A lot of planning goes into making sure that a vacation goes off without a hitch. Plane tickets must be booked months in advance, as well as accommodation. And you’ll likely spend weeks researching the best attractions in the area, what restaurants you need to stop by and how to stay safe once you’ve reached your destination.
But unfortunately, things don’t always go according to plan. And sometimes, what was supposed to be the best week of your year turns into an absolute nightmare. Redditors have been sharing the most traumatic and terrifying experiences they’ve had while traveling, so we’ve gathered some of their upsetting stories below. This list may not be the most fun to read through, but it is a good reminder that we should always be extremely careful when in a new environment. Good luck getting through these real-life horror stories, pandas, and be sure to upvote the ones that have inspired you to be extra cautious during your upcoming travels!
#1
We were down in Florida one summer, i think I was 7 or so. Mom and I had left the hotel to go shopping/play on the beach. Dad stayed behind to have a nap. When Mom and I get back, we open the hotel room to see several blood-covered towels littering the floor. Mom calls for Dad – no answer (my dad is a little hard of hearing after 40+ years of concert piano and electric pipe organ playing). She tells me to wait by the door, while she heads to the bathroom to investigate. I hear her yell out “OH GOD!” and run in to see what’s up. Turns out, Dad had knocked something off the bedside table, bent down to get it, and smacked his head on the window-mounted AC unit when bending back up. We spent the rest of the day in the ER.
A different Florida trip, I hit a nightstand with my face in my sleep, getting a pretty deep cut about 1cm above my eye. Mom hears the thud and sees me with a blood covered face, and freaks out I’ve gouged out my eye or something. We spent the rest of the night into the morning in the ER.
Maybe we should stop going to Florida.
Image source: datazoid1701, EduKids / freepik
#2
Atlanta.
Downtown was really nice. Olympic Park, World of Coke, a very good Aquarium, and blah, blah, etc.
Outside the perimeter was like running the gauntlet in the post-apocolypse. I had a guy come up to me, pull up his shirt showing a revolver in his pants, and say, “Hey, whitebread, you got fi’ dollas fo’ a hit?”.
I still tell myself giving him $20 while my daughter went pee in the worst gas station bathroom her or my wife have ever seen wasn’t a “mugging”.
I’m certain if our car happened to break down there we would have all 3 died terribly.
Image source: anon, Fantastic Studio / freepik
#3
In Ecuador my wife’s bag was stolen, she lost all three of her passports. In Botswana, I was hitching a ride in the back of a truck which ran off the road. In Morocco my train derailed. In Israel, my friend fell down a mountain and was taken to hospital by helicopter.
But in every case, everything turned out fine. Travelling is awesome!
Image source: zomskii, Kamaji Ogino / pexels
#4
Signed up for a three day trip to Amsterdam that said it had good accommodations in the center of the city. It actually turned out to be a boat that was docked in a canal nowhere near anything. It was the middle of winter and there was no heat on the boat. The sewage system malfunctioned and leaked everywhere on the second day so the boat stunk. There was nowhere to even buy food nearby so I spent most of the trip huddled under a blanket feeling cold and hungry and wishing I had the energy to walk into the city.
Image source: ihopeyoulikeapples, John Tekeridis / pexels
#5
Got locked in a French insane asylum. I was studying abroad, with two girls who I thought were good friends of mine. We had made plans to do spring break together. However, they told me two days before that they wanted to make it a girls trip. I said fine, and made plans to go to Scandinavia on the spot, booking some pretty nice hotels for myself, at a discounted rate because I was prepaying. They thought that because I was traveling by myself, that it was evidence that I was going to k**l myself, and told our university. The university made me see a French psychologist (who did not speak English), and because I could not convey to him that there was a misunderstanding, he called for orderlies to take me to an insane asylum, where I spent three days until I got phone access (no one there spoke English either, and they would not call in a translator.) And then a day and a half more until my father could fly over to France to get me out. I know it is not the French people’s fault, but seriously, f**k France.
Image source: whydoihaveto12, yaroslav-astakhov- / freepik
#6
I went to the beach with my parents, they wore matching outfits (including shirts with the city name on them) and f***y packs. It was horrifying.
Image source: anon, Yunus Tuğ / pexels
#7
When I went to Japan I had to leave and come home.
#8
I was a young h***y guy in the navy and we just made it to Naples. My buddy and I take the train to Roma and after doing tourist stuff we head to a strip club.
There’s no one in there but 2 women, the bartender and bouncers but we don’t care. They usher us over to a booth and the two women start flirting with us and we’re just having a good time.
Without even asking the bartender pours us champagne. Each of us had 2 small glasses. I’m sure you can see where this is going. We weren’t even there 45 minutes before we decide to pay and leave and we have a 1000 euro tab for the bottle service.
We were escorted by the bouncers to an atm outside the club to made sure we paid.
We know we were stupid and didn’t want any trouble so we paid and got the hell out.
Don’t think with your w**g, kids.
#9
I went to ibiza with my parents when I was sixteen… No wait, that’s not the horror story, it gets worse.
Our fully inclusive hotel had a swimming pool and it was in the height of summer, I’m very white (ginger flecks in my hair, freckles), so off I skip to the pool, on my own, with no sun protection, I was there with the full force of the sun raining down on me for three hours without a tshirt on, at some point an olive skinned local says to me, as I’m sitting on the edge of the pool “hey, you’ve got really bad sunburn, are you OK?” at that point I feel fine so I carry on… Much later on I notice a tingling, it’s far far to late to do anything about it.
The full impact of the damage I’d done wasn’t evident for a few hours, turns out I’d managed to give myself horrific sunburn, and now had severe heat stroke.
My parents had to pay for a doctor to come and take a look at me and she prescribed ginger tablets and glucose for some reason(?!), all that did was make it taste like acid ginger when I threw up… Then I was in and out of consciousness for three days.
When I woke up, my back felt like it’d been attacked with a cheese grater and as the days wore on my skin started to come off… I could peel A4 sized sheets of skin off my back and shoulders, the tops of my feet were that burned that I couldn’t stand or walk for long.
I learned that if you’re white with the whole ginger thing going on (my hair is brown, but you can see ginger in it, with freckles on my skin etc), wear sunscreen, and a tshirt, and a hat.
Image source: MaxMouseOCX, Ksenia Chernaya / pexels
#10
I went to Florida with my parents because an uncle of mine offered a time share thing he had. Anyway, we were there to relax and we first got lost on our way to the hotel. Not that big of a problem, the hotel wasn’t bad and the beds were nice, until later that night we realized the thermostat was stuck on the heater on high. It was also summer during this time, and for those overseas who don’t know what Florida is like, it’s humid and hot already.
I ended up catching a really nasty flu and needed a doctor and medicine. We managed to drive to Key West, but then on the news on the radio that there was a huge storm coming, we turned around and abandoned any plans to go anywhere. On our way back, everything was pretty flooded, our rental car was pretty much bumper deep in water and we managed to get back to the hotel. Every attraction we wanted to see was basically closed because this storm was pretty nasty.
So I was still sick, hotel was blazing hot and management didn’t do s**t about it, outside was essentially hell and all our plans got cancelled, what else could possibly go wrong? Got a call from a cousin back home that our grandmother passed away, my mom was now sobbing tears as much as there was water outside. My mom desperately wanted to go back so my dad and I had to book the next flight available when the storm cleared up(which was about another 4 days away). Worst vacation ever.
TL;DR: Went to Florida on vacation with family, I got a nasty flu, hotel ended up being s**t, massive storm comes in not long after and forced any vacation plans to not happen, everywhere we went was flooded and we get a call that our grandmother dies and we book the next available flight back home.
