Hi everyone!
You may have noticed that lately I’ve mostly been publishing longer-form and detailed posts about my travels, but today I wanted to write something a bit more different and fun!
I wanted to talk about bad travel moments, or travel fails, and how they usually turn into fun memories in the end. Please, share yours too in the comments! 😄
From bad travel moments to fun memories
Do you remember the time when your rental car stopped in the middle of the road and you had to call for assistance? When you tripped and fell into the water in the middle of winter? When you got completely lost in a foreign country and maybe your phone battery had died too?
All of these things and more can happen on a trip, and as long as things turn out okay in the end – which is often the case – have you noticed that these are some of the stories we tend to tell more?
This is quite interesting because usually when these kind of things happen when you are travelling it is always at the worst possible moment and it is really the opposite of a fun time: you are stressed and anxious, maybe a little cold, sweaty or hungry (or all of the above), and it just feels like the universe is turning against you.
And then, when you’re back, it turns into a sort of “core memory” and you can even laugh about it!
Disclaimer: I am talking here about moments that do turn out ok in the end. Not about actually dangerous situations and traumatic experiences.
The usual culprits
From my long experience of both travelling and failing, I’ve noticed that there are some usual culprits for the most common travel fails. Here’s some.
Renting any type of vehicle
It sometimes feels like a rental car is just waiting for you to be in a remote place to stop working or for the most inconvenient time of day to flash out all the lights on its dashboard at the same time.
Similarly, when you try to be more adventurous and rent an ATV or a scooter, it seems like the one you get always ends up being the slowest, most faulty one there is.
Some of my personal memories here include driving around Portugal with the engine light on, countless tyre stops while being hungry all around the world, and driving at a snail’s pace on an ATV in Paros, Greece.
Bad weather
Like everything on this list, bad weather cannot be predicted nor controlled, but it does make for a good amount of travel fails. When the weather is bad, you either have to roll with it – at your own risk – or to change your plans, and this can lead to some disappointment.
Most times, however, unplanned experiences end up being some of the best. For example, when I wanted to rent a boat with friends in Malta but they wouldn’t let us because of stormy weather, we ended up having the nicest day at the beach!
Sometimes, things do not turn out very fun in the moment, especially if you decide to stick to your plans despite the bad weather, but it still makes for a very memorable time.
I will never forget feeling trapped in the car during a snow storm in Iceland (lesson: do not ignore Icelandic weather) or climbing the 800+ steps to reach a summit in South Korea with 38°C and 98% humidity (lesson: bring water with electrolytes).
And I’m sure some of you have already done a long hike to a stunning view point, only for the morning fog to never lift!
Anything “off-the-beaten-path” or unusual
Going off-the-beaten-path has many benefits, as it makes a trip unique and unforgettable. It is also beneficial for countries suffering from overtourism in specific places. However, these “paths less traveled by” may sometimes lead to awkard or weird situations.
Other times, it is precisely because places are not touristic that they won’t have some amenities or infrastructures that one would expect.
This may end up in you getting lost or having no battery left on your phone. While this can be stressful, it may also lead to your best encounters with locals, or the nicest meal of your trip.
An unusual experience for me was taking a miner’s trains to climb up a mountain in Norway – definitely not recommended if you are claustrophobic, but the views were stunning!
Language barrier
I love languages and how there are so many different ones out there. Learning the basics of a language when you go to a new place is what I would always recommend, but of course you can’t learn a whole language each time you’re traveling.
Now English is spoken in many places around the world, but communicating with the locals, especially in rural areas, can be really tough in some countries because their knowledge of English is very limited.
Misunderstandings that come with not speaking the same language make for great travel fails and awkward moments. But it can also end up being an unforgettable and fun memory in the end.
Any type of accommodation
Even if you don’t travel on a budget, picking a lower-priced accommodation is always a bit tempting, and even when you decide to splurge or carefully read all the reviews to make sure everything is good, you can be disappointed.
It is never fun when something you paid for ends up being disappointing, but this can happen and there is nothing much we can do about it. As with everything on this list, though, these bad moments can turn into fun memories once you’re back home.
In this category, I have to mention my trip to Japan, when we spotted a cockroach right when we were about to go to bed, or to South Korea, when we had to leave the room for an hour or so for the bug repellent to work.
This was far from being fun in the moment, but I do look back to these memories with much fondness!
Learning how to deal with travel fails
As someone that likes planning my trips and having things more or less organised, dealing with unexpected situations is not easy. You can be frustrated and feel defeated when it feels like all your plans are going south, or when you have to cancel something because of things you can’t control.
A change of mindset
Over the years and after many such disappointments, I have learnt to loosen my grip on things that I can’t control and I’ve also noticed that bad moments and fails when travelling end up being very memorable moments.
Also, I probably wouldn’t know how to adjust the tyre pressure of a car if it weren’t for the many cars I rented with this specific issue!
Now, when something unexpected happens that forces me to change my plans or to delay them, I look at it with an amused curiosity: will this end up being a massive travel fail or simply a bump along the road? Will I laugh about it in the end?
Sometimes this doesn’t help in making you feel better in the moment, but it can bring a bit of perspective and stop you from focusing too much on one bad moment.
Turning this into a game
I’ve had my share of fails during my travels, so much so that we’ve created a little game out of it with my sister. And that is now a game I play pretty much every time I travel. It roughly translates into something like “the loser’s game”.
Throughout the trip, each travel fail or bad moment is worth a set amount of points that you decide. At the end of the trip, the one with the most points is the loser. It’s pretty simple!
At the beginning of the trip, you think of some things that could go wrong – it is usually more fun when these are unnecessarily specific and unrealistic (the point here is not to give you anxiety!). Then you think of how many points each of these could be worth.
Then, during the trip, each time something a bit annoying comes up (forgetting something at a restaurant, getting blisters, slipping and falling, you name it), you decide together how many points that is worth.
And that’s pretty much it! It is very silly but it does really help to deal with bad travel moments and fails in general, although if you are the clumsy type, you might end up being the loser on every trip!
What are some of your worst (or best) travel fails that you can now laugh about or that are now an unforgettable memory?
