Stupid Travel Mistakes

And what happened to the brothers?

This fall my husband and I were at some botanical gardens. We did not realize that there was no cell reception there, and I wandered off to go look at something. I texted him to tell him where I was, but of course that didn't go through. Oops. I went back to where we were and he was gone. I asked a handful of people if they had seen them, so we had a mini search party going, lol. He was doing the same thing. It was probably close to an hour until we finally found each other. Note to self, don't wander off again;)

Our "biggest" and "most awful & stupid" travel mistake was the "24 hour clock translation on too little sleep and too much nonchalance/cockiness" many years ago. Ie - reading, in our heads, 1500 as FIVE PM for a flight, and missing the 1 hour cutoff for the international flight by a couple minutes (arriving at 2:01pm for the flight thinking we had 3 hrs). Air France pulled the rope across the line about five passengers ahead of us in line, and as they were overbooked across all three flights that afternoon, it meant we were in a huge pickle scrambling for another flight to Paris that day (took one the next day our of Newark).

It was our mistake for sure, and it cost us time and money, BUT we made friends with the German guy behind us who had made the mistake of taking "advantage" of his long layover in the DC area to try to get out and see some things, and thus also was too late checking in. He couldn't fly out for another day or two, and we let him use our home until he was on his way, and I think that also gave him some respite from a crappy situation. He (and his family) is now a great friend, so we made lemonade from lemons.

Mistaking 11:00pm for 11:00am when I was buying plane tix, thus completely ending the trip.

My wife still hasn't let me forget about that.

-- Mike Beebe

I have made so many stupid travel mistakes that I do not have the time to write about all of them.

Feeling good that I have company.

But one of my most expensive stupid travel mistakes was when I was booking my last trip, in September.

I had to rebook my flight on American. I went to what I thought was aa.com but called up a fraudster website. When I called the contact number, I was calling a crook. Very long story short, I got bilked out of $759 biut was later able to recover $450.

This call was made was about 3:30 a.m. I am an insomniac and had not yet gone to sleep.

Among the many lessons learned: be far more cautious when doing anything on line when sleep deprived.

And do not do anything under stress. Take a deep breath.

And I was on forum during a very long ordeal. Forum helped me greatly or at least tried to help me.

Caused by a family member that didn't appreciate how flight check-in/ cut off times worked.

This happened about 30 years ago. My parents would go to Florida for about a month each winter - I would schedule a week's vacation during that time and go visit and stay with them.

My father was driving me to the airport for my return flight. He decided to take his time and use side routes. The airport was not that far and the drive was taking a long time. I was getting anxious that I wouldn't get there in time to check-in and explained my worry. When we arrived at the airport and I got to the check-in desk, it was 30 minutes before the flight was supposed to leave. Of course I had just missed the 30 minutes check-in cut off time and they were selling stand-by seats. There were no other flights that day and I had to work the next day- that it was a night shift was the only good thing about this. We went back to the apartment. I had to call my workplace and explain there was "problem" with my flight and that I might not get back in time for my shift. The next day we went back to the airport early enough and had to wait for stand by seats to come up or not. Fortunately, I was able to get a stand-by seat for about $100 and arrived home in time for my shift with only a few hours to spare.

This locker incident is a great example of why Rick suggests the first stop be to the grandparents' house to drop the kids off.

My children often think their biggest travel mistake is traveling with their dad who can linger in a museum when there is good gelato to be had....

Happy travels!

Probably a good thing the lockers were not like the ones in Cologne, where you insert your bag, and off it goes down into the bowels of the station via an automated storage system.

What horrible boys. She could have suffocated. It makes you wonder what terrible things they did to her at home.

Landed in Milan at what was for us the middle of the night, with an hour layover for a connection to Rome. Desperately in need of a caffiene hit I plodded bleary-eyed to the concession and said to the young barrista, "per favore signorina, vorrei uno latte". "Milk?" she asked in heavily-accented English, "Si," I replied. "Hot milk?" she asked. "Ovviamente!" I replied, irritated that she insisted on answering my perfect Italian with English, and as if who'd make a latte with cold milk?! And so she presented my half-asleep caffiene-craving self with a glass of warm milk. Realising I meant to order uno caffè latte I thanked her politely and walked away, carying my pride along with the quintessential drink for puttting oneself to sleep.

