The 21 Absolute Worst Things When You Travel
I love to travel. I’m always excited to explore new places and to meet new people. I’ve learned to expect the unexpected, knowing that any trip will inevitably include at least a few delays and minor disasters. But every now and then, something goes wrong and it feels more than just a little annoying. Here are the 21 worst things that can happen when you travel:
1. You are assigned to the middle seat on a long flight (on, say, a trip from NYC to Australia). Between two obese people. Who talk loudly to each other throughout the entire flight. And nibble on a very pungent salami.
2. Being stuck behind someone who insists on driving at least 15 miles below the speed limit on a road with only one lane.
3. After reviewing the image from your full-body scan, the TSA representative winks and asks for your phone number.
4. Plans for a relaxing week on the beach are interrupted by a storm, which not only forces you indoors, but causes your hotel to lose all electricity and other services. You spend your vacation huddled in a hallway to avoid the possibility of being hurt by shards of glass from your hotel room’s large beach-view windows. And your flight home is cancelled for days.
5. Two words: stomach bug.
6. You have an active itinerary, visiting a city a day throughout Europe. Your luggage lags you by one day the entire way.
7. It turns out that the cutie who flirted with you at the bar was really interested in pick-pocketing your wallet.
8. Your boss calls you on the first day of long-anticipated and very expensive two-week trip to alert you that there will be layoffs at your company. So you spend the whole time worrying.
9. Bad weather delays your flight for a long weekend trip to Paris. For three days.
10. Your license is suspended just as you are about to drive across the United States.
11. The doctor tells you to avoid all gluten products just before you take a tour of restaurants in Tuscany (no bread or pasta for you!).
12. A prolonged heat wave precedes your ski trip.
13. You discover that you are prone to seasickness. On a 10-day ocean cruise.
14. The country you are visiting experiences a coup d’etat.
15. During a long-awaited two-week sojourn, your young child develops a sudden fear of new places and new people that makes him/her scream uncontrollably.
16. The walls are paper-thin at your romantic bed and breakfast inn and your room is right next to that of your sweet and very, very prim and proper hostess.
17. You lose your passport and spend the entire vacation at the embassy trying to get a replacement.
18. The private spot you found to “do your business” on the first day of a camping trip was actually a huge patch of poison ivy.
19. Your wardrobe malfunction as you come out of the hotel pool is a hit on YouTube.
20. Surprise! Turns out that quaint cabin you rented has no running water or Wi-Fi — and you have teenagers in tow.
21. You come home with bedbugs, picked up at a fancy and over-priced (but apparently under-clean) hotel.
Unfortunately, I’ve experienced a number (but not all!) of the things on this list. How about you? I’d love to connect and hear your tales of woe @VOFranzese.
Note: this story originally appeared on Parachute/Mapquest.
