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Some trips are more breathtaking than others, but he who knows the first thing about traveling would know it to be about movement and change - of landscape, people, sounds, light, and probably the traveler himself.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the most probable and (usually) desired part of traveling is various adventures! And adventures wouldn’t be adventures without their essential element - unexpected circumstances and surprises!

That being said, honest travelers would admit that at least some of it springs right from the traveler’s own hilarious mistakes. (Even if it means being stuck in the exact same spot or paying for the room twice.) Dreadful at the moment, but still funny years later. These Redditors shared their experiences of making such a mistake while hitting the road, answering one Redditor’s question “What’s is the dumbest travel mistake you’ve made?”

More info: Reddit

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#1

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered On a *very* drunken night out in Thailand I gave my wallet to a lovely couple we had spent the day with on a trip to keep safe as I had no pockets in my shorts.

Needless to say I woke up the next day and the doom hit me.

Kicked myself for the next few days and carried on with my trip with the help of my friends. Mostly transferring money to them online.

A few days later I logged in to a computer at the hostel and found an email from LinkedIn with a connection request and a short message from one of the couple! They had tried finding me on all my socials but the only one that they found me on was LinkedIn 🤣

They managed to post it to my next hostel and it was on my bed waiting for me!

Heroes. 🤩

inbelfast , EVG Kowalievska Report

Final score:
330points
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#2

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered Sydney, Australia and Sydney, Nova Scotia are not close to each other. I have no idea why I didn’t question why the ticket was so affordable !

egd-f , Rijan Hamidovic Report

Final score:
170points
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third molar
third molar
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Going to Rome this Friday. Just an hour drive from Atlanta.

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#3

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered Not me but my husband. The night before our first trip to Barcelona he noticed his passport had expired. Hotels were nonrefundable at that point so I waved goodbye and did the trip solo.

Trekker_Cynthia , Spencer Davis Report

Final score:
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Rose the Cook
Rose the Cook
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

What sort of person doesn't check their passport before making travel plans? Some countries insist on at least 6 months before expiry to let you in.

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#4

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered I booked a hotel in the wrong country.

buttterz1 , Bruno Maceiras Report

Final score:
141points
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Jihana
Jihana
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Austria - Australia? N***r - Nigeria? Dominica - Dominican Republic?

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#5

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered My wife and I traveled to New Zealand for six weeks camping, then flew to Hawaii for a week to visit friends. I had a car and condo rented in Hawaii but in the plane to Hawaii I realized the day we lost going to New Zealand, we we’re gaining back going to Hawaii (International Date Line). So, we had to scramble as we had no car or housing for our first day there. We literally arrived in Hawaii hours before we left New Zealand. Oops.

UserJH4202 , Tyler Lastovich Report

Final score:
131points
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#6

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered Borrowed my dad's old truck to do some wilderness camping with a buddy across the Canadian border in Yukon (I'm from Alaska obviously). Told the border agent I had no guns, ammo, etc but they searched the vehicle anyways and lo an behold my dad had a hidden compartment under the back seat with a .357 and a box of ammo lol. They pulled us out and had us stuck in an interrogation room while they called my dad as it was his name on the registration. He confirmed it was his fault as he forgot it was in there and they actually let us go and they kept the gun. We camped for a week lol. My dad had to drive 250 miles to the border to pick up the gun.

BeefosaurusRekt , Guduru Ajay bhargav Report

Final score:
116points
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#7

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered My husband mixed up AM and PM for our flight from Amsterdam to London and I never bothered to double check. We were out happily sightseeing with what we thought were our last few hours in town when I get an email that said “How was your flight? Fill out this survey…”

Thankfully we booked some last minute train tickets. We lost the money on the airfare but at least it was a very cheap flight.

erinelwin , Pixabay Report

Final score:
110points
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#8

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered Grabbed my son's passoort, instead of mine, before driving 3 hrs to Chicago for a flight to Cuba early the next day. Thankfully I have an amazing friend who went and got mine from my house and met me halfway. Got back to Chicago at 2:00am, and made my 6:30 am flight. I gave my friend $100 for saving my a**e.

brainonvacation78 , Kindel Media Report

Final score:
108points
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Cricketgeeklol
Cricketgeeklol
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

A very funny story from about 30 yrs ago. My grandparents managed to take there son and daughters passports instead of their own! They were driving to France and those days all you had to do was flash the passport and they didn't fully check. So, they kept away from the curve, not close enough for the pictures to be obvious! They got there and back

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#9

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered I booked a trip to Istanbul in December, assumed it would be warm because it was on the Mediterranean and in the Middle East, didn’t check the weather predictions, didn’t pack any warm clothes, and it was snowing when I arrived.

ShinjukuAce , Vlad Chețan Report

Final score:
102points
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StrangeOne
StrangeOne
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I wouldn't have thought Istanbul got any snow, either. The more you know.

