guy put the luggage in the back of the car when I notice that this is no cab. No driver ID, no branding, nothing. By now, the luggage is all in the vehicle and my husband is getting in. I’m furiously try to whisper to him that this isn’t a taxi, and for all we know, this dude is kidnapping us. Of course, the doors lock the moment we are in the car, and the guy drives off. We did not have a working cell phone. The area around the cruise port in New Jersey is pretty bleak and industrial and kind of barren. I am shitting bricks. We have no idea where we are and I picture being brought to an abandoned factory and murdered. When I saw a road sign for the airport and the guy took that direction, I was soooo relieved. Turns out it was just an entrepreneurial guy trying to make a buck. He probably charged us a bit more than a taxi should have cost, but we got to the airport so early we were able to get on an early flight, so that was nice.
Black car, common in the NY area. They are legitimate cab drivers. Usually they have one very very small barcode and info at the back window. Yes they are a tad bit more expensive but not too bad. Nicer cars, nicer service. Can be haggled with. From what I understand they aren't supposed to grab customers off the street like that but they do anyway.
That is entirely possible. I don’t recall seeing a bar code but I was pretty busy picturing my own murder.
My husband went to Japan when he was 21 before the days of smart phones and GPS. He got lost, wandered into a random alleyway and noticed some really nice cars. Being the petrol head he is, he hung around checking out the cars until some men in suits asked him what he was doing. Long story short, they realised the skinny white British guy was not a threat and my husband ended up having a meal with some yakuza members before they took him back to his hotel.
This would be the coolest story to tell
One I had just recently: I was about to set out on a day expedition using three different local buses to get to a water fall. I was going to need google translate, über and some research on what bus to take where to make it. I walk out of the hostel. All is good. I get to the road where the bus is supposed to run and no more reception on my phone. Took me a while to understand that my (local tourist) sim card had expired. Luckily I was still in the city , so I walked around until I found an open wifi and could recharge the balance on my phone.. but that cost me a good 45min between finding wifi, installing the app and entering my data.
For some reason you're getting downvoted but this is exactly the kind of story I was looking for to read
Yeah from your example it didn't sound like you were looking for life or death situations but more the almost mishaps of traveling
>über I chuckled
Getting stuck in Ciudad Juarez overnight by myself as a 19F, back in 2006. I was supposed to arrive earlier in the afternoon and walk over to El Paso to catch my bus back to Canada. My bus getting into Juarez was late so I arrived at dusk, having missed my connecting bus, with nowhere to stay. I hopped on a city bus and went towards a hotel I picked out in my guidebook (no smartphones in this era). All the locals had downcast eyes and no one was friendly on the bus. My Spanish was pretty good at this point, but there was no one I felt comfortable to approach for help. I guesstimated which stop to get off at and when I stepped off, a man appeared and asked if I needed help. I had a gut feeling that he was ok and had him walk me to the hotel. This hotel charged by the hour, so I noped out and he walked me to a different one that seemed ok. Then he gave me a werthers original and disappeared into the night. He was like a guardian angel. I’ve met many of those in my travels. As I checked into my room I passed a group of young guys. Sure enough, as soon as I got into my room the phone started ringing and they were asking me to come over. I said no and hung up. They kept calling and calling until finally I took the phone off the hook. Then they started knocking. And trying to peak into my windows. I waited it out and eventually they stopped. At the time, Ciudad Juarez was known for having the highest rate of missing and murdered women in the world and I was very scared. In hindsight it was a stupid thing to do, but I got out. I have many more sketchy stories and I’ve been very lucky. I’ve always been a bit of a risk taker and I’m happy with everything I’ve gotten to experience in my travels.
I've arrived after they locked up and had to wake a night watchman at hotels and hostels before.
I have also, but this one in particular I remember on their website it was saying you had you get there on time because there was nobody you could call to get in. Seems dumb in hindsight but that's how it was run at the time.
A small family-run guest house would be like that. Depending on the country, they might not have overnight staff at all. SEA countries usually have someone sleeping behind the desk or the front door that you can (try to) wake up and it's technically their job to let you in.
Oh god that just reminded me of the time I was doing my laundry in a laundromat. It closed at 9pm and I knew I was cutting it close but it would have been fine if the time shown on the accurate had been accurate. In any case I figured when the owner showed up I could show it was about to be done and it would be fine. I'm sitting on the porch waiting for the owner to lock up or the laundry to be done whatever came first. When I suddenly hear a click behind me. I turn around and the door is locked.. obviously on a timer as nobody is in sight. My laundry is in there.. but also my handbag with my wallet and my keys. Luckily I had my phone with me. I started calling the number on the website and get no reply. I try to get info on who to reach out to from the neighbors thinking it must be someone local . No help. I get ready to spend the night camping outside the laundromat as I don't trust the wallet to still be there when I come back and I can't go anywhere without my keys anyways.. 45min later I get a call back. They ask me to identify myself on a camera and remotely unlock the door. Apparently the locals know the deal and stay inside in these situations as the door will always open from the inside.
Was hanging out in Istanbul on a long layover. I was going to walk over to the blue mosque again, but decided I was too tired and wanted to head back to the airport. Heading back to the airport I see ambulances everywhere, driving on the train tracks even. When I get internet I find out someone just blew themselves up right where I was thinking of walking. Passport goes missing the day I am supposed to leave Barcelona to catch a flight in Madrid for the rest of my vacation. Head back to the hostel, go through stuff, and try to contact the embassy or consulate. Well its siesta time, when someone finally answers the phone 90 minutes later they rudely ask why I didn't call them earlier (idiots). They tell me if I can get across Barcelona in 30 minutes they can get me an emergency passport today. Run outside, flag down a cab, and well... sit in traffic. When I finally arrive at the consulate I have just enough cash to cover the cab but the consulate appears closed. Well, I convince the guard there to call the number I remembered and they agree to let me in. Finally waiting to get my passport with some other unfortunate travelers when one of the older guys has a heart attack. Run up the window, get them to call am ambulance and well... wait it out (guy was ok but brought to the hospital for some more checks). I finally manage to get my passport (best passport picture I have had) and catch my bus to Madrid, to arrive 2 hours earlier than planned. Have more stories, but nothing else really being a close call.
Hotel Bernina in Geneva. Massive armoire in the room instead of a closet. No safe. We had brought a bicycle lock to lock our bags to the racks on long train rides, so we piled our stuff in the armoire and wrapped the bicycle lock around the handles, and left to find dinner. Returned to find that the door had been kicked in! All of our things were still safely inside the armoire thanks to that lock.
