15 People Share Their Most Cringe-Worthy Travel Mistakes (And They’re Hilarious)

French novelist Émile Zola famously once said “Nothing develops intelligence like travel” because traveling always present unique challenges we’re forced to navigate.

Planning the trip, punctually getting to the airport, and ensuring you have the necessary passports, visas, and vaccination documents, is all just the beginning.

There’s also issues that arise with renting cars, purchasing train tickets when you need a bus ticket, and managing hotel reservations when you don’t speak the local language.

To get down to the specifics of silly travel mistakes people have made, Reddit user Medium-Decision6899 posed an intriguing question to the Reddit travel forum:

“What is the dumbest travel mistake you’ve made?”

The responses ranged from booking errors and airport mishaps to passport issues; some were hilarious, while others served as valuable lessons on what NOT to do when traveling.

Here are 15 of our favorite responses to the question to help you can avoid dumb travel mistakes in the future.

1. Transportation Fail

I booked a train from Venice at the Trenitalia site. When the train never arrived I discovered I’d booked a bus. We missed it. —MaddBadger

2. Wife Left Husband at the Airport

Not me but my husband. The night before our first trip to Barcelona he noticed his passport had expired.

Hotels were nonrefundable at that point so I waved goodbye and did the trip solo. —Trekker_Cynthia

3. No Underwear Hiking Trip

Went on a weeklong hiking trip to the Grand Canyon in college and I forgot to pack a single pair of underwear 😩

I had to end up going to the doctor when I got home I had such a bad rash on my [male parts]. —Deleted User

5. What Month Is It Again?

I once booked a month long Airbnb for the wrong month. —Bruce_e

6. Skiplagging Disaster

Before I knew skiplagging was a thing I had a flight to Budapest with a connection in Frankfurt.

Found out some friends were in Nuremburg so I decided get off in Frankfurt and take the train to meet them.

Luckily I had planned to check my bag so I asked ticket agent to just tag my bag through Frankfurt.

That’s when I got educated on what happens when you intentionally miss a leg on your ticket.

My return tickets would’ve been canceled and I would’ve been none the wiser until two weeks later on my way home.

I ended up paying $300 in change fees to modify the ticket. —HippyChaiYay

7. No Cash; No Wallet; No Nothing

I do a really stupid thing almost every time I travel!

Most notable: leaving all cash and IDs in my safe in the hotel room in Mexico and going into town with only one credit card.

Didn’t realize it until I had to try and get a ride back to the hotel and no one had ability to take credit.

No banks would give me cash advance obviously. Had to beg a shop keeper to charge my card for cash — he charged me $80 and gave me $30. —CalmAsYouAre

8. Took Someone Else’s Luggage

1990’s. Took a redeye charter to the greek islands. Opened the duty free on the plane and got drunk and wasted, as good 19year olds do on a boys-trip.

Arrived. We saw our two bags on the luggage band. Grabbed them, took the chartered bus to the hotel. Crashed in bed after checking in to the hotel.

After 1 hour got woken up by the tour guide knocking on our door. He had two identical bags in his hand.

He informed us we took some other guests bags at the airport. Oops 🙄 —HattoriHanzo_AMS

9. No Warm Clothes on a Snow Day

I booked a trip to Istanbul in December, assumed it would be warm because it was on the Mediterranean and in the Middle East.

Didn’t check the weather predictions, didn’t pack any warm clothes, and it was snowing when I arrived. —ShinjukuAce

10. AM vs PM

Arriving at 1:00 pm for a 1:00 am flight… 12 hours too late. The flight was from India to US so it was a very expensive mistake. —bradkwells

11. Bloody Suitcase

I agreed to carry a parcel of raw meat home to LA from some acquaintances in Dhaka.

I had gotten ill in Dhaka so I was in no mental state to question why the [f word] they would want me to do that.

It leaked blood inside my luggage which ensured the customs officials wanted nothing to do with it. I still wonder what that was about. —No-Understanding4968

12. The Wrong What?!

I booked a hotel in the wrong country. —buttterz1

13. Going Commando in Brazil

I forgot underwear on a three week trip to South America.

No offense to the Brazilians here but let’s say their men’s style of underwear was not my idea of comfortable. —JennItalia269

14. Guns in the Truck

Borrowed my dad’s old truck to do some wilderness camping with a buddy across the Canadian border in Yukon (I’m from Alaska obviously).

Told the border agent I had no guns, ammo, etc but they searched the vehicle anyways and lo an behold my dad had a hidden compartment under the back seat with a .357 and a box of ammo lol.

They pulled us out and had us stuck in an interrogation room while they called my dad as it was his name on the registration.

He confirmed it was his fault as he forgot it was in there and they actually let us go and they kept the gun. We camped for a week lol.

My dad had to drive 250 miles to the border to pick up the gun. —BeefosaurusRekt

15. Sick With Delhi Belly

I ate a meal with raw vegetables at a gas station on the bus from Kathmandu to Delhi. Big mistake, was ill the remainder of the trip. —Kaste

Want to see more travel fails and lessons? Check out the entire Reddit thread here.