Image source: rx-pulse, vgstockstudio / freepik
#11
Traveling with two kids under the age of 2 across the country (4 hour advanced time change.) They never fully adjust but we do. The second day upon arrival I have an ear infection so bad my ear had a pulse and was a weird shade of purple. I went to the doctor and got some drops, and was fine. We are there for a wedding and its at a camp ground. Someone decided it would be ok to bring their baby who has some sort of virus and has a high fever, but “its ok, she had tylenol, the fever is broken.” Well when I was at the cabin showering and getting ready, someone let our kids play with the sibling of the sick baby. This was half way through our trip and not 48 hours later, my youngest comes down with a fever, throws up all over my husband. She refuses to eat and is completely miserable for three – four days. Two days later my oldest is in screaming agony because of her tummy; she can’t poop, has a fever and is vomiting (twice all over my husband). Our flights were for the next day. Our youngest comes home completely fine, no fever and back to normal. Our oldest had a panic attack on the plane 45 minutes into an 8 hour flight. She freaks out she has to go to the bathroom so my husband takes her and then she screams for me, as he is walking up the aisle to get me while carrying her, she throws up all over him and some poor lady’s arm. (Luckily super mom packed spare clothes for everyone except myself, and a tub of sani-wipes which made do for a quick sponge bath). Miraculously we made it home. My daughter ran a fever, barely ate any thing and didn’t poop for a week. She would scream in agony over her stomach. We went to the emergency room twice and were told she had the stomach flu both times, and on the second visit that it might help to give her a suppository at home. Which I did and didn’t like what I saw. I googled and all signs pointed to a very common parasite that would have lived in the area we were camping in and she just so happened to swim in the river and get a few mouthfuls of water. Another trip to a hospital (this time a Children’s hospital) and she was better within days. This was the worst 3 weeks ever. It was the trip that never ended. We did learn one thing, they always want Daddy if they are going to puke.
Image source: yourfaceisamess, shapovalphoto / freepik
#12
Parents, aunt, my dog and I went on a car trip to Las Vegas. Ride was about 10 hours long. About half-way through, my dog is shaking slightly as she is standing in my lap with her head out of the window (sort of, this is a minivan and windows don’t open that widely. But she’s small ~10 lbs). I was slightly perplexed about this behavior but brushed it off as her being slightly cold and hugged her a little closer. Suddenly, she releases all the diahrrea she has been holding in since we left. All those days of walking her didn’t prepare me for this mess. On the grass, it seems a reasonable amount to clean up. But on top of me, that was a massive flash flood of lumpy and watery godforsaken horror. To add insult to injury, I puked a little from the smell. My aunt was freaking out since she was sitting next to me and my dad nearly canceled the trip because he was so angry. We ended up throwing out the entire second row seat along with my soiled clothes. The multi-shaded seat belt remained (unfortunately) and my dog had to stay on the floor of the car for the rest of the trip.
Image source: 3liPunk, EyeEm / freepik
#13
We went to the Dominican Republic for our honeymoon. One day we decided to take a day trip that the resort was offering. The trip included sightseeing by bus, lunch, a trip to a waterfall and ended with a horseback ride. There were about 7 of us in the group. At the end of the day, we were on our way back to the stables and we ventured underneath a bridge. A dude appeared out of the dense bushes/trees cussing at us and swinging a machete. One of the horses dumped it’s rider and the rest of us took off while the tour guide “negotiated” ($$$) with the man. We all made it back to the bus safely but wide-eyed.
Image source: FuftyCent, EyeEm / freepik
#14
Got so badly sunburnt in Thailand every time I smiled my face bled.
Image source: markovitch1928, freepik
#15
When I was roughly ten, we were riding The Ducks, a type of vehicle that is also a boat. I love the water and sight-seeing, so this was awesome.
We passed a dam, and not 10 seconds after the boat left the dam behind, a speed boat came flying over the top of the dam and landed upside down on the concrete below.
They quickly brought us back to the tour station and we saw EMTs carrying bodybags out of the ambulance. Later found out on the news that the driver of the boat was a very drunk young woman.
Image source: ErrantWhimsy, peterkai / freepik
#16
Got stuck on a snowy mountain 40km from any town in Iceland. Roads were open. Started driving. The roads got really icy (I’m Canadian so I’m used to snowy driving) so I decided we should turn back and stay at the town we had passed. Went to turn the SUV around at a crossroad and it just slide off the road up to the top of the tires in snow. 4X4 would not work. There is a free emergency rescue response team in Iceland. Neither of my friends US cells would work out there. Yay Rogers canada. Mine worked. Took nearly 3 hours for them to come. Freezing cold. Reindeer walking by. Got dark. Finally came and pulled us out. They said we shouldn’t have been there. The road was closed. Nope. The internet road service said it was open. They said there was a sigh further back by the (open) gate that said the road had closed. They stopped to show us the sign on the way back. The sign in English said “this road may be closed in winter”. 1. Not winter. 2. Not may be….is! Maybe work on the translations a bit. We made it out safe and sound though. Took a different route south in the morning.
Image source: cenatutu, volodymyr-t / freepik
#17
When I was in first grade and my sister was two my family went to Paris. We were sitting in a garden eating a picnic and speaking in English, some french teenagers heard us from the balcony above and started throwing rocks at us and yelling insults that I don’t know. I had to cover my little sister because I was freaked out that she was going to get hit in the head. We ended up packing our stuff and leaving in a rush as non of the adults in the park even moved to get them to stop and they where above us so my parents couldn’t. I had nightmares for a year.
Image source: Tsugamertensiana, The Yuri Arcurs Collection / freepik
#18
It happened in Vietnam in the middle of nowhere. I was just hopping on my scooter outside a 7/11 when a young woman ran into the store screaming. She was clearly beaten and her clothes were ripped. A few seconds later 3 men came after her, drag her outside and forces her into a car. One of the men had a knife in their hand. I was so shocked, I wanted to help but I was too afraid to do something. She looked at me yelling and banging at the car window when they drove away. I still think about her sometimes and feel guilty for my non action.
Image source: strong_cucumber, EyeEm / freepik
#19
My sister my mom and I were almost trafficked. We are originally from the balkans, living in Germany. When my parents divorced my mom took us for a holiday back home. The bus drive was 30+ hours. We almost arrived and my uncle was supposed to pick us up at the bus station. But we didn’t arrive. It was around 11 pm and the bus drivers said we had a flat tire in the middle of nowhere. There were 3 other women left in the bus. They started crying, since they told us there were some nice taxis waiting for us on the street to bring us to our homes. Which in retrospective was ridiculous since we all lived in different cities. But my mom and sister already got into the taxi, bags in the trunk. Then the women started screaming and crying, trying to call their husbands. Luckily one husband wasn’t living far away so he came with his family and the bus drivers were scared and the Taxis left.
Long Story short: we later found out that a lot of women and Girls went missing the last couple of months due to human trafficking.
Image source: Extreme_Suit1520, EyeEm / freepik
#20
As much as I loved my time in China overall, there were a few moments where you saw the horrendous treatment of animals and there was nothing you could do.
Image source: Usidore_, Quang Nguyen Vinh / pexels
#21
Little wood exit in Louisiana. It was dark as s**t, every sign and street lamp had bullet holes in it. Same night had a car burning on the side of the road. Apparently someone was burned to death in the trunk of the car that night. I’ll never take that exit again even if there is daylight with police presence.
Image source: thien228, EyeEm / freepik
#22
American airlines changed my ticket due to delays in NYC. They did not tell British or Turkish airways. So when I called to confirm my return ticket 2 days before I’m set to fly out of Nairobi I find that both British Airways and Turkish Airlines canceled my return trip because I was a no show.
Turkish Airlines in Nairobi told me that the only thing I had to do to get my whole flight reinstated was to have American Airlines put in a code that said they diverted my flight and that would auto update all the way through the system. American Airlines refuse to do that and the woman on the line refused to bump me up to a higher authority. After being on the phone and in and out of the Turkish Airlines office for two days straight they finally gave me a waiver on their end. It was such a hassle, I would have to call American Airlines when they were open East Coast time and then I’d have to be Turkish office when they are open during their work hours.
I wish they did it sooner it would have saved me a lot of stress but considering all that I love Turkish Airlines and I hate American Airlines. It was going to cost my wife and I five thousand dollars a person to get to buy the same tickets that we had. I seriously felt like I was drowning.
Image source: TheScamr, Mark Bess MAB757200 / flickr
#23
My family took a trip to Sudan (To visit my Dads family). My brother came back with a sever rash all over his back.
The rash persisted for a few weeks, and the doctors had no idea what it was. Then, we were at the park one day and he started complaining about the rash to our mom, saying it starting to hurt more.
She ignored it, thinking he must have rubbed it on something by accident, when he feel to the floor screaming with pain, and literally hundred and hundreds of flies came flying out of a single hole at the base of his neck. He was 8.
Apparently some sort of African fly had laid eggs (or more likely cocoons or something) in his back when we slept. They hatched when we were back in England.
Scary s**t.
Image source: CurryThighs
#24
Throughout high school me and some friends had these trips to south Texas desert near the border. We would camp out in the wilderness and shoot guns or build a bonfire.
We graduated in 04. Our last trip was in 05 and we had a really scary experience. We had a campfire going at night. For those that dont know deserts actually get cold at night due to lack of humidity. So we had a campfire going and three guys came out of the darkness into the light of the campfire.
