Sometimes life knocks you on your ass… get up, get up, get up!!! Happiness is not the absence of problems, it’s the ability to deal with them.
Steve Maraboli
This is a personal essay: My Top 10 Most Unfabulous Travel Moments of 2019
Curated instagram feeds showcasing the highlights of every trip, and sharing 95% of only the good stuff… It leaves the impression nothing ever goes wrong. It’s always the perfect weather and I never sleep through the 15 sunrise hike alarms I’ve set because I went to bed about three hours prior. My hope is that I do keep it real and share the struggles on my website and social media platforms, but here’s a post dedicated to my top 10 most unfabulous travel moments of 2019!
If you’ve traveled with me, or have been following me for some time, you know I’m an anxious flier who falls often and is most definitely not a morning person. If you’re new here, you’re about to find out real quick how often I fall.
Let’s dive into those magical moments behind the scenes. Most are ridiculous, some are lucky, and a few are serious. You know… The Themes of Life.
10. Unending Fire Alarm
In Borgarnes, Iceland, I stayed at a lovely hostel. My plans changed when I landed because of an incoming blizzard covering nearly the whole country. Within the first two days of my arrival, I picked up something similar to the flu and just wanted to curl up in bed and never leave.
As I napped mid-afternoon, and awoke with a start to the fire alarm going off, the first thing I grabbed was my bra. Then camera. Couldn’t forget my coat (which carried my passport/wallet). Then boots.
When I hustled my ass downstairs, through smoke, I was met with nonchalance and assured I can go back to my room and everything would be okay.
The alarm did not get turned off for awhile.
9. Woke up to the Plane Crashing
Luisa (The Born Wanderess) and I had a layover in Houston, Texas. Because I am a nervous flier, I have a tendency to stay up all night before a flight, ridiculously amped up that this flight is going to be THE flight that finally kills me.
(Note: In this deranged phobia of dying in a plane crash, everyone else survives except me. I wish no death, or have a fear that others will die. Just me.)
Once boarded, I passed out before takeoff, exhausted from lack of sleep and hours of already traveling/flying, and woke up to the engine making a weird noise, ice falling into my face, the cabin felt colder than it should from an unwelcome breeze.
I said ‘Hey! Hey! Hey!’ loudly looking for a flight attendant to alert them the plane was going down.
The trained professionals staffing the aircraft would have no idea we were losing altitude at an alarming rate without me, obviously.
The gentleman in the seat behind me explained he had ice falling on him, too, out of the air vents.
And Luisa let me know we were totally fine. “That was a textbook takeoff.” She said.
8. Not a Good View from the Hotel on Fire
There was a last minute addition to our Utah/Arizona road trip, which was a night in Vegas! I got a free room using my points with a stellar view of a vacant lot. To be fair, although free, the room promised certain things that it didn’t come with.
The next morning as we packed up, the fire alarm went off. When we left the room, the housekeeper told us it wasn’t real and we could go back into our rooms and not worry about it.
We finished getting our shit together and heard firetrucks pull up. I glanced out the window and saw a ton of smoke coming from the first floor and the firemen hustling to the building.
When we got downstairs, and saw the entire hotel’s worth of people were outside, it was very obvious the first floor was on fire.
And worst of all – the housekeeper who said everything was fine? Was already downstairs and outside safely away from the building.
7. An Expensive Cab
In November, it was my first time in London and at World Travel Market. Heathrow, where I landed, is annoyingly far away from ExCeL, where WTM is held.
My flight was scheduled to land around 1030-ish AM, and had a meeting at 1400. I had plenty of time to get there.
And as we sat in the plane for forty-five minutes after landing waiting for a gate, I started to get nervous. The Tube maps said it was going to take me 2.5 hours to get to ExCel, Google said a cab would take closer to 2 hours, and I was carrying all of my luggage.
I opted for the cab. Is now the time to figure out a new country’s metro system while schlepping all of the things?
3 hours and 200 Euros later, I arrived for my meeting when it was scheduled to end. I was covered in sweat, and knocked my backpack over during the meeting and watched as all of my things scattered on the floor.
This is how I tried to sell myself to a tourism board.
6. Cars Breaking on Road Trips
2 – Our first full day in Utah, I pulled onto a rocky area off a one lane road to let a RV through. No one would have been able to continue if we didn’t move over. When I reversed back off the rocks, it sounded less-than-good, and as I started to drive, I could hear I was dragging something.
We pulled over and saw something hanging. A nice passerby got out and told us it wasn’t a big deal, just the skid plate under the car, and pushed it back for us.
1 – On a road trip through New England, I went to Baxter State Park. When I left, it was after sunset, there was zero light pollution, and I had no idea what lay ahead. Turns out… huge holes in the road lay ahead and I busted up my tire. I spent most of the next day (that was warm and full of sunshine) waiting for my car to get fixed 80 miles out of the way of where I was headed. Once my car was fixed, it rained the rest of my time there.
5. Slept Through Sunrise Alarm
It wasn’t just any sunrise alarm… it was a sunrise alarm to meet up with Brayden and Ryan and the rest of the killer cool Costa Rica photography group to go to Samara Beach.
I woke up with a start, beyond devastated with myself. The sun was blaring outside and I knew I fucked up bad. When I sat up, my alarm was still going off because I was lying on my phone.
