My Great 38 – What’s Gone Wrong While Traveling the World

I paint a pretty rosy picture about how amazing traveling the world is. Surely you must be wondering what’s gone wrong while I’ve been far away from home?

Here’s a comprehensive list of everything I could think of that has gone wrong during my many, many travels. I’ve included everything I could come up with, regardless of how ridiculous, small or silly the incidents may seem. My hope is by sharing everything that’s happened to me, you can put your irrational fears in check and travel fearlessly. 

For fun, please note how many of these were self-caused, or caused by my travel companions. I’ve pointed it out pretty clearly by mentioning them (Alex) in the heading.

 I hope you enjoy. It’s okay to giggle.

The List

What’s Gone Wrong While Cruising

• I once had an Uber take us to the wrong cruise terminal in Stockholm, Sweden (it’s shocking how many white and black cruise ships there are). It was a $50 mistake, $70 if you include the original Uber ride to the wrong ship. We still got back to the cruise port twenty minutes early.
• We couldn’t find our cruise terminal in Florence, Italy. (You’d think I’d learn to set a pin.) The cost for this emergency taxi was about $25. We were still thirty minutes early to the cruise port.
• Cruises cancel ports. We’ve missed out on Alexandria, Cairo, Bahrain, Honduras and Istanbul and once had to dock two days early in Rome. Port cancelations happen, it’s best to go with the flow.
• We did not enjoy the food on our Carnival Cruise.
• Although we’d been allowed to bring soda on board dozens of other times, Norwegian refused to let us bring our own soda on board the ship at a stop in Belize. There was no notice of a rule change, one day it was okay, the next day it wasn’t and we haven’t sailed with them since. They’ve also refused, after multiple times contacting them, to credit my account with a 12 night Mediterranean cruise which would bump me up to their next status level. I used to love NCL, I’ve decided to now love Holland America.

What’s Gone Wrong While Driving With Alex

• Alex got a photo ticket for going 1km over the speed limit in the Netherlands. Yes, 1 kilometer. Despite our best efforts, it took MONTHS to clear the ticket.
• Alex refused to put a pre-purchased driving permit sticker in the window of our rental car (as required by law) when we were driving from Germany into the Czech Republic. When he immediately got pulled over as we crossed into the Czech Republic he attached the sticker to the window so the very friendly, English-speaking cop wouldn’t give him a ticket.
• Alex left a gas pump in the Czech Republic and pulled up to the building (we needed a potty, drink and snack stop, there was no pay-at-the-pump option). The gas station thought we left and called the cops. Nothing bad happened.
• Recently Alex received a $1.00 fine from a car rental because he neglected to pay a toll in Florida. The total bill ended up being $10.00 with service charges.

What’s Gone Wrong With Alex

• We rented a scooter to go to La Bufadora in Ensenada, Mexico. Alex forgot to wear sunglasses and got a lot of sand in his eyes. This was in 2014 and he still complains about this today.
• While searching for a geocache in Finland we were mistaken for terrorists because the geocache looked like a bomb.
• It was very, very hot in Dubrovnik and Alex didn’t dress appropriately so we went back to the ship and took a nap.
• Alex met me in Germany from Nepal. He showed up with explosive diarrhea. This was in 2014 and he still regularly tells me the details of this diarrhea experience. (My engagement ring happened to be in his pocket.) #sorryburgerking
• I wasn’t with Alex, but he once was skiing in Switzerland and “fell” into Italy. He had to pay the ski patrol to take him back across the border. He also lost his hotel key during this incident which was $60 to replace.