No hello. No whats up. In very basic English the first guy says. “You come with us.” This was not a request. We politely declined and the another guy said. Something in Spanish and was extremely angry. The first guy said to come with them again. We refused and he stepped forward.
My friend panicked and pulled his shot gun out. Screamed we werent going anywhere. The English speaking guy simply said. “Ok. Ok. Stay.” As he backed up. They left and we quickly put out the fire. I made sure everyone grabbed thier wallets and phones. (Old razor flip phones) We got the he’ll out of their and sprinted towards the car. As we were driving away we saw 3 sets of headlights driving over the flats. We k****d the cars lights and drove in darkness on the road until we lost sight of them.
We drove to a sheriff’s office to report what had happened. We were told that if our story was true. Its a REAL good thing we did not go with them.
Image source: TheLightningCount1, freepik
#25
I went to an ayahuasca retreat in Peru. The retreat itself was amazing and I’d recommend it to every living person. It was held pretty deep in the Amazon and in order to get there you have to either pay for a group bus or take a small motorbike taxi. No one is really willing to drive that far otherwise. After the retreat was over I had a couple days to stay and relax before I came back to the states. The girl that I bunked with had some time as well and we decided to go into Tarapoto, the nearest town, and just adventure around a while. We shopped and ate and took a tour through a chocolate factory. She was staying in a hotel in town to catch her early morning flight the next morning so I took a motorbike taxi back to the jungle alone. About halfway down the road the driver stopped and a man holding an AR came up the cab and started asking me questions about where I was going and what I was doing, etc. I was completely alone with the driver, who stopped for this guy and the guy with the really big gun in the middle of the Amazon. I was beyond terrified. The whole ordeal lasted less than 5 minutes and ended with me paying the gun guy a “toll” of 10 soles (I think less than $8 usd, not completely sure on the conversion). The driver insisted I had to do this, so I did and we thankfully drove away. A few miles later the driver stopped again and I almost had a heart attack, he insisted he had something to show me and that I should get out of the cab, so I did. It might have been stupid, I still don’t know what the right thing to do was. He took me to the edge of the road where there was a cliff and below was the spot where a smaller river smashes violently and spectacularly into the face of the Amazon River. It was among the most beautiful and fantastic things I saw in Peru. We stood in silence and watched the rivers merging for a while before he safely delivered me back to the retreat. It was a scary ride, but man what a f*****g story.
Image source: anon
#26
I once attended a work training event at a nice hotel in Dallas. For some backstory, I was a 19-20 year old girl. During some downtime in the evening, I decided to walk across the street to a d**gstore and purchase some snacks and water (the hotel sold a single water bottle for $7, so I wasn’t having that). As I got to the d**gstore, there were 4 or 5 men in a car and they were yelling strange things at me. It scared me and made me feel a bit uneasy, but I went inside and stayed inside the d**gstore for a bit longer to wait them out. I decided to go back to the hotel after a while, so I walked outside and they were still there. Waiting for me.
At this point I was very scared and these guys were all yelling things at me, I ran across the street even though the crosswalk wasn’t telling me I could go. I ended up making it. I went up to my room paranoid that they would be able to see what floor the elevator went to. After a while inside my room, I stupidly figured they were gone, as I didn’t see them follow me into the hotel. I assumed I was being paranoid about the whole thing, so I went downstairs to smoke a cigarette by the fountain at the hotel (at this point the smoking age was still 18 in both my state and Texas).
After I got down there and smoked for a bit, I truly realized my mistake. The men were there in the same car. They were yelling at me. One of them was speaking with a valet man / hotel employee and looking at me. I immediately called my mom, she was yelling at me and scared for me. Then I got off the phone with her to call one of the women who were in training with me. Toward the end of the phone call with the woman I was training with, a man approached me from the group saying how beautiful I was and then walked away and watched me with the group of men. The hotel employee was nearby and I kept making looks at him, showing that I was scared and uncomfortable but he had no response. I thought to myself that maybe these men were also staying in the hotel, so that could’ve been why they were there. But soon after the call, the woman came and found me and stayed with me. She was older than me and seemed very much like she could be my mother, so she stared them down with the most “momma bear” look I’ve ever seen and they ended up leaving soon after. At that point I realized they had never been staying at that hotel, and those men were definitely 100% going to do something to me if she wasn’t there.
The next day I spoke to some of the other women in my training class, and one of them was literally d***ged by a man from the hotel. She had completely blacked out and woke up with her face down on a table outside with no memory of it. It turned out that the area of Dallas was known for s*x work, but I’m not sure if that contributed to what happened to either of us.
Image source: ClichedArchetype, EyeEm / freepik
#27
I was in the Dominican Republic and nobody from my group wanted to leave the resort. I was eventually able to find a local whose brother did jeep tours and hired him to go off the beaten path. The entire country was a s***hole on a level I could barely comprehend, and I immediately realized all those folks online who whine about America being a third world nation have absolutely no perspective whatsoever. Anyway, tangent aside, besides the appalling poverty, we drove by a woman being gang r***d by about a dozen men with machetes. She looked right at us, yet the drivers only response was to drive even faster. When we got to the resort, he said to not feel bad as the only thing we could’ve done about the situation was get ourselves k****d. He was completely unphased by it — as if it was just a normal Saturday for him.
Image source: motion_lotion, wirestock / freepik
#28
I was watching the 6 Nations in a pub in Wales and they ran out of Stella and everyone had to drink Kronenbourg.
F*****g intense.
Image source: virgilturtle
#29
I have a couple.
The worst hotel I ever stayed at was in Daraa, just over the border in Syria after I spent the day travelling from Jordan (this was 20 odd years ago). This place didn’t look too sketchy at first glance. I crashed out in bed, but woke a couple of hours later COVERED in bed bugs and bitten to hell. I end up sleeping on the floor. In the morning I go to the loo and it’s like the Apocalypse in there. As if a prison dirty protest had been taking place for 10 years. Horse-sized cockroaches everywhere and somewhere beneath the smeared s**t and detritus was possibly a hole in the ground where you’re meant to s**t. It was so bad that when Trainspotting came out in the cinema a year or two later, I laughed at the toilet scene because it was so tame compared to what I’d seen in Syria.
I stayed in a really sketchy hotel in Cairo, with mice running along the skirting and bare wires protruding from the wall just above my pillow. After a couple of days I wanted to find out whether the wires were live, so I touched them together and shorted out three buildings. The toilets were better though.
Hitchhiking through the Yukon, I got a lift from a couple (boy and girl) who randomly pulled off the highway into a dirt road and drove 10 minutes into the middle of nowhere before insisting we all get out of the car, and they then showed me their collection of hunting rifles in the boot. That felt very sketchy indeed for a while, but being in Canada it obviously turned out fine and it transpired they just wanted to show me a great view over the next town and the mountains.
Image source: doomladen, sadnconfused214 / reddit
#30
Not mine, but an old friend of mine has got to be the unluckiest traveller.
Story 1: She flew into Poland — I forget which city — and was planning to take a bus from the airport to Krakow , which she was told would be a trip of a few hours. She got off the plane and asked at the information desk about the bus to Krakow. They told her where to find it and she went on her way. She got on her bus and took a seat.
The bus is starting to fill up. A few people are looking at her weird. She’s thinking, *s**t, is this like when I wore the neon pink tee shirt in Germany and literally every other person I saw was wearing black or grey and I looked like a freak tourist?* Eventually the bus fills up, the doors close, and they’re on their way.
That’s right about the point that she realized everyone else on this bus seemed to *know* each other.
She was on a school trip of Dutch students visiting Krakow. The bus was already moving. They were really cool about it, but she was *mortified*. But hey, free bus trip.
Story 2: She was visiting Budapest with her roommate and had been told they just *had* to visit the thermal baths. The way the baths work is you shower, go into the baths and tool around/relax, and then shower again when you get out.
Steps one and two went without fanfare. The baths were nice and relaxing, and they were ready to shower again and get out of there.
They went into the bathroom and unfortunately all of the showers were full. With people so loosey-goosey from the baths, some of them were taking a while, too. But this one old woman was showering in the middle of the room in a giant, super-powerful sprinkler — the spray went all the way to the ceiling. She finished up and my friend said to her roommate, “Hey, let’s just use the sprinkler shower. We can both use it at the same time and get out of here faster.” So they got into the sprinkler shower and started sudsing up, doing their thang.
A few minutes later a woman comes up to them, talking very quickly and gesticulating wildly. “Sorry, only English,” they repeat over and over. Finally the woman motions for them to move out of the sprinkler shower. She looks at them and then exaggeratedly pops a squat over the stream of water.