Biggest mistake that I ever made was going to the wrong airport in Paris.

We lived in Saudi Arabia and planned to meet relatives from the States in Rome and then tour Italy, Germany and France for 3 weeks.
We ended the trip in Paris and had a flight home on PanAm Airlines (this was in 1983), I assumed that PanAm was in CDG Airport.
WRONG, we go there and were told the airline operated out of Orly, a smaller airport on the opposite side of Paris.

I called the airline with the help of a TWA rep and the flight we were booked on we could not make the flight, but the airline had a flight on a charter flight that left in time for us to get to Orly. All worked out in the end.

It was my first trip to Europe and to Venice for the RS V-Fl-Rome tour.

I scheduled my trip to arrive in the late afternoon in Oct. I didn't realize how fast the light goes then.

I watched the sun finishing going down as the Water Bus made it way from the airport to my stop. Very picturesque as the light rapidly left. When I got off the boat at my stop it was almost fully dark and I was faced with trying to navigate the alleys and bridges in the dark trying to read the little paper map I'd printed off on where my hotel was (the one next to the Opera House).

First was to leave the lighted Vaparetto stop and into this very dark alley (yes that was the way on the map). I'd never do something like that in NYC but I had heard violent crime was very low for Venice so I gave it a try. Spoiler: no problem.

Two very dark alleys and a square and two bridges => there it was!

And what happened to the brothers?

i have no idea (he didn't say) but if it were my kids, they would have been in big trouble. Although coming from a family of 7 kids, I remember some of the stuff we used to do and it wasn't far off from this. 🙄

My biggest mistake was stopping in a lovely town square to admire the view, taking off my crossbody purse to remove my coat, then strolling off without my purse. When I returned ten minutes later, it was gone. Cue visit to police station and consulate (because, yes, all my ID including passport was in my purse) and frantically cancelling my credit cards. We made it home a day later than planned, with a new purple emergency passport. Amazingly, three weeks later the police notified us that the purse and some contents had been turned in. I was able to coordinate a Fedex pickup at the consulate, and it eventually arrived home ready for me to wash and use again.

Buying an airline ticket from St John’s, Newfoundland to Seattle instead of St John, New Brunswick to Seattle. I discovered the error the night before the flight so I was able to “fix it” for just $300 out of pocket. Still feel quite sheepish over that one. My taxi driver informed me that I was not alone in this error and he frequently gave rides to people at the airport that would give him an address in Newfoundland and seem quite surprised when he would tell them he couldn’t do it.

Most heart-dropping moment....

1981 or so....in a former life....traveled to London with the person who is now my ex-husband, lol and his 2 kids who were about 6 and 8. We'd gone to Harrods for afternoon tea and were heading to the elevator to leave. The 6-year old got ahead of us slightly and hopped onto the crowded elevator where upon the door closed before we could get on. OMG. I stayed there with the older kiddo, his Dad tried to sprint down the stairs which then were fairly hard to find to try and catch him at the bottom and not knowing if he'd gotten off on another floor. I still remember the kiddo's very shocked face as the elevator closed and we were not with him. He did stay on the elevator to the ground floor and his Dad caught up with him down there so all was well. But yikes.

Fun and interesting thread, Mardee!!

Well, I haven’t locked any kids in lockers (although tempted), but I am feeling distinctly stupid - having made 2 mistakes on my upcoming trip to England. First I booked one night in a hotel (night before flight), paid, and THEN saw I had booked it for the following night instead of 2 months from now. Even I can’t get to Europe that fast. I had entered my dates correctly, but didn’t notice than when I changed screens to choose which room, the date reset. (I figured this out by doing 2 more trial reservations.) I immediately email the hotel and they very kindly changed my reservation (which now fell into the noncancelleable date range because of being within 24 hours before checkin) to the date I had really wanted.