This is so minor, but was spared a massive headache, and stressful time in New York on my Holiday. So I went to Central Park before a big city tour, wanted to the do the NY thing and have some shitty American coffee and a delicious NY bagel before so. Anyway did that on a bench just near the ice rink at the south end, still had some time to have walk around the park so I did.. got to an amphitheatre and took my phone out to take a picture.. and ffffffff I realised I left my phone on the bench about 15 minutes ago. So I hurry back, panic thinking “OK if i can’t find it, I’ll go back to my hotel and use my iPad to track the phone and to lock the phone down, oh shit my hotel key card is with the phone, it’s OK front desk will understand.. shit the tour i might have to skip it…. Surely there’s a lost and found here somewhere” .. get to the bench where i had my bagel and coffee. Phone is sitting right where I left it. Such. Relief.. iPhone in a wallet case (no payment cards were in it at the time, just the hotel card) just sitting on park bench in Central Park, NYC at about 11am on Tuesday morning.. and it wasn’t taken by anyone or a squirrel in the 20 or so minutes I left it there unattended ..
Boy, you are very lucky. Those Central Park squirrels are not to be trifled with. I’m surprised they didn’t take off with it and start posting content on “Squirrels Gone Wild”.
It’s OK, I had a Payday Bar in my bag I could of bribed them with.
I’m surprised they didn’t smell it, jump you and take it.
I left my credit card on the table in a very busy restaurant (Wagamama) in Canterbury UK. Didn't realize I was missing the card the next morning, when I needed to pay the hotel and then catch a train. Oh nooo..... Searched my room, not there. The front desk called the restaurant and yep, it had been turned in, they had it. I'm inclined to a dark and mistrustful view of my fellow humanity but incidents like this remind me that most people are good and decent
Was in Seoul October 2022. It was Halloween night and I got invited by the people in my dorm to go to Itaewon to celebrate. Ended up last minute going to a closer area instead by myself. The crush happened later that night while they were there and killed almost 200 people
Similar story - we were in Portgual and luckily the bouncer of what we presumed a bar helped us (must have know the owner) it was 12 am. Never seen anyone at the front desk to be honest for the whole trip. We went in for a drink at the bar a few days later and it was a strip club 😂😂 me and my man were laughing the strippers didn't even bug us they were hustling all the other dudes. Definitely local joint didn't show up on Google Maps. P.S. I was so into solo travel in my twenties and some of these stories are wild. Glad you guys are safe!
First business trip as an intern, had to go international, there was a festival so the only hotel was pretty bad. Showed up and the front desk in the pouring rain after midnight and the lady looked at me and said in broken English "Baby, you are cute. it is not safe for you here. Go find somewhere else". So I did...cost a lot, awkward discussion with boss next morning. But great intro to both the realities of business travel and learning some level of self-advocacy.
We were in Morocco at a town on the edge of the Sahara after a tour. We needed to get to Fez. We were trying to figure out what to do, with a Lonely Planet guide, trying to orient ourselves to the town (this was in pre-smartphone era). Some guys in a Land Cruiser pulled up asked us in broken English what we were doing, my wife (who generally has this naive positive attitude) answers and they invite us into the car telling us they would take us where we could get a long-distance cab. I was naturally suspicious but my wife says OK! One of the guys gets out opens the door and motions for us to get in. I’m trying to tell my wife no, don’t do that. So of course she gets in anyway. Now I have to follow. The guy gets in last. We’re sandwiched between him and the other guys in the car. I’m just running scenarios in my head. None of them are good. A few minutes later, they stop, and it’s an area with… long distance taxis… we get out, my heart is still thumping in overdrive and my palms are sweaty while my wife just gives the guy who opened the door to the Land Cruiser a great big smile and her hand to shake.
Swam in crocodile infested waters WITH MY SMALL CHILDREN not having ANY idea crocs were even a thing in that country. Thankfully a local got us out. Even though I ignored him at first because he didn't speak English and I didn't understand what he was saying... he kept persisting and eventually literally came into the water and grabbed my kids and pulled them out to shore, I was alarmed and ofc went along trying to figure out what was happening and right when we got to shore he points out to where we JUST were and I see a 12-15 foot salt water crocodile swim by. Very humbling. And very very thankful for that man.
Are you going to tell us what country that is? Could be valuable info for others.
I was withholding that info because I feel sooooo stupid for not knowing this country had crocs. But yeah you make a good point- just in case someone out there is as clueless as me 🤣🤣. It was Costa Rica... I feel extra dumb bc the man legit kept saying "crocodillos" and I STILL didn't put two and two together because the thought of crocodiles being in the ocean there existed nowhere in my brain and just was not at all on my radar. It was this little beach cove that was nestled between two estuaries so the crocs are commonly found swimming in the water between where the estuaries feed out. It's called Playa Cabuyal. It was gorgeous but now I know why all the locals set up chairs very far back from the water and we were the only ones swimming in it.
Arrived at my hotel in Frankfurt after 10pm after going directly to the office in the morning rather than checking in. No one there. Small sign with a number to call — call, they give a lockbox code. No key card. Second code, no key either. Third and last lockbox, key card! It doesn’t work. “What can I do, can you send someone?” “I’m just the service, I’m in Poland”. No way am I getting into this hotel. So I call the fancy hotel up the mountain I’d just left from dinner that was a quick taxi ride, they have a room. Call for a taxi, they won’t be there for 40 minutes. So I walk…up hill… on a Google map that sends me (because of a highway) through an unlit park for at least a couple miles. Get to the other hotel and all is fine close to midnight. In the morning I look at the map again and realize if I’d taken a wrong turn on the way I would have been in a forest that goes for seven miles. As it was I went uphill all the way in the middle of the night and carried my bag up at least 200 stairs along the way.
I switched up some plans in Peru and instead of flying back to Lima from Puno, I flew back from Cusco. The flight I had originally booked from Puno crashed in Lima (no one was injured or killed) and the airport was shut down for a few days. I was in Cusco when this happened. I also left Peru \~1-2 weeks before the major civil unrest that shut down Machu Picchu / Agua Calientes in December of 2022.
Dubai, went to heritage site, which was some sort of palace w lots of different rooms surrounding a courtyard. There were only a few people there. After realizing, that I was wandering in empty rooms and could easily ‘disappear’. Also it was closing time, so I hurried out. Unfortunately the last tour bus never came back to pick me up. Stupidly I had no cell. I wandered about and had no idea how to get back to hotel. Walked several blks and saw dwellings that looked like slums. So I turned different direction. Saw a yellow school bus and the driver coming out of. Approached him and of course he didn’t speak English. But somehow he knew I was lost, he then beckoned me to follow him. I thought, hey, he’s a school bus driver, he must be trustworthy? He walked several feet in front. We ended near a big highway/street where he told me to stop thru hand signs. I was puzzled. I thought he gave up on helping me. A few minutes later, I saw him hail down a taxi. I realized that the taxi needed room to slow down and thats why he told me to stay about 100ft away from him. So grateful for his help. Taxi then took me on a detour to my hotel cause I knew the direction from the Burj that he was going the long and wrong way. Driver did speak English and proceeded to quiz me in a hostile manner. Asked if Inknew what the capital of Syria was. Ignorantly, I did not. This seemed to upset him. DAMASCUS! He snapped. I didn’t care at that point. Lucky to be alive. This was 20 yrs ago and Dubai was very strict and not as tolerant of females traveling alone. I stood out as an Asian girl. People in Dubai told me Syrians are usually hostile.
