r/TravelMistakes

I feel a bit stupid but recently I was flying with Ryanair with a backpack I travel with on a monthly basis with the airline without any problems. Of course, this time a lady operating the check in by the gate picked on me and said my bag was too big and that I had to pay a fine. She was really quite cruel and impolite about it. I asked her to explain the situation because I had headphones in at the time and she spoke a different language and she shouted at me that I needed to be quiet and wait and why I was talking in English. It was a very unpleasant experience. I wasn’t the only one. There was another girl there, young, maybe around 17-22. They were asking her to pay a fine too. She was with her friends who had already boarded. She said she couldn’t pay because she only had cash (I saw her 100 euro bill). They weren’t accepting cash and only physical card payments. She was begging but they said if she doesn’t find a solution they need to close the gate now and she can always catch the next flight.

Having been in the exact shitty situation myself and having the same stress about catching another flight I offered to pay for her as well under the agreement that she would pay me back. Honestly I assumed immediately with online banking or something.

It wasn’t a crazy amount of money; 60 euros each but still not something I wanted to pay for a stranger I don’t know…

After we cleared the situation she somewhat said thank you. We were trying to sort out how she’d pay me back. She handed me the 100 euro bill and out of stupidity and kindness I asked if she had any Change and if she didn’t that I would be happy if she just transferred the money instead.

She took out her phone and to my surprise asked for my phone number instead. By that time we had to board and take our seats. I told her to come and see me during the flight so we could exchange phone numbers and she of course didn’t. I then had to wait for her when disembarking and exchange numbers then. I immediately sent her a text with my banking details and asked her to please confirm when she’s sent the money.

It’s been three days and nothing. I sent her another text with my banking details again (it disappeared because WhatsApp had some 24 hours disappearing messages setting on) ans asking if she could please send me the money that day and if she couldn’t whether she could ask her parents or friends to do so. She’s aired me.

I don’t get it. Am I the asshole here?? If I owed a stranger money, a stranger who literally saved me from having to spend 300 euros on a new flight and have my holiday ruined, I would IMMEDIATELY pay them back. I didn’t do it so that she’d fall to her knees thanking me but I genuinely was surprised by the lack of appreciation/thank you and lack of any urgency to pay me back.

What should I do? Do you have any idea how I could get my money back? I just have a phone number from her. Is that enough to pursue this? At this point it’s really the principle of it and the fact that this month has been really killer. I’m myself struggling with some financial commitments and have a few things to pay off. It would be nice to have my money back. 😅

One of mine was having an international layover in Amsterdam that was less than an hour to get to, and we experienced a weather delay on my departure flight which caused us to arrive late. I was then rebooked on a flight 12 hours later, so I went and explored Amsterdam for the 3rd time! But.. when I got back to the Airport the flight got pushed and changed to a gate across the Airport. And shocker... The Aircrew was not ready! So we waited another 3hrs to depart. My rental care was scheduled for earlier in the day, so I had to try and rebook it! Once I got to my final destination it was 1am... I had to drive another 45mins to my destination... And my luggage was nowhere to be found... at this point I was a little panicked. But I was finally able to find it in a separate area and luckily there was one rental car company still open! Anxiety driven adventure it was...

Currently staying in a remote property in Rangrik and honestly the whole point of coming here was peace and quiet. The place is otherwise beautiful — silent mountains, cold air, stars, no city chaos.

But there’s big Gujarati family here letting their kids run and scream in the corridor for hours like it’s a playground 😭

I genuinely don’t understand why people come to such calm places and then recreate a shopping mall atmosphere inside the hotel. Sound travels SO much in these mountain properties too.

Am I overreacting for being annoyed or is basic corridor etiquette in quiet stays still a thing?

did my first solo trip recently in Istanbul and i genuinely thought i had everything figured out beforehand

saved a bunch of cafes, restaurants, museums, viewpoints etc
watched TikToks for days
made a whole “perfect” itinerary for myself akdjfhs

then day 1 actually started and my brain completely stopped working 😭

i woke up and immediately realized i had no idea how to structure the day

like do i start from the farthest place and work backwards?
or stay around the center first?
is crossing to the other side of the city worth it right now?
what if i get tired early?
why did i save restaurants that are somehow 50 mins away from everything else 💀

at one point i sat in a random cafe for almost an hour just staring at google maps trying to figure out what order made sense lmao

and somehow i still ended up:

• spending half the day in metro/walking
• missing a place i actually wanted to see
• arriving at a restaurant literally 10 mins before closing
• being exhausted by like 4pm

the funniest part is the trip itself was actually good 😭
it was just the planning part that quietly destroyed me

idk how some people make traveling look so smooth honestly

I'm heading to Istanbul and Medellín in the next few months for my first real solo trips and honestly the safety side is what's making me nervous. Not enough to cancel, but enough that I keep googling "is X neighborhood safe at night" and getting conflicting info from old blog posts.

For those of you who've been in genuinely sketchy situations got scammed, felt unsafe, had something stolen how did you actually handle it in the moment? And how did you know about the risk beforehand (or did you not)?

Curious what tools/apps/habits you use to stay safe, or if you just wing it and hope for the best.