Then, as if I hadn’t learned my lesson, I booked train tickets for 3 people on the wrong dates. Again, I had entered my dates correctly but there were no trains at all available for the route I wanted on the day I wanted. So the system moved my dates for both legs backwards by a day. And I didn’t see that till the following day. Side note: Kudos to South Western for helping me figure this out (they didn’t know why there were no trains), finding a route that DID work (neither National Rail nor the South Western app could), and refunding my initial purchase mistake.

Note to self: please triple check dates before hitting Buy.

I make the same stupid travel mistake every time I travel; Pack too many clothes.

For 20+ trips to Europe, the cost of this one incident was minor - what I told myself when given the cost of the fine: On the recent Christmas Market trip, I accidentally purchased train tickets for the wrong date. I may have mixed it up looking at just the day instead of the day/month since it was supposed to be for the 12th. A bit of serendipity - our seats assigned were missing because it was the gap where the luggage was stored. The conductor outside the train car told me to just take the two seats at the end of the car since they were empty. But, when they scanned our QR codes on the train, we had to pay the fine. Fortunately, the nicer conductor looked at the tickets and told me we could be refunded for the ticket price since the date was in the future. Being able to reach Paris at the time we intended was worth the extra cost vs. if we had realized the mistake as we waited for the train.

I recently bought train tickets for Spain and triple checked the dates! ; )

On one trip, I apparently had rented the car for upon arrival, but in my head I thought we were picking it up the next morning. So we paid for a private transfer into town, and in the morning we walked over to the car rental place and thank goodness, they were holding our vehicle for us! We needed the large vehicle as there were 5 of us, and they were so nice about it. Whew!

And what happened to the brothers?

They are still in the lockers without the auto open feature.?

Last year, my flight from Salt Lake City to London was cancelled after several hours delay. I was fortunate to get on a flight to Amsterdam which was leaving an hour later. After several hours in Amsterdam, I would take a short flight to London. When I got to Amsterdam, I went to check on whether I could possibly get an earlier flight to London. No dice. But I had put my Civita day pack down on a shelf in front of the desk of the woman who was checking flights for me. Then I walked off without it. (Of course, this was the middle of the night for me after a somewhat stressful trip.) It was perhaps an hour before I noticed it was missing, went back, and it was not there. Went to Lost and Found - nothing. I tried using "Find My" and it showed the pack was way down on one of the concourses and I figured the person who had it was about to get on a plane, at which point I gave up.

There was a card inside the pack with my contact information, and before too long I received an email from China from the person who had my pack. He wanted to try to get it back to me. (Why he didn't leave it at Lost and Found in the airport, I don't know.) The only thing of real value in the pack was a 6-year-old mini iPad. After some back-and-forth, I decided the cost of him shipping it to me and me possibly having to pay duty on it wasn't worth it and I told him to just keep it. So I now have a Chinese friend and a new iPad mini, having paid my stupid tax (not the first time in 25 years!).

Oh, I’ve made plenty of mistakes and usually shrug it off but this one had me so flustered, especially since just a 1/2 hour earlier, my daughter was diverted to another island in Spain because her flight couldn’t land on Madeira due to wind. She was supposed to meet up with her 18 yo daughter on Madeira. I was a very stressed grandma, when this happened………

Lisbon Oriente: Waiting for the Flix Bus to Evora, bus arrives 5 minutes before scheduled departure, I place my bag in the hold, queue up for driver to read ticket QR code, everyone else is placing bags in hold, driver reads my QR code and says wrong bus, I’m too early., next bus. I quickly scramble to the hold to retrieve my bag and it was buried under other bags, so I was unable to get to it. Pleading with driver to let me on the bus. It was going to the same place after all. He spoke to supervisor and let me on. Fortunately, there was a seat available on this packed bus to Evora. Yikes! Lesson learned in this fiasco was always have your ticket/QR code scanned by the driver first before loading your bag. A situation made more difficult when traveling solo.

I bought a Capri boat trip through my Sorrento hotel concierge. All I had to do was walk to the nearby park for the shuttle pickup to the boat dock. Easy enough, right?

