Tell me about your worst trip or a trip gone wrong

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These stories are good reminders why I never travel to third world countries. I would never have gone to Cameroon to begin with.

Same. I don't get the appeal!

[Anonymous]

This was at a trip when I went to Peru solo in 2016. I had spent 1 week in Cusco and then went to see Lima for a few days. Lima is great if you want to eat food which I love, but its people..are not so friendly on the other hand.

This was in Surquillo (close to where the Kennedy Park), and this was around 7-9 P.M., while I was walking to a motel I rented for my last few days. There were two guys that were looking at me while I was passing a through market and when they saw me passing through they gave me a side eye and the best I could recall was the first person saying “oye, mira a ese negrito” since I have a slightly dark tan. The second guy was staring closely at me and I had genuinely never felt this uncomfortable of people looking at me so weird and creepy. IIRC, one of them also had a knife or what looked like a dagger in their pocket. They did not threaten or even said anything regarding assault but it scared me. Genuinely will never think about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These stories are good reminders why I never travel to third world countries. I would never have gone to Cameroon to begin with.

Same. I don't get the appeal!

Keep em coming.
I actually have been to one third world country (with hosts) and would do (not Cameroon) but Sengal because I would go with someone from there only. The flight to Dakar is not bad.
But I don't want to feel bad staying home, which is my preference.

[Anonymous]

Got lost on a 3 day hike with boyfriend (now DH) in remote part of South America. Unstable steep scrambling in gorge with glacial melt raging below. Thought we might die. I was exhausted and clinging to a rock so he went ahead for 5 mins to see if he could see a path out. Two hours later, it was almost dark and he had not returned. Thought he had fallen and was either dead or badly hurt. Backtracked to try and find a small clearing for my tent, thinking that in the morning I would have to attempt to find my own way out of the ravine and then find rescuers. In the darkness, he suddenly emerged from the opposite direction. He got lost. The fallen trees and scrub were so thick he couldn’t find me and the roar of the water below meant we could not hear each other when calling out. A couple of hairy moments the next day, but we eventually got out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Got lost on a 3 day hike with boyfriend (now DH) in remote part of South America. Unstable steep scrambling in gorge with glacial melt raging below. Thought we might die. I was exhausted and clinging to a rock so he went ahead for 5 mins to see if he could see a path out. Two hours later, it was almost dark and he had not returned. Thought he had fallen and was either dead or badly hurt. Backtracked to try and find a small clearing for my tent, thinking that in the morning I would have to attempt to find my own way out of the ravine and then find rescuers. In the darkness, he suddenly emerged from the opposite direction. He got lost. The fallen trees and scrub were so thick he couldn’t find me and the roar of the water below meant we could not hear each other when calling out. A couple of hairy moments the next day, but we eventually got out.

Incredible!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Got lost on a 3 day hike with boyfriend (now DH) in remote part of South America. Unstable steep scrambling in gorge with glacial melt raging below. Thought we might die. I was exhausted and clinging to a rock so he went ahead for 5 mins to see if he could see a path out. Two hours later, it was almost dark and he had not returned. Thought he had fallen and was either dead or badly hurt. Backtracked to try and find a small clearing for my tent, thinking that in the morning I would have to attempt to find my own way out of the ravine and then find rescuers. In the darkness, he suddenly emerged from the opposite direction. He got lost. The fallen trees and scrub were so thick he couldn’t find me and the roar of the water below meant we could not hear each other when calling out. A couple of hairy moments the next day, but we eventually got out.

Incredible!

Gawd, it’s dredging up other memories aside from our terrible hiking trip. Like when we didn’t anchor a rented motor boat properly off a tiny barren uninhabited ‘island’ in Sicily. Looked up from our heart to heart on the beach and couldn’t see our boat. Spotted it drifting away on the current in the distance and we both jumped in and started swimming after it. Fortunately, another boat saw what happened and stopped our boat so we could catch up. We were not fast swimmers and could easily have drowned.

Another time we (4 young women and 1 guy) were in a 4WD on a steep jungle road through the highlands of Papua New Guinea and were stopped by a ‘police checkpoint’. About 8 guys, some shirtless, bleary eyed from being stoned on betel nut, machetes, maybe one wore a semblance of a uniform. I still remember the feeling in the pit of my stomach.

[Anonymous]

First (and only!) cruise ever. We were on a small ship (about 150 passengers) sailing from Panama to Costa Rica over Christmas. First thing that went wrong is we had some rough weather, and I discovered I get horribly sea sick. Then the morning of the third day of our trip our boat hit a reef and started taking on water. It was very much like being on the Titanic; we felt the jolt, but the crew pretended nothing was wrong. They sent us on an excursion to an island that was a nature preserve, and when we returned from our hike the ship was obviously listing to one side. At that point they told us the ship was sinking and we couldn’t get back on. We were literally stranded on an uninhabited tropical island! The first rescue ship came that night, but it only had room for passengers in the most expensive staterooms. The next rescue ship came after midnight, which is the one we got on. We were lucky our family could all crowd into an empty cabin. (The crew had to stay overnight on the island.) Then they took us to Costa Rica and flew us home. We got home Christmas Eve to no tree and no presents, since the cruise was the present. But we got a full refund and now we have a good story!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First (and only!) cruise ever. We were on a small ship (about 150 passengers) sailing from Panama to Costa Rica over Christmas. First thing that went wrong is we had some rough weather, and I discovered I get horribly sea sick. Then the morning of the third day of our trip our boat hit a reef and started taking on water. It was very much like being on the Titanic; we felt the jolt, but the crew pretended nothing was wrong. They sent us on an excursion to an island that was a nature preserve, and when we returned from our hike the ship was obviously listing to one side. At that point they told us the ship was sinking and we couldn’t get back on. We were literally stranded on an uninhabited tropical island! The first rescue ship came that night, but it only had room for passengers in the most expensive staterooms. The next rescue ship came after midnight, which is the one we got on. We were lucky our family could all crowd into an empty cabin. (The crew had to stay overnight on the island.) Then they took us to Costa Rica and flew us home. We got home Christmas Eve to no tree and no presents, since the cruise was the present. But we got a full refund and now we have a good story!