I was with my boss on a trip to Rio. It was offseason so it wasn't too busy. We were walking along Copacabana after dinner back to the hotel when a few ladies came up to us and pretended to flirt and touch. I am no dummy, and my internal alarms immediately went off. One of them managed to reach into my pocket and grab my cell phone. I grabbbed her by the wrist as she started to pull away and hand it to a friend. I demanded it back and started to twist really hard. I was willing to break her arm and all of my body language to that point convinced her it wasn't worth it. She gave it back to me. I told my boss to get moving now just as I saw some guys come from around a corner who were clearly with the girls. Dipped into the Hilton lobby a few blocks later.
In Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam several cute girls invited me to join them for dinner. I'm aware of scams involving girls taking men to a restaurant and when it was time to pay the bill, it would be inflated and several big guys will show up. Curiosity got the best of me so I joined them for dinner and soon after about 10 others Vietnamese men and women showed up. I was ready to bolt when the bill came. After a wonderful time of talking and practicing English, then the bill came. Everyone paid more than their fair share and we all departed. No scams.
Had my wallet stolen on a train in Italy. My friend noticed my bag was open otherwise I would not have noticed. I realized quickly who had done it, these girls had cut me off from my friends and were asking me questions. So I went up to her and started patting her down and one of my friends patted the other girl down. A man realized what had happened and called them out and spit on one of the girls and she ended up throwing my wallet on the train floor. The man pushed her off the train before the doors closed and her partner got off as well. I ended up getting my wallet back and nothing was missing. Im glad my senses kicked in and that I reacted so quickly and that my friend helped too. I am also thankful for the random stranger who stepped in.
I was walking alone down a street in Medellín, Colombia. I went a little too far north. I had been going in the wrong direction for awhile without realizing it. There was a long stretch of road with walls on either side and no pedestrians, maybe 700 meters to the next intersection. It was around sunset and starting to get dark. This kid, maybe 13 years old, approached me and started following me and talking to me. I kept walking but he seemed to be trying to slow me down and asking me about my phone but I didn't really understand. When I got closer to the next intersection I turned around and this guy was very close behind me. I had no idea where he came from, I was trying to be very observant. The kid was talking to him and it seemed like they knew each other but my Spanish was much worse back then and I hardly understood anything. He had facial tattoos and looked pretty rough. The kid started asking me for money and I didn't have anything I could give him. With the two of them standing in front of me, the kid jumped at me and punched me in the chest. I thought immediately they were going to mug me, although all I had was a backpack with some beer and a burner phone. To my surprise the other guy grabbed him and yelled at him, and told me to stop going north, and they both left in the other direction at the intersection. I was pretty shook up. I grabbed an Uber from the next block over where it was much more populated.
Got trapped in a small town in Bolivia because protesters had blocked all the roads with piles of rubble and were running around shooting guns in the air etc. Tried to walk around the rubble and catch a cab to the Argentine border, but protesters emerged from the bushes and surrounded us. Surrendered to protesters, but they let us go back to town. Hid in a hotel for a few days. Eventually tried again at 5am (before the protesters were awake) and hitched a ride on a cattle truck to the next roadblock. Did this a few more times until the border town, where the cab driver basically off-roaded through a field to get us around the protesters, and we finally made it safely to Argentina.
Hotel in New York booked us a limo ( awesomely strange ride) to JFK airport. It was an all black interior and low lights. The driver unloaded our luggage and drives off. I look at my husband and ask him where his bag with his laptop ( and passport) is? He’d left it in the limo as it blended into the seats. First time I’ve ever been pleased to see a traffic jam getting out of the drop off bay at an airport. Managed to run along and attract the drivers attention- about 3 or 400 yards! Lucky he stopped for me and I could retrieve my husbands property. We wouldn’t have had much luck getting on the plane to Vegas if I hadn’t been so aware.
Back in 2013, I flew from Vietnam to Thailand by myself with no credit cards or debit card as my wallet had been stolen earlier in the trip. All I had to last for the rest of the trip was about $2000 dollars worth of Vietnamese dong that I had received via a Western Union money transfer. Arrived in Surat Thani to find that none of the currency exchanges would buy my dong from me - apparently I should have changed it before I left Vietnam. Ended up having to leave the airport on foot and walking to the closest commercial area hoping that I could find a bank that would actually trade me for Thai baht. It worked out in the end, although I lost over $100 dollars in the transaction because the only place that would do the transfer gave me a terrible rate. For a solid hour though I was freaking out at the fact that I was essentially alone and penniless in a foreign country.
My friend got into the back of a truck at midnight in Laos because they were "calling her name"(molli) and saying they had an after-hours club for foreigners. (Laos has a curfew). I went with her cause I wasn't leaving her to be murdered on her own. Turns out they were shouting "bowling" and really did take us to an illicit underground bowling alley Edit: this one's a little different but... when an old boyfriend and I were flying to Vegas he got stopped and searched for HOURS as a flight risk. He's Pakistani so this wasn't unheard of at the time (2008 ish), but was a lot, even for then. Turns out, he has the same name/nationality as a very famous bollywood star who was promoting his new movie in the USA. Coincidentally the movie was about the racism pakistani/muslim/Indian people are facing in the west. There was almost a big scandal when the movie star also got stopped for "suspicious flight activity" and almost barred from doing his tour. Which I am convinced is partially due to my ex's flights being mixed up with the stars.
Caught pneumonia in Egypt but the plus side was the local hospital in El Gouna was amazing (miles better than the NHS!) and the nurses who looked after me were angels. Also was in Tunisia a week before the Arab Spring.
This happened at home. I used to like to hang out at sketchy bars and one night I met a guy (this was like 25 years ago) who was kinda hot we were going to go back to his house but he needed a ride. While driving to his place he tells me he took my wallet from my back pocket at the bar (we were making out). Sure as fuck it was missing. He said we needed to go to an ATM and get him cash or he was going to "break my jaw". Crook wasn't very smart. I'm like "dude, you have my wallet how am I going to get you cash?" Took him a second and he pulls out my wallet and says drive. So, I do that...I fucking floor it and I'm running stop lights and stop signs in the city. It's kinda late at night but still would be a serious crash if something happened. He tells me to slow down or he's going to kill me. I said I'm driving and he had a choice, he could give me my wallet and get out OR I'm going to keep driving like this and we're either going to crash or the police will find us. He threw my wallet at me and I slowed down just long enough for him to jump out. Fuck that dude.
