18 People Who Embarked on Vacations That Left Them With Unforgettable Stories

We all hope for vacations filled with joy and lasting memories, but sometimes things don’t go as expected. Frequent travelers know that it’s hard to avoid unexpected twists and unusual situations. In this article, you’ll read about people who encountered just that on their journeys.

• While on vacation, my wife and I took a one-day tour on a yacht, and there was a middle-aged woman among the passengers. I was headed to the ladder to take a swim when I heard the woman talking to my wife — where we came from, what we had visited, how we were enjoying our holiday, etc. So, I sat down and decided to eavesdrop a little.
  Then the lady asked my wife:
  — How many years is your husband older than you?
  The reason why she asked this is because I am 10 years older than my wife. By the way, my wife also doesn’t like it when strangers ask untactful questions, so she answered:
  — He’s not my husband. I’m with him for his money.
  A little later, I asked what that was all about, and she told me:
  — Now she’ll have enough to gossip about for a month ahead. © CIDR / Pikabu
• I have 2 friends, Nick and Vince. They are brothers. One day, they decided to go on holiday to Thailand with their families for a couple of weeks. So, 2 families get off the plane at the airport and go to get their baggage, and Vince heads toward the toilets. They have already got their baggage, but Vince is still not there.
  Nick is calm, but the women start to get nervous. Especially after the phone has informed them that the subscriber is unavailable. The wives call the security service. The airport staff look at the video surveillance and see Vince getting into a taxi and leaving.
  Anyway, a week later they come down to the hotel lobby for breakfast and see Vince lying on the sofa at the reception. He’s got some tattoos, dirty and unshaven. Apparently the man has had a great holiday. He never revealed where he’d been. © SilverTiger / Pikabu

• A story from our friends. A couple — Sam and Mary — came to their hotel. They spent the whole holiday partying with the hotel entertainers and going to the beach.
  A month later, Sam comes again. One of the entertainers sees him in the lobby and joyfully shouts, “Hey! Where’s Mary?” And then it turns out that Sam is standing with his extremely surprised wife.
  This “smart” guy first went on holiday with his mistress, and then with his wife, to the same hotel. He didn’t even think that everyone knows and remembers him here. © Overheard / Ideer
• I was on vacation overeas with my mom, and we decided to go for a swim. We are used to a very calm sea (technically, a bay), so we didn’t think it was a big deal to swim when there are no lifeguards. As a result, we got caught in a rip current without knowing what it was. My mom was a very weak swimmer, so she told me to swim to the shore and call for help. But the shore was empty, so I knew she just wanted me to leave her and save myself. So I grabbed her by the hand and swam as hard as I could. Luckily, we were close to the shore, and my desperate “sprint” got us to the place where we could stand. We went back and felt insanely sleepy, so we went to sleep and woke up 10 hours later. When we looked out of the hotel window, we noticed the red flags on the beach, and no one was swimming. © Sleepy_Glacier / Reddit
• For our wedding anniversary, my husband and I went to a 5-star hotel where we planned to play golf. We were told there was a mistake in the booking, and we were given a room with a king-size bed, but no fridge or other amenities we’d paid for.
  After an hour of bickering, we were finally given a suite. But that’s not all. We called down to order dinner to bring back to the room. I had special needs, so we asked if they could be met, and they said yes. But after a while, the waiter said, “Sorry, we can’t help you.”
  We tried to go to bed, but some children were screaming behind the wall. Their father told us, “We are on vacation. I am not telling them they have to be quiet.” Anyway, at 4.30 a.m. we moved to another hotel. What a great start to the holiday! © Jennifer Klim / Quora

• During my holiday in Turkey, I got into the habit of swimming in the morning, at 7-8 a.m. So, one day I’m swimming: fish, sand, shells... But then I decided to look around.
  I turn my head and see a huge sea turtle! I look at it, it looks at me, and the next second I’m already on the shore. I don’t know what I was scared of at that moment (the turtle obviously didn’t care much about me), but I’ve never swum that fast like that morning. © Overheard / Ideer
• Was on vacation with my dad in San Diego when I was in 6th grade. Got my period for the first time and freaked out since I didn’t think of it being my period and I thought I was dying. I didn’t tell my dad and waited until I got home and sobbed to my mom about how I was dying. She had a great laugh. © xXBekachuXx / Reddit
• We rented accommodation on holiday. The landlady seemed all right, even gave us bicycles for free. But one evening we decided to have a barbeque, and asked for a grill. It was already quite shabby: in some places the steel was still showing through the soot, but there were very few clean places left.
  We grilled some meat, and I went to wash the grate. I was scrubbing it with all my might. And then the landlady passed by, saw the grate and started yelling that we had ruined it. I was stunned, and the landlady demanded we buy a new one. Her employee came over, took me aside, took the grate and said that everything was fine. © Hasselhoff / Pikabu

