We don’t talk enough about the AFTER TRAVELING EFFECT = when you sit down and have to digest all that you’ve been through, all that’s happened to you in that little crazy condense of life but you need to work through it to build the New Version of the Traveler you want to be!
Part of this work will be working through your TRAVEL TRAUMAS! When some bad things have happened to you and you had to figure things out on your own, knowing very little about what was going on!
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Some of those experiences have lead to small insignificant disasters and some of them have lead you to the most interesting twists and encounters. Some others are just meant to teach you something about Traveling in the World Today and make you become a more Informed Traveler.
In any case, you’ve got to let those Fears and Disasters get released: don’t carry them in your baggages my friend, drop it off here and now!
That’s why I encourage you to use the comment section of this Newsletter to share your own Personal Travel Disasters & Traumas: when it all goes wrong but finds its way back to normal in the end!
And remember: you finally made it in the end!!
So first, I’ll give it a go with my experiences (I have quite a big collection haha!!), I hope you will have a good laugh reading how I got in a funk so many times, screaming and crying at the world being so unfair to me and I hope you will be willing to share yours with me and the community in return!
Ready – Steady – Go!!!
After Traveling, we need to learn how to De-Traumatize Ourselves
and realize it can actually be Fun!!
Cabin luggage not Allowed in Cabins! F this!!!!!!
This one was beyond nonsense!
I registered and PAID for a cabin luggage in a low cost company.
And I paid a lot for this ridiculous luggage that had to be less than 10 kilos. So I manage to go with less than 10 kilos for One Month and guess what?
At the boarding Gate, they tell me I should not board with this suitcase, it should have been registered to go in the hold of the plane so they charged me an extra 65 euros, like a big fine!!! Which was more than the cost of the flight itself!!!!
Then of course you make a claim and guess what?
You can’t make a claim because there is no section that corresponds to your type of claim and you’re blocked everywhere.
Then they give you a Phone number where you are charged for every minute so if you try to call them it will easily be an extra 30 euros on you, and only to hear a ridiculous answer, similar to their initial excuse: there are rules…
Yeah but they never wrote that rule anywhere!!! So how fair is that???
If you want people to put a cabin luggage outside of the cabin, don’t you have to put like a big note with a fluorescent highlight?
Or do you intentionally trap people to get a bit more cash? Humm?
The cheapest flight… is not always the cheapest way!
Volotea, low cost nightmare airline in EU
Volotea, you deserve to have your name written here. When you refused to listen to me, I told you I was running a Travel Newsletter that will be read by thousands of people and I promised you would have your name on it.
So well done Volotea, you are now ranked as my Nightmare Travel Companies #1 and I will never forget what you’ve done to me!!!!!!!! Especially the way your agent behaved with me, making me stand next to him in front of everybody, waiting for every single person to pass before he let me pay and go seat down. This was so humiliating and unnecessary.
And this article will happily remain online for ever, describing how Volotea treat passengers.
Late bus that lets you board so early in advance! F this!!!
What a nightmare I had in the UK, in London once. Our bus was running late and we were waiting. 3 hours or something like that. And it was announced to leave at 1pm.
15 minutes before, I came back to board on my bus.
And guess what?
A horrible guy closed the door on my nose, intentionally preventing me from boarding on my bus.
I couldn’t stop crying.
The BUS WAS THERE, in front of me for more than 10 minutes, I was watching it, had paid my ticket and the guy decided it was too late for me to board, that I should have boarded 20 minutes before while I had not idea about that – where was I informed about that rule???? A bus is not a plane to my knowledge, how can you do that?
The bus was there, a few meters away and he really prevented me from getting on it. How horrible… That was a trauma and guess what?
There was a marathon that day in London, no bus before the next morning, I had a suitcase that needed two yankees to carry and it was impossible to find a room in the area + it was three times more expensive than usual, not a single bed in a hostel was still available.
I ended up in a mediocre room at 150 pounds the night… as it was basically taking this or staying outside, in winter time, of course…
Plane that Leaves without you! How can this happen?!!!
Now I feel like I already have told you about my worst Travel Nightmares but no, wait, this one hits the record!!
I arrive in Miami airport, on a stormy and rainy day, for a connection between Seattle and Guatemala City.
We are delayed and wait for hours in the airport.
We are being changed of gates maybe 5 times so we go from one gate to the other like a little pack of sheep.
Then we finally board on our plane but, as weird as it sounds, we don’t go. We stay in the plane, steady, for hours…
Then I hear the pilot say it will take more than another extra hour for us to go. As it had been several hours already inside the plane without moving, they tell us to go in the airport to get some food. Which I do… Get a quick lunch, it takes me maybe 25 minutes, and then I start to rush back to the plane, not wanting to waste too much time…
And guess what..?