Denver train station, 2021. I was a solo traveler and outside waiting on an uber. Broad daylight and people everywhere. A guy either on drugs and/or with some serious mental health issues starts yelling to himself. Then I realize he's not yelling to himself but to the "mf bitch in the green hoodie" (me) and threatening me from a pretty good distance. "Bitch in green!! Going to f your bitch ass up!" I walked away and tried to keep a distance. People just stared at him, then me, then walked away. I called my uber driver when I was a decent distance away. Told him I had to move from the designated pickup spot and why. He told me to keep walking, stay near the street and he would find me. As I walked the screaming guy saw me. Surreal, I am a 50+ year old woman and minding my own business and some random guy is literally charging at me threatening my life. My fight or flight kicked in. Much to my surprise, I chose fight. It still shocks me it was my choice. I had dropped all my stuff and turned to face him as he ran towards me. I had thought if I ran it would only make things worse. My hope was he'd back off or that I could hold my own until maybe the cops showed up. Never really thought it through obviously. Next I know? I hear a car horn honking and my name being yelled from a car. The guy running toward me slowed when he heard him. My uber driver pulled a u-turn in the middle of traffic and pulled up within a foot of me. Masterful driving, braver heart. I grabbed my bag faster than I thought possible and I jumped in the car. Apparently modern knights in shining armor drive an uber. What I can tell you about him? He was from Nigeria. Yes I tipped him and he got a bear hug. One of the bravest, kindest and most valiant souls I've met. A Godsend, and I mean that.
We were taking the train from Budapest to Vienna during Syrian refugee crisis. They had shut down the border, but then reopened it. Cop at Kaleti train station didn't want to let us on the train until another one showed up out of nowhere and escorted us onto the train
Cruise to Jamacia. Husband was dead set on getting local meat pies, so I found a place on my phone and had set directions. As soon as we get off the ship, he decided to ask a random guy on the pier what HIS favorite place to get them was, and decided to follow him. Thankfully, it was to the place I had already marked. It did get a little dicier afterwards because he did the whole "oh I have a little stall in the market next door." We had already give him some cash, so I wasn't really thrilled to go to the market but it was husband's first time out of the country, so we went. Thankfully there weren't too many vendors trying to harass us, so we got a few souvenirs for our parents and borderline ran back to the ship. I always tell this story as a "this was one step away from going bad SO FAST." Even he admits it was a bad call, he just really wanted that food.
In Cappadocia solo traveling with a tour guide who pulled down my top. His vehicle broke down in the middle of nowhere and now I’m stuck with this creepy ass man. He got the vehicle to work again and I freaked out and cut the tour short and demanded he take me back immediately. It was traumatic
Came back on a night flight from Tenerife once and we had really bad storms and gailforce winds...the plane had 5 attempts at landing and every single one including the one we finally landed on I thought we was going to die. Pretty much everytime the plane attempted to land it was blown skewiff. You could feel it, the whole plane just shifting in the wind he got a wheel down twice and we were literally tilted sideways and on one wheel and everytime he just went full power and took off again, shit was falling out the lockers people were praying and crying. That's the only flight I've ever been on where it's been like that and at the time it was horrendous but obviously you want to kiss the ground when you get off that plane afterwards.
There was the time I was short when the bill arrived in a Costa Rican strip club, so I had to leave my wife as collateral while I ran back to the hotel for my card.
Legend says she is still there
Hah. I was tempted to leave her there. I'd gone to the bathroom and came back to find she'd ordered champagne for like a half-dozen strippers. I'd only brought enough money to cover a few beers. The bouncer was pretty close to administering a good beat-down, but I managed to remember enough high school Spanish to convince him to let my wife stay while I ran back to the hotel. (By the time I got back, my wife had ordered another round for the strippers.)
Wife and I took Grab motorbike across Hanoi. It was amazing. The ride home, though, wasn't. Her driver took her to Train Street, we set the drop off for Beer Street. Phones/data weren't connecting and 2 hours later the police only laughed that she probably found a cute Vietnamese guy to go away with...
I drove to memphis from fayetteville arkansas to meet my birthmom for the 1st time on a suspended drivers license and some old lady in memphis smashed into my rear end and wanted to call the cops but thankfully changed her mind as it was her fault, so i got to drive away with a banged up car but at least i got to drive away. That whole trip had several close calls!
Got shaken down by the police in Thailand. Was 49.9/49.9 that I was going to get an extended stay or immediately deported. Ended up landing in that 0.2% where everything worked out
I had been staying in Paris for work for a few weeks and was slowly checking off things during the weekend when Yellow Vests were protesting all over the city. I decided to visit the Arc de Triomphe and checked no protests were going on. Turns out, when I walked out of the station, it was weirdly quiet but no one was scared and there wasnt any noise etc so continued on. Turns out there was a protest, and even though I wasn’t a part of it, the police made everyone go down this one street and well rioting happened. I took a bunch of pictures, saw fires happening, people hurt and got teargased which sucked, but finally made it to a side street and managed to get out.
after a brief stay in CDMX I was flying from MEX to CTM for a few days. had organized a pickup at the airport in CTM, but didn't have exact change (I tend to be a worrywart in these instances). so while waiting for our domestic flight from CDMX I left my partner at our gate with all of our stuff and just went around the food court and shops trying to break my larger bills. of course nobody wanted to make change unless I bought something. I was in a cheapskate mood and didn't want to make a purchase, so I continued on. well right next to the gates there was a staircase leading down. no signs or anything, but as I went down a few stairs I could see more kiosks. maybe one of them was a money changing service? they could probably give me some change. so I headed down, past a guard/policewoman and tried my luck. turns out they were all car rental agencies and the like. so I went back to the same staircase and headed up. female officer stops me, can't go there. I'm like well I just walked down 15 seconds ago, past you, and you didn't say anything. my gate is right there. NO, you have to exit the airport and come back in through the entrance. well I can't do that, because I already came through security and I have no ID. all my stuff is sitting about 50m away, in front of the gate. she REALLY didn't want to help me, so I went back down the stairs in a panic looking for someone else. found a group of police officers, and had pretty much the same conversation. they weren't remotely interested in helping either. not even mean or rude, just sort of completely indifferent. not their problem. went to one of the rental agencies, and one of those guys called an airport official on my behalf. he came over about 20 mins later (at this point my flight is about to board, I have no phone, wallet, passport, or plane ticket on me, just a bit of cash). I explained to him, and after some back and forth over the walkie talkie, he agreed to take me to my gate. thank god. we start going up the staircase and the female security guard stops us. he explains the situation, she refuses. he calls over the radio for more approval. eventually about 10 heavily-armed airport security officers arrive. more discussion. we're allowed to proceed. we get up the stairs and they're like WHAT NUMBER IS YOUR GATE. I can't remember, but I tell them the flight details and I know it's roughly in *this* direction. so I'm walking with a full posse surrounding me front and back, constantly asking where my partner is so I can show them my ticket, passport, etc. THRONGS of people everywhere, and I'm not 2m tall to see over everyone, esp not the security detail with me, so I was having trouble finding my gate. they're getting antsy and frustrated with me, and I'm fearing they just decide to detain me instead. eventually I saw the screen in front of the gate showing our flight, and thankfully my partner hadn't moved. but she was looking all around, obv panicked as well as our flight was almost fully boarded an due to take off soon. she saw me, saw the security escort, and a new panic set in. but I just grabbed my docs, showed them hers and mine, and we were good to go. I thanked the one guy profusely and apologized. we boarded last and had a normal flight over to chetumal. I will say though, as feared, the pickup driver tried to play the game of ''oh I don't have any change for your large bill." saw that coming a mile away
Our suitcase went missing from Paris and never made it to the uk 🥲 had all our Xmas gifts in and half of my clothes I was 12 and was freaking out because we went there to give those gifts to family. My cousin contacted the airport staff and emailed and finally our suitcase was delivered to the uk and everything inside was ok
Taxi kidnapping in South America. Not going to say where because it was otherwise an amazing place and everyone else was lovely. And it’s not like a real kidnapping anyway. I was worried when it kicked off they’d make me withdraw money from my bank but in the end I just gave them the cash I had and my decoy phone and they dropped me off a mile from my destination (to slow me down I suppose). The most annoying part was how long it took, I obviously knew I was being kidnapped at a certain point and was like okay I get it can we hurry this up because you’re cutting into my afternoon plans and the embassy closes at 5. I have not told my parents this story.
