Travel will always involve some degree of inconvenience, weather problems, unanticipated events, etc. Most of these can actually be opportunities to experience something new. I’ve been pretty lucky—the worst I can think of would be a couple of really bad hotels/pensions I’ve experienced and a mugger in Florence who tried to steal my wife’s purse. The rest would be classified as inconveniences—hangovers, delayed flights in steaming hot airports, missing trains and such.

I couldn’t agree more with yostwl. Mishaps, such as blown tires and missed trains and lack of accomodations always end up being great adventures!

Wish I could add some "baaad experiences" to this thread, but even the ones I didn’t particularily want to have happen to me at the time were experiences I wouldn’t trade for the world. Plus, I don’t know how they would give you a "heads up on things." If anything, they would limit your sense of adventure and strengthen your paranoia.

Before I left for my trip, the thought of a night bus leaving me stranded in a random town or arriving at midnight in a crowded city with no place to stay terrified me. Both of those things happened on my trip, but they turned out to be no big deal. When you think about these things before you leave, they sound like crises, but when they actually happen, you usually just need to sit down and think for a bit. The coping skills you develop during your travels prepare you for the so-called disasters. I even continued a trip through South America after an extremely violent attempted robbery. I was paranoid as hell afterward (still am, as a matter of fact), but it took surprisingly little time to decide that I would keep traveling.

A few random thoughts

- you find out that your accommodation is an absolute dive (be especially careful in the UK and Ireland about cheap places to stay).
– missed buses and trains, sometimes you had the wrong information and it can set you back half a day or so.
– going through some kind of illness on the road is not much fun.
– minor inconvenience, but it can be a sinking feeling when you turn up to a museum all keen… then one look at the lines and it’s obvious you’ll be waiting for 3 hours just to get in.

The good news is that all these inconveniences are quickly forgetten. The good experiences stick with you for many years.

The only bad experience I have had is in Greece. When i arrived there, I found out that you are "not supposed" to flush any toilet paper down the toilets. I guess the pipes are very old. You are to dispose of it in a can next to the toilet. Of all the travel books and travel shows I have seen, no one mentioned that! It was odd at first, but then I got used to it.

Blisters!
Try walking the same amount you will be walking, using the same shoes, for a week or so some time before departing.

Yeah,[url=‘http://www.drugstore.com/products/prod.asp?pid=14287&catid=10579&trx=PLST-0-SRCH&trxp1=10579&trxp2=14287&trxp3=1&trxp4=0&btrx=BUY-PLST-0-SRCH’]Moleskin[/url] will save your life when backpacking.

I’d agree with Kahunna; even the experiences that seem bad at the time become great stories or just funny memories after a while – maybe I say this because nothing really awful’s ever happened. My friend getting mugged twice in Barcelona and the trying to rugby tackle another mugger now are great stories. I suppose the most annoying things was missing a bus to Moldova from Iasi, Romania, and giving up on the whole enterprise; I still have a few regrets.

No matter what you deal with while away just remember that you are in Europe and don’t let anything get you down . Some of my best experiences came out of the worst.

My sisters favourite travel story of mine is how I ended up at a free clinic for drug addicts and prostitues in Amsterdam and had to bribe the doctor to write me a perscription for a UT infection. It wasn’t fun but in retrospect it was halarious.

I got my passport and rail pass stolen in Geneva and although I cried for about 5 hours straight I then got to the consulate and got a new one. A few days later because I couldn’t afford to go very far I ended up in Interlaken met a great guy and stayed with him for almost two weeks before heading home.

Everything works out

Cgirl

My worst experiences have involved staying a hostels with school groups, especially in Germany.
The high school kids there don’t seem to have any discipline at all. The teachers just drop them all off at the hostel and then go and stay in a hotel somewhere. Meanwhile, the kids run riot, smoking and drinking and mucking around. A lot of sex seems to go on, too. (half their luck!)
I have been driven from 2 hostels because of this and, of course, there was no refund.None of the other guests got any sleep at all. The hostels did not abide by their own YHI rules. When I complained, the guy behind the desk said the kids brought in lots of money to the hostel. Judging by the amount of damage they did, they would need to.

The language barrier can be tough. I’d bring some sort of phrase book for every country you are going to be in.

Ah yes, the infamous German youth hostels. Out of curiosity Roger, where were you and how old were the kids?

I had an interesting experience with young german soccer players( I think it was a school team) in Munich. My sister and I were sitting down enjoying a beer in the lounge and then very quickly about 12 or so guys surrounded us and at first they were just talking but soon the table was being pounded on and they were shouting" Table dance" My sister and I thankfully were not threatened by these 14/15 year olds and simply laughed until another Canadian who was fluent in German told them off and asked us if we wanted to join him at his table.

