Travel Mistakes

Not a mistake exactly, but traveling on a night train with a friend in Italy, we were both dozing when we pulled into a station. My friend awoke with a start and said, "Where are we?" She looked out the window and said, "Oh, we're in Binario." Since I knew that "binario" is the Italian word for "platform," I had a nice laugh at her expense.

I also can't tell you how many times I got onto a train in Italy having forgotten to validate my ticket. Once I made a mad dash at a station out of the train (leaving my luggage behind) and validated my ticket and ran back onto the train before it pulled away.

On my first trip in Italy I tried to find restaurants on my own. Total failure. Italy made me a believer in using my Rick Steves guidebook.

I'm very comfortable navigating the Tube in London, but for some reason I always go the wrong way on the Circle Line. And I always, always get lost at Bank, even though I think I'm following the signs very carefully. I have to laugh though because at least I'm consistent!

6 years ago I booked my first trip out of the US on a whim, decided it was time to visit London and set to perusing Expedia, thinking I'd much prefer to fly out of Oakland, 10 minutes from my home, than SF. I found my flights, on airlines I liked and at times that suited and booked them. Well. Now, of course, I realize I should have flown directly from SF to London, but what I ended up with was flying to Seattle then to Paris (where I experienced the nightmare that is CDG when my flight arrived late and they held the plane while I ran through the airport in socks since I didn't have time to put my boots back on after security) and then back to London. The same scenario was repeated on my return, CDG was a bit less of a nightmare on second viewing and to Los Angeles before finally arriving home to Oakland. My well-travelled friends find this story hilariously absurd, "Paris is on the way to London?! Who knew?" The rest of the trip was perfect and I have since learned to do much better research.

OK, I have had more than a few train boo-boos...but one we did last year...at the airport in Nice...the lady at the counter told us our flight left from terminal B. We walked over to where 'B' was and saw a passport check (which I honestly don't remember ever seeing after we've gone thru security...I only remember passport checks coming into an airport, not leaving - but maybe it has happened and we just didn't rem). So we thought it was a mistake and hung out in Term A having breakfast and waiting for the gate. We were at least 90 min early.

So gate is shown 25 min before flight...we go...oh...OK...Term B - walked thru the line of people waiting (there was not one soul there the first time we went by 90 min earlier) to the doors and realized - oh shyte - we were supposed to go thru that passport check. And the lineup of people now was at least a few hundred long. Panic ensues. One of the airport people tried to get the passport guys to let us thru but they said we had to wait in line. Long story short, we thought we were going to miss our flight. Another tries to help us get thru - same thing...but they told us someone would come along and get the stragglers and let us jump up the line. And we weren't the only ones who did the same stupid thing. There were a couple women and a man who was on the same flight we were. Anyways, about 5 mins before the gate would close an airport worker comes back and ushers up and tells us to cut in line (to the consternation of some British bloke who told us to go to the back of the line). We made it on to the plane (and we weren't even the last ones!). I was wound up for the rest of the day.

Even the pilot mentioned about the slight delay as things were backed up at the passport check and they were still waiting for a few more people.

So the moral of the story is...if they say Term B, don't hang around Term A at Nice airport.

Oh - some train ones - our first 'big' trip anywhere. Italy. 2008. We are going from I think Pisa to Cinque Terre. The train ticket said via Ferrera. We thought that meant we had to get off in Ferrera and catch a diff train....uh...no. We ended up having to wait an hour for the next train at this desolate little train stop with a few benches and outdoor ticket booth.

And on the same trip, went for a day trip to Naples from Rome to see Herculaneum. I was very sure which stop to get off but my husband said no...it's the next stop...no, it wasn't. Had to wait an hour (again - it was a Sun so I think trains were less frequent) for a train to take us back to the proper station...we didn't want to walk it as we had no idea where we were.

Nice 2012 - I stupidly bought tickets for the slow train instead of the fast train to Avignon. We couldn't change them (we should have just bit the bullet and bought new tix). Our couchsurfing host was planning to pick us up at the TGV at a certain time. Of course, the slow train arrived at a diff stn in Avignon. No free wifi anywhere... I couldn't figure out how to get the payphone to work. There is a tremendous thunder/lightning/rain storm. Trains are delayed at least an hour. Saving grace - we had to change trains at Marseilles - there was a McD's with free wifi and in the 30 min or so we had between trains, I was able to get a message to our host about the train mixup and what time we'd be arriving.