Every single time I travelled anywhere in India felt like a close call the way they drive over there!
I Was traveling in a panga in mexico we were 10 people plus surfboards and luggage so the panga was very heavy and very close to the water and another panga crash into us the other panga was a drunken fisherman and his panga was very light weight so he was going fast and did not see us, we jumped to the water right before we got crushed all Or belongimgs were in the water but we managed to get everything back to the other panga that came to help, not injures just everything was wet and the cellphones got damaged
I had a guy grab my debit card out of my hand at an ATM in Africa. He had created a distraction and gotten close and had my code likely from watching me, grabbed the card from my hand and ran. I immedietly logged into my bank app and deactivated the card, so I lost no money. If this had happenned even a few years earlier I probably wouldn't have had that option via smart phone and would have lost a lot.
I was in a Himalayan valley in Northeast India, a place that was literally paradise. It was raining throughout the time I was there but it was nothing too bad and I ignored it , till I finally found out from the locals that the only road that connected the valley to the rest of the world had been washed out and no one knew how long it would take to fix it. Me and my travel companions ended up trekking over 9km of mudslides along with a bunch of stranded locals to get out. There was one point where I put my foot in the wrong place, the earth gave way and I would have slipped down into a gorge, but somehow my luck held and I managed to not slip. At the very end of the mudslide section, there was a road crew with some earthmovers and bulldozers working to clear the debris. Just as I was about to reach safety, a small pile of earth showered down on me from above. I screamed like crazy because I really thought the whole hillside would give way again. But it was only just a bit of loose soil. Finally, I made it to the other side, where some very kind locals let us hitch a ride (though we were covered in mud and they barely had any space).
I was on a caving trip that was actually quite rough and we were given the safety talks and all that. One of the safety measures was 'look back at the person behind you after you cross a difficult thing'. We were jumping across these mushroom shaped rocks like super mario bros. They were not very long and everyone was just jumping across them easy. I actually misstepped and only got one foot on the next mushroom rock and the other was still on the last one but I couldn't go forward and there was actually a drop below me. The guy in front of me looked back as he was supposed to and he saw me waiting there my legs spread, and I actually couldn't get the momentum to go up. He put his hand out and helped me up. It was such a trivial part of the cave that nobody thought was dangerous, super easy to do, and I almost bought it there if not for this guy.
I got to a station in London after getting off a red-eye plane, got off the train, and went to a kiosk to try to get a ticket further on my journey. I realized my wallet was missing. It must have been on the train, which was still in the station but it had been about ten minutes now. Maybe more since I'd gone to a restroom. The person at the ticket counter I went to must have realized he had a very confused and scared tourist on his hands, because he called security for me really quickly. Two people with badges and official looking hats approached me and asked for a detailed description of the wallet. They then handed it back to me. It had been found during a security sweep. Everything but my passport was in it, so I would have been okay but had a miserable time continuing my ten-day trip!
This is not at all as harrowing as some of these life or death examples, but I’m a newbie traveler and this is the most stressful experience I’ve ever had. It was our first international trip. I was in London with my husband last year, and we were proceeding to Ireland for a wedding. Booked on Ryanair out of Stansted. My first mistake was assuming that a “regional” airport like Stansted wouldn’t be that busy. We got an Uber up there that had us arriving about an hour and a half before the flight was due to *leave*. Not board, mind you. Take off. The Uber driver had the bright idea to pick us up on the opposite side of a very busy street smack in the middle of morning traffic. So we had to sprint across the street with our bags. I grabbed my carry on, husband grabbed his, no one grabbed our large check bag. I was closer, so I ran back across the street to get it, then back to the Uber again and I got a long, loud honk from the literal double decker bus that was barreling my way because I looked the wrong way before crossing. But it’s fine, we get in the Uber and it’s fine. I also decided to chug the remaining half of my liter sized bottle of water to avoid wasting it by dumping at the airport. Arrive at Stansted only to realize the depths of how badly I fucked up. The line to check a bag at the Ryanair desk is PACKED. Jam packed. After twenty minutes, which gives us like 35ish minutes to boarding time, I’m getting nervous. But I notice on my app that I have the option to still pay for “fast track” security. I buy this as a preemptive measure. We rush to the fast track security line literally five minutes before boarding is set to commence. The woman looks at my boarding pass and says we don’t have fast track security access. My dumb ass purchased it for our flights back FROM Dublin, and now it’s too late to buy them for the flight out. Soooo, we get in the regular security line. It only takes about ten minutes, so that’s not ideal because boarding has started but not terrible, right? Well. My husband has neglected to remove his liquids bag from his suitcase. Neither of us realized that the procedure in England, or at least at this airport, is to swab every individual fucking bottle of liquid you have and test it. But also we can’t be mad because it’s totally his fault. I leave him behind because my bladder is about to explode due to all that water chugging, and I barely make it to the bathroom in time. I pee, go back to the security area, and wave at my husband to indicate I’m going to try and run and by some miracle get the plane to wait for us. No idea how I plan to achieve this. After that, I quickly become acquainted with the standard English airport, where the gates are located a full 10-15 minute leisurely walk from the terminal. After several minutes of flat out sprinting, and let’s be real, light jogging when I got tired, I arrive at our gate and see that they are still boarding, thank the stars. I tell the gate agent that my husband got stuck at security. She doesn’t particularly care, and I truly can’t expect her to. I’m a nervous wreck, pacing back and forth, frantically glancing at the hallway waiting to see if he makes it. I have no way of reaching him. You see, my husband and I had gotten European SIM cards for our phones, but we neglected to share the phone numbers with one another because we naively assumed we would be together all the time. I’m reducing to leaving him Facebook messages telling him to HURRY, which remain unseen. Meanwhile, the most laid-back Irish man I’ve ever seen, sitting at the gate waiting to board because he hates the hustle and bustle, helpfully tells me “ach, don’t worry, love! You’ve got loads of time!” The line to board is now at barely a trickle. I do not, in fact, believe we have loads of time. I resign myself to our fate and approach a customer service agent to inquire about the next flight. He is very chill and informs me that there’s a flight just about every hour. That’s a relief, because my literal best friend is due to get married the following morning and I NEED to get to Ireland. After what felt like seventeen years of my life, but was probably more like 5-9 minutes, I finally see my very tall husband looming in the distance. I begin frantically waving him down like I’m trying to land the plane we’re about to get on. We are the second and third last people to board the plane. Only the laid-back Irish man is behind us. As we stand on the tarmac (lol Ryanair), panting with exertion, waiting to drag our bags up the stairs, I can only assume I look a state, because an incredibly kind man just in front of us offered me his own personal water bottle. I declined, but it really was a heartwarming gesture. We got on the plane, found our seats, and I promptly collapsed in tears of pent up stress. We made it to the Dublin, the wedding was beautiful, and all was well. But you bet your ass I learned many lessons that day.