They were showering in a bidet.
Image source: theycallmecrabclaws, freepik
#31
A few months ago when i was in Italy i decided to go read at the beach nearby. It ended up with me there nearly everyday we didn’t have anything planned.
I should mention i was a 23 year old girl in the middle of rural Italy and the italians are very open about how they think and feel. I was followed home and nearly run off my bike by one man, found a guy watching me in the bushes, asked out by random old men nearly every day, had a guy masturbate in the bushes near by.
Though i loved my time in italy it did ruin it slightly.
Image source: anon
#32
We were in Spain and my friend spoke a bit of Spanish (three years of schooling). She went up to a couple to ask them what time it was in Spanish and they looked at her then said, “We’re American. We don’t speak Spanish.” We still make fun of her for it.
Image source: simple_Iife
#33
I’m a truckdriver so not so much travels. But one day when I was on the road I seen an accident happen right infront of me and a baby no older then 1 get ejected. Ofcourse I slammed on the breaks and ran over to the kid he was fine. The parents didn’t have him strapped in. So I don’t like going down that highway but I have to sometimes still if that counts.
Image source: anon
#34
This happened in Puerto Rico back in 03. I would often take long drives to random and secluded or closed beaches at night so I could study in peace. One night while I was out studying I just happened to glance at my rearview mirror and saw that an illegal firearms deal was taking place right behind me. Apparently they weren’t concerned about the presence of a witness, which I found to be a huge red flag. Without turning on my headlights, I crept out of that spot and drove off. No one followed me. Definitely ranks in my top ten creepiest encounters.
Edit: yes there are more. Mostly involving handsy old men in public places. #1 is a neighbor who declared his undying love for me within a week after first meeting me. I started going on my walks before dawn after that.
Image source: anon
#35
Thailand pai. When I was dating with my gf we went there. Pai is a sort of a out in the nowhere and popular with hippie hipster tourists spot. They also shot some famous Asian movies in this village so although it’s out in the nowhere it was still quite popular. First thing we noticed was how many stray dogs there were. It was not normal, about 20 dogs wherever you go and they just walk into restaurants to beg for food etc. They were all super friendly and chill.
When we went there, there was this huge reggae event. We went there and it lasted till 2 am or so. You had to catch the shuttle buss to get back into the village since it was far out in the fields.
When we were back in the village we couldn’t find where we parked our scooter. It was scary to search for your bike in the middle of the night with a loooooot of dogs following us and just watching us.
When we finally found the bike and drove back to our resort something strange happened. We saw a lady in the middle of the road at 3 or 4 am at this point dressed in a long black dress and long black hair in the middle of the road we had to pass to get to the resort. She was flailing her arms around but didn’t move her feet or move at all and there were 30 or so dogs in a circle around her barking like crazy but none of them went close to the lady.
I thought I saw things but my gf saw it too and i told her to keep driving and don’t stop. The resort was nearby so we wanted to warn them about it and maybe someone needed help. But there was nobody to be seen for some reason. The barking also stopped and we decided to get to our room and sleep.
Well nope…. Over the night we heard someone knocking on our door and window every now and then. Heard the dogs on the distant again (out of the gate) and it continued.
The next day we decided to get the f**k out of this town but every single buss was full due to this reggae event. I decided to pay a driver who approached us for a private drive for 4 times the price but we just said yes get us out of here.
To this day we still don’t know what it was about and felt so bad if it was really a lady who was just crazy and needed help :( but every alarm went off and i think it was a good call to keep driving… I hope.
Image source: Snoo77901
#36
Not me, but a friend of mine encountered some crazy s**t while travelling in Taiwan.
This was around Taichung. There were four of them, Her with two other girls and one guy. Hopped in a Taxi and gave driver the destination. He goes the right way for a while, then abruptly pulls off into a side road. Still driving along, my friend asks him in Mandarin where the hell he’s going, since they’ve been to this place before and they know wherever they’re going now is not what they asked for. Driver says nothing, gets on the celly and speaks to someone on the other end in Taiwanese. No one in the car understood this language, the mystery was in how the driver figured this out since they were all Asian and could have easily passed for natives visiting home for the holidays. The car pulls into an open field, surrounded by trees in every direction with only a single house in the middle of it. He parks right outside, and it appears people were emerging from the building. Several of them. Driver pauses for a brief second, starts the car up again, and commences driving along. A few minutes later, the group find themselves on the side of the main road as the cabbie drives off.
What the three girls in the back of the car did not know at the time was that upon stopping outside that house, their fourth member sitting up front pulled out his knife and held it right above his knee. Making sure it was in plain view of the driver. Once the cabbie saw this, he started the car up again. No doubt realizing the dangerous situation he inadvertently found himself in. They never figured out what the driver planned on doing, but anything even close to kidnapping couldn’t have been good. Cabbie was reported to the authorities, but they left for the states before finding out anything further.
Image source: anon
#37
I’d been doing the hostels/Europe thing and was staying at some YHA dump in London. I met a guy from NZ who had an extra ticket to a Beck concert at Wembly arena and bought it off him for cheap.
I spent the afternoon just checking stuff out along the way to Wembly and came across a Pizza Hut. Now it’d been 3 or 4 months since I’d had pizza and I thought, what the hell. I was really craving some US junk food at that time. I gorged on a bunch of mediocre pizza and continued on my way.
Within a couple blocks of Wembly I felt the first twinge of GI distress. I stopped in about 8 or 10 shops looking for a safe place to unload, but every shopkeeper claimed to have no bathroom. Desperation was taking hold and I asked a cop where the closest john was. I followed his directions, clenching and shuffling like Charlie Chaplin the whole way.
The restroom had been appropriated by a bunch of d**g users. Needles hanging out of arms, legs tied off to get a vein, gear all over the place. They were shocked to see me and clearly expected me to make my excuses and leave them to their vice. But there was no turning back. I weaved through them and opened a stall only to find some guy curled up around the stool, half naked and blue. I went to the further of the three stalls and the bowl was completely full of s**t and smeared all over the seat. So back to the middle I went. I destroyed the toilet. There are junkies and a sleeping/dead guy laying on the floor and I’m unleashing the loudest, most agonizing, s**t I’ve ever experienced. I actually feel bad for putting these guys, who are k*****g themselves feet away from me, through this.
Of course the TP is completely soaked with p**s and whatever. I’m not ashamed to say I was wearing fewer layers of clothes when I got out of the stall than when I got in. I apologized to the junkies. The ones that were still conscious looked at me with disgust and amazement. I left feeling like I had a giant void in my midsection.
I made it to the arena about 45 minutes later and cleaned off in a slightly more civilized setting. I found my seat and the Kiwi. We watched the show, smoked, and rode late night busses, top deck, front seat back to the hostel. One of the better experiences of that trip.
TLDR: Ate nasty Pizza Hut in London, had to s**t so bad I didn’t care about the junkies and dead guys laying all over the bathroom. Wiped my a*s with one of my t-shirts. Had a decent night anyway.
Image source: anon
#38
My mom had some trouble when she was in North Africa, (Don’t remember which country, think it was Egypt.) she and her husband was traveling in an tourbus and got stopped by some police officers. Everyone had to hand over their passports and papers for inspection, no problem for anyone else but my mom and her husband. They had Icelandic passports, which has “IS” as short and the police where sure that they were Israeli. Neither spoke very good English and they and the tourguide had some trouble convincing the officers that they were in fact from a snowy island in the north and not illegal Israeli immigrants.
Image source: Dephunked
#39
I’m extremely terrified of flying, and I absolutely HAD to fly to Las Vegas to be with my mother(driving wasn’t an option). I have a little lightbulb shaped glass jar(maybe 2inches at most) that my portion of my brothers ashes are in , and ofcourse I was taking my brother with me, because 1-it’s my brother and Im not just leaving his ashes for good , and 2- it was my older brother and it was comforting to have him ‘with me’ because I was seriously in tears and he always has protected me. Sure enough TSA searches my carry on, asks what it is(completely r******d question, its clear-you can see the bone fragments and all), but very politely,and almost sheepishly, I explain to her its my brother’s ashes and that its my first time flying. She gets this look of disgust on her face, and I tell her that I wanted it on my carry-on with me because I didnt want it to get broken or spill and that I was scared of flying. This woman threw them away. Right in front me. I started bawling.
Image source: OcarinaAndLime, stonedsagittarius / reddit
#40
When on a trip to California my senior year in high school, we went to Rodeo drive to see the walk of fame and the street performers.