• I had a vacation fling once. So, we decided to go boating. I wish we hadn’t, because I didn’t realize that the sea is not a river. We rowed for 20 minutes to the buoy and an hour and a half back to the shore because the wave didn’t let us get closer to the shore.
  I cursed that boat. I rowed so hard that when we returned to the shore, I walked the lady to her room and then went to mine and just fell half-dead on the bed. © Overheard / Ideer
• 10 years ago, after a difficult divorce, a friend of mine went to Turkey and had a short fling with a young hotel entertainer. Upon her return, she found out she was pregnant. She decided to keep the child.
  She informed the “daddy” about it, and he blocked her everywhere. She laughed and forgot about him. The boy grew up smart, healthy and very handsome, just like his daddy. And a year ago, the boy’s father got in touch.
  Turns out, he got married and had a baby girl. And that feeling of love and affection for the baby girl that woke up in him, made him remember about his unwanted and illegitimate, but still the firstborn. The guy said he wanted to meet his son. It sounds strange, but they began to communicate, and with his wife too (he didn’t hide this fact of his life from her), and the spouses invited my friend with her son to visit them.
  The trip turned out just fine, not awkward at all. And the guy’s father began to court my friend (he had been widowed for 5 years), and his son didn’t mind. Anyway, now my friend marries her son’s grandfather. © Caramel / VK

• My mom and I went to Tunisia: I was 18 years old, she was 40. One merchant at the market really liked my mother. He took me aside and explained in gestures that he was ready to give me a jacket and 12 camels if my mother stayed in the country. And I said, “You have 12 camels, and I have only one mom. And my dad won’t agree.”
• We took a quickly planned trip to Playa del Carmen a couple of months ago. The hotel got great ratings, the price was good, so we were all set to lie on the beach, get some sun, have a few drinks and enjoy some Mexican food.
  It rained every day. Not rejuvenating sprinkles, but downpours. Okay.
  We’ll just hang out at the hotel. I got an inexpensive room as I didn’t think we’d be there very much, so we didn’t have a balcony. Sitting in a dark hotel room in Mexico isn’t fun. © Bart Crunk / Quora
• When I was 12, my dad took me to the Grand Canyon. He had bad arthritis and couldn’t walk well, so I asked if he wanted to walk down a trail and he said he’d stay put but I could go. I walked down the trail, like a switchback, only a little ways. Then I turned to see if I could see my dad, and was waving to try to get his attention. I kept waving and backing up and waving, then turned and my back heel was right at the edge of the grand CANYON. I was not the smartest kid. © DueEntertainer0 / Reddit

• We were once invited by our friends to spend a holiday together in a country where they had already been and we had not. They said, “We’ll show you where to go and what is interesting.” We agreed.
  So, we arrived, and it turned out that “interesting” for them is to spend time in 10-story shopping centers, and to fry on the beach in between shopping sessions. And all they talked about was what restaurant to visit. And this was a country with thousands of years of history: stunning architecture, temples and museums.
  We got fed up with them after a couple of days and decided to spend time the way we want. They got offended and said that we ruined their vacation. © Anxiety Cake / ADME
• A few years ago we went on holiday with friends to the sea. There were bicycles for rent in the hotel. I asked if we could rent them, but one of the bikes had a flat tire, I asked where I could get a pump.
  They said that they didn’t have a pump, but I could go to a shop and buy one. Could you at least tell me the address? They replied, “You need it, you look for it.”
  In the end, 5 people who were ready to rent 5 bikes for 2–3 hours just went to the beach. I don’t even know how to rate this service. © DenimDef / Pikabu
• In India, I checked in at the hotel. A friend calls from the neighboring room and says, “Is this normal here?” I enter his room, he shows me a curtain on the wall, which seems to cover the window. Then he opens the curtain, and there’s a hole that leads to the flat in the neighboring building.
  There’s no window on that side, nothing, just people walking around, putting dinner on the table, watching TV. We pulled the curtain back to its original position. © Kaiebard / Pikabu

• In Indonesia, it all started after we had had a nice dinner in a local restaurant, far away from tourists and the like. Maybe that was the first mistake. The dishes contained some fresh vegetables, and we forgot all the warnings about not drinking tap water, not under any circumstances. And fresh vegetables are often washed in tap water, of course.
  Near the late evening, first my sisters, then my mother and father got really sick. The night turned to be a vomiting feast for the 4 of them. I was the only one not feeling sick at all. The next day, my sisters and parents still were really sick, so they stayed in bed. I decided to swim. A lot.
  Feeling heroic at the time, I planned to cross the 20 meter-long swimming pool a dazzling 250 times, thus reaching the magical 5000-meter limit. But there were a couple of things I missed.
  First of all, it was very hot outside, and swimming under the burning sun, I had totally forgotten to apply sunscreen. And secondly, I forgot to bring water with me, or food. The latter non-decision made me really thirsty after a while, but also my stomach started to bother me, as it was crying for food in bombastic thunder for most of the second half of the swim. The sun lotion ordeal was worse though.
  When I came back to our room, my parents screamed, “You’re back!!! You look like a lobster!!!” And that was an understatement, my dear friend. When the day progressed, I started to get a headache, and feel nauseous.
  A full-blooded sunstroke was opening its wings, and invited me inside. And by the time my sisters and parents felt okay again, I was vomiting all over the place. Ah, Jakarta. We fought, and you won. © Thomas Cayne / Quora
• We witnessed a real waterfall in our hotel suite when we turned off the air conditioner. I was lucky that, a second before that, I picked up my new digital camera from the table that was standing right below the air conditioner. © C est La Vie Lily / ADME

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