That one way street story gave me a good laugh, BTW. :)

Once I was in Brussels with a friend and we decided to take the train to Antwerp on a Sunday for a day trip. We were at the right platform at the right time, but apparently the train platform changed. At one time there was an announcement in French I think, and it should have been a clue to us when several people around us left, but we were clueless. We got in the train and rode it for around an hour. Finally someone came along to check our tickets, and my friend asked when we would come to Antwerp. The ticket guy's eyes got big, and he said, "Antwerp?" Then he yelled at us that not only were we on the wrong train, but we were in first class with 2nd class tickets. We had to move immediately to 2nd class, and get off at the next stop, where we had to wait on a platform for a train going back to Brussels. It was embarrassing at the time, but later just funny.

I had the same "one way" hiccup in Germany, but on my first solo trip to Italy I wondered how many times my train would pass through the town of "Uscita".

And I met my ex-husband in Piazza Navona.

Yosemite - your post made me laugh because my husband did the same thing in Germany!

When we were leaving Vienna, the guy at the security line said something to me in German and wrote a different gate number on my ticket. I thought our gate had been switched, but the same thing did not happen to my husband, so I was puzzled. I told him about it after we made it through security and we triple checked the gate listings and our gate was still listed for the original number and no one was waiting at the gate he had listed, so I (stupidly) assumed it was just a misunderstanding. Then when our boarding zone was called, the gate attendant wouldn't let me through because the instructions apparently had been for me to go to that other gate for a special screening, which I didn't do. Luckily they were so nice and ran me over the security area and asked them to rush me through. My husband was instructed to board without me and told the flight attendant to please tell him before the doors close so she could let him off if I wasn't on yet. She looked at him like he was crazy and said "we would never take off without your wife!" He laughed and said "they would in the US!" It ended up being a funny learning experience, but boy are you vulnerable when you don't speak the local language!

I was scheduled to fly at 1 am to Beijing (for a 5 week trip) and I had it on my calendar as leaving on Thursday. Of course Thursday was the date of the flight, but I had to be at the airport Wednesday evening. By the time I was only a few days from departure, I had forgotten that little detail and at 4 p.m on Wednesday was thinking how great it was that I still had more than 24 hours for the very few things yet undone. By sheer luck, I checked my cell phone and saw an SMS promo from my airline for my flight "tonight." Sheer panic. Thankfully my luggage was all packed, good friends came to my rescue (to transport the kitty to her out-of-town catsitter), and I managed to get the other errands done and get to the airport with minutes to spare. I wasn't even the last one to board the plane. The next flight out was 48 hours later. Aside from the ticket change, would have cost me 2 hotel nights, tour guide fees, and I would have lost 2 of my 4 wonderful days in Beijing en route to New Zealand/Australia.

Good friends fly often on 1 am flights, and they always smile as they tell me how very careful they are about the dates since my near fiasco.

Which reminds me of another friend's story. She was visiting her daughter in Phoenix and mixed up her return flight to Israel by a day. On the day before she thought she was flying home, she got acute appendicitis and was taken to hospital for an emergency appendectomy (travel insurance fully covered it). When the daughter called the airline to postpone the flight she found out that the flight was that day, not the next. Thanks to my friend's emergency surgery, she did not lose the ticket or have to pay through the nose for a new one-way fare (in those days, more than a round-trip). I can't say that she was grateful it, but if it had to be, it couldn't have happened at a better time.

Could have been a huge mistake. Husband and I got on a train to Naples at the Termini in Rome. I put all my things down and then decided we needed some water so left everything with husband and stepped off the train to find some. Had to walk a ways and turned around to realize that train was starting to pull away. I was able to get on but we often talk about what could I have done if I had missed it. I had no passport, identification on me and no money. It was a good lesson for me.

Back in the 1990's in Romania they taped a little paper "exit ticket" in your passport. Well, I lost mine (actually, probably threw it away, not realizing it was important).

Some time later, at 2am on a cold, snowy night at the Romania-Moldova border (where they switch the train's wheels to fit the Soviet-era tracks), I found myself outside of the train car with a rifle in my back under threat of being left at the border.

