Biggest Travel Mistakes -Well, there's certainly been a few. We one time were going on a hiking trip to the north end of Vancouver Island. I realized just as we were driving out the driveway that I had left my hiking shoes. I asked my 13yr old daughter to run in and get them....no problem. The only problem was when I went to put them on as our group was starting the hike the next morning and discovered I had 2 left shoes. The blisters from that trip lasted 6 months.

However at the end of our last trip to Rome the plan was to next go visit some friends who were on a long stay in Aix.We planned this all through the internet at home, where it all seemed extremely do-able. We awoke in Rome that morning to one of the very warm sultry days just telling you that a major storm was on the way. Our plan was taxi to the Ciampino airport, fly Easy Jet to Nice, take the navetto bus to the train station, then get on the TGV to Aix where we had a booked car waiting for us. It honestly did sound quite feasible sitting back in my warm office at home? Well, the day started with the taxi not showing up and it went downhill from there. But at each step, we just kept continuing with tight grins on our faces, determined to show that we could do this "wonderous" trip and darn well enjoy it too. And after a while, we began to relax and go more with the flow and stop trying to make it all perfect..........in effect we had a good time. UNTIL we picked up our AutoEurope car at the Aix TGV station. We had brought various maps for all parts of our trip EXCEPT the trip from the TGV to the outskirts of Aix....we figured how hard can this be? Seriously!! Well. apparently quite a bit more difficult when it is dusk, there are no attendants on hand who speak english and the train station and all car lease companies are sold out of ALL maps?? So we were pointed in a general direction with a lot of smiles.

After having deciphered out that the upcoming city was Nice and Aix was probably the lights way behind us, we attempted to get off our first major road smack dap into an unmanned toll station with no correct coin. When that was resolved, we decided to take side roads make to Aix as we had no other change on us. I "think" it was a very nice drive but in the dark it is very hard to really pick out the scenery. We finally get in the roundabout outside the Cours Mirabeau and spend who knows how long going around in circles attempting to read the street signs now in total dark. We definitely overstayed our welcome - I say 10 times, my hubby says 7.

And yes, it gets worse. We, by pure luck and a google mag, locate our friends rental road..........they had mentioned the road was narrow. We started travelling this lane in the dark - of course no street lights - following another car who assures us that the address we want is just a couple of doors up. We are creeping up a road (HAH!) that has gotten so narrow that not only are the doors no longer able to be opened, but our side windows are scraping - ON BOTH SIDES AT THE SAME TIME! Our helpful gentlemen in the car in front has pulled into a byway to tell us, so sorry, you've actually passed the house and you will now have to back down the road. We could only get his advice through rolled down windows as neither of our doors would budge.

At this point, my hubby and I took a moment to regroup and confirm that we were in this together.

So, there we went, scraping both mirrors, one or more side panels (which all sounded horrendous when you are sitting in the car) We got into our friend's drive where they were standing just shaking their head at us saying "we really didn't think you would find our place and were waiting for your call so we could tell you about the road" Insult to injury - it was a BRAND NEW rental.

The next morning we guided the car back down the hill to find a new parking spot. I walked behind and just banged on the bumper as we would nudge one rock wall or the other.

I thought I would attach a photo of us leaving (with our backpacks) a few days later to meet up with the car and start the "interesting" car return process. The road we are walking on is the one in question.

Great advice on this thread! On another note, my cat was very disturbed by the screaming in that video..

1. Cheap, horrible luggage from flea market. HEAVY! poorly designed, falls over when packed. One good quality Rick Steves bag would've been cheaper than all those broken suitcases. I love my Eagle Creek Tarmac too.

2. Underpacking: One outfit per day is not enough! I used to run out of clothes less than half way through any trip (without planning on it!)

3. Ovepacking: Most noticeably my unwillingness to give up blue jeans: too bulky, too heavy, too hard to wash and dry.

4. Not leaving enough empty space in suitcase for bringing things back.

5. The clothes I wear at home are often inappropriate and out-of-place when traveling. Don't bring them. And vice-versa, the clothes I buy on the road don't fit the culture,lifestyle, climate back home even though they were perfect when I bought them.

