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“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things: air, sleep, dreams, sea, the sky - all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.”
Hello my jet setting friends! How are you doing this week?
This week I’m going to be sharing with you 10 personal travel stories where I really messed up and had to learn some lessons the hard way. Now, before we get started, I’m going to preface this with the fact that I am absolutely not proud of these stories because frankly, they expose some really dumb, blonde moments of mine. But I’m sharing them with you in the hopes that you learn from my mistakes and never have to go through what I have.
Fortunately, all of these lessons have become teaching moments that I’ve learned from, however I really was lucky in a few scenarios which could have ended up much worse than it did.
I’d also like to say that for all these moments where I made poor travel decisions, there were many more times when I’ve made some pretty resourceful travel decisions, so these stories shouldn’t scare you from getting out into the world and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone.
I’ve learned and grown from all of these mistakes, and what I can say is that the reward of travel far outweighs the risk of getting into sticky situations.
So with that, let’s jump into lesson 1. I’m going to start with a bang and end with a bang, so stick around for lesson 10.
Lesson #1 - Always carry cash.
Lesson number one is always carry cash.
I was in a taxi in Shanghai, China. Now I don’t know if you knew this but taxi drivers in China are probably the least likely to speak any English. Unlike taxi drivers in Europe, who I’ve found can usually speak a few words of English to get the gist of where you want to go, drivers in China are most likely not going to speak a single word of English.
So I’m in this taxi and I started counting my cash left and I realized that I don’t have enough money to pay the driver. The fare was already higher than what I had in my possession. I quietly started freaking out in the backseat trying to figure out what I was going to do next.
I mustered up the courage to try and explain that I needed to stop at an ATM. There was a lot of confusion and back and forth and I tried to use my Google Translation app to explain that I needed an ATM. Eventually, he pulled over at a random office building that had an ATM inside.
I go over to it, still feeling extremely stressed, and put my card inside to withdraw money. So something else about China - not all US travel cards work in China. I have no idea which ones work where; I’ve only just discovered that not all work at every one. And wouldn’t you know it - this one would not accept my card.
I tried over and over again and it wasn’t working. I started thinking...I’m going to end up in prison in China. Trying to still stay calm, I knew that I had to tell the taxi driver that I needed to go to ANOTHER ATM. I went to a store clerk inside the office building and ask if he could translate to my driver that I needed to go to a different ATM.
He was of course, extremely disgruntled but agreed. At this point, I was like, “If this next ATM doesn’t work, I’m going to be screwed.”
So we pull around the block to the next ATM and I go into the stall. I’m trying my card again. And AGAIN, it wasn’t going through. Needless to say at this point, my adrenaline and stress levels were surging through the roof.
I called my fiance back home - knowing that the phone bill would be insane - but I wanted to tell him that I was maybe going to be going to jail soon for not being able to pay this taxi driver.
I thought I had exhausted all my options, and then I realized that I had one more debit card that I had forgotten about that I could try.
I couldn’t believe it but it worked. I cannot even begin to describe how relieved I felt at that moment.
I wanted to be so done with this situation that I paid the taxi driver and tipped (which wasn’t customary there, but I didn’t care) and told him that I would get out here.
I had no idea where I was in Shanghai at the time, but I just wanted my debt to this taxi driver to be paid and for him to leave.
After he drove off, I texted my fiance again to let him know that I was going to be okay, but that was honestly the most high stress way I could have possibly learned that it’s really important to carry cash around you when traveling at all times.
I pretty much never do this back home - I just use cards for everything, but if you’re going abroad, especially to Asia, make sure you have plenty of cash on hand.
Before we move on to lesson #2, I have a travel tip to add. In case you were wondering how I got home, I did in fact get into another taxi but I absolutely hate flagging down taxis, especially in another country.
So what I always do is walk to the nearest hotel and ask the front desk to call me a taxi. This tactic really only works in large cities, but I love the convenience of telling someone who speaks English very clearly where I want to go and then having them communicate that to the taxi driver. I always feel more assured that way...and I avoid awkward attempts of communication with the driver.
Lesson #2 - Make sure you have good travel debit cards with pins that will work abroad.
So lesson number 2 kind of goes without saying. Make sure you have good travel credit cards and debit cards that work abroad.