I got there early to ensure a good connection. After a while, an unmarked van pulls up. I checked the van passenger list and I saw my last name at the top. I got in and off we go to the dock.

When I try to check in, they don't have my name of the reservation list. Wrong boat and wrong dock! I called the charter company and they refused to pick me up by van or boat. The dock was a good distance and up & down from the dock that I was at. I decided to buy a ticket from the charter company for the dock that I was at. I will deal with a refund later.

Then the original charter company calls and said they can pick me up. Too late, I already have a new ticket.

I had a great time on and around Capri. Unfortunately it cost me double, since the original charter company refused to give me a refund. My credit card company supported the charter company. My hotel concierge was no help either.

I figured out that I made a mistake when i looked at the van passenger list. I saw my last name on the top of the list. Coincidentally, the park name matched my last name. The list showed that as the van stop. The van was not the correct van either.

Another minor, but funny mistake. When we were in Venice, we went into a cafe. My husband wanted an espresso and I needed the bathroom, so took the kids with me. When I came out, my husband quietly asked me for more cash. I looked up and saw 8 espresso's lined up for him. He had tried to speak Italian and wanted a double, so said alto, but the barista thighs he said Otto. My husband was paying the man when the manager came by, saw what was transpiring, and smacked his barista upside the head, lol.

Oh my gosh, these are all so funny! I've read every single one and I'm just laughing (and so glad that some of them didn't happen to me!).

Of course, some of you may remember a big mistake from my TR in 2024 when I took a bus from Helmsley to York in England. The bus schedule said the last return bus to Helmsley left York at 4 p.m. However, I failed to read the fine print that said the 4 pm bus only ran when school is out. So when I made my way to the station around 3:45, I received the sad news that there was no 4 pm bus because school was in that day. So I was stuck in York without a way to get back to my car in Helmsley, which was an hour away.

Luckily, a passerby saw my face and asked me if something was wrong. I poured out my saga, and she immediately got on her phone, told me to head down the road to the train station, catch a train to Thirsk, and from there get a taxi to Helmsley. So that's what I did. It worked, and I finally made my way back to my rental cottage around 6 p.m.

Biggest stupid mistake: staying two hours away from the Geneva airport with an early morning flight and two teenagers. OF COURSE I couldn’t get them moving fast enough in the morning, and then I couldn’t figure out how to return the leased car to the French side of the airport in the dark. After crossing the French-Swiss border half a dozen times looking for the turnoff, I gave up, dumped the car in the Swiss-side Hertz lot and dashed for the flight. Missed the cutoff, naturally, though not by much. I had several hours to kill before the Aeroplan service opened in Montreal, so I retrieved the car, returned it appropriately, then spent hours on the phone with customer service rebooking for the next day.

The very nice Aeroplan customer service agent helped me scrape all our assorted frequent flyer and Amex points together and got us all home the next day in business class with about 50 points to spare. Best service ever.

I have never since stayed more than 20 minutes from an airport for morning flights. Or kept the rental car till morning.

Mardee--Your bus story reminds me of one our son had. He was studying in Copenhagen and went out one night. He did not have a jacket with him, had been drinking, and got on the last bus back to the nearby town where he was living. He passed out cold and the bus driver kicked him off at the last stop, an hour away. He slept on a park bench until the first bus of the morning came by. Yes, my son the bum;)

Nelly, I'm going to save your post and show that to all these people that want to stay four to five hours away from the airport on the day of their flight. They just have no clue. I won't do it. I am too risk-averse, and I will almost always stay as close to the airport as I can get. I might stay in town if it's a place where it's easy to get to the airport by public transportation, and less than an hour away but more than that, and I'm parking myself at an airport hotel.

mikliz, that's hysterical! That sounds exactly like what a college kid (especially a guy) would do, lol!