What’s Gone Wrong That Was Inconvenient

• We took the last bus from Teotihuacan (the pyramids outside of Mexico City) into Mexico City and had to stand up the whole ride. We’d spent the day climbing pyramids and our legs were tired so the LAST thing we wanted to do was stand for fifty minutes on an overstuffed bus. Obviously nothing bad happened.
• A travel companion left a cell phone on a bus seat in Guatemala and it was stolen.
• We met an unhappy server at Boston Market in San Diego who didn’t share our enthusiasm for gravy. Or honeybutter.
• At a hotel just outside of Auschwitz, Poland, our TV kept turning on and off on its own. We unplugged it. This TV unnerved Alex and he almost decided to sleep in the car.
• The sidewalks in San Juan, Puerto Rico, are very uneven. I tripped stepping up on the sidewalk at twilight, fell down and badly skinned my knee.
• I was eaten alive by mosquitos in both Rome and Florence.

What’s Gone Wrong That I Need to Get Over

• In the Czech Republic a bee flew into my jacket, down my shirt and up my arm, stinging me multiple times. To get the bee out of my shirt I dropped my vanilla-chocolate-raspberry chimney cone that I’d been searching for for a week. I also lost my favorite spider earring.
• We missed visiting the Notre Dame Cathedral in 2013 because someone committed suicide inside and the church closed for the investigation.
• The Notre Dame burned down! (I was at home, but this still feels like something bad that happened to me.)
• No one outside the United States has ice. Ever.

What’s Gone Wrong and We Moved On

• We didn’t buy our tickets to the Van Gogh Museum in advance and didn’t get to visit.
• We drove to Moab, Utah, to see the mysterious monolith. When we got there it had just been removed.
• A drop of water fell on a library book about Prague and the library made me pay for the book.

What’s Gone Wrong When Alex Refused to Listen to Me

• I told Alex not to talk to the Moroccan tour guides. He talked to them and they proceeded to chase us through Tangier. At one point they tried to force us to jump into their van. We didn’t.

What’s Gone Wrong With Other Aggressive Tour Guides

• We once signed up for a zipline shore excursion at the cruise port in Puerto Vallarta. When they tried to sell us on a different excursion, we left their office. Bonus: This ended up being a free ride into PVR!
• We were kidnapped by the “Best Tour Guide in Guatemala”. We eventually jumped out of his van and took a taxi to our hotel.
• I was HOUNDED by tour guides in Alexandria and Cairo.

What’s Gone Wrong That Turned Out Fine

• While driving through Yellowstone a wildfire closed the main road, blocking us from our very expensive pre-paid hotel. There was no cell phone service in the park and when we finally got through to the hotel the front desk was closed. Everything worked out fine in the end.
• My camera was stolen in Sicily. Using Google Translate with some friendly locals I got it back.
• I got high altitude sickness in Cusco. It went away.
• We ordered way too much garlic bread in London. Then we forced ourselves to eat all of it.
• We saw someone who was very near death going for a ride on a bicycle pulled cart in Cozumel.
• While visiting Girbralter a naughty monkey reached into my jacket pocket and stole my lipgloss. When I snatched it back he chased us down the mountain. I felt like we were in some kind of animal attacks horror movie. We survived.
• A do-gooder waiter in Frankfurt refused to give me ice for my soda, worried my drink would be “too cold”.
• Venice, Italy has a really fabulous to-go pasta place with no seating. You have to eat outside, loitering around. There is literally no place anywhere to sit and eat, but man their pasta is good. We ate standing up. It was fine.
• I almost missed my flight home from LHR to SLC because an aggressive gate agent forced me to check my bag.

That’s it. Those are all the bad things I could come up with.

I Agree, This List is Ridiculous

Please don’t avoid traveling to your dream destination because you’re worried about all the bad things that might possibly happen to you. As you can see, chances are good that if something “bad” happens to you, it will either be the ridiculous brand of bad, or it’s something you brought on yourself.

Let’s hear about the ridiculous bad things that have happened to you, or something you brought on yourself. Hopefully there’s a picture. #ridiculousthingshappen or #Ibroughtthisonmyself

Thanks So Much for Stopping By!

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I’d love to hear about your travel experiences, good and bad. We’ll all be better travelers if we learn from one another. 

The Art of Travel (TAOT) ~ Written by Kylie, these awesome photos came from Unsplash.