Travel Fails

Top 10 Travel Fails

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If you’ve been traveling long enough, you know crazy travel stories are exchanged on a daily basis every minute of the day in every corner of the planet. Here are the best of the best crazy travel stories I’ve heard over the years:

  1. Getting kicked out of a hostel in Madrid, and sleeping on the street corner near the train station.
  2. Getting kidnapped, knocked out, and mugged in Ibiza two blocks from the ferry terminal. Wake up in an ally way with nothing except boxers and one flip flop. Spend 7 days on the island trying to get a new passport needed to get on the ferry to get off the island (there is no embassy on the island, but you NEED a passport to get on the ferry), only to sneak into the back of a cargo truck to sneak a trip back to Barcelona.
  3. Getting locked out on the balcony of a hotel room on the 6th floor (top floor of the building). Not able to speak enough Spanish to explain the situation to someone across the street or down at street level. Have to climb onto the roof of the building, hop through someone else’s balcony to get back to the hallway and into your own room.
  4. Crashing a motorcycle within 5 feet of where the attendant gave it to you. Within 1 minute of touching the handlebars.
  5. Taking the wrong train from the airport and into Amsterdam. Got off instead about 45 minutes North of Amsterdam and had to turn around and catch a 40 minute train back into the city.
  6. Meeting a Nigerian thought to be a US Soldier at the bar, took him home for a fun night, left for work in the morning only to return to an empty apartment.
  7. Passed out in the lounge of a Vegas casino, and have to be carted back to the hotel room in a wheelchair.
  8. Getting to Milan train station 1 hour early for a train, board the train only to be told 1 minute before departure that the train was the wrong one and the correct one was 10 tracks over. Run to the correct train and chase it down the railroad tracks but miss it. Wait 4 more hours for the next train to Interlaken (not an entire fail since another cute girl did the same thing).
  9. Wake up to your plastic table and all the chairs thrown into the tomato garden next door. Realize someone got locked outside and passed out, woke up and got mad, threw your furniture into the garden next door.
  10. Not traveling — since then you have no amazing travel stories of your own to share with others.

Have any travel fails to add? Leave them in the comments..

[Photo via http://justchuckinit.com/]

Videos

What Was Your “Aha” Moment to A Simpler, Less Materialistic Life?

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I can confidently say that the vast majority of travelers don’t buy into the materialistic mindset that dominates western culture. For each and every one of you, there was an “aha”moment where you kicked the mindset to the curb for good.

For one such example, watch this video – it’s a 50 minute interview with the Founder of Charity Water that details his entire transformation from club promoter in New York to a life of giving.

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What was your “aha” moment where you realized there is more to life than the materialistic lifestyles the majority of us in the Western world live?

Videos

Disappear (a Video)

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I was fortunate enough to get to know Monica McCarthy during her extended stay in Chiang Mai a few months ago. Here’s a video she put together following her return to New York from her 3 month trip to Southeast Asia that I wanted to share.

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Yea, SE Asia looks awesome, right? Add it to your list. If you haven’t been to Southeast Asia yet, what are you waiting for?

Travel Thoughts

“What’s It Like to be Back?” – One Week on the Ground in the US

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Whenever you get back from an extended trip abroad, you hear the question over and over from everyone.

What’s it like to be back?

Since I just got back from 5 months abroad a week ago, I’ve gotten the question quite a few times from friends and family.

Honestly, I don’t even know how to begin to answer it. How do I summarize 5 months in a couple minutes? Where to even start? All sorts of things race through my mind.

How do you answer it?

Travel Links

Hitting the Travel Links – May 25th

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There’s been lots of good travel content surfacing in my Google Reader recently, so here are a few posts that might wet your whistle:

Travel Thoughts

A Few Thoughts After 24 Hours on the Ground in the States

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24 hours since landing in San Francisco after spending the previous 5 months in Southeast Asia, here are a few thoughts I wanted to share:

  • I prefer shorts, a t shirt, and flip flops to jeans, a fleece, and shoes.
  • I’d love it if I never had to wear shoes again. But I need to buy some shoes, as I have none with me.
  • It’s true – life in the US really does revolve around sporting events.
  • The US is NOT backpacker friendly. Both Europeans in my hostel room complained about how inaccessible everything in the US was for backpackers.
  • My pocket book is going to take a hit while I’m here. I spent over $100 yesterday alone. That’s about 2 weeks of expenses in SE Asia.
  • Coming from daily humid, 100 degree weather – San Francisco is freaking cold and windy. I froze my butt off at the Giants game last night.
  • I’m extremely fortunate to be surrounded with such a great group of friends

Travel Thoughts

Sacrifices to Living a Nomadic Lifestyle

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What kind of life do you want to lead? And where do you want to live it?

The life I’ve chosen over the past few years is a nomadic one — meaning constantly on the move to new places and experiencing new cultures and people. But, though I wouldn’t trade it for the world, such a life is not always as rosy as people think.

Here are some of the sacrifices you’ll need to make:

  • You’ll have no “home” for months at a time
  • You’ll go months and months without seeing your best friends in person
  • Comfortable couches, and beds, are few and far between
  • No peanut butter for hundreds or thousands of miles
  • Watching anything other than futbol (soccer) is amazingly hard
  • You’ll experience a slew of dropped Google Voice and Skype calls due to weak internet connections
  • Constantly fighting time zone differences trying to communicate with family and friends
  • No money to spend on DVD’s, fancy clothes, or other materialistic crap (that you don’t need). Not really sure this one is a sacrifice — at least to me, it’s not 🙂
  • Depending on your location, going days without seeing another Caucasian
  • A comfortable overnight bus ride? You’re dreaming.

Still want to live the nomadic lifestyle? If yes – do it. You just need to set your mind to it, make the sacrifices to save money, pack your backpack, and get on the plane.

I’ll leave you with this:

Blogging Advice

The Importance of Social Objects in (Travel) Blogging

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I can’t stress enough the importance of social objects — ie getting others to relate to you on some level beyond your professional work.

And Matt Kepnes just did that with this photo in his most recent post.

What’s the social object you might ask?

The ONE T-shirt he’s wearing.

You see, my friend Jerry Ostradicky and I started the ONE Seattle chapter back in 2007 (can’t remember the exact date) and remained involved for several years. I’ve moved on to other philanthropic interests (but glad to see the Seattle scene is still active), but ONE will always trigger memories of my time advocating for ONE.org.

Thanks to a single photo, whenever we do talk, ONE.org is a common interest that Matt and I share that will get us beyond “travel blogging” (which I’m sure he’s tired of talking about anyway).

How do you intersperse social objects into your writing?

Simple. Be personal and share yourself.

Exploring the Wild Blue Yonder