6. Not bringing a digital camera on trip to Italy because I didn't think I would take too many pictures. Big mistake. Spent a fortune on disposable cameras and developing film.

7. Not doing the last minute, all-ready-to-go, one-foot-out-the-door, bags-packed final check of the hotel room.. I've left behind a cell phone, two chargers, misc. toiletries, and an travel alarm. Oh, well, those were cheap lessons.

8. Buying small trinkets instead of something fabulous yet expensive because it felt financially imprudent and self-indulgent. Truth is a few quality items are a fantastic use of hard-earned money because they become treasures. Ordinary items are just that-- ordinary junk cluttering up your house.

9. Ran out of Bactrim two days before leaving Guatemala, since it was expensive I didn't buy more. (I know you're horrified, but that was conventional wisdom back then.) Two days was all it took. I was sick as a dog on the return flight, had to go the hospital when I got home, cost me a few hundred dollars to see an intern (a HUGE sum of money at the time!) All because I didn't buy another box of Bactrim. I don't know what I'd do if I had to go back, now that I'm older and wiser and know you shouldn't do that.

10. Not laying out ALL my clothes and assembling other items on the bed and taking inventory BEFORE I pack anything in my suitcase. More than once I thought I already packed something, but I didn't... so it was still hanging on the door at home when I arrived at my destination, or I didn't have the right shoes, etc.

11. Not verifying my flight BEFORE leaving the house only to find that the flight had been delayed six hours.

12. Double check ID carefully. Had my expired license in wallet. After a moment of panic, I found my current one in a side pocket of my wallet. I was lucky, but it was still a stupid mistake.

Gosh. None of that sounds too bad does it?

Same here, lived in Germany for 3 years and didn't start traveling until my last 1.5 yr there.

quote:

Originally posted by Leslie Erickson, CTA:
Not traveling more to other countries (other than Austria, Italy and Switzerland) when we lived in Garmisch, Germany for almost two years .

Leslie

So much good (hard learnt) advice here and I only got about half way through.


I suspect we ought to throw a link into this thread any time we seee "1st trip to XYZ country".

Mistakes - no major ones thankfully.

Minor:
- Going on holiday with an ex-couple where one of them starts seeing another member of the group (of 6) whilst we're there.

- Not discovering the benefits of apartments more quickly. More space, more flexibility, cheaper and no downside.

- Allowing your girlfriend to stay late at a work colleagues leaving do the night before an early morning flight. It was like the start of 4 weddings and a funeral when she awoke. It took 2-3 days to get rid of her hangover (in a 4 day trip!).

Of other comments, the ones that stand out are:
- Don't overpack and leave enough space for an extra empty bag (which you'll fill!)
- Don't try and cram too much into the time, but do leave flexibility, so you can slot something else in on the spur of the moment
- Plan to see lots in one area, rather than shooting off around the country seeing the obvious sites, but also too much travel etc.

A very fine thread!

regards

Ian

Collecting rocks to bring home!

quote:

Originally posted by susan defazio:
Collecting rocks to bring home!

quote:

Originally posted by Marian:

quote:

Originally posted by susan defazio:
Collecting rocks to bring home!

I bring pebbles home from all over the world to my sister, who then travels vicariously!

One of first but maybe not the biggest travel mistakes we made, was the first time we travelled to Europe back in 1993

We had plans to fly into Frankfurt airport from Canada and then travel by ourselves by train to a place called Schwenningen. We had friends living in the town and we could stay and use their home as a base to explore Germany and the rest of nearby countries.

Upon our arrival into Frankfurt, we looked up the trains going to Schwenningen and found a slow train that left Frankfurt Main to arrive in Villingen-Schwenningen.

My partner wondered if Villingen-Schwenningen was the same Schwenningen that our friends lived in. So when we finally arrived in Villingen-Schwenningen some 4 hours later (it was a slow and very hot train trip) we asked at the train station. We had a friend’s home phone number and we showed train people this phone number too.

