Everyone wants their vacation to be filled with positive emotions and unforgettable experiences, but sometimes plans are forced to be changed along the way. People who travel a lot know that it’s almost impossible to stay away from adventures and curious situations. The heroes of this article experienced stories exactly like this.
Story 1
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
Story 2
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 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
Story 4
A neighbor told me about how they went on holiday to Greece with their young daughter. They spent 12 days out of 14 in a quarantined room because their daughter had chicken pox. © Confusion / ADME
Story 5
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
Story 6
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 had a vacation on Cyprus. We travelled from Larnaca to Paphos for 2.5 hours at night in 90-degree heat in a bus with a broken air conditioner. And the attendant asked each passenger to tip the driver because it was their custom. © Yrten1966 / ADME
Story 8
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
Story 9
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
Story 10
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
Story 11
19 years ago, I decided to go to Italy with 3 friends. We arrive at the Tuscan farmhouse where we are staying. Despite all having paid the same money, the rooms in the farmhouse were of varying quality.
Guess who got the farmhand’s rooms, cold and with bugs and creaking cot beds with hardly any blankets? Yup, us. © Janet Reedman / Quora
Story 12
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
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
Story 14
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
Story 15
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
Story 16
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
Story 17
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
Story 18
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.