I had a trio of near disasters on our last trip.
1. On a local flight from Dublin to London. We are getting up to leave the plane and my husband says, "Is that your passport on the floor?" It was.
2. Got a taxi to the train station in Kingham. We get out, grab our luggage, lug it up the stairs over the tracks and down the other side. We sit on a bench to wait for the train. Suddenly, I notice that my glasses are missing. I have my sunglasses on and I tend to hook my other glasses on the front of my shirt. Quickly, trying to think where they might be... I stay with the luggage, husband runs back up and over the tracks to where we were dropped off. I had forgotten that when I have my glass hooked to my shirt and take my seatbelt off, they tend to go flying. He found them on the ground right where we were dropped off. Not even run over.
3. Taking the Heathrow Express from Paddington. We have done it many times. We get on the train, stick our luggage in the rack and I plug in my phone which is almost dead. Then my husband, all of a sudden decided we are on the wrong train. I don't know why I listened to him but we jumped up gathered our stuff and got off the train. Then my brain came back online and I said "no, this is the right train". We turn around to get back on. The doors were trying to close but we go on and there was my phone sitting there waiting for me.

I had a trio of near disasters on our last trip...........

I would be VERY VERY careful going forward.

It looks like you used up a lot of 'good luck'

I have made basically stupid mistakes on trips, no doubt about it, ie, mistakes based on the lack of imagination, ie not thinking out of the so-called box, mistakes due to lack of judgement, mistakes due to inertia and procrastination, but no cultural faux pas types.

New on CNN
https://www.cnn.com/travel/sisters-stuck-scottish-castle-dunstaffnage-great-escapes

My most recent mistake is one of my most expensive ones. On June 2, 2025 I was attempting to reserve a room in Norway a year in advance via emails. For some reason there was a confusion over which days I wanted. I kept explaining that I wanted dates in June 2026 and clearly and specifically wrote Friday June 5 through Monday June 8. After exchanging a few emails they determined that they indeed had those dates available and they made the reservation for me. For some reason I couldn't really fathom they wanted me to pay for the first night. They sent me a great convenient link and I successfully made the payment. I received a very tiny reservation receipt. I was glad to have completed several days worth of email exchanges.

I decided to recheck that reservation a few days ago before I started reserving various activities and purchases for this year and discovered that they had made a reservation for June 6 - June 8, 2025. I had no reservation for 2026 and I unfortunately spent money unnecessarily. I revisited the tiny receipt and discovered it said Friday June 6 - Monday June 9. It was for 2025. If I had inspected it more closely at the time I would have caught and corrected it. Embarrassing.....my partner couldn't believe I didn't look at the fine print.

I can’t top getting locked in a castle, but we once (2011) went the wrong way around Mount Vesuvius on the Circumvesuviana.

Departing Naples for Sorrento, we found the platform and asked a local — using my (then) limited Italian — to confirm we were in the right place. She advised us, yes, take the next train, which we did. But the next train was incorrect and we were too naive to notice the destination on the front was not Sorrento. We rode and rode the train filled with locals, mostly high school students at the end of the school day. It was December and light was fading when we finally consulted the network schematic on the wall of the car and compared the name of the town we were just approaching to where we wanted to be: the other side of the mountain!

The conductor took pity on us let us know where to get off and exactly where to change trains so we didn’t have to go all the way back to Naples. The stupid tax was a late arrival, two train fares, and sheepish embarrassment.

Then there was the time I lost my husband in Paris, but it was his fault so saving that for future storytelling.

A few more.

On our way from Munich to Rothenburg, we got on a train going the wrong direction. We did not notice for quite some time. The conductor was very nice and let us ride back with no penalty/new tickets.

Also from our son while in Copenhagen;) One night they were going to head into town, but it was just dumping rain. So much so that they all decided to scrap that plan and they bought cases of beer and sat under an overpass for hours and drank. Yes, practicing to be a bum again;)

On a hiking trip, I did all the packing. The kids and I were meeting my husband on the way there. Normally we cross check that we have everything, but I blew it. I forgot to pack our daughter's pants. She had the option of wearing one of our son's pants (would have been capris on her) or her pajama pants. She chose the pajama pants. This was hiking on the WA coast in March, so quite wet. She was not happy;)

My husband booked a trip to Birmingham Alabama, or so he thought. Yes, he booked the UK, and commented that the ticket price was really high. I looked and knew immediately what he had done. I called the airline and explained, and the lady was so nice and said it happens often and it is always the wives that call and get it sorted out. She was very nice and cancelled it without penalty.

