Travel Mistakes: 4 Experiences That Made Me a Better Traveler

What are the best things about traveling? Trying new foods, meeting new people, embracing a new culture? Is it the feeling of your long flight beginning its descent, getting a new passport stamp, or watching the sun rise on a Sunday morning and the city slowly come to life?

Those are a few of the things I love — but as we know, traveling is not always glamorous. Things sometimes go wrong, and sometimes we make travel mistakes. I’ve been fortunate not to have many of these moments over the years, but they do occasionally happen. And if we’re looking on the bright side, I can admit that each of them have made me a better traveler (in their own, twisted way).

Here are 4 of my biggest travel mistakes from over the years.

Travel Mistake#1: The $240 Taxi

The Scene: London, England in 2013. As study abroad students, my friends and I were leaving for the first leg of our 10-day fall break trip to four countries. We had a ticket to catch the bus at Baker Street Station at 4:02 a.m. to head to Stansted Airport, where we’d catch a 6:30 a.m. flight to Dublin.

The Story: We lived just minutes from the bus stop, so we left our dorm at 3:45 a.m. We arrived at what we THOUGHT was the correct bus stop at 4:00, were told by a passing stranger that we were at the wrong stop, and sprinted to the correct bus stop, just barely missing our bus. We waited for the next bus, which just so happened to be an extra 10 minutes late… and that bus was full.

Out of time and options, my friend Hanna suggested we just take a taxi, so we did. That hour-long taxi ride cost £150, which didn’t seem horrible until we converted that into dollars. Yep, it was $240. And that kind of hurt our college-students-living-in-one-of-the-most-expensive-cities-in-the-world wallets.

The Lesson: Better to arrive much too early than much too late. Especially when it comes to transportation, I would rather be painfully early than miss my flight/train/bus by a minute.

Travel Mistake #2: That Drive in Colorado

The Scene: Colorado in summer 2015. Hanna and I took a road trip all around the Centennial state; it was one final fling in the free week between my internship ending and the start of my first real job. One leg of the trip was going to be particularly long — the drive from Great Sand Dunes National Park to the city of Cortez, where our recent-college-grad-budget-friendly motel would be waiting for us.

The Story: The day hadn’t gone exactly as planned. We’d done a (beautiful) impromptu hike in Cañon City, and we spent way more time than expected at Great Sand Dunes NP, fascinated by the rolling hills of sand. We were several hours behind schedule, but we agreed the long drive that night would be worth the exciting day we’d had.

Shortly after beginning the 4+ hour drive, clouds rolled in and it began to rain. Then it began to thunderstorm, and then it began to hail. It was impossible to see the black mountains around us except when lightning illuminated the sky. Of course, we also didn’t have any cell service. Hanna was terrified, so I made jokes and sang silly songs to pass the time and reassure us both.

When we finally arrived to Cortez — well after 1 a.m. — we found that our motel had given our room away. I was initially upset because I had wanted the trip to be perfect. But all we could do was drive to the (exponentially more expensive) Holiday Inn down the street. Sigh. Yet, the world continued to turn.

The Lesson: Your plans will not always work out. Learn to laugh at the situation, even if just to keep from crying.

Travel Mistake #3: The Lost Debit Card

The Scene: Vancouver in August 2017, with my younger sister Carrie. We’d flown to Seattle and taken the train up to Vancouver to spend 24 hours, just for the heck of it. We arrived late on Saturday night to Pacific Central Station; after going through immigration, we needed to figure out how to get to our hotel.

The Story: I realized a little too late that Uber doesn’t operate in Vancouver. Thanks to my favorite travel app, Citymapper, I discovered we could take the bus. But oops, I didn’t have any Canadian cash yet. No problem — there was an ATM in the train station. It was out of order. I frantically tried both my debit and credit cards, trying to keep my rising panic hidden from my sister. I was eventually able to download an app similar to Uber, and we made it to our place cashless-ly and uneventfully.

The next morning, I spotted an ATM in a convenience store and made my way inside. There, I was hit with a traveler’s worst nightmare: my debit card was missing. I tore through my wallet and bag, hoping I’d misplaced it, but it was gone. And so were my hopes of taking out any cash while in Canada.

Although I hardly ever carry cash in the U.S., and although we were just barely north of the border, it can be surprisingly difficult to get around another country without using the local currency. Luckily, we were able to scrape by just using my credit card, which has no foreign transaction fees. (And luckily, Canadians are so nice that whoever found my debit card in the train station never tried to use it.)

The Lesson: Make sure you have a credit card that will work internationally, and keep it safe! If you lose it, you’re probably in some trouble.

Travel Mistake #4: The Bus Fine

The Scene: Florence, Italy, just a few days after New Years 2020. Matt and I had been on a trip through Germany, Austria, and Italy for a few weeks over my school’s winter break. It was our first day in Florence — both of our first time there — and we’d just hiked up to Piazza de Michelangelo for a stunning view over the city at sunset.

The Story: It was really cold, especially after sunset, and we didn’t want to walk all the way back to our place. Luckily, there was a bus stop up at Piazza Michelangelo, so we joined the line of travelers waiting to board. On the bus schedule, we could see that buses only came every 30 minutes, so we really hoped to make the next bus.

When the bus arrived, the bus doors opened at the front and the middle to let passengers on. In my previous experiences, when this happens, it means you’re able to buy tickets at both the front and the middle of the bus. As we were near the middle of the bus when the doors opened, we entered through the rear door and squeezed on the bus where people were packed like sardines. I soon realized that there was no ticket machine in the middle of the bus — only at the front.

But with the amount of people, it was impossible to make it to the front of the bus to buy the ticket. I figured that, once the number of passengers thinned out a bit, I would make my way up to the front, buy our tickets, and be done with it. But it was only when we were about 3 stops from our hotel that the bus finally had enough space for me to walk up there. And since we were only 3 stops away, I figured… what’s the point now?

Well, it turned out that I should have done it. Because of course at the next stop, the police entered the bus and demanded to see everyone’s ticket. A ticket that we did not have. So we were issued tickets and had to pay a €50 fine.

The Lesson: Always buy a bus/train ticket, even if things are based on the honor system, even if you’ve bought tickets all over the world and never been asked for them.

 

I’m sure I will only make more travel mistakes over the years, but I’m always glad when I can learn something from them.

What travel mistakes have you made? What lessons have you learned? Let me know in the comments!

-Cathy

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Originally Published on October 4, 2017.