I watched all kinds of street performers and people dressed as various fictional characters. Some were cool, others were kind of shoddy. But none compared to Barney the dinosaur. Or as I called him, Barney the Sleaziosaur.
His costume was made out of purple carpet. Not even joking. You could see where it had been stapled together and could see that plastic hairy looking stuff sticking out. Probably came out of a hippy van or something.
Anyway, a friend of mine got called a “f*****g broke Mexican” by this Barney because he wouldn’t give him 5 dollars for a picture and then snapped a pic of him with his camera.
Not ten seconds later, a little girl that couldn’t be over the age of 6 came running up to Barney (while he and my friend were still yelling trash talk over a short distance as we left) and hugged his leg. I don’t know what happened exactly but he yelled something and pulled his head off. The little girl proceeded to cry and not in just a sniffly tearful way. She bawled.
Image source: CrypticCryptid, RIPmod / reddit
#41
Went to Universal Studios; spent a really long time in lines.
Image source: fleker2, winni3 / flickr
#42
Parents got mugged in Colombia. My brother and I were about 50yds ahead of them and heard my mom scream in panic. Sprinted back, just in time, to see her swing her purse around and connect. Guy went down hard thanks to the $1200 Nikon in her purse.
Image source: Soy_tu_papa
#43
Saw a dead woman on a train platform in Varanasi, India. She was covered in a very sheer cloth and it was clear that rigor mortis had set in, so who knows how long she had been there. All the locals acted like it was perfectly normal. No one batted an eye and they all just stood there waiting for their train. When i told one of the men that worked on the platform that there was a dead woman there, he looked at me like he could NOT be bothered to care.
Although there were some very interesting things in India, i will never, ever go back. (I have more stories, but i am too tired to write anything else right now).
Image source: boywonder5691
#44
I posted this story before, so here goes:
Must have been when I started my travels to Australia. The flight was Emirates Zurich to Melbourne, with a changeover in Dubai.
I was supposed to arrive in Dubai at about 7am, then leave on another plane 3 hours later. Because there was fog around Dubai, we landed in Abu Dhabi instead. They informed us on the situation and since it was Emirates with their great situation, I didn’t care much, they’d sort it out, right? After sitting in Abu Dhabi for 5h, we flew back to Dubai and finally landed there. My connection flight was gone, but since I had gotten myself a 1 year visa, there was time enough to get to Australia.
One we entered the terminal, I changed my mind. It was pandemonium and chaos, massive queues at every counter, for 5h worth of missed flights. I went to find row of counters to add myself to the pile of people already there, and got comfortable. For the next 15 HOURS!
It was crazy: the queues never advanced, nobody seemed to be coming out, and the Emirates ground staff seemed completely incapable of handing the situation. After 3h of standing there, most people c*****d and started a*****g the service agents about their ineptitude (I kept muself together for a few more hours, but in the end, just didn’t give a st anymore). The airline handed out water and some bread in the beginning, but that was it. So most people didn’t eat or drink all day, out of fear of losing their spot in the queue. Though after a few hours, people got acquainted to their neighbours and could a certain solidarity formed, so that everyone kept each other’s spot free. In the late hours of the evening and with swelling feet, we all noticed the Emirates had started giving out hotel vouchers, because all of the next Australia-bound flights were full. F*********!!, I don’t care anymore, just let this misery end!! When I was finally at the counter, I didn’t get served for another hour. I had no idea why.
WHEN I got finally served, the refused to rebook me. After standing there from midday to 1am, the don’t want to give me a new ticket!
They claimed that they couldn’t do anything because I had booked with a 3rd party website (it’s still their flight, it was a b******t answer). Also the advice to call the company I had booked with, in Germany. It was nighttime there at that point. I was tired though, worn out and frustated, so I just stumbled away and cried a bit. Couldn’t use the ATMs to get money out for some reason, so there was no calling the booking agent, as my phone didn’t get reception there either. After a while, I just wandered back to “my” service desks and they had started grouping people together according to their destiantion. I went to the Melbourne group and just sat and waited. After quite a while, everyone’s hero of the day showed up. I will be eternally grateful to this young and scrawny Emirates guy who just took everyone’s passport and tickets, went onto the phone for 20 minutes and then came back with new boarding passes for all of us!!! Deliverance!! HAAA!
In the end, we had to jog to the gate, because my new flight was about half an hour later. I left Dubai slightly traumatized at 3am something, after having stood in line there for about 15 hours. My too large shoes barely fit because my feet were so swollen. I slept through most of the following 19h-flight.
Ah, and I forgot one. At about 11pm, Emirates told us over loud speakers that they had run out of hotel vouchers, so everyone should go away and come back after 2am….
I will avoid that company for the rest of my life.
Image source: Kokiri_Salia
#45
Mexico, Los Cabos
I’m going to summarize it because it’s late. This is one of my favourite stories as well that I love telling, soo.
Me and my family plan to snorkel during vacation. Sign up to take a water taxi to our preferred location. We get to the docks and we are shipped to the location, we circle the area and they give us facts about the area, then they begin heading back. Father retorts and orders them to drop us off and tells them that we paid to snorkel, not to take a tour. We get on the shore and we are handed our snorkels, they tell us they’ll be back to pick us up in a couple of hours, then they leave. 3 hours later, they don’t show up, and we take a different taxi back to the resort. We leave the equiptment in the taxi and they promise to get the stuff back to the douchebags.
Father decides to go have a chat with the guy in charge of the scam, and I go with him, because I felt it in my gut that it was a good idea, and it was. It probably prevented my dad from losing money and going to jail. We take a taxi from the resort to the town. We get to the docks and ask one of the workers for ‘the neckbeard’ (my words), that we paid to get us up there. The worker radios the neckbeard in, and seconds later he comes up to the both of us, pretty mad, asking where the equiptment is. My dad starts aguing with him, and the bearded macho says we gotta pay for them. $400 American dollars total. F**k that. We told him that we gave the equiptment to another water taxi and that he said he’d get them to him. Neckbeard starts speaking in spanish to the worker who was listening in. This was our chance. I whisper to dad, “We should f*****g get outta here”.
My dad interrupts their little talk about how they were going to kidnap us and says, “I’m just going to go up the road and get my wife, and we’ll come back in a second”. We begin walking away. My dad asks me if they are following us. Nope. We turn a corner, down an alley, enter a taxi, and ride back to the resort. Mission accomplished. F**k you, man. We laugh all the way back on how badass we are.
TL;DR probably saved my dad’s a*s from a mexican neckbearded scam artist with a swift victory.
Image source: CervineService
#46
Mine’s not that bad, but I took a trip to the Carolinas two years ago, drove from Charlotte, NC to Myrtle Beach, SC then back. Unfortunately, our GPS didn’t exactly work properly on the drive back to NC… It took us through unpaved, unmarked dirt roads, and seemingly abandoned neighborhoods. As someone from Seattle who had never traveled outside of state before, while driving through those parts of the South I was convinced we were going to get shot by some crazy redneck.
Image source: SHINX_FUCKER
#47
My political science teacher spent the last year traveling across Africa for personal enlightenment, he told us when he was in Burnika Faso, one of the poorest countries in Africa.
He taxi driver picked him up from the hotel he decided to stay at (it was a one night thing cause he just wanted to have a hot shower). Being the hotel and all obviously only people with money can afford to stay at such a location.
Taxi driver starts to driver in the completely opposite ditection of the destination, eventually getting to a very narrow ally.
My teacher states “if you do not turn this car around, I’m jumping out right now and you don’t get paid.” (He said this while literally opening the door.
Guy stops the car, ponders for a minute and turns around back in the intended direction.
Teacher is white and nerdy looking too (really nice guy though just not the best physical appearance to look intimidating).