Unfortunately we were told that this was the wrong Schwenningen! The phone number we had was for another Schwenningen - not this Villingen-Schwenningen! We discovered that the Schwenningen that we wanted - was a small village that was 2 hours away by car. There were no trains going to this small village and only one bus a day passed through this tiny village.

Needless to say we were able to call our friends that afternoon and they came out to pick us up some 2 hours later and we finally arrived at their home later that evening.

G

Biggest mistakes:
1) Not going to Iran in 2000, delaying until I had more $ saved up. We all know what happened in 2001.
2) Working late and missing my flight to Maui by minutes. Hubby & his sailing team arrived after a 14-day race and all the other wives & girlfriends were on the dock to welcome them. Except me.
3) Working too much while living in NZ instead of traveling more in NZ, Australia, Rarotonga
4) Rushing home after business trips to Europe instead of staying an extra week to ... wait, there's a disturbing theme going on here.
Let's start another thread: why I got the heck out of the corporate rat race.

Janie

On my first trip to Europe, did way too many cities in 10 days. used night trains to get from point a to b. The highlight of the trip was to take my Dad to hear the Vienna Boys Choir in Vienna...something that was on his list of things to do in his life, and I won two tickets anywhere Delta flies.


Welll.... I hit the internet, found the AOL travel boards, and fell in love with the idea of going to Venice. Worked it out with night trains. Used a travel agent to buy the train tickets (mistake #1). #2 was not checking the actual tickets, but going off my carefully designed spreadsheet with all the details. #3 was sitting in St. Mark's, whiling away the hours until our midnight train...that was really an 8 pm train b/c the TA messed up and I didn't catch it!

Did I mention trains were going on strike the next day, and we had tickets to the concert the next night????

With the help of a wonderful conductor (who spoke no English at all to my no Italian, but understood the pleading looks), who found another wonderfully helpful conductor who spoke beautiful English, told us to go to Mestre, and catch the night train from Rome, and bring lots of cash to buy another sleeper reservation on the train...it all worked out!

Lesson learned...do it myself, and triple check everything!!!

Anne

Great thread and stories!

Mine all seem to fall into the money category:

1. Using (or trying to use) traveller's checks on our firt trip to Italy in 2001. We were in small towns and just trying to get them cashed at the banks put all the tellers and bank managers into a huge tizzy.

2. Not hoarding enough small change in Italy. They don't like giving change so now I hoard all my 50 cent and 1 and 2 euro coins so I can attempt to pay for small things with exact change.

3. Not asking our landlord whether they took credit cards to pay for a 2-week apartment rental. I found out the day before we were to leave that they didn't take credit cards - cash only. We used our ATM cards to get the maximum amount of cash we could but still owed several hundred euro. They were nice enough to let us wire transfer the rest after we got home which ended up costing us more. Never assume they take credit cards - especially in the smaller towns.

A thought on getting rid of all those pesky coins at the end of your trip- when you get your hotel bill, pay with all your coins and put the rest on a CC card! Great trick.

quote:

A thought on getting rid of all those pesky coins at the end of your trip

You can, I recall, donate the money in a charity box at the airport.

I remember years ago the stewardesses on the plane home would come around with boxes to donate coins to UNISEF. I haven't seen the boxes Marian refers to, but will look for them next trip.

Mistakes and rules:

Traveling with too many people at once (for us, the upper limit seems to be 2). This from a person who just escorted 17 students around Italy....
On this trip, almost all the mistakes seemed to track back to a couple of students who should not have been along. Lesson: screen them more carefully and 17 is at least 7 too many for the kind of thing we were doing.

Don't book a penthouse apartment for a large group. Yes it was stunning and in a great location, but people do need to come and go, and the elevator made a lot of noise...so much so that a neighbor wanted to call the police and the landlady became very difficult to deal with. No amount of being quiet like mice seemed to help.

Don't trust Delta. They cancel flights willy-nilly and are reluctant to rebook you, especially if you have legs on multiple airlines.