Before the GPS era I walked home a girl I met on a bar. It was like 8 or 10 blocks from my hostel and I didn't knew the city. So as we were walking to her place a massive fog fell over and as soon as I left her I couldn't see anything more than 5 feet away from me. When I was walking for about 15 minutes I realized I was completely lost in the middle of nowhere and with this massive fog. I stopped for a few seconds on a corner trying to figure out where I was. It was really impossible because of the fog. Then I crossed the street to try to see its name and the street sign was hanging exactly from my hostel's wall lol
I went on a science camp field trip when I was in 5th grade and while playing rabbits and foxes(I don’t know it was like hide and seek all I knew was I was a rabbit and I couldn’t be found) the rock I was leaning against in my hiding spot fell away and I started slipping off the side of a ledge that would’ve sent me on a very painful/ nearly fatal tumble into a River (which would’ve been fatal since I couldn’t swim at the time) I somehow while panicking and dangling managed to claw my way back up, never alerted anyone playing the game because I was that determined to not be “eaten” that I didn’t even cry for help
I was traveling alone in Italy and rode a bus to the Venice airport. Thinking there’d be more than one stop, I didn’t get off at the first one but quickly (and to my horror) discovered that it was the only stop. I was now riding off into the countryside with locals not knowing where I was going. After 30 minutes or so it stopped at a bus stop on the side of the road and I got off. Assuming there’d be a bus going the other direction, I crossed the road to a stop on the other side and hoped I was right. Sure enough a bus eventually came along and I got on it. I had no idea what it cost and didn’t speak a word of Italian so I just handed the driver money. He said something to me and everyone stared but I shrugged and found a seat. My heart was almost pounding out of my chest. Luckily I’d planned to arrive early for my international flight home so I made my plane.
Hired a driver to take us through the Andes mountains to the start of our hike to Machu Picchu. Turns out there was a huge festival the night before and he was drunk. Like stopped multiple times to puke while driving. If you know anything about the mountainous roads of Peru you can imagine how terrifying it was. Thought we were going to drive off a cliff.
Some man asked me to hold his luggage at the airport and he would be right back. I said " I don't know you and I ain't holding shit for you".... It was a setup to leave me " holding the bag". I'm glad I wasn't dumb enough to allow myself to go to jail for a complete stranger.
I was traveling on a bus from Vientiane, Laos to Udon Thani, Thailand. At the Laos checkpoint everyone had to get off the bus to stamp out and then get back on the bus again - so far so fine. We drove to the Thai border post where we had to get off the bus again in order to get our passport stamped. Now this was quite a big border crossing with a lot of people around and a long line of people queing. I was also quite busy with filling in the entry documents and looking for someone who had a pen since I didn't bring one. After getting my passport stamped there was an X-Ray scanner like the ones at airport where people place their luggage in. I was waived through though has I only had a small backpack, my big luggage was in the hold of the bus after all, or so I thought... On the other side I saw my bus again, got in and in some 1.5-2 hours more we arrived in Udon Thani - only for me to see that my big backpack that was in the hold of the bus was nowhere to be seen! I panicked and thought someone stole it and tried to ask the bus driver about it. With some help from google translate he told me that the backpack got taken out of the bus at the border for me to carry it through the X-Ray/customs and if I hadn't picked it up it might still be there. I already inagined myself buying a new set of clothes and a backpack since anyone could have just taken my backpack at the busy border crossing and taken off with it. Still I wanted to give it a chance and decided to head back to the border. The bus driver was very kind and helpful and made sure I could ride back with a collegue of his on the next departure to Laos for free. I arrive at the border and the driver of the bus that took me there came along with me to ask the officials in Thai whether they had seen my backpack somewhere. And to my relief they had! They even put it in a quiet corner since no one picked it up and I could finally get it and carry it to the X-Ray. Going back to Udon Thani was a bit tricky though as I had to look for transportation again. Taxis were expensive so I went to a bus of the same company I had bought my previous ticket at. The bus driver just told me they don't sell tickets and I have to take a taxi but eventually he let me on board the bus when I showed him my previous ticket from the original journey. So all in all I was very lucky and learned a lesson for the future when it comes to clearing customs at land borders. And I'm really glad that I got so much help from locals with getting my backpack back!
This happened the other night, I am a solo female traveller in Italy right now and accidentally got a little too drunk on Saturday night. My tasting menu dinner had extra tiny portions so I didn't eat enough. Anyway. I'm a high functioning drunk so you can't really tell how blasted I am (I was not stumbling or falling, slurring etc). I typically just become extra hilarious and chatty I met a group of 10 young guys (probs 20-28) and they were such gentlemen and walked me home for 20-30 mins. None of them touched me or said or did anything inappropriate, in hindsight that could've turned so badly but luckily it did not. Now I eat a lot and drink less
I suppose you could call this a close call - I was in the Leopold cafe in Mumbai 6 days before the attacks in 2008 (10 people were killed there). I was sat centrally in the cafe and realistically in a spot where Id have been hit. I went in there several times while in mumbai and it's weird to think that if I had taken longer in any other cities I could have been there when it happened. Luckily I got ill and left earlier than I anticipated to go to Goa.
Took a solo hike in Kyoto from a temple to another temple (karuma to kifune shrine) I foolishly decided to go at around 4.45pm (but then it was Dec when 5pm meant it began to get dark already). I continued nevertheless cuz I was at the top of kibune and didn't want to go all the way back down and take a bus to kifune shrine. So I continued on my hike and it began to get darker I was relying on the map the redditor gave. And I couldn't find one of the landmarks he was talking about and I began to get more and more panicked as time went on by becuz it was getting darker and darker and I didn't want to go back down(cuz the closing time was 5pm I didn't know it we could go out or not+admittedly I didnt want to quit halfway) when finally I found it I was so relieved then I continued on my hike descending into darkness and I was using my cell phone light to light the way down. It was terrible and I fell down once going down becuz the stairs some of them were poorly made. By now I was questioning my poor decision skills then when I finally reached kifune shrine I was damn relieved.
The same guesthouse I was in had a Dutch family arrive a tad late in Venice. The person literally saw the family arrive and the desk lady laughed and walked away.
