There’s a huge world out there full of adventure…and uncertainty.

I love traveling in the U.S. and in other countries but you have to know how to be aware of your surroundings, or else you might end up in a very compromising position…

Then again, sometimes things are just totally out of your control and you fall into some bad luck for no reason at all.

Traveling can be a crapshoot, ya know?

AskReddit users weighed in with their stories of travel gone wrong.

1. City of lights.

“Went to Paris with my buddy for the night in September. Trouble at the hostel around midnight. No place to sleep. Bar/club hopped until about 4.

Froze my ball$ off while I slept at a bus stop until we got chased out by a couple of cops. Spent the rest of the night in front of an ATM on top of a heat vent. Took the first train back in the morning. Cr*ppy night, great memory.”

2. Into the slammer.

“Thrown in jail for a night on an island in Thailand (Lanta) because I was working illegally (bartending at my hostel without a workers permit) and they were asking 30,000 baht (1,000 USD) in order to let me go.

I said nah because I wasn’t about to pay that, especially knowing they would take less. They were just being greedy knowing I was a young American kid and trying to take advantage of me.

I got out of it by staying in jail for much longer than needed in order to drive the price down (total of about 16 hours). Eventually paid 6,000 baht (200 USD), and even got a ride back to my hostel from the police. Overall, very civil extortion and bribery to be completely honest.

Got roughed up a bit in the beginning but never really hurt or anything.”

3. Not friends anymore.

“I decided to travel with a friend of mine for Spring Break. I flew to Venice a day before him. Next afternoon I randomly ran into him on the street, when he told me he had lost his wallet in London and had decided to fly to Venice anyway. He had no phone or way to contact me so it was an act of God he found me and didn’t get stuck without money in Venice.

Later on in our trip we got separated on our way to a train station in Rome. He freaked out and instead of looking for me, smuggled himself onto a train and hid in the bathroom. We found each other again on the plane out of Rome and we were both furious at each other.

The guy is a cartoon character and made that trip fiftyfold more stressful than it had to be haha. But at least he’s lucky. We also had no money the whole trip because I had to pay for everything so we were constantly hungry. He spent the last night at Heathrow because I only had money left for a single train ticket back to London.

Our friendship didn’t quite survive that ordeal.”

4. USA.

“I took a road trip solo across the US. It turned out that my 17-year-old car was not up to the task, and it died on the side of the road ~5 hrs from home.

I had to hike down the highway until I found a farm where I could get the number for a tow truck, and then I got towed to the nearest town, a couple miles away. I was in contact with my family the whole time (this was when I still lived with my parents), and eventually my grandparents decided that they would drive down in two vehicles and give me their spare car.

After I got that car, I managed to get through the rest of the trip without any major problems (aside from one flat tire that i was able to get replaced easily), up until the third last day of my trip. I still had about 1000 km (600 miles) to go, and I rear-ended another car, totaling my grandparent’s vehicle.

Again, I was extremely lucky. I was only about 2 hours from my brother’s place, so he drove out to get me and all my stuff, and then I spent the night with him and took a greyhound home.”

5. Oh, boy…

“My husband I have such a history of bad travel luck that it’s a running joke.

Our first big trip together was to Taiwan, during typhoon season. We got trapped overnight in Taroko Gorge due to a landslide and had to replan several activities due to weather closures.

Six months later, he crashed a motorbike in the Philippines, breaking his collarbone. It’s taken two surgeries, but he’s perfectly fine now. Unfortunately, it happened on the 3rd day of our trip to a place that required a boat to get to any nice beaches, and he wasn’t able to get in and out of the boats. So we ate and drank a lot at local restaurants.

This February, we found out I was pregnant 6 days before a long awaited trip to Thailand and Malaysia. We’d been planning it for 18 months. The first few days were great, but after a long day in the sun, I got very sick.

Long story short, due to low blood pressure, I fainted through a glass door, shattering it and landing in the glass. I sliced through the tendon in my hand and was unable to use it for the next six weeks. Then the morning sickness started. I spent a lot of time in hotels while my husband did all the fun things we planned (I insisted).

We’re a little hesitant to plan any future travels.”

6. That’s bad.

“I was barely three weeks into a planned 9-month RTW trip. Started off in Peru, hiked the Inca Trail and came down through Bolivia into Chile. Spent 24 hrs on a bus from Calama to Santiago. When I got off the bus my legs buckled under me. At first I thought it was just muscle fatigue/cramps from sitting cramped so long on the bus.

Went to the hostel but later that day I fell down on the floor and couldn’t get back up again. I didn’t have any strength and had to crawl back to my room. Luckily there was someone in the dorm and they called an ambulance.