Luckily, a little bribe money went a long way and I was able to make my way back to the relative safety and warmth of the train car.

When I returned to Romania, I made sure that my next "exit ticket" stayed securely in my passport for the rest of my stay.

Took the night train from Napoli to Venice with our 1-year old.

That is all.

Brain freeze: going to the wrong airport for flight home from London, losing my ticket to get off the RER when going to CDG, getting on the wrong train for FCO. Fortunately all were correctable. I suppose I just wanted the trips to last longer!

No way to top bradleysmith1212. :-)

On our first trip from Naples to Sorrento, a local told us on which platform to catch the Circumvesuviana to Sorrento. She did not point out that another train stopped there, and we ended up circling Vesuvius on the wrong side! We were on a train with lots of locals, mostly young adults. This was 2011 and my tablet computer, which I was using to figure out what the Hell went wrong, attracted a lot of funny looks. (They were quite new then.) We were the only people on the train with luggage.
When we reached the end-of-the-line, we explained out predicament to the Station Master, who slapped his head in amazement and helped us get sorted. It took almost 4 hours for our 75-minute trip from Naples to Sorrento.

My first mistake occurred when I was only 18 (many, many years ago). I was visiting a friend in Vienna ( first time out of US), we went to Rome. I was going back by myself and got on a train to Venice instead of Vienna. Luckily, through my tears, an Italian family helped me by translating and getting me back on the correct train to Vienna.

Most of mine have been language ones; such as walking up to the woman at the information desk at Madrid Airport, intending to first ask her if she spoke English, and instead saying "Habla Espanol?" I realized my mistake and started laughing just as she laughed and asked me if I realized what I had just said. But my one serious mistake was many years ago when I got on a train in Florence to head to Genoa. I knew the train split in Pisa, so I didn't worry when that happened. But as the unfamiliar town names passed, I eventually realized I was heading south instead of north. I rushed off the train at the next stop, which fortunately was a stop for a train going north in a couple of hours.

In Paris a few years ago, on my first night out, I left my map at the apartment. I had been to Paris before, and indeed had stayed in the Marais before, so felt comfortable venturing out in the area without the need for a map. I got so turned around in the streets,a and quite lost. To get my bearings, I decided I would follow the Seine. Well the "Seine" turned out to be a canal, and I was way off my course. I finally stumbled upon a taxi stand and asked to be taken back to my apartment. Great lesson -- never leave without a map! Of course, today, I have an I-phone which can help navigate when one is that lost.

Todd

I am pretty OCD about my planning, and very meticulous. So imagine my surprise when on the morning we are flying out two summers ago I am grabbing a quick nap before our kids drive us from Philly to Newark airport, and my wife wakes me, I'd better get on the phone. Seems it's the man running Berlin Habitat wondering where we were. we had blown him off for 2 hours. Yes, every arrangement I had after our week in Berlin was correct (bus to Hamburg, lodging, train to Copenhagen, lodging), except this one, somehow when I booked the week i neglected to add the day for the overnight flight. That I would lose a day of rental payment I could live with, but he was booked for the day that would have been our seventh day, and it was a bit of a pain to scramble to find one night elsewhere before we had to get to our flight.

It was 1990 and I was in Leningrad with my dance group of 44 people. We had a representative from our booking agency with us the whole time and she kept all of our documents with her -- passports,, airline tickets, visa.
Our bus to the airport for the flight home left the hotel at noon but a friend and I took a city bus to the local foreign currency store for some last minute souvenir shopping.
She was finished before me and took the bus back herself. When I was finished I went out to the street and got on the bus, but inadvertently, going in the opposite direction ...
After about 20 minutes, I realized that nothing looked familiar, and when I said the name of my hotel the other passengers just pointed back over their shoulders!
I jumped off at the next stop, ran across the street, and stuck out my thumb. (I knew that there were "private" taxis, i.,e., people who were fortunate enough to own cars who drove around and picked up people to make some extra cash.)
A man picked me up immediately and agreed to drive me back to the hotel, but stopped and picked up and dropped off several other random people. It took longer than I thought, but I managed to get back to the hotel at 11:50, and my bag was already packed so I made it down to the lobby just in time.
It was only later that I realized how lucky I was, since I didn't even know which of the 4 airports we were flying out of nor which airline ...
Don't know that I can yet laugh at this, but recalling it does make me appreciate my resourcefulness (and bemoan my naivete!)

