40 Dumb And Funny Mistakes People Made While Traveling

Arrived in Mozambique with only South African Rand. I thought I’d be able to withdraw some cash from an ATM or pay for the visa on arrival with card, but for some reason my card wasn’t working. I couldn’t get into the country because I didn’t have the correct currency to pay for the visa, and my cards weren’t working to withdraw any cash. Luckily a kind person behind me offered to pay for my visa and I was able to get into contact with a family member to help check on my cards and activate them. It was one of the most touching moments of kindness I’d experienced, and also a lesson to always always always carry enough cash on you while traveling.

Ran to the train station in Amsterdam. Got on the train to Frankfurt, put my suitcases on their spot and stepped off to have a smoke. Immediately the doors closed behind me and my possessions (minus passport, wallet and phone which were in my pocket) went to Frankfurt without me. A couple of trains and a flight later, I was in Frankfurt waiting for my suitcases but they weren’t on the train. A few long days spent calling around and finally found them in Utrecht (Netherlands conductors took them off before entering Germany). Rented a car and drove the 12 hours round trip from Frankfurt to Utrecht and back to Frankfurt and all was well when I started work on Monday morning. I don’t tell this story often

 Took a shortcut against the advice of my hostel receptionist and got mugged. 500 euro taken. Had to go home early.

Partied the whole night at LKF, Hong Kong and went back to my hostel at 6 am. I had a 9:30 am flight home but figured I'd take a ^tiny nap since my backpack was all packed and I'm already checked in anyway.

I woke up at at 9:45 am.

Got pickpocketed hours before my flight out of the Philippines to Australia. Couldn't board my flight because I had to pay the fee for overstaying my visa. Had to spend whatever little change I had at an Internet cafe to email my brother asking for a western union transfer. And shame-eat some Jollibee spaghetti. While waiting for my bro's response (due to the completely different time zones) I didn't know what to do so I slept in a park that night. Seemed alright. Some people walking through the park later that evening were like wtf are you doing, one offered that I could sleep at his place for the night, I accepted. We arrive at his home, which was more like a collection of shacks with all the extended family there. I ask where I'm sleeping, as it looks like there's no extra space, and he says I can have his bed. Of course once I'm in bed he also climbs in bed. Turns out his wife left him because he's (can you guess?) - gay. He's trying to get me to fool around with him, wants to give me a blowjob as he's better than girls anyway. I could just close my eyes and pretend it’s a girl lol. I give him the ultimatum to stop trying or I'm leaving, which was a bluff bc I have no f*****g clue where I am, he gets all huffy and turns over to the other side of the bed and well, that was that. I didn’t really sleep, but didn’t feel any pokey pokings either. We eat cereal in the morning and his cousin who drives a tuk tuk takes me to the western union and the money is there! I rebook my flight and get out of there. The end.

Don’t get pickpocketed with all your cards and cash in one place!

I went to see the pyramids and just kinda forgot about the god damn sphinx. Not really sure how that happened lol

Using points, I booked a one way flight to get me to Nepal: AMS - FRA - DEL (Delhi) - CCU (Kolkata) - KTM. Lots of stops, but basically a free flight (points!). Great!

I had done tons of solo travel all over at this point, and never thought anything further about my flight until I arrived at AMS airport. "Do you have an India visa?". "No, I'm just transiting on my way to Nepal and I can get that on arrival." I guess they didn't think anything further of it either.

So I arrive in Frankfurt airport, get to my gate, and the Air India agent asks to see my India visa. "No, I'm just transiting on my way to Nepal." He lets me on the flight. Clearly he didn't think anything further of it.

On my flight to Delhi, I start to think more about this. I'm transiting, yes, but I'm also taking an intra-India flight to do so. I hadn't thought about this when booking or so confidently explaining my situation to the gate agents. I looked through the information in the booklet on the flight and it explained that some flights were transiting internationally (with XYZ flight numbers), but some were considered domestic (with other ABC numbers). My ongoing flight was ABC. Uh oh.

I arrive to Delhi and sure enough, someone does think further or my situation. There is a man directing people to either immigration or sterile transit (no customs needed for a transfer). He looks at my flight number on my next flight and points to customs. "So you see, that's not going to be possible...".

So instead, I ended up in a room full of people who also made visa f**k ups and were awaiting deportation. In the end, Air India eventually came through for me and got me on a direct flight to KTM. Huge props to them.

When I solo traveled in India and was ready to fly out of the country, I didn’t include my middle name when booking the flight ticket. Since the name on my ticket didn’t fully match the name on my passport without the middle name, I wasn’t allowed to board the flight until I called the airline company and had them change it. It was like 4 AM and the company phone lines weren’t open until a later time, but luckily I had like 4-5 hours before my flight departed and was able to have it changed in time.

Left my passport in the hotel safe when flying out of Prague. Didn't realize this until I was at the airport, 90 minutes away from my hotel and no way to do the round trip in time to keep my flight. Contacted the hotel, made arrangements for another cab to bring me my passport. Got my passsport and tried to check in for the flight, but they wouldn't let me because it was now less than an hour to departure and an international flight. I could have just checked in on my phone while waiting, but didn't realize it would be an issue. Ended up spending another night in Prague.