Got to the hospital and was having trouble describing what was happening to me… luckily there was a doctor there that spoke some English and said I most likely had Guillain-Barre syndrome.

Spent the next 10 days in the hospital in Santiago as my strength kept getting worse and worse.. I couldn’t open a bottle of water or even squeeze toothpaste. No pain though so it felt really weird.

They put me on immunoglobulin therapy. I was supposed to travel with a girl through southern Chile.. hadn’t met her before other than talking on the phone. Luckily she had given me the name of a local contact and I was able to get in touch with her and she came and visited me in the hospital. Ran up a $300 bill on the phone using the Internet (this was in 1998).

At the end of the 10 days though my strength was finally starting to return but still very weak. Needless to say, being paralyzed meant an end to the trip. Had to go back to the US where I spent two months in physical therapy. I still couldn’t run or jump.

After two months I decided to try to resume my trip, at least partially… doing 3 months instead of the original 9. I went back to Chile and Easter Island, then continued on to South Africa and spent a month on an overland safari truck going up to Nairobi.

I think being outside and active helped me get better much faster than moping at home. Even when I got back from the trip I wasn’t 100%… took another 6 months or so. Now I’m fully recovered and haven’t had any relapse.”

7. As we speak…

“Currently in one.

Bought a Chinese knockoff Honda Win 110 in Hà Nội. Drove to Ninh Binh. Drove further to Dong Hoi… But the engine busted two days ago. Got a new engine for about 80 Euros or 2 million Dong.

Started yesterday at 4 in the afternoon to make it to Đồng Hới. Drove 40 kilometers. Engine died every 10 kilometers. Dies uphill. Neutral and 1st gear are almost impossible to get in. Drove back to mechanic who gave me the new engine.

His store was closed at 8PM when I arrived there. Went to the hotel across the street where I slept the day before.

Then he showed up. He was a little bit embarrassed that he did not fix it correctly. Hotel staff gave us a room (gf and me) and huge plate of food for 8 Euros.

Now I am sitting and waiting for the motorcycle… in a small deserted town between Nịnh Bình and Đồng Hới.”

8. Ouch!

“Got so badly sunburnt in Thailand every time I smiled my face bled.”

9. Not a good time.

“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.”

10. Scary.

“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.”

11. Bad luck.

“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. Traveling is awesome!”

12. OH MY GOD.

“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.”

13. The friendly skies.

“Flew with China Eastern Air to visit family in Hong Kong.

The businessman seated in the aisle was a rude as$hole that constantly made displeased faces at me. He wouldn’t even f*cking stand up when I needed to get past him to my window seat (f*cking bizarre). He clearly knew I needed to get past him, but made me climb over him, glowering at me as I passed.

The seats were concrete, the air was stale, and the food was stand-up-comedian level inedible: dry rice and sh*tty, bland fish. There was no in-flight entertainment and they announced that no electronic devices were allowed at any time.

I only brought my phone with me to keep my occupied, so I was SOL. So all I could do for hours was just try to force myself to sleep as to not be conscious of how awful this all was.

On my return flight back to Japan, the airline decided that they couldn’t let me fly without having a ticket booked to leave Japan. I explained that I have flown into Japan almost a dozen times without a departure ticket and it has never been an issue.

They did not care and insisted that it was illegal (it’s not) and they would deny me entry (they wouldn’t). By the time I jumped through enough of their idiotic hoops to get on board, they decided that 1 hour was not enough to make my connecting flight in Shanghai, so they would have to book me on another flight tomorrow and charge me a few hundred more dollars for that.

I flipped them off, went down the hall to Cathay Pacific. I gave them money, they gave me comfortable seats, pleasant crew, good food, in-flight entertainment, and no f*cking bullsh*t.”

14. The Dirty South.

“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-apocalypse. I had a guy come up to me, pull up his shirt showing a revolver in his pants, and say, “Hey, white bread, 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.”

15. Indonesia.

“Traveling in Indonesia, we had just landed in Jakarta and after one night we were headed to an ‘idyllic’ surf spot (near Cijulang) that was meant to be a quiet paradise according to the lonely planet guide.

We had done extensive planning for the trip, although we seemed to have missed that we arrived just as the biggest Muslim festival of the year (ede) was finishing that included some of the only public holidays in the year.

The bus travel from Jakarta to the South Coast took an extra 6 hours, nearly doubling the time due to the traffic on the road.

We arrived and couldn’t find a hotel, being followed by the local mafia that make hotels charge more when they direct you there. Managed to find a suitable place in the end.

Unperturbed the next day my friend and I (the third friend was throwing up all day due to bad food in Malaysia a few days earlier) tried and reach this ‘idyllic’ spot. We find out the only way to get there is along this windy track and the best way is on the back of a moped.