If you are waiting at a gate at FCO keep checking; they will change it just before boarding. Do not trust that others waiting at your gate will notice, or that it will be announced, or that they will change the sign promptly. (Mistake was: almost missed my flight home; much running and gasping.)

Do not fly through Houston. For me it is the Bermuda triangle of air travel. Once landed there, good luck getting out.

Double-check Gary's interpretation of which binario is correct. He has some sort of weird train dyslexia. This rule attends the mistake of getting on the wrong train.

A few of my biggies:

- travelling with a true diva who threw a tantrum at a 9 delay on a trip (caused entirely by the aforementioned diva) who also turned out to be the kinf of person who finds fault with every single thing.

- travelling with a shopaholic in one of the most culturally enticing cities in Europe

- travelling with a lady who turned out to be a true talking jackhammer (honestly the longest she could keep quiet was 11 seconds - I timed it )

- locking my suitcase with a padlock and then leaving the key at home

Most of my biggest blunders occured in the pre-internet days when I was inexperienced and truly boneheaded about distances and travel.

1) I had booked a room at a small hotel in Cannes for my honeymoon. The place was recommended by a british travel guide and the place was a house that had been the residence of Guy De Mauppassant. I thought it would be a more scenic drive to travel through the alps from Paris to Cannes and had a white knuckeled 14 hour drive, getting us into Cannes at around 10 PM. We woke the owner who showed us to our 3rd floor room which had a linoleum floor, a single lightbulb hanging from a cord in the middle of the room and the toilet in the middle of the room, separated only by a thin curtain that wrapped around the john. We were able to get a nicer room the next day and yes, we are still married, leaving for Italy in 4 weeks.

The first was a mistake that stayed a mistake anyway I looked at it. The second one turned almost immediately into an unexpected gift.

Seven years ago I took my wife and two teenage daughters for a month to Ontario, Canada. This was a trip back to the place I grew up in, after being away for thirty years. I thought that it would be a good idea to have part of our accommodations in youth hostels - the kids might hook up to youngsters their age, we could prepare meals in the common kitchen, and, in general, save money.
Searches on the web brought me to the Hostelling International website. They had hostels in Toronto, Niagara Falls and Sault St. Marie, all places that I had planned to visit.
After checking a HI hostel here in Israel, I was convinced that if I was reasonably impressed by what they had to offer out here, then using them for accommodation in Canada was a sound choice. Their websites seemed encouraging as well.
What a mistake! All of them were below standard in almost every aspect. The hard part of the day was the thought of returning to them in the evening. I don't know how this network performs in other countries, but this experience has put away the thought of ever using hostels again out of my head forever.

The second mistake was on our trip to Italy last autumn. It was the evening of the 30th of October, and I was going over the itinerary for the next few days - when all of a sudden I realized that I had forgotten that October has 31 days! I had booked our accommodation for two nights, the second night being Nov. 1st. On top of this, we had arrived to the place on a very cold night, in pouring rain, and our host didn't know the first thing about what it means to be a host. Panic started to set in as it dawned on me that we were going to be three nights (instead of two) in a place that was a complete disappointment.
The problem was solved when we decided that the next morning we would apologize to our host and ask to cancel the remaing nights. I bought some of his honey and saffron as compensation, and it looked like he even was a bit relieved that he didn't have to look after us.

What was the prize? All of a sudden we had an extra day in Italy! And we used it to add a full day in Genoa, one of the best days of the whole trip...

Regards,
Joe

quote:

Originally posted by susan defazio:
Collecting rocks to bring home!

Well, we're the opposite - we don't get back from anywhere without a rock or two, and they're treated as VIP as wine and honey. Here's what we brought back from Camogli. Italy :

Here's mine:

I booked a room in a hotel in Ostia Antica because it was near FCO airport and would be cheaper than staying in one of the expensive chain hotels at the airport. 1st mistake: it was outside the Rome metro area so the cabbie automatically put about a 40 Euro charge on the fare because he had to be paid for his return trip to Rome. The cost was around E100 for that leg (that's all the cash we had left, so the cabbie just took what we had. I don't remember how much it was SUPPOSED to be, plus the next day we had to pay another E40 to get to the airport. Lesson learned here: Stay at the da*#%d airport to start with.