Here's another I just remembered. Not really a mistake per se, but amusing. The hotel in Rome was sending a driver to pick us up at the train station. The desk clerk told me where he would be waiting. So I left my 72 year old mother with the bags, while I went to find him. Well, I got in the car and off we sped. Due to construction and some police activity in the area, I thought he was circling the block back towards the station, but after a few minutes I realized he was taking me to the hotel and stranding my mom back at the station! He didn't speak English, so I had to call the hotel to then speak to the driver to turn around. We laughed about it later, but my mom was worried about my disappearing act.

Very true that the more you travel the greater chance of making a mistake, doing something stupid, etc. On the 2014 trip my pretty stupid mistake was getting off the ICE train at the wrong city, which was a first. . I should have noticed that hardly anyone was lining up as the train got closer and closer to the next stop which I thought was Frankfurt Hbf even though they were the open air platforms. Anyway, I got off at Hanau Hbf, one stop before. No big deal since I was not time pressed, took the next RB train to Frankfurt, but ended up wasting an hour or so.

On a trip in Germany using my rail Pass, I was one morning at the Monchengladbach Hbf looking for the train to Aachen, somehow couldn't find it, no matter where I checked, the signs, the yellow departure schedule poster, etc., no sign on this particular train, etc. Even though the gut feeling told me not to board, I still did...wrong move. There was a group of German women chatting away where I was sitting. They were so loud you could help but hear them, and as I was eavesdropping on their conversation, I didn't think I was going west to Aachen. Finally, I asked them. They said no, not to Aachen. Instead of heading west, the train was going north, so I got off at the next stop at Viersen Hbf. to catch a train that stopped in Aachen. That was a Thalys train heading for Paris. Main point : listen to that inner voice.

On being "vulnerable" as pointed out above when you don't know the language...it can certainly be like that. Twice I was "saved" from making a mistake since I didn't know the language by a local with whom I was talking when in comes the conductor announcing his message only in the local language. The first time was in Sweden in 1971. The girl told me that the train was going to be separated and that I had better get back to my luggage since that part of train was going somewhere else. Good thing, otherwise I would been without luggage.

The second time was in 2003 en route to Gdansk, soon after crossing the Oder River and transferring in Poland after leaving Berlin. This young woman noticed my holding an US passport as I waited for the passport check to come to me, kept staring at my passport, finally asked me in English if I was from the US. She spoke at least 4 languages fluently...Polish, German, Spanish, English. As I was talking in German to her with her replying in German or English in comes the train guy making the announcement only in Polish. That did surprise me a bit since the train's terminus was Gdansk, I had expected a German announcement too...no such luck, but she quickly told me to move to another area of the train. Everyone was getting up with their luggage and moving too, so did she...a real jam, wall to wall with people and luggage.

For me the mistakes that readily come to mind are
- not reconfirming our charter flight booking from Barcelona to London, and finding out at the airport that the departure time had changed and we had missed it by several hours - much expense later for a new BA ticket.
- not allowing enough time to get to Heathrow or Lisbon Airport and consequently missing flights.
- not buying a ticket in Naples for the private Circumvesuviana line when I was travelling with a Eurail pass and subsequently being fined.
- falling asleep on an early morning train from Barcelona to Castdefells after having been out clubbing, missing my stop and subsequently being fined.
- riding on the back of a Vespa without glasses/goggles after having been out clubbing - I never thought your eyes could sting so much.
- missing a museum visit because the only day you are in town is its 'closed day'.
- missing everything because the only day you are in town is a big public holiday.
- not realizing that a big festival or an unknown interesting sight could have been in your plans until after you get home.

This travel agent mistake has stuck in my head and remains my all time favourite ...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/7881459/Travel-agent-sends-couple-to-Sydney-Nova-Scotia...-not-Sydney-Australia.html

I have made, or almost made, an infinite number of mistakes on my trips to Europe. But there has always been a kindly local or fellow tourist to point me in the right direction. I especially remember the man in the Vienna airport who chased me down after I left my passport on the security conveyor belt. Like Madge DuBois, I have always relied on the kindness of strangers.

