Interesting/Funny Travel Stories

[snowchick7669]

I know we all have at least some weird stories about going somewhere, like how horribly lost you got or stupid things you managed to do while there.

I'll start. When my sister and I were flying back from England by ourselves (I was 14 and she was 17), we stopped in Germany and had to find our gate for our flight to Singapore (New Zealand is a long way away!). We ended up finding our gate and proceeded to hand our tickets to the man waiting patiently, luckily he was more on to it then us and pointed us in the right direction as we were attempting to fly to Baghdad (we got the gate correct but were in the wrong section of the airport).

We did arrive in New Zealand about 2 days later after a lot of plane hopping and plenty of card games.

 

[raybay]

I hope it was funny at the time, because it sure would not have been funny when my Son and I were over there trying to wend through the Baghdad airport...
New Zealand was fun... flew in with with Edmund Hillary... with great stories... I guess he was from there.

 

[snowchick7669]

Sir Edmund Hilary?

Hes like a legend in NZ, is even on our $5 bill. Died recently actually.

He was a good guy

 

[raybay]

He truly was a great guy. We later worked together in Nepal digging sewers... He was down in the mud more and longer than the locals... He loved the Nepalese people and did great work in building their sanitation system... but he will be remembered for the climb and not the awful, smelly miles and miles of mud.

 

[Kotu2]

i was going back home from halfway across the world and i got a bloody nose and almost missed my plane. On the plane I sat on chocolate and it melted when I was asleep. When I walked out of the plane with blood on my shirt and melted chocolate on me a person asked me if anything happened in the plane, specifically in the bathroom.
The worst thing is this actually happened.

 

[snowchick7669]

@raybay Military backround?

 

[SNGX1275]

Not really that funny or interesting but I was flying from St. Louis to the Bahamas (for a class) and our first stop was Miami. When we got close to Miami the captain said there were some storms around and we were going to cut further south and come in from over the keys. We could see some pretty big clouds on our approach.

When we got to Miami we were supposed to have about 2.5 hours layover before catching a plane to Nassau, but during that time some big storms had moved into Miami and got the airport shut down several times. We finally did get on the plane to Nassau about 6 hours later.

We stayed the night in Nassau and were to fly out to San Salvador Island in the morning so we'd be at our research station for lunch, then start doing some work that afternoon. We left Nassau on time and about half way there the captain said San Sal airport was shut down because of bad weather, but it might be passed by the time we get there so we continued on. We get right above the island and start our approach, we probably got within 100m of the ground and the pilot aborted the landing because of the weather. We maybe didn't have enough fuel to get back to Nassau so we landed on Exuma Island and were stuck there until the plane could get refueled which somehow took over an hour. Then we flew back to Nassau even though San Sal was probably clear at that time and was only about 20 minutes away as opposed to 40 to Nassau. Once in Nassau we were stuck there until about 6pm before we could get another plane to take us to San Sal. We finally did get there after dinner, while taxiing to the terminal there were places where we went through water over a half meter deep. The lead guy at the research station said he's been on the island for like 5 years and had never seen it rain that much in one day.

 

[snowchick7669]

Haha aw. The weather always seems to be crap whenever I try to fly anywhere, so over sitting in airports trying to entertain myself

Hope you went in summer, would have been good

 

[werepossum]

Not my story but my folks', but before the fall of the iron curtain they went on a trip to Europe with a tour group. The plane to fly them back to the States had an oil leak in one engine and was thus authorized to fly, but not to cross the Atlantic. They flew from France to Atlanta via the Soviet Union, straight up the coast, crossing over into Alaska, then across Canada and down the US coast. At each airport within the Soviet Union the plane had to close all window shades before approach, then military guards with submachine guns would board the plane and make sure no one got out of his seat or photographed their super-secret civilian airport. The passengers couldn't even use the bathroom when they were stopped, and some of the layovers took a couple hours to get the paperwork straight, refuel the plane, and check (and presumably top off the oil in) the ailing engine. Eventually the toilets filled up or malfunctioned and no one could use them even in flight. (Evidently the Soviets would take airliners full of suspected spies and sell them fuel, but wouldn't service their capitalist pig toilet tanks.) Took them twenty-eight hours in that same plane to make Atlanta, where they promptly rented a car to get home to Tennessee.

Worst I've experienced is missing a plane in North Carolina because the ***** screeners had only one metal detector operating and spent half an hour repeatedly pushing an old woman in a wheelchair through the metal detector, watching it alarm, then pulling her back and examining her clothing and person. IT'S A FREAKING METAL CHAIR ON WHEELS, PEOPLE! Eventually a supervisor showed up and made half the screeners open a second metal detector line, but by the time we got through they had closed boarding for our flight. (Yes, they were still trying to figure out why the metal wheelchair was setting off the metal detector when we finally made it through the other line.) Of course the airport was backed up, so we got to watch our plane sit there connected to the terminal via its bridge for almost an hour before it was cleared to taxi away and wait some more.

 

[BorisandBailey]

In 1990, I was driving towards Cisco, Utah, when the police stopped me and told me to turn back. The part of "Thelma and Louise" where they were robbing a small desert store was being filmed. Then I spent time at Dead Horse Point, where I saw a ramp built on a cliff. It was for the final scene of "Thelma and Louise" where they drove off the cliff.

 

[raybay]

That's interesting. Most people I know thought it was filmed on a road near Aneth, Utah on the Navajo Reservation.

 

[LsChar]

My odd travel story

Once went "hitch-hiking" from east coast USA to Texas carrying nothing but a guitar and backpack. The entire trip took three days and three nights. I met MANY people, some strange, some stranger, and some were pretty cool. Originally i had planned to go with a friend to San Antonio. My buddy never showed up. Years later I found out he had been arrested shortly before our rendezvous time.

The first person to "pick me up" must have been Fate herself for she only drove me 2 miles but talked with me for 2 hours on the side of the road, talked me into Austin, and managed to slip 40 dollars, a map, and close family (her family in Austin) contact info into my guitar (which i didn't realize until i got much further south)...

*/ details omitted to save from boring you to tears! /*

Long story made short, at the end of my trip, i found myself in Austin, TX, penniless, poor, hungry, and my pride stopped me from calling the people on my list. I was sitting at a bus stop about to give up when Lady fate herself came calling again in another form.

A young lady sat down beside me on the bench. I explained my story (the LONG version of course). When our conversation was finished, she handed me a small foldout type billfold full of business cards and a monthly bus pass. I found an establishment on one of the cards that sounded like it may be just what I needed. I got on the right city bus but fell asleep! When i came to my senses again, i had missed my stop by 20 blocks or more and felt like giving up again. I pulled the chain to signal my stop.

When i stepped off the city bus, much to my surprise, the place i was looking for was there in front of me. As it turns out, they had moved their establishment since the printing of the card and happened to be located where i ended up by accident. They turned out to be most helpful. I was able to start a life on my own at 18 yrs old and begin a new adventure as exciting as the adventure to get there!