Make sure you have all your cell phone info with you when you land at your destination and are supposed to meeting up with your daughter who flew in on a separate flight from a different city. My directions on how to activate the phone were at home on the kitchen table. After an hour waiting in the baggage area where we had agreed to meet each other, I decided to go out into the lobby and lo and behold! There she was looking at the arrivals board. New rules after 9/11 – non-passengers cannot go into the baggage claim area. Lesson learned here: Double check kitchen table before departure.

On the same trip, I flew from Nashville to JFK with a connecting flight to CDG in Paris on my way to FCO. When I got to JFK, I had about 2 hours layover, so I wandered around a while to get some exercise and then went to the gate where we were SUPPOSED to depart from. There were only about 10 people there and the flight was due to leave in about 30 minutes. I saw someone who came in on my flight from Nashville and he said, “Oh, they changed the gate to #blah blah”. It was about a mile away. I took off running and made it with only a few minutes to spare. Lesson learned here: double check on flight details when I de-plane and have a layover.

In Florence my daughter and I got off the train from Rome, got a cab, and suddenly she remembered that she had left her camera bag on the train going on to Bologna. She went tearing back just in time to see the train pull out of the station. We finally got the bag back after much sweating of bullets. Lesson learned here: Count the da*#%d bags before de-training and don’t put small bags on the floor.

I got a new digital camera before my 5-week trip to Rome/Florence with the study abroad group from my local university. I never had time to learn how to work it. As a result I took about 2 dozen pictures in a week. Every time I boogered it up I had to wait for the 7 hours time difference to call my husband and ask him what I did wrong. Lesson learned here: duh!

As a follow-on from the item above, never go on a trip with a bunch of college students with raging hormones. This is the trip where I broke my ankle after 1 week of a 5 week trip and had to go home early. They all wanted to come to my room to cheer me up and they would sit around and talk about their sex lives, the pros and cons of warming KY jelly, etc. Lesson learned here: double duh!

Years ago when I was living in Sydney, I was going to New Guinea to see if I wanted to live there. I took my daughter out of school, quit my job, the whole ball of wax. Obviously we were going to need quite a few things for our new adventure. My friends gave me a going away party the evening before my departure and it was held at my house. I didn’t start packing until the next morning. Needless to say I wasn’t thinking any too clearly and the results were disastrous. Lesson learned here: No boozy parties the night before going ANYWHERE on a trip.

I have made a few mistakes. I do think, though, that I'm a quick learner and that I tend to do a lot of reading and researching before a trip, so I'm doing pretty well considering how much I've traveled:

--bringing my SOs along with my sister when we travel together. Two is company, three's been a crowd. Usually it's my So who has a different travel style who has caused the trouble... TENSION!

--not traveling slowly on my first trips that I self-planned a decade or more ago. We were checking into diff. places every couple of nights and then had a terrible time finding accommodation in a town in Andalucia during Semana Santa.

--packing too much or not having the right kind of luggage. It must be able to fit in one rolling suitcase, not too large. And then one handbag--no more!

--buying too much stuff or bringing back too many brochures. I alwasy intend to scrapbook or write down notes/store the good contacts and ideas, but never have the time. So I have a few bags of items (maps, business cards, etc) from previous trips that I STILL have not parted with!!!

--not keeping a journal on trips. I tend to be too busy in the evening planning for the next day with maps and guidebooks (I always have three because I am anal retentive about information gathering). Then I'm exhausted and want to sleep, so I don't write things down about what we did, saw, ate, smelled, liked, disliked, etc.. I'm sad for that. I do have loads of photos and some great albums. My memory is also pretty good. Nevertheless, I'm still sad not to have a journal to look back on.

Taking waaaaaaaaaaay too much luggage! That is perhaps the only (and sadly, recurring) travel mistake that I make

I always end up having the heaviest luggage!