In 2007 when a friend and I planned a trip, we made many mistakes and yes, they all came back to bite us in the ass. It was cheaper to fly from the US into Manchester than into Paris, where our first stop was, so we bought tickets into MAN. I had the crazy idea to take a train from MAN to London Luten and fly from there to Paris. Well, we had a connecting flight from St. Louis in Philadelphia and had to run for the plane. We barely made it but our luggage didn't. We put in claims at the counter at MAN, which took a while because several other people's bags didn't make the flight either. We missed our train from Manchester to Luton (we bought advance tickets) and spent the whole first day of our trip riding local trains south. We also missed our easyJet flight, of course, and had to buy new tickets at Luton. We didn't get to our hotel in Paris until 10:00 or 11:00 at night.

We flew in and out of Manchester (I didn't know about open-jaw flights at that time) so on our second-to-last day of the trip we flew from Berlin to Manchester to spend the night at a hotel near the airport.

We moved around too much on that trip: 3 nights in Paris, 3 in Amsterdam, and 4 in Germany. We spent 1 night in Berlin and the only thing in the city we wanted to see was the Pergamon Museum but we couldn't find it even though we asked I don't know how many locals where it was.

And our luggage never caught up to us during our whole two-week trip, until the night before we came home to the US.

Lessons learned: fly into the airport of the city where you're actually beginning your trip; don't check bags on the way over; try your hardest not to plan any long-distance train trips or separate flights the day of arrival; and don't do whirlwind trips because you may see much less than you think you will, due to unforeseen circumstances

Myself, husband, 15 year old son + the London Tube.
We were headed to Green Park Station on the tube. Got to the platform and there was a train sitting with the doors open. My husband and I dashed for it and got in right as the doors closed. We turned around and there was our son standing on the platform looking at us with one of those "What the h--l??" looks on his face that only a teenager knows how to do. The train starts to pull away and I'm screaming "GREEN PARK GREEN PARK GREEN PARK" at the closed doors hoping he'll hear me and take the next train to Green Park.
I decide to go on to Green Park and wait for him there. My husband gets on the the next train going back to the station we left him in. I wait at Green Park. Trains come and come and come and come, and he doesn't get off any one of them. My husband comes back after 1/2 hour and doesn't have our son. I am starting to panic...of course our phones work but my son's doesn't so we have NO way of reaching him. My husband goes back AGAIN and still comes back without him.
To make a long story short, our son had the presence of mind to go to the station office at one of the stops (he SWEARS to this day that he came to Green Park and didn't see me) to say he was lost. We finally connected with a police officer who had just heard about a lost teenager who turned out to be our lost teenager. We finally retrieved him.
Longest 2 hours of my life.
Lesson...have a plan in case you get separated.

Anita,
That has to be one of the scariest moments a parent can have. I worked at Disneyland and you wouldn't believe how many parents lost their kids there and didn't have any plan for meeting them if they got separated. Hopefully someone will read your story and will formulate a plan in advance. Thank you for sharing that frightening story.

When I was traveling a lot on business, over one five week period I spent a week in Taipei, a week home, a week in Europe, a week home, then a week in Taipei again. The day I was supposed to leave Taipei for home at the end of all this, I took a taxi to the office with some colleagues. Threw my luggage in the back (laptop on my lap). I got involved in a discussion with colleagues on the ride to the office, and the taxi drive off with my bags in the trunk. $500 worth of luggage and a $600 dental appliance to keep me from damaging my teeth while grinding at night. The people from the local office rushed me back to the hotel which thankfully writes down the number of every taxi to leave the hotel. The hotel manager and the local representative took me to the police station, where they called the driver based upon the taxi number and I had my bags back within half an hour. The whole thing seemed like they had been through this before, must happen all the time I guess. I did give a passing thought to the possibility that the taxi driver knew exactly what was happening and drove off anyway, but I did not dwell on it because I was so glad to have my bags back. Whew!