When I come back, that f…cking plane was gone!!!! Gooooooooone!!! I still can’t stress this out!!!! I can still feel the trauma running through my heart and I nervously laugh.
Oh my god, they had left. Oh my god… How could that be possible…
When I had left the plane, I had asked: how long can we be gone for? The guy said he didn’t know…
And then, the fun doesn’t stop here my friend, it’s not finished, the worst was yet to come.
There was a huge storm and rain fall over Miami that day and later on I was shocked looking at the videos of what was going on outside. It was flooding everywhere.
So guess what’s happened in Miami airport that exact same day?
More than 200 flights got canceled – so how many people tried to reach the counter at the same time as me?
A queue of THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!
I started to queue in the early afternoon and I reached the counter at 2am!!!
No water – no chairs – no one at all from American Airlines to just show us a bit of humanity, nothing at all.
My worst fear was that online it was saying I could only go two days later but in the end, I got rebooked the next morning.
The good thing about this one is that I made a few friends in the queue, we spent the whole adventure together and we are still in touch today. None of us will ever forget that travel disaster.
Bus Driver that just goes to lunch at Departure time! Can you believe it?!!
A small one so you can catch your breath again.
In the center of France, middle-sized town, I book a bus ticket to go to the airport in Lyon and when we are all waiting for the bus, the bus driver arrives and he parks the bus.
He says absolutely nothing to us, does nothing special, and at the time when we were supposed to leave, he just goes to have lunch!!
Someone just heard him say it to someone, didn’t make any announcement, like it’s normal to go for a break when it’s time to leave.
And he came back to the bus for us to leave one hour later.
With an attitude of this being beyond normal.
But is it?
Really?
Is that guy mentally healthy? How can you behave like in the face of 40 people waiting for you outside under the rain?…And feel so relaxed about it?
The 90 days Tourist Visa is NOOOT 3 months! Watch Out!
Oh that Visa trap! Oh my god! What a silly one!
I think we are many who got trapped by this silly count of the days…
The 90 days on a Tourist Visa looks like it’s roughly three months!
But it’s not and it can be quite far from it!
I calculated three months in the U.S., a bit less, between my stay in Thaïland and in Guatemala. I knew I had arrived on the 15th of March and I planned to leave on the 11th of June, thinking it would be more than ok.
But when I passed the border and customs they told me I had stayed 91 days so if I would want to come back on a Tourist Visa, especially on this ESTA, I could be refused at the airport.
The officer told me to ask for a B1/B2 visa if I wanted to come back so I appreciate that he offered a constructive solution, but that Visa is actually quite challenging to get. So I don’t even know if I’ll ever be able to enter the US as a tourist again.
And I’m especially not going to try this right now with what’s going on there!! What a shame!!
Suitcase destroyed = don’t leave the airport without sorting it out!! Travelers, Be Aware!!
When I flew over the Fidji islands towards Australia, I felt like I got a glimpse of heaven. The Fidji islands really looked amazing from the plane and I thought I should definitely make this a future destination.
When I arrived at the airport, I think I caught them into developing an illegal business.
They found the excuse of a plastic zip bag for my health products, they didn’t give us any chance to get one so they were filling up a whole basket with our creams, shampoo, soap, toothpaste, etc. It was ridiculous, purely stealing us, openly and softly with a smile.
I got into my second flight after checking a few mails (keep this in mind for the next one) and when I arrived in Melbourne, Australia, it was pouring cats and dogs.
I picked my suitcase and I thought everything was fine: I had made it to the other side of the world!
But when I arrived at my guest’s house, surprise! My suitcase wheels (which was a brand new suitcase) were completely destroyed. Like smashed. See below!!
So we tried to find information about what I could do as it was a brand new suitcase, and guess what?
The trick is that anything you can do about this, if there is anything at all, you have to do it at the airport. And of course, airports are so far away from the city most of the time that when you have arrived where you stay, it’s just too late. You’re not gonna drive there again for that… So just sigh « fffff », write to their customer service to release your chest… And move on.
The Data Trap – Phone Companies, are you kidding me?!!
When you’re transiting between two flights, be so extra careful about the data policy with your phone.
I got trapped twice, in transit in countries where my phone offer wasn’t compatible – Fidji and Japan – and I used it for 20 minutes to post on social media and check a few emails and got a nice bill as a result. Like an extra 100 euros for 20 minutes of Data.
When your offer doesn’t cover a country, turn your DATA OFF when you transit through the airport and do not use your phone at all. Because even if it’s roaming and you’re not using it, you will be billed for it.
This also happened to me while being « at sea » on a ferry for a whole night between Crete and Greece – when you’re at sea, you’re borrowing the sea network and it’s usually not part of your offer so it will also be a crazy price for a short use of it.
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Thanks for that information sounds stressful.🙂🐬🏴🎶
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