We often see travelers revealing the good, the bad, and the downright ugly sides of exploring new places. From breathtaking sunsets to nights that turned into disasters, their stories show both the magic and the mayhem of travel. These honest insights can be surprisingly helpful when deciding where and how to plan your next trip.
That’s why today, we’ve gathered some real-life stories from people answering, “What’s the worst place you’ve ever had to spend the night?” From sleeping in bathtubs to resting in pickup trucks, these travel tales remind us that every journey comes with its share of unexpected detours. Keep scrolling, you might just pick up a few lessons for your next adventure.
#1
The Astrodome during hurricane Rita. I got to use a trash can as a toilet with an audience of dozens and that was one of the nicer parts of that week.
Image source: anon, _N1smo/reddit
#2
IN A TREE! Had a rafting accident and the three of us ended up spending 18 hours (overnight) hanging on to tree branches in the middle of an over flowing river until we were rescued the next morning by the swift water rescue team. We took turns sleeping as the other two grabbed on so we would not fall in. Picture us in no shoes, shorts and t-shirts as the temp dropped down below 50 degrees that night. Made the front page of the local newspaper, our 15 minutes of fame I guess.
Image source: wirefixer, Roberta Sant’Anna/unsplash
#3
A friend’s place. We weren’t that close. It was high school and she just got back from hospital for mental problems. She was in and out the whole time I knew her. But she was happy to be out but also very lonely so I slept over.
She lived in an apartment with her parents but the place was a wreck. Trash everywhere, dirty dishes. But the worst of it was they didn’t potty train their little dog so it would pee all over the kitchen and they would just put a paper towel over it. The kitchen was covered in paper towels 🤢🤢
I tried to not go in the kitchen but I knew the urine was tracked everywhere. What really got me was when the dog stepped in her bowl of hamburger helper and she laughed and kept eating it anyway.
Image source: 100LittleButterflies, Bruno Guerrero/unsplash
#4
I went on a safari in South Africa and I had to stay in some random woman’s house before we were picked up by the tour company in the morning. Fairly near to Kruger National park “accomodation” was provided the night before the tour began.
Arrived at about 6pm after travelling all day. There was nothing to eat, nowhere to go to eat and a lady who seemed a bit crazy. She had a baby with her who roamed freely without even a nappy on through the house?! That creeped me out because my partner and I weren’t the only strangers coming and going so anything could have happened to him.
The house was filthy, the woman had no concept of personal space, I was starving, had to sleep on a mattress that smelled of other people and then in the morning she laid out a “breakfast buffet” that was one piece of toast and a cornflakes box her naked baby was eating from. Followed by more of her bizarre conversation and baby doing nudie runs.
I have backpacked before and always enjoyed the freedom of being able to explore and do what I want. This was the first “tour” I’ve ever done. Thankfully it was only one night and morning.
Image source: OnemoreSavBlanc, Natalia Blauth/unsplash
#5
An apartment in Midtown, Manhattan.
I should’ve figured that the prices they were offering were incredibly low for a place 1 minute away from Bryant Park, but I still booked it anyway for 4 nights.
It smelled terribly, it didn’t feel safe, the whole building felt like it was still being built, only 1 of the elevators was actually (barely) functioning, the bathroom door didn’t fully open because the sink was on the way and my gf at the time didn’t believe it, but I’m pretty sure that even the floor was a bit crooked.
A couple of weeks after returning home I searched for the place on Booking and it was gone. Upon further research I found out that it was actually closed because if infringed a bunch of safety rules in NYC…
Image source: anon, Dan Braga/unsplash
#6
I had a boat chartered to drop me off on a small island, and was scheduled to pick us up the next day.
As it turns out, we weren’t able to get off the beach onto the actual island because of a razor sharp barnacle wall surrounding the whole area, so we were trapped on a sand bar until the next morning.
So unfortunately, as night fell, the tide started rising, and only a tiny sliver of the sand bar stayed above sea level. The ground was soaking wet and sopped through the tent we were sleeping in, but to add insult to injury, turns out the sand bar was also a huge horseshoe crab mating ground. So the rest of the night we basically were wet, cold, and being swarmed by horseshoe crabs mating against our tent.
Truely one of my worst nights.
Image source: kaiwolf26, Yash Raut/unsplash
#7
Went to YMCA camp when I was 12 at Catalina Island. In the middle of the first night, feral hogs came trampling through and destroyed the tent I was in and I got stomped on. At least tusks didn’t get me.
Image source: anon, Getty Images/unsplash
#8
In the bathtub in a hotel room. There were 4 people to the room and only 2 beds.
Image source: MeridasAngel, Frugal Flyer/unsplash
#9
Under a pickup truck in a pouring rain. I was hitchhiking and had no money or a place to stay.