Second story: my wife and I traveled to England in 2000, and could not resist tacking on three nights in Paris at the end. Our plan was to wake up in Rye, drive to Brighton where we would drop the car, then train to London and Eurostar to Paris. Perfect, right? Well we left early but someone the logistics got us and by the time it was time to catch the train to the place where the Eurostar departed, we had only fifteen minutes to spare... if we made all the train connections perfectly. I know it's crazy, but we made some wrong turns on the way to Brighton and had trouble finding the car return place. They told us at the Brighton ticket counter there was a direct train to the station in London, but it would be too slow a route. We might make it if we took the route changing trains in East Croyden and Clapham Junction. Those a real places, but those names just seemed oddly comical to me at the time for some reason, and they are still etched upon my mind. Changing trains with a few minutes to connect we rushed around trying to figure out the right platform at both stops, and I am sure our frantic cries for assistance made the locals think of the ugly loud American traveler. We made the Eurostar six hours after leaving Rye, with maybe five minutes to spare. On the way to Paris the train made one stop before continuing through the chunnel. It was in the general vicinity of Rye, southeast of London anyway. It's quite possible that we could have just dropped the car there. Some people on the board with know the stop I am talking about. I did not have the heart to look into whether dropping the car there would have been a possibility.

The "left behind" stories in particular are making me laugh until I cry!

It's a miracle any of us go back for a second trip.

It's also amazing how you can make mistakes even after doing things a half dozen times...

Every time we go to Europe, we fly home from Heathrow and beforehand will go visit with my sister in Portsmouth. So we have taken the train to her place 3 times (one trip we came over by ferry from France)...so you would THINK I would know which train station to get off after doing it multiple times. Last year, I booked tix from Gatwick to Portsmouth/Southsea (PMS). What I forgot is we are supposed to get off at Fratton (FRA) one stop before PMS then we will grab a taxi. So we are chugging along and the train stops at FRA and hubby is like...I think this is our stop...I'm like...no, it's PMS. He looks dubious but is...OK then. So of course the next stop is PMS and we get off and I'm like...this doesn't look familiar! I get the 'I told you so' look from hubby. We probably could have taken a taxi, but I was unsure of how much further away we were from her home, so we just ponied up a couple GBP for a train back to FRA. (I now realize where the station is located on Portsmouth and I think a taxi would have been fine)...but really, after doing this more than once, you'd think I'd remember! But that will be the only time I make that mistake.

I once flew into Osan Air Base on leave. I told my wife to get a cab and I'd grab our bags (I wasn't carry on then). After grabbing the bags, I got in line, had my passport stamped then headed out of the airport to our waiting cab. A week later we were flying out of Daegu and discovered my wife hadn't had her passport stamped into the country. They took us in a back room with one bright light and interrogated us. They are at war and it's a million yuan fine and a year in prison for being in the country illegally. I was wondering if I needed to bribe them or something? They called Osan and talked to someone who insisted they called after her but she rushed out without checking with immigration/customs. Ultimately, they let us go because I was an Air Force officer. They stamped her in there and then back out.

I once stayed in Bacharach but took the local train to eat at a restaurant in St. Goar. I checked the schedule for the train back, they ran hourly. I planned on about 9 PM for the ride back to my Pension but noted there was a 10 PM train in case I needed it.

At the restaurant, I ran into some Americans from Seattle who were about to join a RS tour. At the time I lived in Spokane. We chatted for awhile and I stayed later than planned and went back to catch the late train. After the train was a few minutes late, I knew something was wrong but waited a few more minutes before checking the schedule again. The late train was only on Friday and Saturday nights.

The streets were rolled up and there wasn't a taxi to be seen, so I walked the 14 km back to Bacharach. I learned to read all the notes when you check the train schedule.

bradleysmith,

It's a money thing.

They still put a piece of paper in your passport in Russia. I was there for two days off a cruise and had read ahead of time not to lose the slip of paper or be fined.

Sure enough, the first day they put the paper in the passport and I made sure I didn't lose it. Sure enough some people on the cruise that night talked about being fined for losing the paper slip in their passport. The second day, however, no paper slip and they didn't ask for it when I got back on the ship?

My stupid language thing was cramming on French for a trip to Quebec. First stop in Montreal was a restaurant. When the waitress approached us I said, "Ola". She smiled and asked, in English, if we were going to speak Spanish?

VS,

in those days you would have been connecting from Brighton via East Croydon and Clapham Junction into Waterloo. That's correct.

The only place that Eurostar trains stopped in those days was Ashford International, and you are right, they do have some car hire desks at Ashford International, although many fewer trains now than then. And, yes, it is just down the road from Rye.

