Travel Nightmares – Common Travel Problems

I once had a friend who lived by the mantra that failure to plan is planning to fail. You’d be surprised how often she pulled that chestnut out of the bag. Personally, I think she just loved making lists and organizing her day down to the last minute.

Most of the time, the saying rings true. If you don’t plan, success is far from guaranteed. If you do take the time to plan, your chances of getting what you want increase somewhat. However, then there’s traveling. You can plan your journey and make all the necessary arrangements around money (see Best Apps to Transfer Money Internationally) and still, things can go wrong.

Sometimes, things just go wrong. Let’s look at some of the more common sticky situations you could encounter while traveling.

Unhygienic Accommodation

You woke up at 4AM and headed to the airport for 6AM for a flight at 8:30AM. After a two hour unexplained delay you finally board the plane at 10:30AM. The flight is 5 hours. Added to the travel time to the hotel once your land, you’ve now been awake and in the same clothes for maybe 13 hours. You can’t wait to get to your room and freshen up a bit.

But wait. There’s a problem. Your room is filthy. There are stains on the sheets, the floor doesn’t look like it’s seen a mop in a week, and there are still droplets of water in the shower and wash basin. This pace has not been cleaned. Not properly. Your main option is, of course, to speak to management … the threat of a poor social media review might sway things in your favor.

Illness 

Illness while traveling is common. New bacteria – to you – is on just about every surface. Or you may have forgotten not to drink the water (which also means avoiding salad washed under a tap or having ice cubes in your drink). Whatever the case, you may need hospital treatment in the worst cases. The best thing to do is to ask your hotel to call for you, because of the language barrier.

Stave off the prospect of most illnesses while traveling by making sure that you pack rehydration salts, mosquito repellent, anti-diarrhea tablets, anti-bacterial hand-wash, and even painkillers to help wait out an illness in your hotel room.

Feeling Homesick

Feeling lonely and homesick can leave you reconsidering your next steps. Should you just go home? Was this all a bad idea? There’s nothing else for it. You’re going to have to mingle. Speaking to people while abroad is actually really fun – they’ll be excited to meet someone from faraway lands. Start a conversation in a public place. Ask for a recommendation for lunch or enquire about things to see in town. Brandish a map. It’s that easy.

Photo by Renata Schaitza on Unsplash

Photo by Ryan Christodoulou on Unsplash