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#10

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered I booked a ticket to the Anne Frank museum tour and stood inline. Ticket was for the following year

DICKASAURUS2000 , Una Laurencic Report

Final score:
98points
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#11

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered Mine was being an inexperienced 19 year old traveler bringing lots of German beer to Liverpool in a duffel bag. About 10 or 12 bottles broke and the bags on the conveyor belt were soaked in beer and the people were angrily mumbling over it. Then mine came, the whole bottom was drenched, and eyes were all over me as I quietly snuck out.

DoneTravelling , Mateusz Dach Report

Final score:
79points
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Shelby Moonheart
Shelby Moonheart
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My parents lived in Haiti and would bring vanilla back to us in the USA. At that time the vanilla was in glass 5th bottles. Once trip at least one of the bottles broke. All the luggage coming off the plane smelled strongly of vanilla. It was the best vanilla to use in cooking.

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#12

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered I booked a train from Venice at the trenitalia site. When the train never arrived I discovered I'd booked a bus. We missed it.

MaddBadger , T Leish Report

Final score:
76points
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CanadianaKa
CanadianaKa
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Does anyone get the feeling the Bored Panda content creators are just using wackier and wackier images just to inspire responses and upvotes?

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#13

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered I forgot underwear on a three week trip to South America. No offense to the Brazilians here but let’s say their men’s style of underwear was not my idea of comfortable.

JennItalia269 , Shalu Sharma Report

Final score:
70points
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#14

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered Not me, but my friends recently were visiting EU (they’re not EU citizens and require a visa to be there) and decided to go on a day-trip from Munich (Germany) to Salzburg (Austria). Never came to their mind to grab their passports as it’s their first time in Europe and they’ve thought “there’s no state borders inside the EU”. They got lucky at the way there, but at the way back there was a police check on travel documents 🙈 they were taken off the train and spent couple of hours at the police station trying to contact hotel so the staff would get into their room and take photos of visas. Ended well though - the police released them once the photos were sent.

Oskora , Vinta Supply Co. | NYC Report

Final score:
66points
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Jo Davies
Jo Davies
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Similar happened to me in Dusseldorf! 2019, travelling back to South Africa from UK. Didn't know the travel rules there are different and I spend 5 hours in the airport police station while they tried everything they could to get me on a plane out. Was very scary, but they did help and I made it home 19 hours later, very tired and broke.

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#15

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered We were traveling to two different cities for a week. We needed two accommodations, one for each city, right? Well my dumbass booked not just one air bnb for the one city, but also booked the other for the same city with the exact same dates. Didn’t notice until a week before our trip. I cried when I realize what I did lol. It was an extremely expensive (no refund) lesson to learn to pay more attention when I book more than 1 accommodation at once :/

unhindered-coconut , Leeloo Thefirst Report

Final score:
63points
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I’ve Seen Things
I’ve Seen Things
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I have to book a hotel for the night before you leave for the country you arrive the next day, when crossing the dateline west to east. Eg. First flight depts 6:00am on 17th April connecting flight arrives at destination 16th April 12:30am. Due to time zones and date line Both Hotel bookings (one for predeparture and one for arrival) are for the night of the 16th in two countries.

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#16

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered Arriving at 1:00 pm for a 1:00 am flight...12hrs too late. The flight was from India to US so it was a very expensive mistake.

bradkwells , Arina Krasnikova Report

Final score:
62points
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Annita Stephanou
Annita Stephanou
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I see a lot of this on this list. Which company does not issue tickets with a 24h clock? I was working as a ground hostess for years and never saw one!

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#17

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered I was travelling in Belfast and then taking a flight to Paris from the Belfast airport. When I get to the bus station, I ask for a ticket “to the airport”. I get my ticket and get on the bus. 30 mins into the trip where we should be getting close to the airport, I check my Google maps and see we’re headed the wrong direction. I ask someone if the bus is going to the Belfast airport. He looks horrified and tells me it’s going to the Dublin airport. Missed my flight, had to get a new, way more expensive flight from the Dublin airport.

cheesetrain , Oleksandr Canary Islands Report

Final score:
62points
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Nicole Weymann
Nicole Weymann
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Something similar happened to us when we were in Istanbul last February. Twenty minutes into the taxi ride I realized we were going in the wrong direction (Havalimaı instead of Sabiha Gokcen). Luckily we had planned with a time margin large enough to make up for the mistake, but the 40 Euro ride became a 80 Euro trip.

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#18

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered I mentally earmark a few hundred dollars per trip for "mistakes" since I plan my own trips. No one is perfect, and expecting to make a few errors helps me deal with it when it happens.