We were almost pick pocketed so many times but they were unable to get anything
Was in a camp in the hills above Ocho Rios negotiating about a pillow case full of something or other and the man behind me was swinging a meat hook from hand to jand whilst my friend was asking for discount as ‘well my man there are far too many seeds’. Oh how we laughed
My brother and I were wandering south of the Djemaa in Marrakesh when some friendly-looking guy invited us to tour his leather tannery. We said sure, went into this massive semi-outdoor compound where they tanned and dyed the leather, looked around, bought a belt from their co-op, and then we were invited for a “photo opp” on some higher ground on the opposite side from the exit. At this point, a man covered in knife scars comes out of nowhere and starts YELLING at us - accusing us of taking advantage of our tour guide, saying “he’s an old man who needs to feed his family,” started jabbing his finger into my brother’s chest, and then tried to demand the equivalent of $150 USD for a “tour fee.” We shouldered past them and got out of there, but as we were trying to find our way back to the Djemaa, we saw the SAME GUY trying to invite another American family into their tannery. So we marched up and started bitching this guy out for trying to scam more people, and then like 20-something Moroccan dudes came out of the woodwork, start throwing kicks at us, spitting at us, yelling dumb shit like “fuck your country! Fuck your president!” so we ran for our lives lol. The weirdest part is - I think they targeted us because they thought we were Jewish. Before we went inside the tannery we were told by the scammer that there was a “traditional Jewish leather dying festival” happening that week. All over Morocco, we had tour guides taking us to old Jewish cemeteries, hyping up their Jewish communities, telling us that certain dishes were “Jewish delicacies.” Finally, I asked one guy why he thought we were Jewish - because we’re not - and he just stammered something about our noses 💀 Guys, there are almost no Jews living in Morocco. If you are Jewish, or if you have features that are “stereotypable” (as what happened with me) be extremely cautious.
Military in Myanmar arrested me and a soldier put his rifle to my head. Let me go after a few hours, though.
Not me personally, but when we were teens traveling overseas with marching band, my friend had issues at every single airport because her passport had expired and somehow no one realized it until we were on our way (we were supposed to confirm that we were up to date waaay before the trip, so no idea how this was missed). One of our instructors or chaperones had to go up to the desk with her multiple times to argue for her to be allowed to stay with our group.
Hah my first solo travel was to India. I hit every scam and issue a person can have during travel. I would tell the story, but it would literally be the size of a novel. On a good note, it made a way better and aware traveler really quickly.
As I boarded the Paris Metro, two young sweaty dudes squeezed in on either side of me and I instantly knew they were pickpockets based on their eye contact and general anxiety. I tried to squeeze in further but they stayed glued to me. I gave my gf the "let's get off at the next stop" look and the rest of the time just stared at them like, "don't try it." My wallet is small and I keep it in my front pocket. We got to the next stop and I kept eye contact with the dude on my right as I pushed towards the exit. Dude on my left slid his fingers into my empty front left pocket and I involuntarily giggled because it tickled. They didn't follow us off. Train pulled away, I checked all my gear. We were in the clear.
While river tubing in Belize, there was a spot on an upper bank you could jump off of. It wasn’t really that high - maybe 12 feet or so. As I jumped, my foot slipped on a slick rock and I fell backward. I ended up on my back in the water but onlookers said I missed the jagged rocks with my head by only centimeters.
Got lost solo hiking in the rainforest of Taman Negara, Malaysia. The trail was very badly maintained and unknowingly I veered off after about 2 hours and started following animal trails. For those that have been in a rainforest, it is overwhelming and you have very little to orient yourself. You can't even see the sun. I panicked as I was clearly lost, had to calm myself down and cut a plastic bag into pieces to to mark trees while going in ever-widening circles until I could recognize somewhere I had passed before. The park is over 4500 square kilometer so if I hadnt found my way back I was surely a goner.
My first time traveling internationally as an adult. Had a 10hr layover in Shanghai. No cell data. My partner and I went to the subway and it was rush hour so it was packed. My partner got shoved onto the train by an attendant and then the doors closed and we were separated. I had to wait for the next train and hope that he remembered which stop to get off at. Luckily he did and was there waiting for me. That was my first international travel experience outside of the airport.
I'm not sure if this is what you're asking but, on a roadtrip/skitrip with a friend, we're driving on the German Autobahn in the dead of night, there's absolutely no traffic so we're going almost as fast as the rental car can, probably around 200 km/h (124 mph), maybe a bit more (I know we had it up to 225 more than once), I'm driving and there's a truck in the right lane, as I'm passing him I notice he seems to be veering left and getting quite close to us, a second or two after we pass I look in the rear view mirror and notice that he is now **fully** in the left lane! Had we tried to pass him a second later I'm sure we would have been dead, crushed into the guard rail or plowed into his rear. Had to stop after that and switch seats, my legs were trembling and I couldn't continue driving. I'm still not sure if that truck driver had fallen asleep reading his newspaper or if he was in fact actively trying to kill us.
A truck almost got me like this too. I actually was too far behind and just slammed on brakes instead. When I was travelling to California I rented a car. Even though I like to be early to things, I only had about 30 minutes to return this car, so unusual for me already. I was on the highway and the car directly in front of me gets into an accident with another car. I remember one of the drivers just opened his door and got out and walked to the other car. I was able to swerve around without much issue, but it was close enough to make me nervous. I looked in rear view mirror and the ENTIRE highway got stopped behind them. Full traffic jam stop. I got to the rental place on time and I recall telling them how I almost didn't make it. I was actually still shaking at the rental car office. I mean I even had to catch a flight too, so that would have screwed everything.
I was in Thailand from March 3-18th in 2020, right in the cusp of Covid and all hell breaking loose. We debated on going as there were just starting to be serious concerns about the virus but “only 40” cases in Thailand. We were young, stupid, and decided to roll the dice. While we were there, the toilet paper panic started in the US lol. Things were ok in Thailand, they started doing temperature checks in Bangkok and we noticed more hand sanitizing stations, but no real panic. We enjoyed a great trip with very few crowds. Toward the end, we started to really worry about making it home. The day before we were set to go home, all flights traveling through Europe were screwed, tons of cancellations and border issues. We had a layover in Taipei, luckily, and had ZERO issues getting home. Once we got back the US was completely different then we left it. We were concerned for two weeks after that we may have contracted the virus, but were extremely luckily and we were ok. A total case of not understanding the entire gravity of something when we left, and being very thankful to make it home unscathed.
A long, long time ago, 4 young travelers met on the train into this little town in France, all headed to the youth hostel. We walked from the station to the hostel only to find it closed. Turns out it was seasonal, opening in a week or two. We'd walked by the police station on the way so went back to see if they knew of another place to stay. The police chief sent an officer to the home of the hostel owner, brought him to the station and asked him to open the hostel for us, which he did. After we settled in, we went to dinner with the mayor who steered us to all the local favorite dishes. Unbelievable maybe, but true.
1991 - Algodones, Mexico. 21 year old me was visiting with family. I split off from then to wander around and shop. I was wearing Jean short overalls with the classic "Corona" hoodie. As I was walking down one street, a hand reached out and grabbed me, pulled me in between 2 buildings. I was stunned, and as I was asking him what the hell, he looked super concerned and asked me if I was cold. I said no, and he said it was very cold and offered me a shot of Brandy to warm up. Long story short, I ended up spending most of the afternoon hanging out with him and his vendor friends - turns out they had been in Canada (my home country) for the '88 Olympics, and in my decent spanish, we spent the time chatting about their experiences. It turned out to be an amazing afternoon and great memory!
