13 Trips That Brought Back Stories, Not Just Souvenirs

Sometimes you go somewhere once, and then spend your whole life talking about what happened there. Some trips give not only impressions, but also stories that are worth a guidebook. They can be funny, bizarre, absurd. We put together travel stories from people who clearly didn’t expect what their vacations would turn out to be like.

• I was in Japan once and bought some fancy glasses with a camera there. I went to a local museum, and there was a sign saying that filming was forbidden. Well, I think, I have my glasses!
  I walked around there like a spy, and in the evening I came back to the hotel satisfied, connected the glasses to the computer to see what I had filmed, and there were only ceilings and chandeliers, ceilings and chandeliers. And not a single sculpture!
  It turned out that I raised the glasses on top of my head, out of habit, and forgot about it. © Overheard / Ideer
• Once on vacation, the boat stopped right in the middle of the sea — it was night, you couldn’t see anything around, just darkness and waves. There were 4 of us: me, my girlfriend and 2 guys. The boat was tiny, water was pouring over the side, my girlfriend was in tears, I was terrified. An hour later, we were rescued by the coastguard.
  It turned out that they were looking for us for 5 hours, because the guys took the boat for an hour, and we disappeared for half a day. The tour guide was indignant, and in the morning at breakfast everyone was looking only at us. 10 years have passed since then, and I don’t go near small boats. © Overheard / Ideer
• A couple of years ago, I was going on vacation with my husband, and bought 2 toothpastes of a new brand to try. Already in the hotel I opened one of them, tried it — and, honestly, I regretted it: it tasted soapy and coconutty, horrible! But I had to use it. The second tube remained unopened.
  And recently I came across it at home and, without thinking, decided to use it. As soon as I opened it, a wave of memories hit me. That very smell, that very morning in the hotel, when the sun was shining through the window and the ocean was outside the door.
  I even thought I was going to jump out of the bathroom in my swimsuit and run to the waves. Who would have thought that a simple toothpaste could bring you back to a happy moment? © Overheard / Ideer
• I went on vacation with my boyfriend for the first time. We checked into the hotel and started unpacking our suitcases. In the process, I ask him if he took this or that stuff, to which he replies, “My mom packed my suitcase, I don’t know what she put.”
  The guy is 28 years old! And when we were leaving, he asked me to help him repack his bag, because he doesn’t know how. I’m so glad he’s my long time ex now. © Overheard / Ideer

• Last year, while on vacation with my husband, we went to a local market — just to have a look. But he immediately spotted a souvenir there: a laser pointer, and not a simple one, but a super-powerful one. He was overjoyed! Of course, we bought it and went to the beach to test it.
  We shone onto the sand, on palm trees, had fun. And then my husband came up with a “brilliant” idea — to shine the light into the water. Here began a strange thing: something flickered in the beam, but as soon as we directed it straight, this something disappeared.
  For about 10 minutes, we hunted for “something,” making up legends about luminous sea snakes and underwater aliens. And then this “something” suddenly rose to its full height and turned out to be a man who had decided to swim at night and had been trying to dodge our pointer the whole time. © Chamber 6 / VK
• We were on a family vacation to Moab and decided to do whitewater rafting on the Colorado. It was me, my wife, 2 kids and my parents — both in their seventies. We got some hot shot kid for a guide who got off on telling us about all of the daredevil stuff he does.
  We get to the worst of the rapids (class 3 I think) and all of the rafts in front of us peel off away from a huge drop and go around it, and this takes us straight into the hole. First my wife goes off the side, then me and my kids up near the front, and finally my parents.
  My mom gets stuck briefly under the raft, my dad’s life vest comes off as we’re trying to get him back into the raft, my wife and 1 daughter end up floating off and getting picked up by other boats, and my other daughter and I ended up with the boat and trying to get my parents back on.
  This dude thought it was the funniest thing ever. My mom and dad are still pissed about it 5 years later, and none of the rest of my family will go rafting again. © ParticleHustler2 / Reddit
• My first morning in Peru, I went out to breakfast at a restaurant. I ordered coffee and breakfast, and a few minutes later the waiter came back with black coffee, sugar packets, and a big white squeeze bottle type thing.
  I figured it must be some kind of non-dairy creamer, or maybe people in Peru take their coffee with sweetened condensed milk or something. I squeezed the white stuff into my coffee and started stirring. Instead of blending into the coffee, it just broke up into big oily globules across the top of the mug.
  Because it was mayonnaise. Which is the default condiment, a la ketchup in the US, in a lot of South America. It turns out that milk does not come standard with coffee in Peruvian restaurants, you have to specifically ask for it or order a latte or the like. © bmadisonthrowaway / Reddit