Image source: elt0p0, Atlas Green/unsplash
#10
Used to live with a guy up in Hayden alabama, mid July and the a/c goes out, it was supposed to rain all week with about 80% humidity coupled with 95+ temperature outside.
The house turned into a swamp, we opened all the windows and doors, turned on every fan we could find and still it was just awful. The bedroom was so hot we couldn’t use it so we slept on the couches which were so soaked by the end of the day that you could press your hand into it and your hand would come up wet.
Image source: Astropup81, Mohamed hamdi/unsplash
#11
In 2007, after a 12-hour van ride that should have taken 3 (delays due to bus riots), I crossed the Nepali-Indian border into Bihar, one of the poorest states, at 3AM. We were immediately robbed, and, without any cash except for a $10 bill my buddy had in his shoe. The ONLY place that would take our money was completely destitute. Upon opening the door, we were greeted by dozens of rats that had absolutely no fear of humans. They were on top of the broken TV, climbing the drapes, etc.
We went to bed that night, defeated, knowing we’d be covered in rats.
Image source: hockeyjoker, Joshua J. Cotten/unsplash
#12
I slept in a hotel bathroom with wet toilet paper in my ears once when I was a stupid kid. I was sharing a room with my dad and my brother, both of whom were terrible snorers (my dad at least has a CPAP now and my brother’s estranged, so two problems solved). I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t handle the snoring… so I went in the bathroom, wadded up some toilet paper, wet it, jammed it in my ears, and tried my best to get some sleep. Wouldn’t recommend, did some long-term damage to one eardum from a bit of toilet paper that was stuck on there for years afterward.
Image source: anon, Getty Images/unsplash
#13
I had a 17 hour layover in the Reykjavik airport one time. I tried to schedule some things to do so that I wouldn’t be stuck there for the full time, but they got canceled due to weather.
If you’ve never been to the Iceland airport, there’s not much to do. Doubly so on the pre-security screening side. Well, we landed and walked for a while, but about 2 a.m. I just couldn’t do it any longer. I found a spot in a corner, out of the way, and lay down with my head on my bag.
At 5, I was awakened by a security guard screaming at me that I had to get up, that they didn’t allow people to lie on the floor. She also had an empty plastic bottle in her hand, and she was banging it against her other hand about an inch from my nose.
I staggered over to a bench and tried to sleep, but those benches are hard as bricks and uncomfortable as all get out. I spent the next 5 hours or so in a constant state of half-asleep, half alive of fatigue. I don’t think I’ve ever been more miserable.
The plus side was that the flight to Boston from Iceland went pretty quickly thanks to the Benadryl and rum combined with that fatigue. I woke myself up snoring on the plane while the flight attendants were giving the speech about how to wear seat belts. I don’t remember much after that until we landed.
Image source: edgarpickle, Getty Images/unsplash
#14
Cabin at a camp in central Alaska. Got insanely cold and my sleeping bag wasn’t cutting it. Tried to put like a foam sleeping pad on top of me not knowing that the sleeping bag let all my sweat out and it covered the foam pad completely soaking me, which then pretty much froze.
Image source: prizmatik1, Aleksi Partanen/unsplash
#15
Cheapest Airbnb in Tokyo. Was disgusting. Moved to the four seasons after a few days to spend time cleaning in the day spa for a few days.
Image source: ephix, Markus Winkler/Unsplash
#16
My aunties house. She collects dolls. Antique, creepy dolls. Her guest room doubled up as one of her doll storage rooms.
Imagine being in a room with hundreds of creepy dolls on shelves all around the room, all staring at you. Didn’t help that her house is victorian and weirdly laid out. Her living room was ground floor, and then you’d go down a steep set of stairs into the basement (which is where the guest room was..) this led out to her back yard, weird house built on a weird slope.
I couldn’t move from fear, I literally lay there all night terrified to move incase one of the dolls moved. 😂 Branches hitting against the window and the rattling of her heating pipes helped make it a very horrific night.
I refused to ever sleep there again, so she introduced me to the other guest room (that I didn’t know existed) and this room was first floor, zero dolls, pretty pleasant place to sleep. Why did she torment me with the doll room 😂😂.
Image source: Linzaelia, Danny De Vylder/unsplash
#17
When I was 14, my whole extended family was on vacation, and there was one night where all the adults went drinking. Since I was old enough to stay up with them but not drink, I went to bed when everybody else left. Because I’m the youngest of three, I got the pull out Cot in our hotel room, while my parents and two older sisters shared the other two queen beds in the room. My drunk uncle crashed our room that night and shared the cot with me. To make things worse, I was under the sheets and he was sleeping on top of the sheets on his side of the cot, meaning I couldn’t pull them off of myself to get out. So I spent the night cramped in between my drunk uncle, the edge of my parents bed and trapped under bed sheets And couldn’t escape. 😴Good story though!