Booked a train ticket from Rome to Venice, drank way too much the night before, rolled into the train station with about 10 minutes to spare, only to find out that it was daylight savings and I was actually 50 minutes late

First ever trip on my own to Nepal and Thailand. Got instructions of whst to do on my 16 hour layover in Hong Kong. Was so nervous and anxious being alone for the first time that I followed everyone to the transit and when I realized, I was told I couldn’t get out. Spent the next 16 hours exploring every single nook and cranny of that airport. It’s pretty sweet, but not 16 hours sweet lol

Thinking that a 12 hour overnight layover in Abu Dhabi airport was doable without an airport hotel room. Good lord I was wrong. Worst 12 hours of any travel experience I’ve had thus far. I never skip the travel hotel now lol

* Took a tour group to Railay, Thailand. Place is well known for having rampant water quality issues causing food poisoning. Spent two days cleaning up poop and puke from our guests.

* Went down the wrong road, spent ~1hr getting chased and cornered by street dogs in the middle of the night.

* Took a random pill in Mexico. Almost threw myself off a building. Had serious anxiety for ~2 years afterward.

* Forgot my passport in a hostel while trying to leave Romania - had to leave the bus and thumb my way back 2hrs.

* Forgot my passport in a cab in LA while transiting to go to Australia.
* Booked a hotel in the wrong year for my entire family in Vietnam

I booked a room in Paris for the 22nd but booked my train there for the 21st so I needed emergency accommodation for my first night there. I put in a hotel reservation online, chose the cheapest non-refundable option and then, once it was paid for, realized I had booked it for the next month by accident. $100 dollars I couldn't get refunded, I ended up staying in a smelly, crowded 12 bed hostel room with a bunch of teenagers which cost $70, but it was all I could find 

I drove to Canada from Kentucky and forgot my passport. Not as big a deal as you but still a similar sinking in the pit of the stomach.

Not researching destinations enough. I like travel photography and I try to map out potential shots before I get there. In 2008 I went to Japan and spent three days in Hakone, a rural respite from the mega-cities. I planned to take photos at Lake Ashi, hoping to catch a shot of Mount Fuji with a long lens. But it was too humid for Mount Fuji so I walked the trails and roads around the lake. Just south of Hakone-En I walked along the lake but it didn't look like much so I went back. If I had carried on for another five hundred meters I would have bumped into the [Torri of Peace], the most photographed site at the lake and one of the most beloved icons in Japan. It wasn't till I got home that I realized it. I've missed a lot of stuff because of this. So research your destinations, people! Don't be like me.

Catalina island, CA. Random day of the week during their off season, late October. Thought we could just camp on the remote end of the island, Two Harbors, though the ferry we booked on a whim in the middle of the day took us to Avalon, the high-end tourist town with very little camping accommodations. No luck getting to Two Harbors from there. A taxi to the other side of the island was $200+. And there weren’t anymore ferries back to the mainland that day. We were basically stranded with too much camping gear in some strange, deserted tourist town. Managed to camp very primitively across from a football stadium. Later in the night a bunch of permanent locals (think line cooks, hired help, etc) had a big tailgate party nearby. And the local deer were VERY friendly, almost aggressive. Felt very surreal.

Several years ago when I was still in college I planned a trip over winter break to Mexico to meet a friend; I flew into Cancun to meet him, and then several days later we both flew to CDMX (so I'd booked three one-way flights in total, which is about to become very important). When it came time for me to fly home, I got to the airport and went to use the check-in kiosk, which didn't work for some reason. I went over to the desk, gave them my info, and after a bit of confusion they dropped the horrible truth on me.

I'd booked my flight home for the correct day of the week and time, but a week prior.

I'd probably made the f**k up by selecting the correct date while booking, then the page getting reloaded or something and I was in a rush to get through my previous steps, though I'm not sure how I missed the date in the emails the airline sent me. Regardless, after panicking for a bit, I actually managed to get a flight only a few hours later (with some help from my parents who were actually in front of a computer), but it was definitely a costly mistake, in money and definitely in my pride.

Worst part is this is far from the only time I've mixed up dates with online booking, none have had such high stakes but some have been even more embarrassing, I seem to have a hard time learning this particular lesson.

Booked a tour in Nicaragua that was supposed to cost $52 USD. The guy who was working the credit card machine had no idea how to enter the converted rate amount. Ended up with a $5200 charge on my card. Luckily my CC company easily reversed the charge.

Besides that.... eating strange street food that pretty much knocked my stomach and everything attached for the next day.

Got really drunk alone in Hokkaido after a breakup. Got lost, phone ran out of battery, spent the next hour asking random passers-by to give me directions to my hostel, they'd look it up on Google Maps, tell me, then I'd walk a bit and promptly forget it, repeated this about 10 times and inconvenienced a lot of people. Finally arrived, the hostel was closed at night and locked with a 4 digit code which I had saved ... on my dead phone. By some miracle, despite having only seen the code once, I was able to remember it and let myself in. I'm usually much more prepared, the breakup really compromised my reasoning. So if you're gonna drink in that situation, do it in your room