I mentioned this in a post earlier last year, but it fits in this category of travel mistakes and perhaps someone can learn from it. This mistake occurred when I went to validate my Eurail Pass back in 1975. I don't know if the Eurail official still have to write the dates on the pass today. If so, be sure to write the dates on a piece of paper and show it to the rail official before they write the dates on the pass and agree that those are the right dates. I failed to do that when I had the pass validated in Bad Kreutznach Germany and the rail official thought my pass was for a month, but it was only for 21 days. When I told her she made a mistake, she crossed out the date and wrote a new date above it. Now it looks like falsified the pass. I took the train to Frankfurt and pretended to be asleep when the conductor came. He left me alone. In Frankfurt, I went to the Eurailpass office and they said the pass was no longer valid. This was all I had for travel and I had 21 days left of travel to do. They said I had to go to the Eurailpass office in Munich and they might be able to help. On the way to Munich, I almost got kicked off the train. Once I got to Munich, I explained what happened and the only thing that saved me was that the supervisor at the Eurail office was leaving for a vacation at Disneyland and I told her I used to work there while in college. I spent the next two hours planning her trip to Southern California and she returned the favor and called the Eurail office back in Frankfurt and they gave her the authorization to give me a new pass. They wrote the dates in correctly and then sealed it in plastic just to make sure no one would change the dates again. She also told me that if this would have happened in France, they would have stopped the train and kicked me off between towns.
Bottom line, make sure the dates are agreed to before they write it on the pass.

This didn't happen to me, nor any of the people I know, and I hope it is sufficiently on theme:=

From this morning's Metro newspaper in the UK:=

A British tourist was refused entry into Thailand because she had ripped two pages out of her passport to use as toilet paper during a drunken night out.

Faye Wilson, 28, from the Lake District, was escorted by a security guard and 'rushed back to the UK'.

Nigel--too funny--a candidate for the Darwin Awards!

Yosemite--
"She also told me that if this would have happened in France, they would have stopped the train and kicked me off between towns." Very funny too because I bet the French would have said the same things about the Germans, each one trying to look more accommodating than the other--especially back in the 1970s. That's one hell of an experience, though!

OH!! And to have your name published! =P

Like some of you, I consider myself a master of logistics and planning (I am a project manager, after all!) So when I make mistakes on our family trips, I never hear the end of it. My family's two favorite examples:

2010: We were doing a home exchange outside of Paris. #1 Daughter had a terrrible cold and opted to stay in bed one day. We took a local train to Meaux for a look-see, a short trip so we could get back to her quickly. Wandered around the town for a few hours, then headed back to the train station. A train headed in the right direction was just pulling in. I insisted we all jump on it right away. You can guess the rest - it was an express train and whizzed right by our little town. After an extra few hours detouring via Paris Est, we finally got back to our sick teenager, who was sure she'd been abandoned forever and was making plans to get her grandparents to come rescue her.

2013: This one is the doozy. We were flying out of Geneva. I had picked a lovely little AirBnB chalet about 45 minutes from the airport. We had an early flight, and my family doesn't do early very well. So we left later than we should have, in the pitch black around 4:30 am. We had a leased Peugeot, which had to be returned to the French side of the airport. And...we had not scoped out the route in advance. We followed signs, read the map, and ended up circling into France and back into Switzerland three times. Never did find the tiny road that was a sharp angle turn to our left, unlit, alongside a barbed wire fence. Finally went back into the Swiss side of the airport, dumped the car in a Hertz lot, ran for check in...too late. Boarding was closed. We were traveling on reward flights, so we had to wait for the Aeroplan office to open in Montreal. So, we left the kids with the luggage and some pastries, retrieved the car, found the right lot in France after the sun came up. And waited. And waited. Finally - here is the happy ending - the Aeroplan agent helped me scrape up every last mile and point we had scattered on American Express and all our Aeroplan accounts and got all four of us reward flights home in Business Class the next day for a $90 change fee each and virtually no extra taxes! Plus one night at the very closest airport hotel with a shuttle...now I know, always choose the boring airport hotel over the lovely chalet out in the country for the last night.