Image source: STierney927, Greg Pappas/unsplash
#18
The balcony at my best friend’s party one night. Got drunk and decided to black out at the wooden bench while it was raining. Got sick the next day.
Image source: MitsuraKei, Roberta Piana/unsplash
#19
A homeless shelter in San Francisco that made you sit in an uncomfortable metal chair at a table to sleep if you didn’t have a “bed”. I would have rather slept on the floor or even outdoors than do that again. By morning my back was so sore I could hardly move.
Image source: RevRaven, Getty Images/unsplash
#20
Some crummy motel in Montana. We had started a road trip and I could tell I was the only person of color to come through that place for years probably. The maintenance guy followed me into my room and gave me some story about checking to see if the cable was working. Other staff and guests were sizing me up.
I triple locked my door and the window, and I slept with my pocket knife under my pillow that night.
Image source: airpoda**hole, Getty Images/unsplash
#21
Our own house after a hurricane knocked out the power to the whole area for 5 days in the middle of a Florida summer and there was no a/c, not even a fan to move the hot dense air around. It was impossible to get any sleep since it was so humid and miserable.
(for those of you not familiar, air conditioning in Florida is not a “luxury’, it’s a vital “requirement to live” just as much as food, water, and oxygen to breathe).
Image source: scottiebass
#22
Jail.
Image source: dweezil12
#23
Covid ICU. The hospital staff was excellent, but all in all, I’d have rather avoided it.
Image source: borisdidnothingwrong, Getty Images/unsplash
#24
Trying to sleep on the floor of a moving bus with no pillows.
Image source: LucyVialli
#25
A tent on top of a bald mountain top in the fall, during a torrential downpour. I had to *sleep* in about 4 inches of freezing water.
Image source: BigBearSD
#26
The worst was getting locked inside the organ blower room.
I was resting on the sexton’s sofa in that room late in the afternoon, having a nap before choir rehearsals later in the day day.
The sexton unwittingly locked me in the room (a deadbolt on the door) before he went home for the day. So there I was – just the organ blower and me.
Image source: anon
#27
Chicago O’Hare International Airport … or maybe in my truck on Wolf Creek Pass in Colorado. Both were interesting experiences.
Image source: Scooooter
#28
On the sidewalk.
I was a “little” drunk and couldn’t find my way home.
Image source: Castle_main_
#29
My godfather was an antiques and art dealer, and would pay me to spend the night camped out in front of estate sales to get the first spot. The brokers who ran the sales would issue numbers in the morning, letting buyers (usually professional dealers) in one at a time, so as not to create chaos in someones home. So the first one there would make a list and put it on their windshield, and the other dealers or their proxies would sign it and take their spot, like waiting for concert tickets. My godfather would usually work alone, but would occasionally partner with some other dealers who dealt in other wares.
One especially big sale, he needed me way early and I sat from noon until 8am, with two other proxies. One was a nice lady who worked with one of his partners, the other was a guy that went to high school with my mom and was an unmedicated schizophrenic. It started snowing around 2pm, and by dark it was coming down heavy, like 1-2″ per hour. She was quiet and nice, but he was getting increasingly bizarre, ranting about how the Mississippi froze over in 1979 and that’s why coyotes were all over the NYC tristate area. We nodded politely, and shared a concerned look.
At 4am, he woke us up screaming about how it wasn’t fair that “she took [his] kids” and how Lyndon LaRouche was gonna help him get them back. He then opened the door, and ran out into the shin-high snow without his coat and disappeared into the dark. As far as I know, he never had any kids. I never heard what happened to him, but I got a story and $200 for the ordeal.
Image source: IGotsDasPilez
#30
A hoarder’s house when I was 10. We thankfully stayed at a motel the next night. That was the beginning of me becoming a germaphobe.
Image source: Weapon_X23
#31
Run down motel in the bad part of Chicago.
Image source: NuclearWinterGames
#32
My family of 6 and our Belgian malinois slept in a kia sorento because my in laws kicked us out, we just moved to Texas from Ohio and it was miserable.
Image source: kokichioummaa
#33
A tent in rural Cambodia, next to a river. The site had lamps set up by the tents, one of which was almost directly above mine. I could see thousands of mosquitoes attracted to the light through the mesh area at the top of my tent, and hundreds crawling on the outside of the tent itself. I went around my tent multiple times ensuring every single zip was shut as tight as possible, wiping as much of the inside surface as I possibly could with repellant wipes, and still, somehow, mosquitoes kept managing to find their way in – one every few minutes.
I had already had two almost-sleepless nights at this point, so if it wasn’t for complete physical exhaustion there’s no way I would have managed to get the 20 minutes of sleep I eventually managed just before 05:00 in the morning.