Apart from that, if you find a good travel buddy and by that I don't mean partner, best friend or whatever ... a best friend does not necessarily mean a good travel buddy ,I think that most travel mistakes will become trivial.

Just my two cents.

This thread really made me think...I've made lots of mistakes:

At the ripe age of 20 I landed in Europe to study foreign language for 5 months and decided upon entry into the continent that I would try as many different kinds of beer as possible....fast forward to my last night on the continent...in Paris with a close friend (and bad influence)...I set a goal to get from 36 beers to 50. The night ranged from multiple baby bottles of wine at a fondue restaurant near the Sacre Coeur to madly pushing the merry-go-round at the base of the church for our dates as it had already closed (yes, I'm trying to reason here), onto a crawl through every bar near Moulin Rouge and finally getting stuck when the metro closed down and thus, walking back though the red-light district and being hit on by transvestites. The 12 hour adventure ended at 5:15am when we arrived at the hostal, which began the firework show in the restroom for 15 minutes, and a prompt departure for CDG after a 3 minute nap. The journey to the airport was accomplished with the help of a polite Parisian and a fine from the train police for having the wrong ticket. Eventually, my gate was found and I decided a nap was in order. 1 hour later I woke up in an empty terminal and my gate attendant making the final boarding call. High pitched shrieking alerted the gate attendant that I needed to be on the plane and as I made my way onto the plane and into the only empty row on our trans-atlantic flight. I thought my adventure had ended with a bout of luck in gaining the middle seat of the only empty row in the plane...que flight attendant...who informs us that we will be waiting for a few more passengers. I attempt not to dose off and see a gorgeous looking passenger make her way down the isle looking at her ticket and the seat next to me. At this point I call the bluff counting the negative karma from my escapades in the previous night and luck in making the simply making it onto the plane. I guess correctly as the beautiful french girl sits in the only open seat (not next to me) a few rows behind me and then I slowly turn my head around to see two older behemoth french women make their way to the seats in my row. As many of you know, there exists a generation of French women who chose not to adopt the practices of (1)shaving and (2)using deodorant. Some of us gain the privilege to learn this first hand in closed union with said generation. At this point I am still in a euphoric state from actually making the flight, so I lean back, put my elbows on the arm-rests and smile at the humorous night. Enter humongo, smelly french woman #1 who side-swipes my elbow off the arm-rest, convulsing my whole body and thus bumping humongo, smelly french woman #2. #2 is not happy with me and alerts the flight attendant, whom scolds me for nudging the 50 year old nice lady. At this point, I have a 8 hour flight where I am squished between two 400 pound women whom have each now commandeered the arm rests; this would normally keep me down, but alas, I remember the chocolate I've stowed away in my bag. I eat a small piece and quickly fall asleep. Some time later, I awaken to find my chocolate bar gone and begin a rescue mission by maneuvering my feet to retrieve my bag from below the seat. This is somewhat difficult as I nudge behemoth #2 multiple times in moving the bag and searching for my lost tolberone bar. Since I am still feeling the effects of the alcohol the chocolate bar is of the upmost importance and I am not discourage by my continued failure...then I notice humongo #1 has a few chocolate smears on the side of her lip and realize that my cherished chocolate is no more. Now pouting, I fall asleep for the remainder of the flight...

=)

Like many others, I tend to overpack on my travels. It's hard to balance having a choice of clothes and weather concerns vs being able to handle the luggage. This is particularly true for me as I am so short that I almost always have to ask for help in placing my bag in the overhead compartments on planes and trains when I travel solo(it's whole different matter when I am traveling with my sherpa husband). Then I spend the train trip worrying about asking for help and scouting nearby passangers that I might be able to ask for help without being responsible for a heart attack.

On this past trip to Italy I was determined to do better and really was quite proud of myself. The attached photo shows how few and how small the bags I took were(notice the ST tags ). I managed to do this by taking mostly jersey type tops that rolled easily and a couple of skirts that don't wrinkle. This is particularly important in Italian hotels as they never provide an iron. This amount of luggage did not allow for much booty to take home (one of my great pleasures of travel in Italy)so I also brought this pack away bag to put my laundry in and check in. This freed up my carry on for most of my "treasures".

