'[I] was locked out of my hotel in 110°+ Florence heat': 20+ Travel trials and tribulations from tourists who couldn't catch a break

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Aug 16, 2024 5:00 PM EDT

When it rains, it pours, as a few ill-fated travelers know all too well. Sometimes you can do literally everything right while en route to your destination, and things will still go wrong. 

One dude found that out when they left early for the airport. First, they got stalled by a train that decided to park on the tracks for a full hour! That was followed up by a comedy of errors, leading to them missing their flight. There was just no way to get around that train, and how could they have ever predicted that? 

Other people's worst travel stories happened when they were already at the airport (and let's be real, flying is the worst part of traveling for many of us). Instead of getting on their flight, one person was stuck for more than a day in the airport, snacking on vending machine food. It's not so bad if you get stuck at one of the massive major airports, but smaller ones can be super boring and have few food options. It's not where one wants to spend those precious PTO days: instead of lounging on the beach, you're stuck on a hard plastic chair eating Chilis and hoping your phone doesn't die. Check out a bunch of travelers who shared their most terrible trips ever. 

Next up, these workers started their first days on the job and were asked not to return, like one person who "had to fire someone while we were doing their new hire paperwork."

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  • 01
    What was your worst travel experience? 'Having to wear 7 shirts on an 8 hour plane ride so my baggage hit the weight limit'
    via Sean Oulashin on Unsplash
  • 02
    What was your worst travel experience?
    via u/
  • 03
    Capitals21 My parents got into a huge fight and decided they wanted a divorce on the second day of a week long vacation at Disney world. It was the most awful week of my life.
    via u/Capitals21
  • 04
    Elemenop The trip was great for me, and everyone else involved until the end. Went to Jamaica with a 40+ person wedding party. When we got back to the states people started texting in circles that everyone had HOOK WORMS in
    via u/Elemenop
  • 05
    their feet and legs. Only about 5 people didn't get them and I was one of the lucky few. Some people had the hook worms travel all the way to their knees.
    via u/Elemenop
  • 06
    Bobosmite After 4 years in England, I flew back to the US into Charleston airport. My friend was a no-show, so I rented a car and started driving home. So much had changed in 4 years that I had to stop at a gas station and ask for directions. The person was having a hard time,
    via u/Bobosmite
  • 07
    so I said: "What road takes me East. I can find my way from there." And she said: "Honey, if you go East, you'll go into the ocean." I was in Charleston SOUTH CAROLINIA and was supposed to be in WEST VIRGINIA.
    via u/Bobosmite
  • 08
    geekfly I was traveling for work - had not been feeling well for several days. I had a sneaking suspicion that I might have appendicitis. Decided to try to fly home and would go to the ER as soon as I landed. Get on the plane, taxi to the runway, and sat in a ground-hold for the
    via u/geekfly
  • 09
    better part of 2 hours. At this point I felt really, really bad. I was close to ringing the flight attendant call button and explaining that I needed to get off the plane. We were finally cleared for take-off, and fortunately it was a relatively short flight. I landed and drove straight to the ER. Three hours later I was in
    via u/geekfly
  • 10
    surgery to have my appendix removed. In hindsight, it was an incredibly dumb move to try to fly. If my appendix had ruptured mid-flight, well....
    via u/geekfly
  • 11
    [deleted] I was in Morocco with my parents and they started fighting. People were looking, it was wierd. Then my mom stormed off 5 minutes before the boat left to Spain, where our hotel was. We couldn't just leave her so we had to wait at
    via u/[deleted]
  • 12
    the dock for multiple hours waiting for her to come back. Then we had to sit there all night because boats didn't go during the night. It sucked.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 13
    kortevakio Was in Germany a few years back when that Volcano in Iceland erupted, and European countries closed their airports. Had to go through Poland and Baltic countries with polish busdrivers who couldn't speak english, while watching polish dubbed Forrest Gump on a loop for 24 hours.
    via u/kortevakio
  • 14
    ReallyCleverName69. Just in my 6 months alone in Europe, I: Got stuck in a soccer riot in Greece. We were in Thessaloniki and just walking about when out of nowhere we see a police motorcade full of motorcycles and horses. We thought it
    via u/ReallyCleverName69
  • 15
    must be some sort of festival or parade or something because a crowd was drawing. Eventually we heard singing coming down the block and hundreds of hooligans were marching toward the police. Once we realized what was going on we tried to leave but already