I’ve found that my debit card with a PIN number has the most success working abroad. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that it’s a debit card and that it’s drawing directly from an account, or maybe it’s the fact that it requires a PIN number, which is very common in Europe and Asia.
But either way, I highly advise that you call your bank and confirm that your card will work in your travel destination. Don’t just tell them that you’re traveling and to not shut off access to your card, but also inquire if there are particular banks or ATMs that are known to be compatible with your bank.
This is a second resort though - first priority is to have enough cash on you.
Lesson #3 - Regularly check on your plane’s terminal and gate number.
Alright, so lesson number three is to regularly check on your plane’s terminal and gate number. I had a super early flight - I think it was at like 6:05 a.m. or something - from London Heathrow back to Dallas.
The taxi driver dropped me off at my terminal and I groggily got my bags to the check in desk. I'm getting ready to turn in my checked luggage for this long haul flight and the attendant tells me that I'm at the wrong terminal.
It turns out that although I had given my driver the correct terminal at the time, the terminal and gate number had both changed.
Well, this was a problem because if you have ever been through London Heathrow you know that the terminals are crazy far apart. They’re not like the ones at DFW that are all connected by Skylink - this nice little Metro that connects all the terminals in maybe 10 to 15 minutes flat.
No, at Heathrow, you have to get on a bus or an underground train. And these buses and trains are not running all the time - I basically estimated that with a bus, it would be about 30 minutes and with a train, it would take even longer because of the extra stops and the lack of frequency.
You can guess how this story ends up - I finally get to the terminal where only one security line is open and there’s a TON of people in line ahead of me. Sure enough, I missed my flight.
Luckily, there was one more heading out later that day that I could get on, but I was so mad at myself for not double checking one more time before getting dropped off by that taxi driver. I could have gotten there so much faster if there had been any taxis in that line, but because it was so early, there were zero taxis queued up.
I’ve also had planes change gates within the terminal tons of times, so you definitely need to be aware of your flight details and check in regularly, because sometimes even my push notifications wouldn’t tell me the changes in time.
Lesson #4 - Don’t travel without traveler’s insurance.
This next lesson I learned was when I was studying abroad for a year at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland getting my Master’s degree. I have become extremely sick while I was there. Like, out of nowhere, the worst I've ever felt kind of sick. I had a fever and chills and I couldn’t keep anything down.
It was by far the worst I've ever felt, and I kept thinking to myself, “This is where I'm going to die.”
Well I was studying at Edinburgh on a scholarship - it was the Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship. One of the requirements for accepting this scholarship was to have Travelers Insurance while you were abroad.
Let me tell you what - I was so glad that I had that insurance.
I first tried to call in to the public hospital and they told me that I couldn't come in for an appointment for another month. Well, I thought, “I’ll be dead in a month if I don’t get this treated.”
Now I’m certainly not saying this to trivialize any majorly serious diseases out there, but I’m just sharing with you the thoughts running through my head at this point.
Luckily, my travelers insurance partially covered some private healthcare offices, so I set up an appointment for the first available spot they had. Which was way less than a month away - it was like the next day.
It took everything in me not to throw up all over the taxi on the way there, which was only 15 minutes away. I’m sorry I’m getting graphic, but if you know me, you know that I don’t get car sick and I’m not really that sick ever in general other than the common cold and allergies. So, I knew I was in serious need of some sort of medication.
Now I would like to tell you that the story ended after I went to my first doctor's visit, but of course it didn't. I had gotten on WebMD and tried to self diagnose myself ahead of time - which in hindsight, I definitely should have avoided doing. I told the doctor what my symptoms were and what I thought I had.
Well, instead of actually validating and verifying if I indeed had what I thought I had, the doctor just took my word for it and prescribed me what he thought I needed based on what I said.
You can guess what happens next - I fill the prescription, I start taking the antibiotics, I feel kind of better for the first day or two, but it completely wears off and I’m back to square one.
So I go back for a second time, explaining that I’m still really sick and I need him to figure out what is going on. After a second time, they ran some tests (as they should have the first time) and I got prescribed the correct antibiotic for what I had. I fully recovered in about a week’s time.
Had I not had travelers insurance for the two private healthcare doctor visits and two prescriptions, I likely would have paid upwards of a thousand dollars considering how weak the dollar was to the pound at the time.