Image source: ButteredReality
#34
Visited my grandma during the festival and all rooms were taken. We couldn’t even merge 2 sofa chairs and use as a bed(was a kid back then) so me and my brother had to go to my grandmas cousin who’s a hoarder. She had a folding bed in this room she probably didn’t open in 5 years. So much dust everywhere. She opened the window for me and my brother and put clean sheets. I didn’t sleep a wink all night as mice kept running over my feet and right in front of my face on the edge of the bed. It was the worst thing ever.
Image source: Vaganhope_UAE
#35
My tent got rained out on a trip so I had to ask someone I didnt know if I could bunk with them. On top of the awkwardness, I didnt have a sleeping bag because it was soaked. Not a very fun time.
Image source: srnd_strom2612
#36
In Iraq I had to sleep on the hood of my truck on a handful of missions. Good times.
Image source: Liteboyy
#37
I lived in Baton Rouge when Hurricane Ike hit Texas in 2008. We didn’t get much rain but the power got knocked out in parts of the city for a few days.
The first night, I came in and found out my Louisiana apartment had no AC in early September which was still quite warm. I tried to sleep in my apartment, I sweated through my clothes in a matter of minutes, so then I went to work to sleep in my office, but my manager and his extended family quite literally taken every in of floorspace.
I tried to sleep in a church, no one was allowed to sleep in the structure unless they were formally registering as a storm refugee – which they had a handful from Texas.
Finally at around 2 am I gave up slept in my car with the window cracked down. Incredibly muggy and eaten by mosquitos.
Image source: anon
#38
In 2002, I slept for about ten hours on a rather disgusting convention hall’s barely carpeted concrete floors.
It was the end result after being awake for 5 days and underestimating a tourist attraction’s hotel market.
Was a pretty good sleep all things considered.
Image source: hacktheself
#39
Bed of my truck on a hunting trip where I was absolutely demolished by mosquitos.
Image source: TacticalAgave
#40
Me and my mom like to travel around the world. We were going to Las Vegas when they delayed the flight. It was delayed until the next day! We had to sleep in the airport on a bench in a restaurant, and fortunately the restaurant owner let us. I’m sorry for all the homeless people who have to sleep in cold, dirty places, and people who don’t have much of a home.
Image source: succulent_gardener
#41
In a closet with a dust-filled bed with rats in a Brooklyn 10-person shared apartment. HELL.
Image source: anon
#42
Llano State Park in Junction, TX.
I was five months pregnant and enormous (FWIW, it was all belly… people who approached me from behind were always shocked to find out I was pregnant. Always told me, “It’s a boy, isn’t it?” Yes, twas a 12+ lb baby boy) Anyway…. it was Memorial Day weekend and we decided to go camping. We had the one baby in the oven, an 18 month old “Max”, and a ten year old “Jake”.
Why we thought this was a good idea, I’ll never know. Chalk it up to rose tinted glasses. We live in the Houston area. The drive alone was arduous enough. We get there though, and it’s lovely and wind blown and wild. We set up camp and the balmy ninety degree temps take a nose dive. Well, we had sleeping bags but this cold was relentless. Plus it was windy. And Max kept crying and crying, something he never did. He was always a chill child. But from the moment we set up camp he had become clingy and fussy and now that night had fallen he was full on wailing.
We didn’t know how to handle a crying child. Hand to God, he had never cried like this before. We never had to comfort him. We had no clue what to do besides hold him close and rock him gently.
He didn’t seem to be sick. No fever. He wasn’t prone to ear infections and his ears didn’t seem to be bothering him. He was dressed warmly, unlike the rest of us.
It was full on dark, just past nine, when a park ranger rolled into our campsite. He said he was going to have to ask us to leave if Max didn’t settle down because we were disrupting quiet time.
So we gathered our things and bundled into our truck. As soon as we were in the truck Max stfu.
He began baby talking and leaned into me and snap! fell asleep. We waited a beat and then moved back to the tent, which we hadn’t dismantled yet. We had just begun to settle down when he woke and began to cry again, this time with renewed vigor. We went back to the truck. I told my husband he and Jake should go ahead and sleep in the tent and I would stay in the truck with Max, the screamer. Quietly, they did just that. A couple of minutes later Max woke up screaming again. He didnt settle down until my husband and Jake got back into the truck.
We resigned ourselves to a long, uncomfortable night cramped in the truck. I needed to pee, but didn’t dare leave because I thought Max would wake up crying again. Max slept through the night.
As soon as dawn broke we packed up the rest of our stuff and in the midst of doing that my husband saw fresh, large piles of animal scat behind the area where our tent had been pitched.
Now there haven’t been bears, wolves or mountain lions in Texas in decades. But that was one big pile.
Maybe Max knew something we didn’t know. In any case… that was THE most uncomfortable, long night ever.
Sorry for the lengthy post.
Image source: PurpleVein99
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