It was 2011 and I was traveling with a friend. This was our first trip to Europe together and I knew she expected me to do all the planning and take care of the details. I don’t mind because I love that stuff. We started the trip in Barcelona. On our second night wwe went to a Tapas place for dinner, which was late of course. The restaurant was crowded so we waited at the bar for a table. We struck up a conversation with someone from Norway and when we were summoned to go to our table we invited him to join us so he wouldn’t have to wait any longer. We chatted for a while and then I realized that it was 11:30 and we had to take the metro to where we were staying. We went to the metro, got on and then I realized I had left a bag with a couple of purchases I had made on the floor underneath our table at the restaurant. While distracted by that we missed our stop to transfer to another train. I looked at the map on the train and saw we could transfer somewhere else. We got to the stop, the lights all turned off and everyone got off and left the building. The metro was shutting down for the night. It was pitch black outside and I had no idea where we were. At midnight there weren’t any open businesses. I only had a flip phone but I had a SIM card that allowed me to make calls. It didn’t work. We tried to ask the few people we saw where we were, but no one spoke English and in trying to speak Spanish all I could remember was French. I was putting on a brave face so my friend wouldn’t panick and I was wondering how I was going to tell her that we might have to find somewhere to wait the night out when an angel wearing a Canada sweatshirt appeared. Yay, he spoke English! I asked him if he could call a taxi for us and while he was still on the phone a taxi appeared. I was surprised and a little suspicious that a taxi arrived that quickly, but we took our chances. I had written the address down and I closely watched his GPS to be sure he was going the right way. I recognized when he got to our area and we made it back unscathed. After we were safe and sound I told my friend that we had been on the brink of having to sleep outside somewhere.

Same trip, but now we were in France. We were doing a day trip from Paris to Giverny. We got tickets on an express train that would take us to Vernon with only one stop. It was all good and we had a lovely time at Giverny. We took the shuttle bus back to Vernon and had time to explore there before going to the train station. The train arrived a few minutes early so we got on and the train left. I was a bit puzzled because it was supposed to be the express train, but it kept making stops. My friend and I were busy chatting when we realized the everyone had gotten off the train at this stop and then it started going backwards. Uh oh…now what? My friend was starting to panick and I knew I was going to have to think of something. The train was moving very slowly so I told her we were going to need to jump off. We got the door open and we did our best Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid impersonation. We were in a train yard and there were about 5 men there working. They didn’t bat an eye seeing two middle aged women walking along the track to the station, about a mile away. We got on another train to Paris and were relieved to get back to our apartment.

That was our first trip to Europe together and I guess it didn’t traumatize her too much because we have gone on two more trips since then, and one with our husbands. I’m still expected to do the planning but now I have a phone that’s smarter than I am. 😉

On one trip to Murano and Burano from Fondamente Nove, we managed to get on the wrong vaporetto. To this day we don't really know how. We should have gotten on one that came from our right, but we got on one that came from the left. So help me, they did have the same number. This early in the a.m. so it was not a case of too much vino. We realized the problem right away and just got off at the next stop and caught one going in the right direction. Fortunately we had vap. passes so it didn't cost us anything but a little time.

Many, many years ago when hand held GPS devices first came on the scene, we followed the instructions on one that our travel friends had. Got lost as a blind dog in a meat shop! Only time in Europe we've ever really been lost. Fortunately I had a crude hand drawn map from the hotel and we made it back with only a couple of pub stops along the way -- just to confirm directions, of course.