So needless to say, travelers insurance is worth the investment from my personal experience.
Lesson #5 - Just because you’ve made it to the airport doesn’t mean you can’t miss your flight.
This next lesson really highlights my uncanny ability to lose track of time. Just because you've made it to the airport doesn't mean you can't miss your flight.
So I got to the airport - I made it through security and I have some time to kill. So I post up at a nearby bar and get a drink and some dinner while I'm waiting for my flight to depart. It was a super small airport, so I figured I would have no problem finishing my meal and getting to the gate on time. I'm just sitting there enjoying my wine with my meal, and I then noticed that there's probably about 15 minutes left before the flight takes off.
I quickly check out and run over to the gate only to find out that the attendant told me that they've closed the gate already.
Now, I have no one to blame but myself, but I was pretty annoyed. I said, “But the flight doesn’t take off for another five minutes!” And she of course explains that boarding takes place before the plane takes off and just because the flight leaves at 6:30 p.m. doesn’t mean that you can board up until 6:30 p.m.
When I thought about the logistics of it, I was like, oh yeah....duh. Of course the gate is going to close before the plane takes off.
Again - I had no one to blame but myself. And I also have to admit...I’m super embarrassed about this, but I’ve learned this lesson more than once. This exact scenario has happened to me not once, but twice. And also a close third time when I was trying to come home from Hong Kong.
I am notorious for cutting it too close, so please learn from my mistakes and make sure that you are at your gate no later than 40 minutes prior to your domestic flight and 60 minutes prior to your international flight.
Lesson #6 - Keep track of how many trays you put through the bag scanner at security.
This next one I’m also not particularly proud of. Number 6 is keep track of how many trays you put through the bag scanner at security.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed lately, but some of the airports have started to roll out these new bag scanner machines that are more automated and have you stand at a station along the conveyor belt.
This is different from the older ones where you approach the conveyor belt in the order in which you’re in line.
So when you’re at the bag scanner and loading up your trays with the liquids, laptop, carry one, etc., you usually have all your trays grouped together with you because you approach the belt in a single file line.
Now with these new scanners, you can have up to 4 people randomly putting their trays on the conveyor belt.
Say number 1 has just put his laptop on the belt - it’s a laptop so he has to put it in the tray by itself. Then the person at station 2 puts their tray on the belt. But person number 1 still has a few more items that need to go in a second tray. He puts them in the tray and puts it on the conveyor belt.
The tray with the laptop is now separated from his tray with the miscellaneous items.
Can you see where I’m going with this?
I had 3 different trays with items in it that had to go through the bag scanner. I was in a hurry (per usual) and I was waiting on the other side to get my items. Well each tray of mine was separated by 2 or 3 trays from other people.
I grab my stuff from my first two trays and scramble to put my shoes back on and get situated so I could head straight to the gate.
I was so relieved to get on the plane on time, because it was down to minutes. I’m flying home on the plane and reach in my carry-on to get out my laptop and do a little work.
BUT, my laptop wasn’t there. Nope. Where was it? At that damn security clearance station in my third tray that I had completely forgotten about.
Now my laptop was in a whole other city that I was not planning on returning to in the foreseeable future for some time. Oh, and this was my work computer. So you can imagine how my boss felt when I had to break this news to him.
You know the feeling when you lose your iPhone? I know - it’s such an awful feeling, like a pit in your stomach. Well needless to say, that’s how I felt about not being with my laptop.
The second we landed I tried to figure out how I could confirm that the laptop was still there. Luckily I was able to get a hold of TSA at that airport and they confirmed that they had the laptop in their possession after I had described it. Thank God. I was able to pay for them to priority ship it back home to me.
I was so relieved when I got it in the mail 2 days later.
So, moral of the story - know how many trays you put through TSA and make sure you have all your belongings before you go!
Another travel tip for those of you who travel for work. Tape one of your business cards to the bottom of your work laptop. If you ever get into this situation like me, God forbid, you can much more easily identify your laptop with the TSA agents to confirm that it’s yours.
At the time, I didn’t have a business card on my laptop, so I had to call IT and get all the details of the laptop like make, model, service tag, laptop code in order to prove that it was mine. If you have the business card on it, you can just confirm your name, title, address and phone. It’s a lot easier that way.
