20 Funny Stories Of Dumb Mistakes People Made While Travelling

Planning a trip is a wonderful feeling as the excitement and anticipation build. However, no matter how much research you do you can’t plan for everything. Thus you end up in an adventure of sorts as you figure things out on the go in a foreign land because of some silly mistake or the other that you may have made. Most likely while inebriated or dog-tired from doing touristy types of things. Or of course, the most common mistake, missing flights because of the confusing 24-hour clock schedule airlines use. 

#1

My wife and I traveled to New Zealand for six weeks camping, then flew to Hawaii for a week to visit friends. I had a car and condo rented in Hawaii but in the plane to Hawaii I realized the day we lost going to New Zealand, we we’re gaining back going to Hawaii (International Date Line). So, we had to scramble as we had no car or housing for our first day there. We literally arrived in Hawaii hours before we left New Zealand. Oops.

Image source: UserJH4202, Tyler Lastovich

#2

On a *very* drunken night out in Thailand I gave my wallet to a lovely couple we had spent the day with on a trip to keep safe as I had no pockets in my shorts.

Needless to say I woke up the next day and the doom hit me.

Kicked myself for the next few days and carried on with my trip with the help of my friends. Mostly transferring money to them online.

A few days later I logged in to a computer at the hostel and found an email from LinkedIn with a connection request and a short message from one of the couple! They had tried finding me on all my socials but the only one that they found me on was LinkedIn ?

They managed to post it to my next hostel and it was on my bed waiting for me!

Heroes. ?

Image source: inbelfast, EVG Kowalievska

#3 Mine was being an inexperienced 19 year old traveler bringing lots of German beer to Liverpool in a duffel bag. About 10 or 12 bottles broke and the bags on the conveyor belt were soaked in beer and the people were angrily mumbling over it. Then mine came, the whole bottom was drenched, and eyes were all over me as I quietly snuck out.

Image source: DoneTravelling, Mateusz Dach

#4 Arriving at 1:00 pm for a 1:00 am flight…12hrs too late. The flight was from India to US so it was a very expensive mistake.

Image source: bradkwells, Arina Krasnikova

#5 Sydney, Australia and Sydney, Nova Scotia are not close to each other. I have no idea why I didn’t question why the ticket was so affordable !

Image source: egd-f, Rijan Hamidovic

#6

My husband mixed up AM and PM for our flight from Amsterdam to London and I never bothered to double check. We were out happily sightseeing with what we thought were our last few hours in town when I get an email that said “How was your flight? Fill out this survey…”

Thankfully we booked some last minute train tickets. We lost the money on the airfare but at least it was a very cheap flight.

Image source: erinelwin, Pixabay

#7 I booked a train from Venice at the trenitalia site. When the train never arrived I discovered I’d booked a bus. We missed it.

Image source: MaddBadger, T Leish

#8

I was travelling in Belfast and then taking a flight to Paris from the Belfast airport. When I get to the bus station, I ask for a ticket “to the airport”. I get my ticket and get on the bus. 30 mins into the trip where we should be getting close to the airport, I check my Google maps and see we’re headed the wrong direction. I ask someone if the bus is going to the Belfast airport. He looks horrified and tells me it’s going to the Dublin airport. Missed my flight, had to get a new, way more expensive flight from the Dublin airport.

Image source: cheesetrain, Oleksandr Canary Islands

#9 Not me but my husband. The night before our first trip to Barcelona he noticed his passport had expired. Hotels were nonrefundable at that point so I waved goodbye and did the trip solo.

Image source: Trekker_Cynthia, Spencer Davis

#10 I booked a trip to Istanbul in December, assumed it would be warm because it was on the Mediterranean and in the Middle East, didn’t check the weather predictions, didn’t pack any warm clothes, and it was snowing when I arrived.

Image source: ShinjukuAce, Vlad Chețan

#11

Not me, but my friends recently were visiting EU (they’re not EU citizens and require a visa to be there) and decided to go on a day-trip from Munich (Germany) to Salzburg (Austria). Never came to their mind to grab their passports as it’s their first time in Europe and they’ve thought “there’s no state borders inside the EU”. They got lucky at the way there, but at the way back there was a police check on travel documents ? they were taken off the train and spent couple of hours at the police station trying to contact hotel so the staff would get into their room and take photos of visas. Ended well though – the police released them once the photos were sent.

Image source: Oskora, Vinta Supply Co. | NYC

#12 I once booked a month long airbnb for the wrong month

Image source: Bruce_e, Andrea Davis

#13 I booked a hotel in the wrong country.

Image source: buttterz1, Bruno Maceiras

#14

Grabbed my son’s passoort, instead of mine, before driving 3 hrs to Chicago for a flight to Cuba early the next day. Thankfully I have an amazing friend who went and got mine from my house and met me halfway. Got back to Chicago at 2:00am, and made my 6:30 am flight. I gave my friend $100 for saving my a**e.

Image source: brainonvacation78, Kindel Media

#15

We were traveling to two different cities for a week. We needed two accommodations, one for each city, right? Well my dumbass booked not just one air bnb for the one city, but also booked the other for the same city with the exact same dates. Didn’t notice until a week before our trip. I cried when I realize what I did lol. It was an extremely expensive (no refund) lesson to learn to pay more attention when I book more than 1 accommodation at once :/

Image source: unhindered-coconut, Leeloo Thefirst

#16

Recently went to Japan and must have been extremely jet lagged my first night because I threw my envelope of 40000 yen (like 280 USD) into the trash can in the bathroom of the floor of the hostel I was staying in. Was checking the bathroom as a last ditch effort, moved a few pieces of tissue and there it was untouched ?

Image source: Ducey89

#17

Borrowed my dad’s old truck to do some wilderness camping with a buddy across the Canadian border in Yukon (I’m from Alaska obviously). Told the border agent I had no guns, ammo, etc but they searched the vehicle anyways and lo an behold my dad had a hidden compartment under the back seat with a .357 and a box of ammo lol. They pulled us out and had us stuck in an interrogation room while they called my dad as it was his name on the registration. He confirmed it was his fault as he forgot it was in there and they actually let us go and they kept the gun. We camped for a week lol. My dad had to drive 250 miles to the border to pick up the gun.

Image source: BeefosaurusRekt, Guduru Ajay bhargav

#18 I booked a ticket to the Anne Frank museum tour and stood inline. Ticket was for the following year

Image source: DICKASAURUS2000, Una Laurencic

#19 I forgot underwear on a three week trip to South America. No offense to the Brazilians here but let’s say their men’s style of underwear was not my idea of comfortable.

Image source: JennItalia269, Shalu Sharma

#20 Went to the wrong airport in berlin and missed my flight

Image source: Mcshizballs, Pixabay