10 Travelers Who Found Help After a Wrong Train, a Missed Ferry, and a Lost Passport

I booked a $12 massage in Bali, and my masseuse found a tender spot near my shoulder. I told her to stop. She kept shaking her head no and forcing me back onto the table.

Then she returned with a flashlight and something silver in her hand. My heart started pounding when she held up a pair of tweezers.

Then she pointed at my shoulder. There was a tiny splinter of glass stuck just under the skin. I suddenly remembered brushing against a cracked beach table the day before. I had felt a sting, checked quickly, and forgotten about it.

She showed me the spot with the flashlight, then mimed pulling it out. I finally understood what she had been trying to tell me.

She cleaned the area, removed the tiny shard with tweezers, and put a small bandage over it. Then she looked at me and said, “No massage there.”

I laughed because five minutes earlier I had been convinced something very strange was happening. She had simply noticed something I had missed and was trying, with very limited English, to stop me from making it worse.

In September 2022, on my first solo trip through Italy, I boarded a train at Bologna Centrale feeling very pleased with myself.

Twenty minutes later, the conductor looked at my ticket. “You’re on the wrong train.” I was supposed to be heading toward Florence. I was not heading toward Florence.

An older couple across from me had apparently been watching the whole thing. The husband introduced himself as Paolo and his wife as Lucia. They spoke very little English, while my Italian was useful mainly for ordering coffee.

Paolo opened the rail map on his phone. Lucia took my ticket and began pointing at station names. Between the three of us and enough hand gestures to direct airport traffic, we figured out where I needed to change.

When we reached the station, Paolo and Lucia got off too. I assumed it was their stop. It wasn’t.

They walked me across to the correct platform, checked the departure board, and waited until we could see Firenze Santa Maria Novella listed on the screen.

I kept telling them they didn’t need to do this. Lucia finally put both hands on my shoulders. “It’s okay.” Then they walked back to catch the next train on their original route.

I reached Florence about an hour late. I remember the Duomo, obviously. But I also remember Paolo’s rail map and Lucia standing under that departure board making absolutely certain I was finally going the right way.

This will forever be one of my most warming and bring back faith in humanity memories.

Traveling Cambodia on a rented motorcycle when absolute torrential flood rains hit, finally come upon a roadside convenience stop which consisted of dirt floors, some posts with a tin roof, and local fruit and gasoline jugs etc.

Immediately upon running under cover, the woman behind the counter rushes around to find a five gallon bucket for me to take a seat while waiting out the rain. She then disappeared into the back and came out with a rag. I had chosen to put on mascara that day and in the rain it must have been covering my face in black smears.

She tenderly took my face in her hands and cleaned the mascara off. Neither of us could speak a single word in each others native language but it was a moment of connected womanhood and caring for each other that keeps my heart warm years later.

I packed badly for Prague in November 2023. There isn’t a more sophisticated explanation.

I was staying at a small hostel in Žižkov, and the forecast I’d checked before leaving had said “chilly.” The wind coming down the street every morning had a more aggressive interpretation.

For three days, I wore the same sweater under my jacket. On the fourth morning, Klára, the woman who usually worked reception, looked up from her computer.

“Still cold?”

“Always.”

She opened a cupboard behind the desk and pulled out a thick gray knitted scarf. I assumed it belonged to the hostel’s lost-and-found pile.

“No,” she said. “Mine.”

I tried to return it that evening. She refused.

“You travel north next?”

“Berlin.”

She nodded like I had just presented evidence supporting her entire argument.

“Keep.”

I wore Klára’s scarf through Berlin and then all the way home. Her empathy was in noticing something I’d never actually asked for help with and solving it before I had to.

I kinda messed up my planning this morning. I was sure the bus to my ferry would leave at 8:45, so I’d be at the port on time, around 9:15. Walking there would’ve taken like 1.5 hours, so I didn’t want to do that.

Surprise: I didn’t check the timetables right, and the bus only left at 9:45, with no alternative. Some bus driver on his break started chatting with me and pointed out my mistake.

I must’ve looked pretty confused and shocked, so he was just like, “Get in the bus, I’m gonna get you to your terminal,” and he drove me all the way there—20 minutes just to get there. And he even told me quite a bit about the history of the city on the way!

I still can’t believe this happened; he saved me without even thinking about it.

In June 2023, I was on a ferry from Naxos to Paros, sitting by the window and trying very hard not to be sick.

A little girl across the aisle kept staring at me. I assumed she wanted my window seat.

Her father whispered something to her. She shook her head, got up, and walked over holding a folded piece of paper. She couldn’t have been more than six.

The drawing showed our ferry in bright blue beneath an enormous yellow sun. She had also drawn me standing on deck with green hair.

My hair is brown. Her father laughed when he saw my face. “She thinks you are sick,” he explained in English. Completely accurate.