    via u/ReallyCleverName69
  • 16
    started to go down. In trying to escape we got hit with tear gas from the police and found shelter in a random apt building. That one, while terrifying in the moment is one of my favorite memories looking back. • Got caught in a storm out at sea. We bordered a little boat
    via u/ReallyCleverName69
  • 17
    in the Peleponese islands, and 20 minutes in a storm started. It was pretty scary because the boat was only big enough for like 10 people and we were rocking pretty violently. Got lost in Bucharest with no wallet, phone, or form of ID. This only happened
    via u/ReallyCleverName69
  • 18
    because my SO was carrying all of our stuff and we got separated in one of the biggest piazzas in the city. • Was locked out of my hotel in 110+ Florence heat with all my luggage the entire day. This wasn't a hotel exactly, but someone's apartment that was
    via u/ReallyCleverName69
  • 19
    listed online. It was in the piazza Duomo, right across from it. The owner forgot about our arrival I guess, and didn't come back until 3pm, after 5-6 hours of us stuck with all of our stuff in the sweltering heat. If you've been in Italy in July, then you know how awful it is.
    via u/ReallyCleverName69
  • 20
    • Took the wrong train ended up in an entirely different country than I expected. • Fended off an attempted mugging.
    via u/ReallyCleverName69
  • 21
    alexander_s_tramp Flying from Florida to Rhode Island...I was flying home to take my ex on a date, we broke up when I moved across the country for work, but I still wanted to make it work with her. She asked me to take her on a date so I planned a trip home, booked a hotel room and reservations at a nice restaurant and was very excited to go. It was
    via u/alexander_s_tramp
  • 22
    planned out for about 2 months, 3 days before I flew home she told me that she didnt care about me anymore and didnt want to see me. Now I have no desire to go home but my family knows Im coming back and they are all excited to see me. I decide to just take the trip and make the best of it.
    via u/alexander_s_tramp
  • 23
    I was flying out of Ft Lauderdale but I lived about an hour and a half south, I had an early flight out and wasnt sure how traffic would be so I made sure that I left extra early. I could see the airport and was about two hours early for my flight. Im sitting at the only red light between me and the airport when a train comes across the tracks. It comes to a
    via u/alexander_s_tramp
  • 24
    complete stop on the tracks in front of me and doesnt move for an hour and Im just stuck there with other cars behind me blocking me in. When the train finally moves I speed down the street looking for the parking lot, which is obviously under construction and has moved. Signs to get to the new parking lot are terrible, about 20 minutes
    via u/alexander_s_tramp
  • 25
    later I finally find it, park my car, grab my bags and start running to the shuttle. I am running down the middle of the street as the shuttle leaves without me. At this point I feel like Im in a bad movie. I wait for the next shuttle and he tells me he has to wait 15 minutes before leaving, but after telling him how my morning has been going and that I would
    via u/alexander_s_tramp
  • 26
    give him 20 to just leave and get me to the airport he agrees. I get inside and ask someone to help me, tell them i have about 25 minutes before my flight, they dont care, tell me its too late and to get in line to reschedule my ticket. 2 hours later i get to the front of the line and the lady tells me that she will be so kind as to wave the rebooking fee and that all I
    via u/alexander_s_tramp
  • 27
    have to do is pay the difference between the flight I had and the flight she is switching me too. I say fine, when and how much is the next flight...12 hours and $200 later, I spent the rest of the day drinking and reading at chilis in the airport. 8:30 pm and Im finally boarding my flight home which has a stop in N.C. to pick up other passengers.
    via u/alexander_s_tramp
  • 28
    Im told we dont have to get off the flight, some people will get off, others will get on and we are off again. However...when we land there just so happens to be a fire alarm going off inside the airport. The captain tells us that we have to evacuate the plane. Everyone gets off and is sitting around inside the airport and for about 30 minutes everyone is
    via u/alexander_s_tramp
  • 29
    told to leave the building but no one wants to. Finally about half the people start to leave so I decide to get up and go with them. I am wearing a t shirt and shorts and its about 30 degrees outside now that I am no longer in florida, but all my warm clothes are in my checked bag. 30 minutes later they let us enter the airport again but say we have to
    via u/alexander_s_tramp
  • 30
    go through security again since we exited the building. We wait for 2 hours and someone finally comes over and tells us that they sent the people who refused to evacuate, along with all our luggage on to rhode island because we could not get on the plane without going through security but TSA had all gone home during the fire alarm because