Image source: anon
#48
I was 11 years old when we went to Slovakia with the whole family and it was pretty much like any big city holiday and therefore completely boring and uninteresting for an 11 year old boy. So one evening when we got back to the hotel I wanted to see if the hotel had any sort of cool features like an arcade room or anything else than spending time with my family talking about all the boring churches and museums and what-not. So I went into an elevator and pressed for the lobby and absolutely nothing happened. I figured the thing might be broken so I just pressed to open the doors and again nothing happened. I was slightly afraid because now I was kind of stuck inside the elevator so I knocked a couple of times on the door which in hindsight was a bad idea. Because after I knocked on the door the elevator started falling down. Not in a free fall luckily but definitely faster than an elevator is supposed to go down. A few seconds later it hit the ground and stopped with a bang followed by a “Ding” and the door opened and let me into a small completely dark room only lit up by the lights from inside the elevator and then there was a locked door. The only thing I could make the elevator do now was open and close the door so I sat in there waiting for someone to rescue me while I went through the 5 stages of grief in perfect order. At first I didn’t believe it was real. It must have been some sort of mistake and soon someone would open the locked door and find me. Then I got really angry because I was just trying to find something to do and then I had to get and get trapped in a stupid elevator. Bargaining is pretty hard when you’re alone but I figured it was as good a time as any to start hoping for some divine intervention and afterwards I just cried until I accepted my fate and peed in the elevator as a sort of “f**k you” to the hotel when they would find my body so somebody would have to clean up my p**s too. A while later though I heard something that sounded enough like footsteps for me to shout for help at it. Apparently it noticed because they stopped and then moved closer the the elevator shaft (it came from a couple floors up) and I shouted help again and again until the elevator suddenly said “ding” and started moving up and opening the door on the very floor I had left it and there stood nobody other than my own big brother who had gone out to look for me because I had been away for over an hour. when he had heard me call for help and called the elevator.
TL;DR Got stuck in an elevator in Slovakia and my brother saved me after about an hour.
Image source: Xeeroy
#49
I did a summer study abroad in Kenya. We had a home base and then took trips around the country for 5-12 days. I would leave most of my stuff at the home base and bring a smaller bag with me on the trips. First day of a ten day trip, my bag was stolen – literally everything I had with me except my passport and cash, which I thankfully had in a moneybelt type thing on me at the time. We felt pretty certain we knew who took it and called the cops. Big mistake. By the time we left the police station, I was so fearful for the safety of the boys we accused, I couldn’t leave without making sure the boys went with us.
For ten days I had to wash my underwear each night and hope it dried by the morning. Another girl had an extra deodorant she gave me. By the time we got back, I never wanted to see those clothes again – ten days in a row, ugh. Lost my camera, binoculars, some amazing pictures, lots of stuff. Sucked.
Image source: Kendallsan
#50
Flying United Airlines out of Newark to Rome for a vacation with my family. About 15 minutes after taking off the pilot comes over the intercom saying there is something wrong with 1 of the two engines fuel filters. It’s not a huge concern he says but that it would be a bad idea to fly out over the Atlantic without it working properly. We head back to Newark and the whole time we have to dump fuel because we are way too heavy to land. We circle the airport dumping fuel and finally land very hard since we were still heavy. Apparently it was worse than what the pilot said as they had other flights circle around as we had the whole landing strip with emergency vehicles all lined up and waiting for us. After landing we were told it would take 1 hour to fix. 2 hours go by and they let us re-board. After sitting in our seats for 20 minutes we have to de-board again because of a new issue. An hour later we are allowed to re-board. 30 minutes go by and we have to de-board for a 2nd time because of the inspector not clearing the plane for flight. We wait another hour while United decides what to do and they transfer all of our luggage and take a plane that was due to go to Argentina the next morning instead. All I get was some free miles and a ton of drink vouchers that I used to get hammered on the flight back home.
Image source: anon
#51
I was traveling alone in southern France. One particular night, I decided to camp above a little beach in the outskirts of Nice. There were no flat spots, so I didn’t pitch a tent, and slept in my sleeping bag on a sloped patch of grass. I got a terrible night of sleep due to a beach cleaning truck, a group of teenagers that walked by (this startled me and them), and my s****y choice of sleeping location.
I woke up early in the morning to find that someone had taken my pack of cigarettes that were sitting inches from me as I slept, which is creepy as hell now that I think about it.
The next day, I decided to go snorkeling and stashed my backpack in a bush. I return to find that someone had stolen half my clothes, my journal, my souvenirs, and all my toiletries along with some electronics (I know, I’m a f*****g idiot). This was pretty devastating, but the snorkeling was amazing. Later that evening I was talking to a local fisherman on the beach, and I mentioned what happened. He said someone was probably watching me that morning, and saw me stash my stuff. None of this seemed too weird at the time, but looking back, it’s really f*****g creepy.
Image source: AlbertaDwarfSpruce
#52
Me and my husband live in Texas, he likes casinos so once a year we drive up to Oklahoma to go to a casino. I’m perfectly content watching our daughters in the hotel while he goes and mildly gambles for a few hours. Then he watches them while I go and get a massage the next day.
About 3 month ago we pack up for our annual trip and head to Oklahoma. We made reservations online through a booking website. But when we got to the hotel they denied our reservation saying it “never existed”. We drive to numerous hotels in the area. All are booked. Apparently there was the “redneck truck festival” (wtf) that same weekend. It’s 11pm at this point. The kids are sleeping in the back and we are desperately trying to find a hotel.
We end up in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma and stumble upon a motel. It’s sketchy but the girls need to get out of the car and sleep in a proper bed. We decide to try and get a room then leave first thing in the morning and head home (5 hours away) My husband goes into the lobby and successfully gets a room.
I have no idea which town we are in, I feel like I’m in a horror movie. The atmosphere is just creepy, no other buildings around except this motel. No cars in the parking lot except ours and a few others.
We start unloading the car and get the girls inside and tucked in. I told my husband I left my purse in the car and went out to get it. I see the person that checked us in smoking a cigarette by the car. I say hello and he approaches me “you know it’s dangerous out here for a young lady like yourself”. The man looks like he’s in his 30’s and looks dirty.
I give a nervous laugh and say “yeah but my husband is inside so I’m ok”
He proceeded to walk closer to me and said my kids were cute. Now I’m worried because he never saw my kids. They were sleeping in the car so at this point I can only assume he saw us bring them into the room. Which is odd because our room was nowhere close to the lobby. I understand he was smoking but he could of just walked out of the lobby and smoked by the door. It’s around 11pm so I doubt any guest are arriving so your smoke isn’t going to bother anyone. Instead he walked around to the back where we were to smoke.
He then asked me to walk with him to the lobby so he could give me another keycard for the room. Apparently he only gave my husband one instead of two.
I said no we were fine with one and ran inside. I told my husband what happened and we locked the door with the extra lock (you know the one that has the chain) so that way if someone who had a keycard tried to get in they couldn’t because of the chain lock. We woke up at 6am and left. To this day I still have no idea what town that was but we aren’t going back to Oklahoma for a while.
Image source: I_am_dean
#53
During my visit to North Korea, I regularly saw men in suits following us around.
Image source: bustead
#54
Went camping with buddies in East Texas. There was a national forest campsite but when we got there it had apparently been abandoned. turns out the campsite had been closed
for years but they’d never updated the website. There were holes in the roof of the bathroom, etc. We were there anyway so camped. But then at night heard people shooting guns nearby with people yelling and flashlights in the woods. We got out of there quick.
Image source: valeyard89
#55
Whenever I was visiting my girlfriend at her college, we would always go to this fairly grimy club in New Haven. I say this because while waiting on line I saw a young college girl squat behind a car, while some small trickle of pee ran down her leg. My girlfriend and I couldn’t move off the line and we both could’ve looked away but meh.
So anyway, this club had these like dancers on the pole doing their thing, loud hip hop was playing and we had drinks in our hand. Night was going well, and after like an hr and a few more mixed cocktails I start to feel it. The room starts tilting when I notice someone more f****d up than me. I know she’s f****d up because her long hair is covering the front of her face and she’s barely standing up. Her ankles were buckling like Bambi, and the guy behind her looked sus. He was in ripped jeans, a backward cap, and a shirt with a few stains. I don’t know why but like before I kept staring. My girlfriend I think was talking to her other friends about some creepy old guy with white hair trying to hit on girls. I keep tugging on her shirt, then like that weird scene in Big Fish the one where everything slows down and the guy walks through the carnival ? Well this guy has the same effect the song slows and the girl just buckles, drops like she just got knocked tf out. Her head tilts back she’s out and as she’s falling on the guy, he just hoists her up on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and books it. He was so fast I felt like I was watching Mario bros on a speed run. Before I could say anything or do anything they just disappear into the crowd and a bouncer just whips his head in their direction.
To this day I wonder about that girl and the guy who just picked her up like a leprechaun and his sack of gold. My girlfriend thinks I made it up but every time I can’t shake it off. I think that girl was d***ged I kept thinking.