Ahh Munich…

quote:
I had an interesting experience with young german soccer players( I think it was a school team) in Munich. My sister and I were sitting down enjoying a beer in the lounge and then very quickly about 12 or so guys surrounded us and at first they were just talking but soon the table was being pounded on and they were shouting" Table dance" My sister and I thankfully were not threatened by these 14/15 year olds and simply laughed until another Canadian who was fluent in German told them off and asked us if we wanted to join him at his table.

Ahh Munich…

AHHHHH, Canadiangirl I think I love you wanna take a trip to Spain?Atlanta?…………mi casa es su casa!

Budget travel is always full of more hassle, but that adds to the adventure. My bad Europe experiences have involved

-getting caught in rain and being turned away by buses in London at bus stops because I didn’t realize that the stop I was at as a Request Stop. "Why the fuck are they going past me?" I kept wondering. ha.
-having $800 stolen in Paris, going to the hospital for drinking too much, losing my tongue ring
-having my wallet pickpocketed in London
-missing a connecting train and flight in Munich onto Paris because I was hungover and didn’t realize that there was more than one train station in Munich
-being stranded at a ghetto train station in Portugal for four hours and paying 50 euros for no reason
-being yelled at and groped by men in Italy
-running into ignorant American frat boys on virtually every train and cringing everytime I heard them say, "God I hate the French, they won’t speak English." One particularly eloquent bunch of American boys got my friend and I verbally abused "for being part of their group" on a night train. This was simply because we were seated NEXT to them.
-being forced into a leather jacket sales pitch in Florence
-running into severe phone problems and spending about $30 trying to call my boyfriend
-being locked out of a hostel
-showing up in Rome and being turned away from every hostel

Don’t ask me about my bad Asia or Australia experiences. They are much worse. My friends think it’s a miracle that I still travel.

- Attempted robbery on a Brussels night train by four morroccon teenagers
– Robbed be a hooker in Madrid for $1000 euros
– Chased by a mob of people for snatching the purse of said hooker
– Detained by Dutch police in Amsterdam for punching out an overly aggressive coke dealer
– Another time in A’dam I was stabbed in the stomach by some foreigner crackhead
– Being fined $50 for having the wrong ticket on a Polish train (still think I was ripped off by the crooked conductor)
– Paying $40 for a glass of Baileys in Ibiza
– Spent the night in a Mexican jail

overall not really bad, I wouldn’t change anything if I could. You learn from the bad and turn it into something positive.

Spain… sure I have only ever been to Barcelona so there is still so much for me to see!

Being locked out of a hostel was the most fun I ever had in Dubrovnik- a big old group of us ended up scaling the hostel wall and having to climb up a telephone pole to get back on to the terrace and then luckily the windo was open and we all managed to crawl inside."Unfortunately" there were 12 of us and only 8 beds…

Thanks to two friends ditching me in a dance club so they could hook up I ended up having a very sexually liberating lesbian experience. Nothing like Greece to bring out my lesbian tendancies!

Ahhh…Mykonos!

Torontoeurope,
I was in Koln and Florence. The kids were about 15 y.o.

agreed on the german teenager hostel problem. lights on and off all night, lots of noise, and avoiding piles of puke on the way to the bathroom part of the joys. Plus its scary how flirty the german teenage girls are?!!?

Oh.my.gosh. You guys are making me scared to go traveling now. I leave in less than 2 weeks and staying in hostels. I do not want to be watching out for puke!!! Gross.

i agree that moleskin can be a lifesaver.

as for myself: like an idiot, i left my backpack on a bus in naples.

fortunately, my italian was good enough to tell another bus drive what i had done. he called his supervisor. the supervisor drove out, picked my friend and me up, and took us back to the main station.

the bus driver, on whose bus i left the pack, arrived soon after. He emerged from his bus smiling with my pack in hand. i gave him the box of chocolate covered cherries and thanked him profusely.

the only bad experience i had was in southern spain with the gypsies. as far as i can tell from personal observation and experience, everything bad that is said about gypsies is true. watch out for them…they will steal you blind.

quote:
Spain… sure I have only ever been to Barcelona so there is still so much for me to see!

Being locked out of a hostel was the most fun I ever had in Dubrovnik- a big old group of us ended up scaling the hostel wall and having to climb up a telephone pole to get back on to the terrace and then luckily the windo was open and we all managed to crawl inside."Unfortunately" there were 12 of us and only 8 beds…

Thanks to two friends ditching me in a dance club so they could hook up I ended up having a very sexually liberating lesbian experience. Nothing like Greece to bring out my lesbian tendancies!

Ahhh…Mykonos!