I really think this would have sufficed but as Pokey and I kept buying stuff, we kind of panicked and decided to use mailbox to send a box home so we wouldn't have to deal with overloaded luggage. Pretty expensive but worth the peace of mind overall.

I did end up wearing most of the clothes I brought except a few long sleeved tops that I would have needed if it wasn't so warm.

Next trip sherpa husand will hopefully be coming but I did learn that it is possible to pack lighter and will hopefully remember this on future solo trips. Or I could always cut back on my shopping!

Our biggest travel mistake? Going to Magaluf, Spain....

quote:

Originally posted by Jeannew63:


Our biggest mistake was arriving in Paris for the first time ever, and not researching ahead of time what was going on that night. Turns out it was Blanche Noir, where ALL the museums are open all night and they are free!

Hi, Jeannew63. I think you're talking about Nuit Blanche (see Nuit Blanche on Wikipedia, which seems to be held the first Saturday night in October every year. I've been living in my Wrinkle-in-the-Outskirts-of-Paris, France for six years now, but I try to stay away from major crowd scenes like that. I hope you've had another opportunity to enjoy Paris without quite the same degree of frenzy. It's really a magnificent city!

1. Not going
2. Years ago getting mixed up with the large size bills in Japan at the time giving a taxi driver 40,000yen instead of 4,000.
But I think the mistakes are one of the best parts of travel, they sometimes become the best memory of a trip or place.

I thought I was the only one who regretted not spending money on things I wanted to do or buy! Its one of my big (continuing) travel mistakes too. Most of the other big mistakes happened on my first trip...and I survived them and went back for many more trips!

On our first family trip to Europe in 2007, I had researched, organized, and planned everything, and all the important things went without a hitch. I lay all the praise on everyone at slowtrav for helping us out! However,I forgot one tiny detail: I had forgotten to call Capital One before our trip to tell them our dates of travel so they wouldn't put a stop to our credit card because of fraudulent activity. So, I tried to call, but then I remembered that I had also forgotten to call AT&T to allow my cellphone to make calls in Europe. So, I called using the apartment phone, and Capital One said on the back of the card (or somewhere) that I could call them using a collect call, but it didn't work out that way. I ended up having to pay $25 in calling charges for one short phone call when I got home. Not going to happen this trip--I'm calling them today for our trip starting next week!

For Jeannew63 and MuddyLaBoue, I happened to be in Paris on Nuit Blanche and had the same feeling that MuddyLaBoue had that the crowds would be awful. I took a chance though (isn't that what travel is supposed to be about) and went to the Louvre and had one of my most delightful visits ever.

There were mostly Parisians there, not that many tourists and there was an enthusiasm that was contagious. My assessment was that this was an opportunity for a lot of locals to visit the Louvre that may have never been there.

I went around 10 p.m. and stayed until about midnight and there were not that many people. I didn't go to avoid paying the admission, but ended up with an experience that was worth more than the normal price of admission.

Nuit Blanche in the Louvre is the best kept secret. Now it's out !
Indeed there are very few people in the Louvre. We were practically alone in the Greek sculpture section, my fave. We walked right up to the Venus di Milo, and the Hermaphrodite, and Wings of Victory, with no one else around.

I didn't mean to reveal a secret. I normally try to avoid free museum days and Nuit Blanche was truly a delightful surprise for me.

I also went to a number of less popular museums and had a good time at those also.

This thread is one of the best I've ever read on ST... I love those that collect rocks me too. BUT I stopped doing that.

Me
1. buying my hiking boots at the bottom of the mountain

2. going to a late nite party and having a little too much wine with an early morning flight from Copenhagen to Paris That was a mistake luckily I managed to wait until the plane landed to run to the WC and pray to the gods.

3. buying some gorgeous clothes at a vintage shop to take on the first romantic holiday i took to Nice with the man that i was to wed. Turns out he was allergic to dust mites and sneezed violently everytime he came close to me.