Image source: International_Eye794
#56
Hey, this is a long story. There is no TLDR because I cant explain it briefly. It’s a true story, and there are no lies involved. It might seem mundane, but it creeped me out then and still to this day. I was 18, I was on a 3 month road trip with 3 friends, and we are all experienced with outdoorsy stuff. At no point did we not have access to clean water, food, survival material, and weapons. At all times in nature we were each armed with a handgun and hunting knife. I dont want to disclose our location or names, so don’t ask. Here is the story:
I was out hiking in the middle of a national forest with some friends. We’re from the USA, hiking sometime mid June, we’re all experienced. It was a 3 month road trip the summer before we all went away to college, but we grew up hiking and camping. We wanted to hit up everywhere from Yosemite to Yellowstone to Hoosier National. Anyway, we’re out in this one place where there’s lots of old run down structures from abandoned native American settlements. We set up camp near a waterfall/creek because it was cooler there than anywhere else, and we always felt more comfortable near water. We get a good fire going, which is good because the bugs are horrible there (remember this). Mosquitos especially. The fire drives them away mostly. I get up to pee about 11pm and walk to the edge of where the light meets the dark treeline. While I’m taking a p**s, for some reason I can’t explain, I have thus extreme urge to walk out further. I tell the boys I’m gonna check something out and I want one of them with me. There’s 4 of us, so A and B stay near the campfire, and C walks with me. He keeps asking me what’s wrong so I tell him I just need to see something. Seriously, it’s like something is controlling me. We finally reach this clearing about 200 yards from the fire, but still along the creek. There’s no trees in a space about 50×50 yards. No trees at all, not even the base of trees like any had been cut down. Straight up no trees had ever been there. This weirded me out for some reason. Plenty of overgrowth and plant life though. Then there was a structure. It wasn’t native American. It looked old fashioned, but like it was just built. So it wasn’t old, just built to look old. No lights, no signs of life. Nothing. I remember hearing a weird humming noise, like the meditation monk sound “oohhm”. Faint, but definitely there, and human sounding. But again, no sound of human life. My buddy asks me why the hell I wanted to come here so badly. I didn’t respond because I had no answer. He said “at least there’s no bugs”. I remember this very clearly because that was the next red flag. We were in the middle of a forest at night, next to a creek, and there was no bug life at all. I then noticed I didn’t hear anything. Not wind, not animals, not bugs, nothing but silence. I don’t know why but it freaked me out. I wanted to go into the structure. It was a house looking thing the size of a tiny cabin, maybe 250 sq. ft. I started walking towards it but my buddy grabbed my arm and said we’re going. He pulled me away and I kept fighting because I desperately wanted to go into that cabin. He pulled me all the way to the fire and I only stopped fighting him when I felt the warmth of the fire again. I realized how cold I was at that point. I was freezing. Middle of June, humid and hot, and I was so cold I was almost shivering. When my other two buddies asked what we were doing, I did not want to say anything for some reason. Neither did C. So I said I thought I saw an animal. I didn’t sleep that night, and I don’t think C did either. The next morning I told the other two guys about it and they were creeped out. They said they wanted to see this cabin thing for themselves, so I took them to the spot, but it was run the f**k down when I took them. I swear, it looked totally different in the light of day. All we had were some really high powered flashlights the night before, but I promise it was like it had aged like 75 years in that one night. The two windows were broke, no door, missing an entire section of wall, etc. There were plenty of bugs and animal sounds too when we went back. So we all left and they poked fun at me and C, but we knew that something weird happened the previous night. C and I spoke about it either each other about a year after it happened, and we both agreed that it was weird and that we have no idea what happened.
Image source: bayala43
#57
This actually happened right outside my house, so technically doesn’t count but we have since sold it and I wouldn’t go back. I was walking my dog at around 1 am, and he is a golden and super friendly. All of a sudden he bolts and breaks his collar, and runs up to this man who was hiding behind a tree. The guy yells, and says he is afraid of dogs and tells me to come and get him. So I go and grab the dog and apologize profusely, but at the same time alarm bells are going off. The guy is sweating profusely, and is just, off. The dog is whining and really wants to go to this man, and I tell him he is friendly and not to worry. He responds, “well maybe I could try to pet him”. So against my better judgement, I let the dog go closer and he lays down, exposes his belly and the man has what I can only describe as a moment with him. He pets home for a good minute and has tears in his eyes. Then like a switch flips he looks up at me and says “it’s awful late for a pretty girl like you to be out here in nothing but pajamas. Your dog saved you tonight.” Then he turned and walked away. I BOOKED it home. My dumb a*s dog who would welcome a burglar into the house with open arms saved me.
Image source: anon
#58
**TL;DR: ~~Send lawyers~~ Pack bottled water, guns and money so I can go see the Yavin 4 rebel base.**
Over Christmas holidays in 1996 or 1997 (can’t recall exactly), I was traveling with my family on a cruise around the Caribbean. One of the stops was Guatemala, which had been caught up in a civil war for decades. Still, there were all kinds of assurances it was safe now, so very few people were concerned.
One of the excursions offered was an all-day trip (12 hours) to Tikal to see the Mayan ruins. I’d previously taken a couple of anthropology classes in college taught be a renowned Mayan scholar who had been part of the excavation, so I couldn’t resist the opportunity to see them for myself. I booked the day trip by myself — my family made other plans. The tour ended up being a small group — maybe 20 of us total — from the cruise ship. We were to take a chartered flight from the coast and then a bus to the ruins. We had a local guide and translator.
It’s all good, right? I consider myself a seasoned traveler, having been to several countries in Central America and Europe, so I wasn’t all that concerned. Even so, I packed some extra cash and my pepper spray (this was before 9/11, so travel was a lot different) and kept up situational awareness.
So 7am my small group of white, privileged tourists — in my mid-20s at the time, I was the youngest by far — pile in a bus and head off to the airport for our flight to the ruins. No one in the group was all that concerned, but I had alarms going off from the get go. I wasn’t chatting with the group but was watching the world go by outside the window. We go through slums (okay, this is a poor country…), we go through several military checkpoints (um… okay, there’s been civil war…), we get to the “airport” — really, a glorified landing strip — which is surrounded by military (oh s**t…).
I keep my observations to myself, as no one else commented. Maybe they didn’t notice the guys carrying weapons lining the runway, and the anti-aircraft guns all over the place. Or the fact that besides our chartered plane there were no other planes around except old military ones. We had to hand over our passports once we were on the plane, and one government official took them back to the hanger where they were passed around.
I give myself a little talk, telling myself I’m overreacting, things are cool. So what if I’m a young single woman traveling with strangers in a country that just signed a peace treaty? That’s when I see our tour guide / translator hand over a huge wad of US currency and get the nod to leave. Everyone settles in and we take off. Two other planes take off right after us, and escort us for a good bit before turning around and heading back. Well, okay then.
The flight was uneventful, as was the bus ride to the ruins. I notice a lot more payments exchange hands between the various military / government looking folks along the way, along with the different locals that would stop the bus at different points. Meanwhile I’m looking at my fellow tourists, and not a one has clued in to all the goings on.
I start hanging out with the tour guide, Joe, and chatting with him in between stops and bribes. He’s a really cool guy, had moved back to Guatemala after attending school in the US because of the peace treaty. I casually mention all the stops and he tells me to not worry, he’s got things covered. And then he shows me his handgun under his jacket, and the other guns and ammo in his backpack, along with a wad of US currency I’ve only seen in movies during d**g deals. And tells me that while I’m pretty, I’m not the blonde hot type that might get “taken”.
Yeah. Okay. I’m cool. And never so glad to be a chubby plain chick.
We get to Tikal, which was amazing, and more than I could have hoped for. A monkey decided to follow me around to steal the tie I had pulling my hair back. Nothing much happens, other than several of the group making a big deal about the heat, the fact they had to drink beer out of a bottle — seriously people, do you want to get a crippling case of diarrhea? — and the food was “authentic” and not the full spread they have on the ship. My god, tourists are the worst.
The trip back was similar, except now it was getting dark and not only us were on the bus. We had an escort for most of the way. According to Joe the guide, they were local militia who wanted to make sure that the rich tourists were safe from the government military. Apparently the military were the ones to worry about, as they were underpaid and liked to grab groups for ransom, r**e, whatever. It seems this trip was a bit more expensive than usual, as there had been an “incident” before Christmas. Oh joy.
Joe and I chat the whole way back, and he tells me how he’s impressed I noticed how things were, and how stupid all the others acted, being so clueless of their surroundings. He said he noticed two of them get pick-pocketed and he didn’t say anything because they deserved it. He told me about growing up in Guatemala, being sent to family in America, and how he wanted to make Guatemala beautiful again.
We get back to the landing strip / airport for our chartered flight back. Again, more exchanges for safety, and we are off. Again, we have escorts, this time on the plane with us. It’s a little disconcerting to see machine guns casually propped up on the seat next to someone.