That's crazy!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Our nine person team went to India for a work trip. Every single one of us except the Mexican on our team got sick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Got lost on a 3 day hike with boyfriend (now DH) in remote part of South America. Unstable steep scrambling in gorge with glacial melt raging below. Thought we might die. I was exhausted and clinging to a rock so he went ahead for 5 mins to see if he could see a path out. Two hours later, it was almost dark and he had not returned. Thought he had fallen and was either dead or badly hurt. Backtracked to try and find a small clearing for my tent, thinking that in the morning I would have to attempt to find my own way out of the ravine and then find rescuers. In the darkness, he suddenly emerged from the opposite direction. He got lost. The fallen trees and scrub were so thick he couldn’t find me and the roar of the water below meant we could not hear each other when calling out. A couple of hairy moments the next day, but we eventually got out.

This is terrifying!! I would have been so scared (and also wondering who was going to play me in the movie version 🤣🤣)!

[Anonymous]

Got myself into a scary situation leaving the airport in Santiago, Chile. Not sure exactly what happened, but somehow two men got me in a sketchy cab and took my money. Fortunately I was able to phone a friend who lived there, who called the police, who said they would track me. The driver realized what was going on, took me back to the airport, and somehow I managed to negotiate with them in broken Spanish to return all my money. It worked out, but in retrospect it could have gone really badly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a child, my parents took us on a trip to Colombia, South America where my American grandfather was living with his second wife. At some point after dinner there was a big family dispute when my mom found out her dad had been shacking up with the girlfriend (now wife) while her parents were married. I cowered in the corner as voices were raised. Eventually, everyone went to bed very, very late so that we missed our outbound plane the next morning. That plane took off and crashed into mountains. Everyone at home who had our itinerary thought we had died. It was quite a trip.

Now that is quite the story! Was it this flight?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_410

That is an insane story. I think I'd feel like God had chosen me for something special to have everyone oversleep like that.

It wasn't your time. There was, or is, something you need to accomplish.

I've posted about this here before, but my mom's best friend (and my Godmother) had a ticket to the Air Florida flight that hit the 14th street bridge. She was stuck in traffic (snow) and begged to be let on at the gate but the just denied her.

Then, 20 years later, she had a flight to go see her son in LA. She once again got stuck in traffic and missed her flight despite once again begging to be allowed on.

That plane hit the Pentagon on September 11th.

OMG! What are the chances of this happening twice? Crazy.

I had a boss when I was in management consulting who had experienced four commercial flight landings where the passengers were instructed to assume the crash landing position. None of the planes actually crashed due to the skill of the pilots, but no one on his team ever wanted to travel with him. We used to beg the travel coordinator to put us on a different flight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Got myself into a scary situation leaving the airport in Santiago, Chile. Not sure exactly what happened, but somehow two men got me in a sketchy cab and took my money. Fortunately I was able to phone a friend who lived there, who called the police, who said they would track me. The driver realized what was going on, took me back to the airport, and somehow I managed to negotiate with them in broken Spanish to return all my money. It worked out, but in retrospect it could have gone really badly.

Sketchy cab driver story for me too. We were flying from one place to another in Malaysia to catch our flight home - the domestic and international airports were almost an hour apart. We took an airport taxi from domestic airport to international. Halfway through he asked us to give all our money or he said he would abandon us in the middle somewhere. He was friendly up to that point and we were chatting with him. We gave all what we had and were thankful he actually took us to the airport and not somewhere else. I wanted to file a police complaint but we didn't want to miss our international flight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Got lost on a 3 day hike with boyfriend (now DH) in remote part of South America. Unstable steep scrambling in gorge with glacial melt raging below. Thought we might die. I was exhausted and clinging to a rock so he went ahead for 5 mins to see if he could see a path out. Two hours later, it was almost dark and he had not returned. Thought he had fallen and was either dead or badly hurt. Backtracked to try and find a small clearing for my tent, thinking that in the morning I would have to attempt to find my own way out of the ravine and then find rescuers. In the darkness, he suddenly emerged from the opposite direction. He got lost. The fallen trees and scrub were so thick he couldn’t find me and the roar of the water below meant we could not hear each other when calling out. A couple of hairy moments the next day, but we eventually got out.

I cannot imagine why you thought this would be anything other than a disaster. Did you have a sat phone at least?

[Anonymous]

We took a family trip to Alaska. Our 30 year old son wanted to hike in Seward. We didn’t think it was safe for him to go alone so we went with him. At the top of the mt we heard two bear cubs calling for mom. I was shaking. The spray we carried seemed insignificant.
We went down the other side of the mt, talking and singing the entire way down to create noise.
Never again son.