4 going on a beach holiday to the island of Elba in August with my ex- "best" friend. Maria Callas reborn talked on her cell phone to her boyfriend the entire time and then just wanted to lay in the sun in silence or spend hours prepping to promenade and call her beau. It was so freaken hot and humid, crowded, the water filled with jellyfish and I had already been at the seaside for 2 months. The last thing I needed was more sun.

5 renting a car at Pisa airport (should be number one)

6 Driving to Nantucket from DC when the day before I had flown across the atlantic from Florence obviously could have stopped in Boston. The worst part was that my travelling companion was my mother. It was a business trip - it sucked.

This is a fantastic thread! Thanks to all'a y'all for posting the stories and lessons to be learned from.
Let's see what I can come up with...

-Traveling with too many people, or just those who travel differently. 2 like-minded friends is the cap. It's especially bad when two of the people you're traveling with are hoping to use the trip to repair a bumpy marriage - ugh, not enough wine in the world.

-Not journaling daily. I think this was mentioned before, and I totally agree with it. I have a good journal of about half our last trip to Italy, the second half's memories are all in pictures.

-Not packing toiletries, thinking "I'll just get them when I get there and forgo packing all that liquid etc."

-Thinking "I'll be fine camping in Yellowstone while 9-weeks pregnant." Sense of smell enhanced + surrounded by sulfur pits = big mistake!! I sat waiting to see Old Faithful blow and thought for sure the schedule had to be off, it should have blown ages ago so I could go crawl back into my tent.

I don't think anyone has described the worst, by far, of the travel mistakes: staying home and not traveling!

quote:

Originally posted by JonJohnsen:
I don't think anyone has described the worst, by far, of the travel mistakes: staying home and not traveling!

I'll to that! Yesterday, at work, I was placing my initials on dates I want for next October's trip to Venice and Florence. A co-worker (who I refer to as "Debbie-Downer") comes up behind me and says very snidely "let me guess, Italy again" I wanted to smack her with a piece of pici! Maybe she wouldn't be such a sad and angry person if she saw the beauty of Italy and her people. Better yet, I don't want her to go to Italy, she'd only complain

Ciao, meow
Pokey

Speaking of complaining, while I appreciate the gift of experience....You people are trampling on my God given right to make a complete fool of myself! I don't know how you can live with yourselves.

My first trip to Italy 2006, too much luggage, and the shoes, why did I feel the need for black, spikey pumps?

I hear you laughing already!

Ciao~
Jen

quote:

too much luggage,

I am amazed when I think back about how much stuff I took on my first two trips to Europe back in the 80's.

On the other hand, the guy I met in the Little Rock airport who was going to Europe for 3 months with only 1 day pack (a small one that wasn't even bulging) may have had too little! Even so, I admired his freedom.

Let's see, my biggest travel mistakes. First, when I realized when we were almost at the airport (an hour away) that I had forgotten my passport and had to turn around and go get it, missed my flight, and only just got onto another flight to Paris. But my bags still got lost. Second, when I decided to pack everything in one bag - my laptop, my clothes, my toiletries - let's just say I had one sore back the next day. Third, when the unknowing airport security officer was about to pat me down (I was one of the lovely SSS tickets) and she looked at my dependent military ID and said, "Oh, are you in the military?" Had I said yes, I would have been on my merry way. Instead, I said no, and underwent the pat down.

Ditto on too much luggage. Small roll aboard/backpack convertible with zip off day pack is perfect for me.

Other big mistakes:
1) left home with tix and passports left on the bedside stand...worked out with the help of good friends and overnight air express.
2) trusted husband to carry all docs when heading to Galapagos, and he left them all in the taxi in Florida...he retrieved them with much angst...Now we each carry and double check our own docs and tix...took two missteps to learn that one
3) Arrived in middle of the night at the end of the road at Maho Bay Tent camp (St Johns British Virgin Islands), with 2 kids in tow to discover that we had arrived a day early...lucky again, there was an empty tent cabin. Guess we're blessed! CAT