Three bloopers on an Italy trip several years ago, luckily no harm no foul. First got confused trying to find the Palatine Hill entry after being in the Coliseum. And got there as they were closing as it was good Friday, Pope coming. Had we been there 10 minutes earlier we would have had to leave and could not have used our ticket the next day, so, this was a good break!. Next went to Siena for 3 nights, from where we would then go by train to Ravenna via bus to Florence. Since we were already by the bus station I decided to walk in and buy tickets. And discovered that our travel day was national holiday and the bus I expected to take didn't run. Problem solved, but if we had simply showed up to get our expected bus we would have missed our train, etc. Finally, flying home from Venice. Had a ticket that driver didn't check, grabbed the wrong Aeroporto Bus. Realized something was odd when the bus pulled in to Mestre - the bus to Marco Polo is direct - I perked up and heard the person boarding say to the driver "Treviso?" (which we had flown via Ryanair a coupe years back). Luckily there was also a bus to Marco Polo from there that we could switch to, but if I hadn't caught this then we would have missed our flight home via Frankfurt.

For our daughters' high school graduation gift, she and I went to France. Lesson learned to watch where you are walking. We were at Versaille on a staircase and I was not paying attention. Whoosh, down I went, down who knows how many steps. I could not bend my leg for the rest of the trip and had to walk like a pirate. I texted my husband to get me an appt with the ortho for when we returned. Knee surgery happened shortly after that. A few days later in that trip, we watched in horror as another lady just walking down a street tripped and fell face first and she was not fast enough to break the fall with her arms, and she was wearing glasses. The ambulance was there in minutes. I now always look where I am walking!

A few to choose from - most now class as lessons - which is why:
We now always set 3 alarms (because we woke up in an airport hotel 15 minutes before our flight was due to depart - leading to an exciting day trying to get trains half way across Italy)
Double check each others bags getting on and off public transport (because it cost me €300 to get my laptop back from Rome after I left it on a bus)
Pay attention to strikes (an expensive taxi ride in Greece when our paid for bus back to the airport was cancelled at the last minute)

I confess to a poor sense of humour, and am mindful of possible outcomes, but I found the "put your little sister in the locker" hilarious.

mikliz97, I give you huge kudos for carrying on with your trip with an injured knee! Wow. When you can keep on going despite your adventure, that is a true traveller.

KC--The pharmacists gave me good stuff, lol. Our poor daughter though, she had to wash my foot each day as I could not. Just picture an 18 yr old girl doing that, lol, she was not happy about it;). The funny thing is, now she wouldn't give it a second thought, but at that age, the horror!

Thanks Mardee for starting this topic. I've appreciated reading the responses, especially from "seasoned and savvy" travelers because it made me realize that sometimes "stuff happens," but...continue to "carry on." I sometimes have the tendency to dwell too long on mistakes we've made in our travels.
One mishap that comes to mind happened on our first trip to Switzerland back in 2015. We were staying in a B & B above the town of Leysin. From our balcony we could see the snow capped mountains in the distance, including Mont Blanc. We had free passes on the bus into the town of Leysin, so on a rainy afternoon, I thought it a great idea to ride the bus into town and back...just for something to do. We got on, the bus stopped to pick up students from the American School in Leysin...and we continued on into town. At the Sports Center, ALL the students got off, so we were the only ones on the bus. We figured it was the "turn-around point," until the driver got off...and in limited English indicated that the bus was done for the day! Hmmm. Only way back was on foot; through town and (I think) up several flights of stairs (Remember, we could see the mountains from our B & B).

Still in Switzerland, another trip, another year. We were taking the train from Zurich to the airport. We had studied the schedule and knew the time and track # of the train we wanted. Got to the station; train on the track and hopped on. Hmmm!
We didn't even stop to double check where the train was headed. So my husband jumped off to check, leaving me with all our luggage. Meanwhile, I turned to the gentleman standing next to me and after asking and finding out it was NOT headed to the airport, I had to get off with our luggage. Luckily the man was kind enough to hand me all our luggage...and as I retrieved the last bag....the train pulled out!

Carol, I know—I've gotten a lot out of reading these as well. It's amazing how many dumb mistakes we make when we're tired or rushed or not thinking clearly. Hopefully we all learn from them. I know I'm learning from this! 😂

I always use a hip bag which carries all of my important stuff, i.e. passport, wallet, credit cards, cash, etc.

My wife and I were in Porto. We went to the Palacio da Bolsa and bought two timed entry tickets for an English tour which was the start in about 90 minutes. I put the tickets into my hip bag and we went across the street to the Urban Market to wait.