The girl pointed at the picture, pointed at me, and smiled. Her father told me her name was Eleni.

By the time we reached Paros, Eleni had produced another drawing for an older man sitting two rows behind us.

I still have mine in a drawer with old boarding passes and ticket stubs. The green hair has grown on me.

I was halfway through a train from Vienna to Salzburg when I reached into the inside pocket where I always kept my passport. That was in October 2022.

Empty.

Then came the frantic pocket checking that makes absolutely no sense because apparently I believed my passport might materialize inside a pocket I had already checked three times.

A woman across the aisle lowered her book.

“Problem?”

“Passport.”

That was apparently enough information. Her name was Marta, and within a minute she was helping me empty my backpack onto the seat.

“Last use?”

“Hotel.”

I called. Nothing was found. Marta thought for a moment.

“Yesterday. Same jacket?”

I looked down. No. Yesterday’s jacket was rolled up at the bottom of my backpack. The passport was in its chest pocket. I laughed loudly enough that somebody further down the carriage turned around.

Marta didn’t even tease me. She zipped the passport into the inner pocket of my backpack and tapped it twice.

“This pocket now.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

For the rest of the trip, that was exactly where it stayed.

Long story short, I (solo female traveller) was stuck in an airport for over an hour struggling to get a taxi to accept my ride request to the city center.

I was trying my best not to panic when I overheard two women who had been sitting near me say that they finally got a taxi. I asked them what app they were using, and when they saw I couldn’t get the app to work on my phone, they invited me to join their cab. I could have cried of relief and gratitude.

But that’s not where their kindness ends. I wanted to pay for their ride but they wouldn’t let me. I even tried just giving them the money but they gave it back to me, saying its only fair to split the cost three ways so I ended up paying a ridiculously low amount to get to a central location that was just like a 15-min ride away from where I needed to go.

And it doesn’t end there. We got off at their stop, which was a neighborhood marketplace-looking area that had lights on, food stalls, even a small convenience store, and plenty of people about, ie it seemed quite safe. I told them they could go since it’s pretty late and they must be tired, but they stayed and stood around with me for like 10 minutes until I got in my taxi and left.

Angels. Angels the both of them. There’s no other explanation. I still keep in touch with them on social media and can’t wait for the day I can repay them for their kindness. One of them apparently visits my country from time to time for work, so I’m just waiting for their next trip so that I can show them around all the cool places and treat them to a good hearty local meal.

I’m on my way home. I get to my gate, plug my phone into the charger, and all but collapse in the seat. The entire day finally caught up with me. I tried to hold back those last few hours, but I couldn’t. I started to cry and couldn’t stop. Tears streaming down my face. Starting to breathe heavily...

All of a sudden, I hear a gentle voice say, “Excuse me, I don’t mean to interrupt, but it looks like you need a friend.” I look up through watery eyes and meet his gaze. A stranger with beautiful eyes and an even more beautiful heart. He hands me some napkins and sits down beside me. He proceeds to ask me what’s wrong and talks to me like we’ve known each other for years.

It was gentle, it was kind, it was compassion from a stranger for a stranger. It warmed my heart in just the way I needed in that moment, and honestly... I’ll be forever grateful and will remember this man for the rest of my life.

My younger cousin passed suddenly. We honored her today, and now she’s resting.I flew out at 6 AM, landed at 10 AM, services started at 1 PM, and I was back at the airport to fly home at 6 PM. I’ll get home a little after midnight tonight.

It’s been one hell of a day... but... that man saw me in my moment of need, reached out, and it made all the difference.Thank you, kind sir. May your life continue to bless you in the ways you bless others!

On my first solo trip, a pickpocket snatched my purse in a busy market. My passport, cash, cards, and phone were inside. I sat outside a small spice shop crying. The owner brought me a chair and water while helping me call the police. But after a few sips, my vision suddenly went dark and everything went black.

When I opened my eyes, I was lying on a soft sofa inside the shop with a cold cloth on my forehead. Between the fear, the stress, and the intense heat, I had fainted right on the sidewalk.

The shop owner introduced himself and explained that his little spice store had been in the old market for years. By the time I was properly awake, half his family seemed to know what had happened. He stayed nearby while we used a translation app to communicate with the police.

His wife brought me lentil soup and bread that evening, and their granddaughter, who was studying English at school, helped me call home and explain to my family that I was physically fine even though virtually everything important I had brought on the trip was gone.

I spent the next two days sorting out an emergency passport. The shop owner let me leave a small bag at the store and come back whenever I needed somewhere familiar to sit.

On my final morning in the city, I went to say goodbye. He pressed a small paper bag into my hands. Inside was a pouch of saffron and a handwritten note: “You came to see our country. I hope it was kind to you.”

I never recovered the cash or phone. I still have the unopened saffron.