My GOD!!!!!!!!
UGGGHHHHH I barley have enough money for me but hell thats what good credits for(to ruin). So yeah girlie I think I’m in love you can ride my eurorail ANYTIME!! (Didnt mean for that to sound AS vulgar as it may!) I think EVERYONE is interested in a profile C-girl. I’m betting shy girl likes to let loose and sound "wild" with the "srangers". Or were you the one that stabbed Dangerousjohnny? If so then all deals are OFF!!!!
P.S. I could still use some advice on my ORIGINAL message you people are so narrow minded, focusing on everyone else except me.
C-girl’s "encounters" are always welcomed.

Bad Europe experiences:

*Too many museums and other sites closed on Mondays.

*Vomiting from bad fish and chips in London.

*Train destinations not marked on Poland train platforms.

And that’s it…for Europe at least!

I really don’t have that many, but you can’t backpack through Europe without at least a couple bad situations:

-Waking up in the middle of the night to find an escaped mental patient watch me sleep in Luxembourg
-Waking up in the middle of the night to find some guy trying to get into bed next to me, thinking he was getting into his girlfriends bunk…in Luxembourg (I gotta say, I didn’t get the best sleep in Luxembourg)
-Arriving into Munich around 7pm in the summer on a Friday night not aware that it’s a holiday weekend AND the Rolling Stones are in town…with no hostel reservations.
-Forgetting my purse at an internet cafe and realizing it an hour later
-Losing my moneybelt in Glasgow with all my cash, credit cards, passport, airline tickets, EVERYTHING

Don’t be scared Fresa4mi, it all works out in the end. This is the stuff that makes it all worthwhile.

I will tell you that I LOVED my 6 months in Europe. I had one major bad experience and I but it didnt stop me and it shouldnt stop you! I was stabbed on a Frech Alps train just outside of Chamiox for a 10 train ticket. The guy I was sitting next to had no ticket and no money. I didnt have any money to give him when the conductor came around to check tickets and he sliced me with a knife! I didnt speak French well enough to know what he was asking for in the first place. But I was taken to a doctor and stiched up and back on the train the next morning without any problems!! Dont let one bad thing stop you!

Hello. In general, I’ve only had minor inconveniences (missing a train, accidentally missing a stop, having to walk a long way in the rain with nowhere to take shelter, etc.), but I did have one icky hostel experience at the White Tulip in Amsterdam…I went to use the shower and there was a guy standing in the middle of the bathroom just "finishing" with himself and he looked at me, winked, and started walking toward me…I screamed and ran and he was subsequently kicked out (2 other females had walked in during the ‘beginning’ of his act and gone down to complain…the manager was already on his way)…not to mention he looked to be in his 50s…

debt- what was your original question? Oh and I am most definately not shy…just reminising and getting excited about my next trip this summer.

brinna- I can’t beleive you were stabbed! Holy shit Batman!

cgirl

Brinaa-what happened to the guy who did that to you?

Will never forget staying in Barcelona this feb and being completely scared out of my t*ts by this guy who was looking after the loft apartment I was staying in. The night before 4 fellow travellers had a seance, which bores me and I was a party pooper and asked them to stop as I felt uncomfortable. The next day they checked out and I was left alone to spend the next 2 nights with this custodian guy ( a friend of the owner who was away in Argentina). That night I returned back and told him waht had happened the night before. He got all weird and told me he could communicate with the spirit world and that we were safe, but that there had been some spirits present but they had left with the other travellers!!! He then got all spiritual with me and said he could take me back into my past lives to show me why I was emotionally ill, (he said he knew me better than I thought), but actually he knew nothing about me at all!!!! I told him he was scaring me and to be quiet and then I went to sleep, (he had a bunk bed near me which was just great!!!). At 5 in the morning he wakes me by sitting on the end of my bunkbed and telling me he is frightened because there are ghosts in the room with us and they tried to hurt him in his bed. He said we were in danger and that we were not safe. I got up, packed my backpack and told him he could take me to another hostel up the road that the owner of the loft apartment owned as I knew this guy was a nutter and I was not going to be around him any longer, and I knew there were other people staying there. I left at 5.30am scared out of my brains!!

I have travelled alot, and have never been so piss#d off ever. Anyway all in a days travel right!!!

quote:

Quote:

debt- what was your original question? Oh and I am most definately not shy…just reminising and getting excited about my next trip this summer.

Oh I don’t remember something about a 14 day trip to Rome, Florence, Barcelona,Andalucia(?), Madrid(???????????????)not twice in the same year surely. (SEP) And all the good stuff that goes along with it.

And yeah IM getting EXCITED thinking about your next trip!!!!!!

P.S. I’m a computer moron so how do I post w/o always having the quote show? Also how the hell do I use the bold and italics???? Laugh later help now.

Never mind figured it out!