So my friend and I (who are both over 6 foot) get this local to drive us there on the back of his moped. This seems like a bad idea already, until we arrived at a bamboo bridge which when driven across with 3 people ends up with a moped falling over. Luckily we didn’t fall in so kept going to this beach.

We arrived to the lovely spot only to find about 15,000 locals that had the same idea

We were the only white people there, also the only people over 5’10. People stared at us, asked to take pictures with us and were generally just confused when they looked at us.

All in all it didn’t go great but IMO that’s what makes the difference between an adventure and a holiday”

Have you ever had any bad experiences while traveling?

If so, please tell us about them in the comments.

We’d love to hear from you!

The post People Share Their Travel Horror Stories appeared first on UberFacts.

I knew a guy back when I was younger who wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.

He ended up taking a trip and he got arrested.

And he ended up in jail.

IN MEXICO.

Yeah, he said that was quite an adventure…and it sounds pretty terrifying to me.

In the spirit of that memory, let’s check out some interesting stories from folks on AskReddit about their travel horror stories.

1. Paris.

“I took a late train into Paris at the Gare du Nord station and didn’t have enough money for a hotel or hostel that particular night. I did however get used to “roughing” it a few other times so I was just going to sleep at the station or something, didn’t plan it out too much.

Anyways, I get to the station and the one thing about the Gare du Nord is it’s not in the best section of the town. Also, they close the train station for about 6 hours so you can’t stay there.

I get outside the train station and there is nothing but bums and some crazy guy in the street drunk off his *ss yelling and throwing bottles at passing cars. I say f*ck this and start walking down the street trying to find a place I can post up and sleep for the night.

I am carrying my large backpack and its obvious I am a traveler/tourist. I head one way and spot some people and that start looking at me as if I am gold. So I stop and turn around and walk quickly back to the station, to where people were.

Eventually I start heading down another street and it’s not looking any better… by this time its about 3am and the drug addicts and drunks are in full control of this area. I go back to the station and decide to tough it out near the guy who is yelling at passing cars.

I post up in a corner near a McDonalds and I am so tired I am battling myself to keep one eye open on everything in front of me. Homeless people are staring at me and I am getting the feeling something bad was going to happen. Then a giant f*cking rat jumps around me near my backpack and I jump up, said f*ck this, and started walking up another random street.

Exhausted and my body shutting down I crash on a bus stop bench on a quite street, somewhere. I closed my eyes but never slept. After a few hours I walked back to the station got on the train and got the f*ck out of there.

2. Stranded.

“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*ck 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*cking 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.”

3. The men in Italy.

“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.”

4. Bad idea!

“A cousin of mine bought cocaine from a street dealer in Ibiza, turned out to be some sort of laxatives.

Him and 4 friends spent 3 days sitting in communal toilets.”

5. Amsterdam.

“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.

6. India.

“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.”

7. The rundown.

“Seoul, South Korea (2010)

lost my passport

got robbed by my taxi driver (later called by Seoul police, they got the taxi driver and my passport)

hotel was in a different part of the city then advertised

had a rice bun thrown at my head by an old lady outside my hotel, twice

got yelled at by a US serviceman while at the DMZ gift shop. I’m American, but wearing a “communist hat” according to him. When did the SF Giants beanie become communist?

got super drunk, almost got hit by a cab (I admit that one is all me)

got yelled at by some Korean teenager for some unknown reason. I was just staring at the city skyline. He tapped me on the shoulder and just screamed at me

taxi cab driver fell asleep while waiting in traffic on the way to the airport. got yelled at for waking him up

police at airport thought my tattered (i had been travelling a lot at this time) passport was fake.”

8. Train travel.

“My husband and I were traveling by rail around Europe. We got on a train from Nice to Pisa. We’d heard lots of stories about people getting robbed but figured the American tourists in Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts a couple cabins down would be the most likely victims.

We sat up chatting for awhile, and after we crossed the Italian border, we decided to lay down – not to sleep but to just get comfy. The last thing I remember is the door sliding open and then shut again and suddenly getting super sleepy.

I fought the sleepiness as hard as I could but just couldn’t fight it anymore. The next thing we know, we’re pulling into the station in Pisa, and our backpacks were out of place. They hadn’t gotten anything really important, since that stuff was buried down deep in our big packs, but they’d gone through my husband’s wallet and stolen my handbag out of my smaller pack.

Unfortunately for us, all of our money was in my bank account, which we no longer had access to. We had to ring my husband’s parents in Australia and get them to deposit AUD 500 into his bank account, since he still had his card, which was unfortunately only about USD 250 at the time.

