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Travel is many things — eye-opening, magical, exhilarating, and, at times, stressful. For example, there’s nothing quite like the anxiety-inducing feeling of racing through security just as your flight gate is about to close. Well, Redditor u/yankeevandal asked, “Everyone has a travel blunder; what’s yours?” Here are the stories people shared.
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“Put my keys back through the AirBnB letterbox, as requested. A few minutes later I realized I needed the keys to access the garage where my rental car was parked. It took an hour and a half for someone to come and let me in. I got to the airport just in time to see my plane take off.”
3.
“My dad once made reservations for a very nice hotel in Spain in a central location. He couldn’t believe how cheap the rooms were and what a good deal it was. He and my mother went to check in, and the hotel said they didn’t have any record of the booking. My dad pulled up the confirmation email to show them and realized he had somehow booked a hotel with the exact same name…but in Chile.”
—u/gentlybeepingheart
4.
“When I was in my early 20s, I went to a nightclub in Istanbul with my girlfriend. Throughout the night, I stupidly ordered several of these half-bottles of champagne that were on the menu with no price listed. Of course, when the bill came, it turned out they had brought me the most expensive bottles, and I could not afford to pay for them. After a long standoff, the club eventually believed I couldn’t afford my tab or just gave up and settled the bill for some reasonable amount that I had on me. Obviously, they were trying to take advantage of me, but it was also very stupid that I didn’t ask for the price upfront.”
5.
“The plane I was on hit turbulence, and I dislocated both hip replacements. I had to lay in the center aisle for 45 minutes while passing out in pain until we could make an emergency landing.”
—u/JonnyP3283
6.
“I needed to take a train to the airport in Rome to catch my flight home. So I got on the track where the train to Roma Fiumicino was announced. The train was fast, but it took way longer than I thought it should, and I started to worry a bit about being late for my flight. Then we arrived at the next train station….which was Florence! Somehow I had taken the wrong train (for which I did not have a ticket), and I also missed my flight. I explained the situation to the conductor, who kindly let me stay on until the next stop, Milan, without paying for a new ticket. By the time we reached Milan I had already booked a hotel room and a new flight home the next day. I had never been to Milan, and I had a good time there, so in the end, it worked out.”
7.
“I made hotel reservations for the wrong weekend. I had to find a new hotel 30 minutes away. The original reservation was for a hotel where I could walk out of my room and directly onto the beach.”
—u/mook1178
8.
“Booked a train ticket from Rome to Venice and drank way too much the night before. I rolled into the train station with about 10 minutes to spare — only to find out that it was daylight savings time, and I was actually 50 minutes late.”
9.
“I missed my flight home from Ghana to California on a layover in Rome. I told everyone I fell asleep and missed the flight, but in reality, I was sitting at the wrong gate reading a book and didn’t hear my name being called (apparently, the airline was calling my name forever and then left me behind). In my defense, it was a really good book, and I was exhausted from a long travel day.”
—u/zeebette
10.
“I booked a holiday to Ibiza from the UK while out at a rave. The next day, I discovered that instead of flying from Southampton to Ibiza, I was actually flying Southampton to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Madrid, and Madrid to Ibiza. What should have been a two-hour flight took most of the day. Whoops.”
11.
“I once read the flight arrival time as the departure time. My girlfriend had to be home for a class by the next morning, so the only option was to make the six-hour drive. She wasn’t stoked with me.”
—u/twankyfive
12.
“I booked a flight to Manchester, NH, when I was supposed to go to Manchester, UK. I was proud of myself at first for finding a great deal. In my defense, this was years ago, in the early days of the internet. It was one of the first purchases I made on Priceline when you’d buy the airfare online, and they’d send paper tickets in the mail.”
13.
“In Portuguese, gasolina means gas, and gasoleo means diesel. Despite the confusingly similar names, these two things are still not interchangeable. I learned this the hard way.”
—u/c322617
14.
“I missed a flight because I was eating a Big Mac. And my buddy just got on the plane without me.”
15.
“I mixed up AM and PM for my flight time and showed up at the airport 12 hours late. Had to book a new one.”
—u/dude341387
16.
“I booked a flight to Santiago, Spain. Months later, when checking into my flight, I realized I had booked for Santiago, Chile. I repacked my bag and went to Chile six hours later with zero itinerary or reservations. I ended up in Patagonia and had an awesome trip.”
17.
“My husband passed a kidney stone on the first night of our honeymoon.”
—u/TinyBunny88
18.
“Turns out SJC is NOT the airport code for San Jose, Costa Rica. Rather, it’s San Jose, California. I figured this one out too late.”
19.
“A hotel I was staying at gave me the key to someone else’s room. When I opened the door, there was some random guy lying on the bed without a shirt on. We both sort of jumped. I slammed the door shut and walked away. I got a free (and vacant) room after that incident.”
—u/DJAlaskaAndrew
20.
“I traveled for over ten hours for a sold-out festival in Vegas. All major hotels were sold out because of it, and I realized I booked the hotel for 2024 instead of 2023.”
So, what’s a travel mishap you’ll never forget and never live down? Tell us your story in the comments or drop it into the Google form.
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