We bought a couple of drinks and found a table on the terrace. I went to the toilet to do a number two (this is important). I rejoined my wife on the terrace, enjoyed our drinks in the sunshine and talked about planning our next trip possibly inviting our two adult children. After about an hour, I wanted to check the time on the tour tickets. That is what I realized my hip bag was missing. I had taken it off when I was doing the number two (see).

In a panic, I ran back to the toilet. Luckily, it was still hanging on the second toilet roll where I had clipped the hip bag. LOL.

Nick and I were in Mexico, specifically Valladolid in the Yucatan, and we were visiting a cenote. It was a more touristy site and had a rope trapeze-type thing that you used to swing out over the water and dive in. Nick had absenindedly put the rental car keys in his pocket after we parked. And I didnt think to check either that he had put the keys in the backpack.

I know our keys are one among many keys and other personal items at the bottom of that cenote! The place had wifi and we were able to call a locksmith who fashioned a new key for us. It was an interesting process. They basically had to break into the trunk, climb over to the steering wheel, and then made the key. Took about 3 hours total. And we had to pay the rental car company a fee too.

Luckily we travel well together and there were no harsh words. Patience is free. Replacement car keys are not!

We just arrived home after a month in Thailand and India. My debit card was good in Thailand but wouldn’t work in India. After calling Charles Schwab found out the card expired after first half of the trip. Be sure to check expiration dates on all cards you use on trips. We do this on credit cards but never think about it on our debit cards. Boy did I feel stupid for such a rookie mistake. Had other cards with us but they weren’t with free exchange and atm costs. It was a great trip in spite of the money hassles.

I've made a few (including planning and booking our family vacation for the week before my husband actually got the time off for, not the week of. That took some rapid revisioning), but the one that comes most sharply to mind is from when I was in college and studying abroad in Germany in 1999. My friends were studying in Spain, and I decided that I should seize the opportunity and visit them. I arrived two days before they were scheduled to get back from a trip of their own, thinking I'd do some exploring on my own... but I didn't speak Spanish and had never traveled on my own. Turns out, I was a very anxious lone-traveler and I hadn't been smart enough to figure out in advance how to make international calls from the pay phones. (This was, of course, pre-cell phone and in the early days of the internet, so I didn't have a phone or a computer with me.) So, in the throes of what I now know to be a minor anxiety attack, I used the code provided by the sticker on the pay phone to call my mom back in the states and cry over the phone. I called her two or three times using that code, and then it wouldn't work for my mom's number anymore, so I called my aunt (with the code) and asked her to call my mom and tell her I was fine. My mom never did tell me just how much those calls cost, but it couldn't have been cheap. Things brightened up considerably once my friends got back in town, but I learned a fair bit about myself and traveling on that trip. :)

Back in the 1970s or early 1980s I flew into Luxembourg (cheapest landing point on the continent at that time, via non-IATA Icelandic Airlines). Having been there before, I decided to take a day trip on my first full day in the city; I think I was heading to Vianden. I checked the departure board at the train station, seeing my train listed on Track 1A. I quickly found Track 1, and the train was right there. I'm sure you've already noticed the Track 1A/Track 1 problem; I did not, not being aware tracks were sometimes set up that way.

I boarded an empty car on the train. The train departed. Some minutes later, a rail-company employee came through my car. I assumed he was a ticket-checker, but no. He informed me the train was out of service. It was headed to a rail yard well outside the city, where I had to get off. I walked back to Luxembourg City, annoyed at missing my side trip but very happy I had no luggage with me.

Then there was the time I decided to walk part of the way down a mountain in the Dolomites rather than returning from the same lift station where I had arrived. Despite having a walking stick with me, I sprained both ankles and really struggled to get off the mountain. That was really dumb; I should have turned around and climbed back up as soon as I saw how rocky the descent would be.

I've also had a few hotel-booking errors, the most embarrassing of which was making an arrival-city reservation to begin on the night I would be on my transatlantic flight. I was very lucky to realize the problem just in time to adjust the reservation at no cost.