• Took the Eurostar to Paris from London for a day trip. It started raining, so we decided to spend the afternoon just relaxing and people watching at a café near the Eiffel Tower.
  Gave ourselves an hour to hail a taxi ride (we were only 3 miles away from the train station), miscalculated how bad Paris rush hour traffic was and after finally getting a ride to accept, he got stuck in traffic and didn’t move for 30 minutes on his way to get us. Contacted him, and he said there’s no way we would make our train waiting on him.
  Decided to rent E-bikes and pedal ourselves to the train station. Paris traffic was crazy, and we weren’t 100% sure of the bike laws, but we just followed other cyclists splitting lanes and squeezing in between buses as our life flashed before our eyes.
  My friend was also in a mini dress, so she was constantly getting cat called riding a bike in a mini dress, but we had no other option. Made the train with minutes to spare. © Alternative-Art3588 / Reddit
• Decades ago, my husband and I were in Cancun with my parents. My mom wanted us to come along to translate for them, as we both speak Spanish, and she was convinced the locals were all talking about her.
  She was very difficult the whole trip, as she is impatient and doesn’t like being in new situations. She was getting frustrated at my dad and berating him verbally in the locker room, as we were watching my mother’s tirade in horror from several feet away, next to the young woman who gave change for the lockers.
  Thinking he was making a funny joke, my husband said to the young woman (in Spanish), “It’s great travelling with your mother-in-law.” The locker attendant looked at my mother, then looked at me, then said to my husband, “You married her daughter?” So I guess the joke was on him.
  Fortunately, I’m not really like my mother, I’m much more like my dad. So my mom was right after all. They were talking about her in Spanish. Needless to say, this was the only trip we ever did with my parents, and that’s fine by me. © Hawkgrrl22 / Reddit
• Kruger Park in South Africa. We stayed at a few different places inside the park. I took a light and a book to go sit on a bench by one of the fences to read and maybe get lucky and see some animals passing by. I had just gotten to the bench when I heard someone yelling, “Lady! Hey! Lady!”
  I thought for sure there was some “don’t walk around after dark” rule I missed and was very embarrassed. That feeling vanished when one second later, the guy shouted, “There’s a hyena behind you!” And so there was.
  I did some deep breathing and walked (not ran) back to the huts, while the hyena appeared very annoyed at all the bright lights being shone on it while it tried to investigate garbage cans. Ended up hanging out at another family’s hut for a little bit while I wait for the path to my own to clear up. © Luminaria19 / Reddit

• A friend of mine won a “Romantic trip to Paris” from some magazine. All she had to do was buy a visa and tickets at her own expense. She and her boyfriend, penniless students, arrived, happy, expecting romance and Parisian glamor... And they were put up in some unheated attic, without a toilet — and that was all that the magazine organized. © Anxiety Cake / ADME
• We wanted to spend a week in the capital with my son. But after the surgery, I began to tolerate the heat much worse, as a result I couldn’t walk outside, and there was no air conditioning in the room, only a weak fan. We decided to finish the vacation early.
  I didn’t tell my husband anything, I decided to make a surprise. We came home and there... it was clean, dishes were washed, food in the pan, cats were fed, my husband was at his computer, working. No, he wasn’t expecting us. It’s just the way he always lives. © Miranda Bush v2.0 / ADME
• I was returning from Armenia, where I bought a ceramic whistle in the shape of a bird — cute, painted. At the inspection in the airport, the officer takes it, twists it this way and that, looks at it, even blew once. Then he looks at me seriously, with a stern squint, and says, “Where did you buy it? I want to give one to my daughter.”

And these travel stories prove that anything can go wrong on vacation.