All said and done, it was a great trip, and honestly I doubt few would have noticed anything. But when you are a single white woman traveling alone, you learn to pay attention. And the things I saw on that trip were eye opening, to say the least. I’ve never seen so many guns, so much money exchanged, and so many potentially iffy situations outside of movies. And yeah, I’m a sheltered American, so maybe this isn’t all that scary or intense. For me it was, because it was such a stark contrast to the rest of the trip — the luxury of the cruise ship, the white privilege, the general cluelessness of what things are like locally.
The experience changed me. Hopefully for the better.
EDIT: added TL;DR and paragraph breaks.
Image source: medlibgirl
#59
I was at an airport near Paris and I hear a whistle blow. Then there was an expolsion. It turns out the bomb squad destroyed an abandon suitcase by blowing it up inside the terminal. Freaked me the f**k right out of there.
Image source: snowmantackler
#60
I was living in Nepal during the highly suspect m******e of the royal family. I was stuck in my house for three days listening some some serious rioting going on outside. Someone set a bridge near my house on fire. The boredom got me in the end and I booked a bus ticket to the other end of the country.
Had to ride my bike through a hail of bricks to get to the bus pickup point, and enjoyed a relatively quiet and uneventful ten hour bus journey.
Walked the Himalayas, ate lots of dahl baht. Got Giardia. Saw some wonderful mountains.
When I returned Kathmandu was back to normal. Everyone was rather nonchalant about the whole thing. All the men had shaved heads, and it was all back to normal. The change was really rather eerie. It was like nothing had happened.
Apart from my bike. It had seven shades of s**t kicked out of it by rioters. Poor bike.
Image source: HerrFerret
#61
I was in Colombia a little less than 10 years ago. I was on a road trip with my uncle and cousins, and we were on a long stretch of road in the mountains. It was pretty early in the afternoon and it was a beautiful sunny day, so this was the last thing we expected to see.
There was a bus pulled over on the side of the road. There were a few cop cars surrounding it and two or three motorcycles. There was also a lot of blood. Blood on the pavement. Blood on the bus windows. A few bodies covered by bloody sheets. It’s important to keep in mind that my uncle’s car was old and s****y, so he was driving pretty slow, giving us a chance to get a really good look at all the f****d up s**t.
We find out the next day that some dudes on motorcycles hijacked the bus and tried to rob the driver and passengers. One of the passengers wasn’t having that s**t, so he pulled out a gun and tried to shoot one of the robbers. They lost their s**t and shot a bunch of people on the bus. I don’t remember what happened to the robbers themselves, but yeah that was pretty f****d up.
Image source: anon
#62
In the Yucatan (southern Mexico) my brothers and I told a local in a bar we were looking for mota. We were in some super small town, where everyone gets home at 4 from work, gets loaded and is passed out by 8. This character says he’ll take us to the town dealer, and since we were drunk, decide to go along. This isn’t your friendly suburban stoner who slings baggies out of his parents garage. This was next level narco s**t, with fighting c***s in cages outside, a tall gate and razor wire all around the house -which, by town standards was a mansion but by American standards was a big thirty year old house that wasn’t maintained. My drunkest brother decides to go for it while we wait outside. In a few minutes I hear laughing and he’s being the life of the party, acting like the jolly drunk American speaking Spanglish. He was in there half an hour but since we didn’t hear any bad sounds, like yelling and fighting, it was ok. He gets escorted out and says drunken goodbyes and pulls us along back to the bar by our pension. He tells us that was the most scared he’d ever been, there were two dudes with machine guns (that he could see) and he was sat down in front of some big wig with gold teeth. It was like a movie set and he wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a f*****g tiger in the basement to eat people. This area is known for kidnapping tourists as well as hanging the headless bodies of competitors and law enforcement from bridges. He didn’t realize how bad it was until he got in and saw he was interrupting some kind of party. Everyone was pretty f****d up, though, and he just tried to be goofy and amazed at all their s**t so they’d like him. They wanted him to party but he said his brothers were waiting and he had to bring us a little weed or we’d worry. He used the language barrier to leave against their request to stay and do god knows what. Sober us realized the next day it could have turned out terrible. And the weed wasn’t very good.
Image source: anon
#63
My family lived in Mongolia for a couple years when I was younger. The second year we lived in an apartment of all Mongolian families (the first year there were other American/foreign families in our building). One family in particular really disliked foreigners and unfortunately they lived directly above us. The four boys would always pee on our clothing that we hung out to dry on the balcony since dryers weren’t really a thing and since Mongolia is a desert, clothes dried pretty quickly. Those boys learned that my brother and I loved dogs. In Mongolia (at least, in the early 90s when we were there), dogs were not seen as pets and there were tons just roaming the streets. My brother and I would always pet them and go play with them. One day when we were playing out in the yard in front of the apartment building, the brothers brought us a puppy and let us play with it. We were pretty excited, being 8 and 6 years old, and enjoyed the little guy. Then the boys took it from us and smashed its head against the wall and threw rocks at it until it died. I don’t remember this, thankfully, but my mom says we were pretty upset.
Mongolia’s not a bad place, I don’t mean for anyone to get the wrong impression. Just those boys were pretty mean.
Image source: kcbrush
#64
I thought my 8 year old daughter had been kidnapped at the Cambodian boarder while we were waiting at immigration to cross into Thailand. She had gone to look for a bathroom without telling me. I was crazy with fear for 5 minutes there.
Image source: nursebad
#65
Getting stuck in Manila airport for 8 hours. It was supposed to just be a quick stop over.
Some kinda crazy storm started, the power kept cutting in and out, none of the food stores took card as payment, there were no ATMs, the advertised free Wifi wasn’t working, they changed our departure gate three times (and we only figured this out because we kept asking staff why our flight wasn’t listed on the gate’s TV), none of the staff seemed to give a flying f**k about anything (some even seemed to be taking a nap at their station- leaning on counter tops or leaning back in chairs with their eyes closed), the ONE toilet block they had for the entire terminal had 4 cubicles (one was being used as a storage closet though).
And then as I was waiting in the f*****g huge line for this toilet, word spreads down the line that the water is now not working and the toilets are all out of order. So everyone just keeps using them, and piling more and more paper and waste into the bowl.
Needless to say, the food on the actual plane sucked and I’m never flying with Phillipine Airlines ever, ever again.
**TL;DR Never go to Manila airport.**.
Image source: StenFace
#66
When traveling in South America, be prepared to throw your toilet paper in the trash, where it will sit for days.
Image source: anon
#67
When I was in first grade and my sister was two my family went to Paris. We were sitting in a garden eating a picnic and speaking in English, some french teenagers heard us from the balcony above and started throwing rocks at us and yelling insults that I don’t know. I had to cover my little sister because I was freaked out that she was going to get hit in the head. We ended up packing our stuff and leaving in a rush as non of the adults in the park even moved to get them to stop and they where above us so my parents couldn’t. I had nightmares for a year.
Image source: Tsugamertensiana
#68
From 1999-2002 I was traveling the midwest and plains. I remember driving through some arid desert, which looked like it used to be farmland before the longterm drought in the area.
My car broke down not far from a farm, and a very nice older couple let me stay with them until I could get my truck fixed in 2002. They had a wonderful dog I really enjoyed playing with.
Let me tell you though, the amount of people that would come by this families home was absolutely insane.
A sickly looking man kept harassing them to turn their property into a literal dump/landfill, there were 5-6 gangsters leaving large footprints on the more secluded areas of the property burying god knows what, an ancient looking dude wanted to film on their property, not nursing home old, but Crypt Keeper old. As nice as their dog was, holy f*****g s**t the 2 ducks they kept seemed to have a vendetta for everyone. At least there was a nice traveling barber service in the area. Got a real nice buzz cut.
Image source: anon
#69
In 2005, a couple friends and I went to Tijuana Mexico for a day of shopping and cheap tequila. I got lost trying to find my way back to the boarder and ended up in a s****ier area of town. A cop car pulls me over and out gets 4 men, not in police uniforms and carrying large riffle machine gun looking things. All four of us girls are trying not to lose our s**t when they just start screaming at us in Spanish. They’re yelling for us to get out of the car but we weren’t moving fast enough for them. They rip the doors open, pull us out, push us to our knees on the side of the road and start digging through our car. We all thought we were going to die that night. They just stole everything worth anything from our car then hightailed it outta there. We were very very luck to have left with our lives.
Image source: MuffinTopJiggle
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