Class act.
4. Bitten to Death
On a road trip through the Southeast of the US, I went to a place in South Carolina for sunrise. (Yes, I did wake up for it.) At the time I didn’t realize it, but as I walked around the swampy area to take pictures of the beautiful road lined with oak trees and Spanish Moss, I was being eaten alive.
I spent the rest of the trip lathering up with special bite relief and carrying a low-key high thanks to all the Benadryl I was popping.
It was a very itchy few weeks.
3. Bullied on a Beach
Connecting with people on my trips is one of my favorite things. I love the friendships that form from the common foundation of being in a foreign place at the same time enjoying whatever moment you’ve found you’re sharing with others.
I wanted to experience sunrise at Stokksnes, and when I arrived, there were already a few photographers set up. It’s easily accessible and a super popular spot, I wasn’t surprised and didn’t think I’d be the only person there.
What I wasn’t expecting, however, is that even though I respectfully kept my distance and made sure not to walk too heavily on the water so as not to ripple it and ruin the reflection for anyone, I found myself at the center of a bullying situation.
The photographers had models that kept getting in my shot telling me I could become famous if I took their picture.
The photographers and their assistants not only jumped into my frame without a care on many occasions, they began to push me and yell at me.
I kept walking away, and someone kept following and telling me to leave and kept pushing me.
It was one of the few times I’ve traveled that being alone really sucked and I didn’t feel safe. So after being there for about fifteen minutes and grabbing a few photos, I left.
2. All the Falls
While this is something that happens often, whether at home or abroad, standing or walking, I manage to wind up with a bruised ass or wondering why I’m suddenly talking to the pavement.
A couple moments stick out in particular:
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While talking with Brayden in Costa Rica, and walking into a shop at Lake Arenal, I busted ass before even entering the place, in front of a lot of people. I’m pretty sure the first thing I said was, “Is my camera okay?”
Priorities.
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It was Boston in May on a gloriously sunny afternoon! Jeff (Chubby Diaries) and I were walking to Chipotle down the street from the convention center where TravelCon was being held, when the sidewalk changed its height dramatically without notifying me and I slammed on my right foot hard on the pavement and fell. Jeff was amazing, caught me, and assisted me into the Chipotle all while saying “It hurts right now, I know. But that adrenaline rush will kick in shortly.”
I felt hot and thought I was going to throw up. Jeff grabbed some ice water for me and faces we recognized were popping in and out of the eatery to grab food and checking to make sure I was okay. I wondered how they knew I fell, but apparently it looked like I had the plague, sweating it all out at the front table of Chipotle for everyone to see.
It’s a good thing I wasn’t trying to get hired as a store greeter.
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This last one is as epic as they come. While taking my first few steps onto Vatnajokull, Europe’s largest glacier located in Iceland, on a hike, my crampons came loose and caught on my pants and I fell forward fast.
The first thing I said was, “Are you fucking kidding me?” followed by, “Is my camera okay?”
Not only is the cacophonous failure caught on camera, but the world’s most gorgeous man and woman came to my rescue. I’m not sure what it is about feeling the need to not look like a total a-hole in front of beautiful people, but when I saw how gorgeous the Welsh man and Icelandic woman were after they helped me up, I wondered why the Universe and Powers-That-Be decided I needed to be the person to help supply them with their laugh of the day.
I’m still healing from this fall over a month later! Tons of bruises and cuts were had!
1. Getting Robbed
It was a moment that happened so fast. Within a few minutes, all of my money and credit cards, passport, laptop, SD cards, journal, medicine… etc. was gone. En route from San Jose to Monteverde, a lot was in my backpack because of uprooting to a new place for the next few nights. It’s the only reason I had so much in my backpack, otherwise, everything is packed away better at the hotel/in my heavy AF locked suitcase.
My phone and camera were with me, so luckily they weren’t taken. But the trip that had only just begun, ended so quickly. My one way ticket to South America was canceled while a flight back home was booked. I experienced a trip to the embassy that was as complicated and expensive as they come, cried a lot, and could barely sleep for weeks once I got home.
There are lessons learned in that moment for me going forward, but it took a lot to accept that it wasn’t my fault and overcome the violation.
Getting robbed ruined my budget and travel plans for the rest of 2019 and going into 2020. Especially since I had quit my job only two weeks beforehand to pursue traveling full-time. It’s something I’m still recuperating from financially and mentally. This was a huge hit.
The Outlook
What’s most important, is that I still want to carry on. That’s how you know it’s true love… traveling still looks sexy – even fresh out of bed with no make-up on and the poor thing could really use a comb through those knots.
Here’s to 2020’s list of worst moments containing less falls and zero robberies.
What are you top most unfabulous moments while traveling?
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While I am sure that those moments were horrible during your trip, I appreciate you sharing them with us. People tend to look at travel through rose colored glasses, only remembering those Instagram moments. However, there are so many moments that epically suck. Travels should be aware of this so that they don’t panic! Great post!
I’m glad you enjoyed it! I’ve seen so much disappointment in friends and family when they travel because not everyone is honest online, and their experience wasn’t great… I never want to be that person.
Some of these moments were pretty bad, but it was honestly really cathartic writing this post.
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