Lesson #7 - Don’t wait until the night before you leave to find your passport.
Lesson number seven - don’t wait until the night before you leave to find your passport.
It was the night before we were headed to Mexico - we were leaving on the earliest flight out around 6:00 a.m.
We had just got home from a wedding - a wedding that I was in, so I had been at the venue getting ready all day.
We got home late, probably around 11:00 p.m. and I had to start packing. Yes, I know, I should have started packing way earlier.
Jordan got his passport out and asked me where mine was. I went to look for it where I thought it was, and it wasn’t there.
I started frantically looking all over the house, but couldn’t find it anywhere. I was devastated and crying. I was upset that I couldn’t find it but I was even more upset that it would be my fault why we didn’t go on vacation the next day.
I gave up looking for it after about two hours. It was 1:00 a.m. and I called the airlines to cancel our reservation. Then I cried myself to sleep.
A few hours later, at like, 4:30 a.m., I shot awake. This never happens to me but I guess I wasn’t sleeping very heavily because it occurred to me that there was one more place I hadn’t looked.
I run out of bed to check that last drawer and sure enough, it was sitting there. I ran back to my fiance and woke him up and practically yelled, “I found it.” I couldn’t believe it.
Then it occurred to me that we may just still be able to make our original flight. I call the airlines back and see if I can re-book our cancelled flight. As I’m talking to her, I’m throwing clothes into my bag to try and finish packing. I couldn’t believe our luck but the airlines was able to re-book our flight that we had cancelled from a few hours earlier and we were able to get an Uber early that morning to get to the airport.
I nearly gave myself a heart attack doing it, but we made it to Mexico that next day.
So, needless to say, I don’t advise waiting to the last minute to find your passport OR to start packing. Trust me - it’s not worth the stress.
Lesson #8 - Listen to your intuition.
Lesson number eight is to listen to your intuition. This is one of my less bright moments while traveling but I was young and fearless and should have known better.
During a study abroad summer in Italy, our friends took a weekend vacation to Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is one of those quintessential Italian towns that you often see pictures of. It has all these pastel colored buildings dotted along the coast and up into mountains.
My friends and I were just hanging out along the coastline and I went to go get an Aperol Spritz from the nearby bar.
Well, I make eye contact with a cute guy and I start talking to him. He then says that he wants to show me something.
My red flags went up in my head but I reluctantly agreed. In hindsight, I feel so dumb saying this because I should have never went with him in the first place.
But I followed him and started going through this labyrinth of little houses. After about 5 minutes, I was like, “Where are we going?” And he pointed to this doorway that I couldn’t see through.
At this point, I definitely knew it was time to get out of there. I very quickly left and found my way back to my friends. Looking back, I know that this scenario could have ended up much worse. Like Liam Neeson’s Taken worse.
But my intuition *finally* kicked in and I knew I needed to leave and get back to my friends.
Listen to your gut when you travel, be smart, and be aware of your surroundings.
Lesson #9 - Don’t fall asleep on trains.
Lesson number 9 is don’t fall asleep on trains. For those of you who know me, you know that I love to sleep. Like probably to a fault.
Although I find it more difficult to sleep when I’m traveling, sometimes I still manage to nod off without trying. On a different study abroad occasion, our friends and I were traveling back to the UK on a train from Paris. Our final destination was Oxford.
The train was pretty full, so I had to be separated from my friends - we were all spread out throughout the train. And at the time, cell phone travel plans were way more expensive than they were today, so we didn’t rely on them.
Well, it was late and the train slowly lulled me to sleep.
The next thing I know, I’m getting woken up by a train conductor telling me that I’m at the last stop. I was all out of sorts and was just trying to wake up. I got my bag and got off the train and looked around for my friends. Well there was no one...like anywhere. I was literally the last person off of that train.
And I wasn’t in Oxford. In fact, I had no idea where I was. To this day, I don’t know what small British town I ended up in.
There was a lone person in the train station - he appeared to be a security guard. I was holding back tears asking him how I can get back to Oxford. He said that was the last train of the night.
So then I asked if I could get a taxi. This town had like a single taxi driver who was sleeping or something. I had to wait about an hour before a driver arrived and the drive back to Oxford was over an hour. I had to pay him a ridiculous amount of money - I can’t remember how much now but as a student, it completely depleted my funds.