That’s all we had to travel on from Pisa to Bologna to Munich to Brussels to London, where we finally visited his brother.

It was quite an adventure.”

9. Whoa…

“Went on a 3 week holiday with my SO to Brasil and was robbed after 2 days by 4 guys with knives in broad daylight on the Copacabana.

We had nothing on us but a few Real (about $10). People who saw it happen did nothing and it ruined the rest of our vacation because of fear it could happen again.

Such a shame for such a beautiful country.”

10. Street people.

“Went to Paris.

Gypsies EVERYWHERE, constantly coming up to me, pretending to be deaf or mute, giving me things that I declined, but still they insisted that I paid for it, stuff like that.”

11. Getting sick.

“Many years ago on the way to UK we had a brief stopover in Dubai.

I was around 9 years old, first time flying and really suffering air sickness. We debark the plane and the heat hits me hard. I stumble from the steps to the tarmac and proceed to vomit foamy water.. inches away from the toes of a security guy armed with a machine gun.

I was scared witless and couldn’t move. My family apologised profusely and dragged me onto a waiting bus. Granted this fellow didn’t change expression or even move from my sad puddle, but damn, we were green travellers and had never seen guns before let alone potentially pissed off a gun owner.

I still cringe when I remember the look in his eyes and my mothers white face.”

12. What a creep.

“Sometime in the mid 80’s.

I was in my early mid-teens. Arrived at the Munich train station early in the morning. My family was with me, including my brother and uncle Rob. Rob is only a couple years older than I. We needed to wash up a bit and hit the restroom while my parents wait outside.

The restroom was empty except for us. A older guy walks in and waves. Uncle Rob waves back thinking folks sure are friendly in Munich. Guy then gets between me and Rob and starts mast*rbating. My brother and I run out. Rob did not realize what was going on.

I yelled for him. He figured it out real quick after that. Told my mom and grandma what happened. They laughed it off. I guess today they would have said something to a cop. Back then….laugh at potential r*pe situation.”

13. Let’s get outta here.

“Bangkok – red light district,got lured upstairs to a strip club by a ‘No pay for anything, only one drink’ line, having been told specifically NEVER GO UPSTAIRS IN THE RED LIGHT DISTRICT.

Bough the drinks, eventually noticed we were the only ones in there. Forced to hold a balloon so a stripper could shoot a dart out of her v*gin* (managed it on like, the fifth attempt).

Went to leave, suddenly surrounded by fat strippers and the manager demanding £80, threatened to bring pimp in, paid, got followed out by pimp. Sh*t my pants.”

14. Congrats, graduate!

“College graduation present: Euro trip beginning in Istanbul, on to Izmir/Efes, then to Rome, Florence, Cinque Terre, and Paris. After two in Istanbul, I was flying to Izmir and started feeling some pretty serious back pain—I assumed it was from sleeping poorly or something else minor, but by the time I landed and picked up the rental car, the pain was unbearable and I was on the verge of vomiting.

Thankfully, the Swissotel was understanding enough to let me check in at 10AM, and then I vomited as soon as I walked into the room. By this point, I assumed I had a kidney stone, but I was not sure how to get emergency care in Izmir, Turkey.

I hailed a cab and the hotel concierge told the driver to take me to the hospital, but where I ended up was not surprisingly less than ideal. It took two hours to see a doctor, and she felt my stomach and moved my legs before declaring there was no kidney stone.

I was squirming uncontrollably so they finally gave me injections of some sort of pain medicine, which helped, but it certainly wasn’t morphine. They sent me home (not actually home, of course) with a pack of syringes and vials of the pain medicine.

I woke up in the middle of the next night in excruciating pain again, so I contacted a relative back in the U.S. who had a business connection in Izmir. At this point I must note that every Turk I actually interacted with was VERY nice and hospitable. The business contact picked me up on the first day of his vacation (while his family waited on him before they all left for a trip) and took me to a more advanced hospital (comparable to U.S. standards) and translated for me all day.

Turns out I had a 7mm stone lodged in my kidney that was revealed in a CT scan at this hospital. It was too large to pass, so I had to catch the next flight back home to have it surgically removed.

Thankfully, Delta waived the additional change fees and rebooked my ticket home. Additionally, Hotwire reimbursed for all of the prepaid reservations after I provided a medical reference for the issue.

Missing Italy (what I was most looking forward to) and Paris sucks, but I couldn’t risk my health.”

Now it’s your turn!

In the comments, tell us about YOUR travel horror stories.

We look forward to hearing from you!

The post Travelers Share The Worst Experiences They Had While They Were Abroad appeared first on UberFacts.