    via u/alexander_s_tramp
  • 31
    there were no flights left. So here I am stuck in North Carolina with just the clothes on my back. I buy a phone charger in the airport and am told the only available food is a vending machine across the street that closes in 10 minutes. I go get my M&m and dorito dinner, come back and try to figure out whats going on. I am told
    via u/alexander_s_tramp
  • 32
    that they will put us on the next flight out at no charge (such gentlemen)...the next flight is not until 10:30 pm the next day. I ask if there is any way they can put me on a flight back to Florida and they say no, so I ask if they will put me on a flight with a different airline and I will pay the difference in the ticket, they say no. I try to rent a car but it is closed for the night, and the only
    via u/alexander_s_tramp
  • 33
    bus station is 2 hours away. So i give up and spend the entire night and all the next day in the airport. My original flight was supposed to land at 11:15 am on Monday. I got off the plane at 12:30 am on Wednesday. All this to not see the girl who was the entire reason for my trip. I emailed and wrote a letter
    via u/alexander_s_tramp
  • 34
    to the airline asking to at least have the money for my second flight returned to me. They responded by saying that it was my own fault for leaving the airport and the best they would do is a $25 credit toward my next flight with them.
    via u/alexander_s_tramp
  • 35
    onthebalcony Bitten by a (they say) black widow on my first day in Borneo. The paralysis started on my hand, where I was bitten, and just traveled up and got really scary when it started affecting my breathing. The clinic, and then the ER, gave me paracetamol, which didn't quite deal with the problem at hand.
    via u/onthebalcony
  • 36
    ArkyStano Well, we arrived at our hotel in France.. the room. was amazing just until entering the toilet... There was a giant mushroom growing out the side of the sink.
    via u/ArkyStano
  • 37
    JASP3RB3ARDLY Was going to say when I got stuck overnight in the Kansas City airport and all the restaurants were closed -but after reading through these posts I really didn't have it so bad after all.
    via u/JASP3RB3ARDLY
  • 38
    emilhoff When I lived in L.A., one night I was watching The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. A commercial came on for a standup show he was doing in Vegas that coming Saturday. I thought, you know what, I'm gonna go to that. I bought a ticket for the show online, and booked
    via u/emilhoff
  • 39
    flight & hotel through T_ city. Flight confirmed, hotel reservation confirmed. The flight went well, but guess what happened when I got to the hotel. They didn't have my reservation. But Tr_bullshitty said that my reservation was confirmed. Yes, but the hotel had sold out since
    via u/emilhoff
  • 40
    then. Yes, I'm one of the customers you sold out to. Apparently that's not how it works. I got on the phone to Lotsatravesty to get it sorted out. Nearly lost the call as the battery on my cell phone nearly drained out after 40 (that's FORTY) minutes on hold. They did get me another hotel, halfway across town, at
    via u/emilhoff
  • 41
    $25 a night more than the room I had booked, and I missed the show. Money spent for hotel, show ticket and round-trip flight for nothing. I now book flights and hotels directly.
    via u/emilhoff
  • 42
    noonsoon Mom told me we'll only be in America for a couple of weeks. We have been here for 11 years. I want to go home already.
    via u/noonsoon
  • 43
    [deleted] When I was about 11 or 12, I was invited to spend 2 weeks in Florida with my best friend's family at their condo. My best friend, Michelle, and her mom would spend the whole summer down there, while her dad would fly down just for 2 weeks, so he could maintain the family business. I was to fly
    via u/[deleted]
  • 44
    down with Michelle's dad. Now, I don't want to give up too much information, but Michelle's dad has a name very similar to a convict who was wanted at the time of our flight. Seriously, it's one letter off. Being 11-12, my bags, tickets, etc. were all in his name. We were stopped at every single airport and searched. Even on our
    via u/[deleted]
  • 45
    layover. People kept looking at the name on the reservation and had this look of panic come over their eyes. Little did they know this was just a nice guy who ran a movie rental store and his daughter's best friend trying to go on vacation...
    via u/[deleted]
  • 46
    Walt AndJD Missing my train from Switzerland to Italy while having a fever from tonsillitis. I also ran out of phone minutes from talking to the train company. Then having to pay $170 for another ticket and getting delayed in Italy before I could get to the place I was staying. Then being on trains for 14 hours
    via u/Walt AndJD
  • 47
    with a fever. Everything together was just a complete mess and being alone didn't help. Not as bad as some of the others, but still sucked.
    via u/Walt AndJD
  • 48