MaddBadger , Karolina Grabowska Report

Final score:
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#19

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered I once booked a month long airbnb for the wrong month

Bruce_e , Andrea Davis Report

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60points
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#20

Recently went to Japan and must have been extremely jet lagged my first night because I threw my envelope of 40000 yen (like 280 USD) into the trash can in the bathroom of the floor of the hostel I was staying in. Was checking the bathroom as a last ditch effort, moved a few pieces of tissue and there it was untouched 😂

Ducey89 Report

Final score:
59points
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Rob Woollard
Rob Woollard
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It was untouched because in Japan, theft is virtually unknown:)

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#21

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered Went to the wrong airport in berlin and missed my flight

Mcshizballs , Pixabay Report

Final score:
53points
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DeShotz
DeShotz
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Anyone else notice that the photo is a picture of model planes in a model airport? I’m guessing it’s at Miniatur Wunderland.

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#22

Backcountry backpacking, had those convertible pants, but left the pant legs at a high elevation lake and had to just wear shorts the remainder of the route. Very cold at night!

fptnrb Report

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#23

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered Showed up for my flight exactly 24 hours before departure. Luckily they got me on or I would’ve have to go home and repeat the whole process the next day.

Extra vacation day I guess so that was cool.

brian_sahn , Asad Photo Maldives Report

Final score:
47points
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#24

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered 1990’s. Took a redeye charter to the greek islands. Opened the duty free on the plane and got drunk and wasted, as good 19year olds do on a boys-trip.

Arrived. We saw our two bags on the luggage band. Grabbed them, took the chartered bus to the hotel. Crashed in bed after checking in to the hotel.

After 1 hour got woken up by the tour guide knocking on our door. He had two identical bags in his hand. He informed us we took some other guests bags at the airport. Opps 🙄

HattoriHanzo_AMS , Rachel Claire Report

Final score:
45points
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Nicola Roberts
Nicola Roberts
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Why would they want his organs Kitten? He's already admitted he was pickling in alcohol.

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#25

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered Booked my rental car for the wrong day (flight landed at 1am and I booked for the previous day). The rental company was completely inflexible, so I ended up shelling out $500+ *twice* for a 4-day rental. Then I discovered a cab to and from my destination (where I didn't need a car anyway) would've only cost like $150 😩

KjunFries , George Mason Report

Final score:
42points
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Jan Moore
Jan Moore
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

For some reason I had us flying out of St Louis a day earlier than we were. Didn't find out till we tried to check in at our day before flight hotel. Called our travel agent to tell Bush's screwed up in booking the hotel as they didn't have our room. She checked and said you're not flying out till 2 more days. So we had to spend the time and more money for the extra day.

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#26

"How hard can it be to get from Heathrow to Gatwick ... *very late at night*? It's still the same city."

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Chez2202
Chez2202
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I love the ‘it’s still the same city’ part. I’m from the North West of England, about 8 miles from the border of Manchester. It’s still nearly 30 miles from my home to Manchester airport.

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#27

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered Spent an entire month in London and never once ventured outside of the city. I was a dumb 20 year old American who didn't realize the ease of train travel there. I remember the only day trip I had looked into was a coach tour bus to Stonehenge and it was super expensive so I didn't do it.

catsporvida , Chait Goli Report

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StrangeOne
StrangeOne
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When you live in a country that requires a personal car to just get out of the city at home, it's hard to get out of that restrictive thinking and realize how much freedom you have when you're somewhere with ample public transportation that goes all sorts of places outside of the cities. My last trip to UK, I regret not going other places.

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#28

I left my passport in the Uber in Rio luckily I have family there so I just said “hey again it’s me” I got my passport within 2 days from the driver!

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Kat Lyle
Kat Lyle
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Left my phone in an uber one night, two weeks later I threatened to report him for theft. Suddenly he could make it to my area next day...

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#29

Listened to my mom and a poorly worded/outdated travel site convincing me I can fly to the Bahamas with a passport card. On the way to the airport I felt a sense of doom and found out they were very wrong.
Mom and dad continued on to the airport and I caught the next Amtrak home. Lesson learned the hard way.
Everyone get your Passport book!!!

JediBeagle1 Report

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Panthera
Panthera
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

where I am from, we have an ID card and a passport, would the ID card be the passport card? I've never heard that term before, sorry

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#30

Someone Asked “What Is The Dumbest Travel Mistake You’ve Made?”, 30 Folks Delivered Before I knew skiplagging was a thing I had a flight to Budapest with a connection in Frankfurt. Found out some friends were in Nuremburg so I decided get off in Frankfurt and take the train to meet them. Luckily I had planned to check my bag so I asked ticket agent to just tag my bag through Frankfurt. That’s when I got educated on what happens when you intentionally miss a leg on your ticket. My return tickets would’ve been canceled and I would’ve been none the wiser until two weeks later on my way home. I ended up paying $300 in change fees to modify the ticket.

HippyChaiYay , cottonbro studio Report

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Note: this post originally had 47 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.

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