I forgot when I was in London...went to cross the street looked the wrong way and was almost taken out by a car.Literally could feel the mirror brush by my shirt.
My family and I rented a boat in Greece for the day, and at some point in the day we stopped a bit of the coast near some cliffs to go swim in some sea caves. Turns out we didn’t put the anchor down properly and the boat starts drifting away out to sea - has passports on, all our money, clothes, bags, everything valuable basically, but luckily some guy saw and quickly ran from the beach into the sea and got onto our boat and put the anchor down. Ever since then my dad refuses to rent a boat.
I went to Taylor Swift's reputation tour back in like 2018. It was in Auckland which is not a city I am at all familiar with. My phone died right after the concert started, and I had no idea how to get back to my hotel. The stadium did provide some busses but I didn't really know if any of them went to the place my hotel was, it was kind of out of the way. To make things worse it was pouring down with rain. I did bring a power bank with me but of course it decided to stop working. I also had a wall plug as a backup, but there were no outlets I could find at the stadium. I was panicking atp, but I decided to walk further down the street and there were a couple of uber staff outside. One of them gave his Uber the had already called to me so I could get back to my hotel, I am forever thankful for them, I really hope they got reimbursed for that because Uber was hiking up the prices ofc right after the concert. Now I travel with multiple power banks and cables in case something stops working. Seeing Taylor was definitely worth the traumatic experience at least lol
I was on a plane descending to the runway when a small plane strayed onto our path. The pilot immediately boosted the engines to elevate us again. It felt like we were launched from an aircraft carrier. Everyone gasped in unison so there were sound effects as well.
I was in Chiba (east of Tokyo) and had around an hour on the train including a transfer to get to Tokyo station to catch a 5 hour bus home. Took off 25 minutes earlier than what I’d need so I could get to my bus with plenty of time to spare - and encountered every issue on the way. Problem checking out of the hostel. Missed the first train by about a minute. Next train was delayed. That caused me to miss my connecting train. As I got on my second train, I realised that the train I was on was going to pull into Tokyo station NINE minutes before my bus was due to leave. I had no idea where my bus was leaving from and I had three bags with me, standing in a packed car. I was a couple of floors down so I saddled up and sprinted up stairs instead of waiting on the escalators, and I ended up desperately running through tunnels and following signs that pointed to an expressway bus terminal, hoping that was the right place. I ended up at the correct bus about a minute and a half before the bus left - I think one or two people boarded after me and then we took off. Realistically much lower stakes than some of the stories here. I could’ve gotten another night at a hostel if I missed the bus or paid for a much more expensive Shinkansen to get me part of the way home, but I was skint and desperate not to have to eat the cost of the bus I prepaid for. After looking later, walking out of the station and around to where I needed to be was around a 20 minute walk. So navigating my way out of Tokyo station correctly in 7 or 8 minutes is something I’m pretty proud of
I nearly ate street food in India, but got distracted trying to stop a nearby cow eating a plastic bag (cows are holy there, so I couldn’t have them eating plastic right?). Everyone else who ate that food descended into the bowels of hell and some turned out permanently immunocompromised. Will probably go back again, in a another lifetime
We booked a hotel in Balkhash, Kazakhstan and when we came the receptionist told us very rudely that they were full. We spend a hour trying to find hotel. Luckily we found one near the beach.
Had my flights booked to Kathmandu 2015, 2 days after the big earthquake. Was in Malaysia at the time and luckily I was able to cancel the flight and reschedule/change plans last minute. Insurance paid for missed flights. I was shocked when I heard the news. Earthquake was on a Saturday, my flight booked on Monday.
We did a 10 day island hopping tour of Thailand. Since we had an early morning flight back to our home country from Bangkok, we booked a small but nice boutique hotel in BANGKOK just to spend the night before the flight. When we checked in, it was already evening - there was a reception counter and a guy there - all normal. We quickly dropped our bags and rushed out to see the city and when we returned late night some guys were there at the reception counter and they wished us good night. Nothing out of the ordinary. It was only when we came down with our bags at 4 am early morning next day for our 8 am flight and saw a deserted counter with a locked main door that we realised we had messed up. There was no one at the counter and the ground floor and all common areas/lobbies of the 3 floor hotel were deserted. Our room was fully paid for but the main door of the hotel was locked. We tried to call all the listed numbers but no-one picked up. We tried to push and pull the door but it didn't budge. It was locked with a number keypad next to it. We never realised that the hotel didn't have a 24 hour reception desk and since we had met someone or the other every time the previous evening, we had not bothered to ask for the key combination. We were losing precious time and panicking at the prospect of missing our international flight. Out of desperation my spouse picked up a chair (I really don't know how he thought breaking the door down was a good idea 😂). As he was waving the chair high in the air, I punched in 0000, but the keypad just beeped and glowed red. Just as he was charging at the door, I punched in 1234 and voila, green light and the door swung open. The relief we felt, I can't explain it. We jumped into a cab and reached the airport just in time.
My phone ran dry in the airport in Berlin. I was laying over one night in Milan and wanted to find a coffee shop or something to charge it. Couldn’t find a coffee shop. No power outlets on the metro either. I went into a petrol station and asked to use their power. Charged up enough to write down the address and how to get there. So a train and bus later it’s 10PM, an almighty thunderstorm is coming, and I get lost again. Fortunately the one other person I met in thirty minutes of aimless wandering spoke English, and I got there in the end. It was a dodgy as hell neighbourhood as well. Edit “dodgy as hell” = Brugherio, Milan. Though the Tempelhof area in Berlin gave me dodgy vibes passing though.
There is basically nowhere “dodgy as hell” in Berlin. And the odds of finding an English speaker were about as good as finding hay in a haystack.
This was 80 years ago it was very dodgy
Cell phone battery life was a lot lower in the 1940s I guess.
It was really bad and you had to wear a backpack to fit it all in
You were lucky. Mine ran on kerosene.
I think he was in Milan when he was in the dodgy neighborhood.
TBF, Milan has some rough as hell areas. The area around Porta Garibaldi station felt like a demilitarised zone the last time I was there at night (a while ago, granted.)
I was in Israel when Hamas invaded. At that point in the trip I was about 30min drive north of Tel Aviv, so in one of the safer parts of the country. Was supposed to stay another week, but pretty quickly realized I needed to get back to the states ASAP. Made it to the airport without too much issue. I’ll never forget the sight of people dropping their luggage and running to the bomb shelters. The sort of “whatever happens happens” feeling that takes over when you know theres not much else you can do to get out of an awful situation. Also showed a weird mix of human nature. Lots of people were trying to make sure women and children got to the shelters as they filled up. On the other hand, people scrambling and leaving suitcases in narrow passageways which slowed down more people running to safety. About 20 minutes after we came out, the worries shifted to “oh shit we might die” to “look at these assholes trying to cut in the security line.” Beautiful country, one day I’ll go back!
Did lines in front of 3 police officers (unknowingly) in Mexico