    [deleted] On vacation driving an RV to Florida from Massachusetts. Thing broke down twice on the way there and then once. more on the way back. We were stuck on the return drive north at a gas station in North Carolina for about 2 hours when my dad decides it's the right time to announce that my
    via u/[deleted]
  • 49
    parents are getting a divorce and this vacation was a 'last hurrah' of sorts. What. The. Ya know what, dad? I couldn't give a rat's your about marriage right now, get me the out of this 100 degree gas station parking lot and WHY THE did you think this
    via u/[deleted]
  • 50
    was the right time to say it?! My mom was so livid that she had my sister and I drive the car we were towing back home. My sister was bawling her eyes out and my mom was fuming so I drove the remaining 14 hours or so home. Around 11 pm it started torrentially raining for the last 5 hours as I was totally exhausted, so I
    via u/[deleted]
  • 51
    couldn't even speed home to get the away from my bizarre, awkward family. Also, the time I was in a plane over the Atlantic that hit a microburst and quickly dropped altitude. That sucked too.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 52
    rhartley23 Having to wear 7 shirts on an 8 hour plane ride so my baggage hit the weight limit.
    via u/rhartley23
  • 53
    Edit: Clarification. I wore them for the 4 hours I was waiting to board the plane, Then I took them off once on board. I smelled like B.O. for the entire flight because I was sweating bullets. in the airport because it was August.
    via u/rhartley23
  • 54
    varcas Not exactly travel specific... but zip-lining in the Dominican Republic. 100 minute ride to the mountains, 40 minutes of one of the most boring activities in my life, and 100 minute ride back to Cana. This was before I saw the South Park episode, all too true.
    via u/varcas
  • 55
    Andromeda321 Was flying from Nepal to Europe via a connection in New Delhi (other connection was via Moscow which would have been even worse). Kathmandu is just about the crappiest airport you can imagine already (lines everywhere, cramped, no ventilation, often awful weather) but luckily there were no issues with weather that day except for the airline
    via u/Andromeda321
  • 56
    I was flying on which was magically delayed two hours. Which was just enough to miss my connection and be rescheduled for a flight 12 hours later. This was awful enough (and, note, you can't leave the airport in India if you don't have a visa in advance, which I didn't) but it took me five hours to get my ticket rebooked by the agents just
    via u/Andromeda321
  • 57
    to go through security again to the general terminal, as after the first hour the staff changed without telling the next group there were still people there waiting for tickets. Then I realized what was up to get things done, but there were screaming European women who didn't at all get this and thought being and direct was going to get solved, so I could never slip the needed
    via u/Andromeda321
  • 58
    bribe and it took four further hours to rebook. No food and water during this wait from It's funny as I've done a lot of stuff people would quantify as awful to have happen- I was charged by an elephant, a gorilla punched me, I've had more than one person try to rob me- but that at least has an interesting story at the end of it and a bit of
    via u/Andromeda321
  • 59
    adventure. This though? This just sucked and there was nothing I could do about it. It also doesn't leave me with a huge urge to return to India properly ever, cause I feel I got a decent taste of a lot of Indian culture out of that (if not the better parts).
    via u/Andromeda321
  • 60
    [deleted] My Mom and Dad are truckers. While one drives, the other sleeps so the truck is always moving. One time. at their old job they decided to take me with them out to California (from Kentucky) just so I could see some of the sights. They had 2 bunk beds in the back of their truck so one of my parents would sleep on the bottom bunk and I'd sleep in the top
    via u/[deleted]
  • 61
    bunk. The thing you don't realize is how bumpy the road is, especially in different states. I don't think the top bunk had as many shock absorbers as the bottom bunk so I was bouncing all over the place. For 3 days I couldn't sleep for more than a few minutes. It was pretty miserable honestly.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 62
    StormiNorman818 Got to the airport to fly from JFK to Rochester (a 1 hour flight). I'm there about an hour early. About 20 minutes before boarding an announcement is made saying that a part on the plane has broken and they're trying to get a new one. About an hour goes by and they make another announcement saying that they found a new part but
    via u/StormiNorman818
  • 63
    have no way of getting it to the plane. They keep updating that same thing for the next few hours. Finally, after 8 hours of waiting in the airport, I get to board my plane. I could've driven ere in the time it took me to wait for my plane. 8 hours of waiting for a 1 hour flight.
    via u/StormiNorman818

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