Only three that were major. Booked a cruise once going in the opposite direction than we had planned. Booked a flight for 12.30 AM and showed up at 12.30 PM expecting to get on an airplane. No travel agent to blame. Long time ago booked a car for Charleston, SC, but it was sitting in Charleston, WVa. That was the travel agent's fault. Off a cruise ship on an independent trip deep into the country side, we board a train to return to the port. We were early, entered the station, checked the board, used the restroom, found the platform and boarded our train. After five minutes later younger son suddenly proclaims we going in the wrong direction. I had no idea what direction we are headed. He is absolutely insistence on wrong direction. Finally wrote our destination on a piece of paper and showed it to a lady sitting in the next seat. Just as the train is starting to slow down she shakes her head, NO, NO. Everyone got off and desperately hoped for a train going in the opposite direction. Finally another came alone and we got back to the original station, found the right train, and make to back to the cruise ship with about 15 minutes to spare. It was a little tense. We assume the platform must have changed in the time interval when use the restrooms before heading to the platform.

Now we always wait where we can see the departure board and never go to the platform until about about ten minutes before the train is scheduled. Second, always ask a couple of random folks if this is the train to .......

Dumb language thing - back in college, took trip to the then Soviet Union. At night in the hotel in Leningrad, I got thirsty and went to the snack bar, all prepared with the Russian for "Do you have something cold to drink?" Perhaps due to stage fright, I got one word wrong, and it came out as "Do you have someone cold to drink?" The snack bar lady kept a straight face, and supplied me with my first kefir.

Reading these reminds me of many mistakes I have made over the years. I've made tons but the one that worried me the most was getting my passport stamped as I entered Egypt. After deplaning, I went and bought my visa stamp. Then, I stood in line and handed it to the visa/entry guy. He looks at it a bit and passes it back to a woman with some equipment/scanner. I'm standing there and he motions me aside. The woman does some checking then slides the passport forward so it is sitting just behind a little cut out in the glass window. I take the passport and enter Egypt. After a couple of days (forget how this came up) another passenger showed me how his visa had been stamped several times. Mine was blank. I asked my guide and he told me not to worry. Well, I disregarded that advice and checked with what I had to do if I was not allowed to board the plane. It would have been inconvenient (taking about 3 days) and slightly costly (paying for a hotel, getting to Egyptian officials, maybe paying for a new flight), but not horrible. The guide took us to the airport and kindly waited as I went through visa control. He was ready to attempt to intervene (my Egyptian is not so good!) if they refused to let me leave. The exit visa stamper checked my passport, opened it to the Egyptian visa page, did a double take and shrugged. He then proceeded to stamp it about four times, handed it back and waved me through. Whew! I now check to see my passport has been stamped.

I wanted to save some money on a trip to Egypt. So, it was quite a bit cheaper in August and I booked it! Oh my, what was I thinking?

Ray, that wasn't your mistake though.

Not going to the service station before setting out for Heathrow to return a rental car, that was a big mistake when I found myself out of petrol.

Thanks for saying it wasn't my mistake, but I think it was (in a couple of ways.) First, I have traveled a fair amount, so I didn't bother to watch people in front of me in the line and how they did the process. Did the guy take the passport back and stamp it (meaning I grabbed it too early) or did the woman forget to do it. Also, I now check to make sure it is done, I didn't do that in Egypt, my bad. I spent the next couple of weeks wondering what would happen if the Egyptians didn't let me go (and, of course, running over the worst scenarios!) With a few days left, I asked the guide to check the office and they gave me info that it would likely be costly and time consuming, but that was it. I was (mostly) relieved.

It was our first trip abroad ever. My sixteen year old daughter was map navigator and I was driver. Whizzing down the autobahn in a borrowed 1967 Beetle. Very confusing. We decided to end our day of travel early and were looking for a good sized town in which to spend the night. Long story short..."Ausfart" is not the name of a town in Germany. It means exit!!

When my younger brother was 18 he and his best friend bought two eurail train passes - at the time cheap and allowing going almost everywhere for a month - and left. After a week they were in Amsterdam when they decided it would have been a pity being in the Netherlands and not seeing a dam. So they boarded a train to Enkhuizen, hoping to see a dam there. The train travelled some time, then the train came to a full stop and all people got out. Only my brother and his friend had remained on the train, so my brother said: "May be we are at Enkhuizen, have a look". "No way, the name of this place begins with an R".
The train stood still for a while, then my brother had a look himself. Just in front of them there was a sign: "Restaurant".