But I was desperate to get back home - this was my first time out of the country and I had class the next morning and I just wanted to get back to my bed. I made it back to my dorm after 3:00 a.m. that night - completely drained - not only was I drained mentally but I was drained monetarily.
I couldn’t help but think, if I had just stayed awake and paid attention to my stop, none of this would have happened. But, alas, I had to learn this one the hard way.
Lesson #10 - Don’t travel with a souvenir shell casing.
And we’ve finally arrived at lesson number ten. It’s my personal pièce de résistance of travel stories. Again - I’m not saying this because I’m proud of it. Quite on the contrary, I wish I had avoided this whole scenario, but I had to learn it the hard way...lesson number ten is: don’t travel with a souvenir shell casing.
Yep, you heard me - shell casing. A shell casing is the piece of metal that goes around a bullet that allows the bullet to be loaded into the chamber of a gun.
Let me preface this with the fact that I’m from Texas and guns and hunting are pretty prevalent in this state. I’m in no way endorsing guns, but just telling you my story.
I was at home on Christmas break in the middle of my studies in Scotland. I went deer hunting for the first time. For those of you who don’t know, deer hunting can be pretty boring. It was cold and we were sitting in a blind for over an hour, just sitting in the quiet and waiting for a deer to come along.
Finally, one came along and I took a shot. I got the deer - and I know it is sad, especially when you think of Bambi, but we did take the deer to a processing plant where we could get the meat processed for dinners to come. So it wasn’t just for sport.
Okay, I’m probably really upsetting my vegan friends now, so I’ll move on. Anyway, I kept the shell casing as a souvenir. I dropped it in the bottom of my purse and forgot about it.
Well, we get to the day that I’m flying back to Scotland for my second semester. I’m going through security in Dallas at the shell casing is flagged. I was extremely apologetic and I told them that I had completely forgotten that it was down there.
I explained that it was only a souvenir and that they could totally throw it out.
But in Texas...the TSA agent was okay with it. He let me keep the souvenir to my surprise and I continued on my way.
I got to Amsterdam airport where I connected to get to Scotland. And I had to go through security again. I knew that the souvenir was going to get flagged again - I debated whether or not to just throw it away or to put it through security and see what happened.
You can probably guess what I did...I decided to take my chances with security. I put the shell casing in a separate bag all by itself to indicate that I knew it was there and that I wasn’t trying to hide it from anyone.
I figured, if they’re not okay with it, they can just throw it out.
Well obviously they asked me if it was mine. I said yes and explained that it was a souvenir and if they needed to throw it out they could. But then they told me something I had not been anticipating.
They said that they could not throw it away and that I needed to speak with the police. At this point I burst into tears because I was tired and afraid. Through my blubbering sobs, I tried to say that it was fine in Texas security and that they can just confiscate it.
I got the very curt response, “Well this isn’t Texas.”
So I get pulled aside in Amsterdam airport and I watch every last person board the flight that I was supposed to get on and I‘m just sitting there waiting to talk to the police. The police finally arrive and I try to explain the situation. At this point, I was afraid that I was going to jail. After what seemed like hours of interrogation, I seemed to convince them that I was not a threat.
In order to be let go, I had to sign some document admitting my error. I’m pretty sure it put me on a class C no-fly list of some sort. So, although I can still travel through Amsterdam airport, I definitely can’t make any mistakes there because they have my information on record.
I then was so frustrated with myself because I had to buy a whole new ticket at full cost in order to get to Scotland. Again - I was a student at the time, so I had to call home and explain what had happened and why I was going to need my parents to wire more money to me.
That was a super embarrassing moment for me - I hated asking my parents for money and I hated even more that I had to tell them because I knew they would be so worried.
So - moral of the story - check every crevice and pouch in your purse and carry-on before you get to the airport!
I hope this isn’t the case, but have any of these travel lessons happened to you? What did you do?
Were any of these tips helpful to you? Let me know which one(s)!
Travel well and often,
author bio
Known as The Jet Set Blonde, Brittany Ryan inspires others to add more adventure to their childfree travel experiences. Brittany has visited 23 countries (and counting!) Connect with her to get access to detailed childfree travel itineraries, travel guides for weekend getaways, and updates on adult-only hotels, resorts, cruises, and other travel amenities.
