My worst 2024 travel fails

Yes, let’s write a entertaining post about the trainwrecks that are my worst 2024 travel fails, because who doesn’t like a bit of cringe. Truth is, I am learning from all these fails, and if you won’t find enough amusement, you might actually not make my mistake and have an altogether smoother experience. And sometimes, things cannot be changed and have to be stoically accepted…

And yeas, I have no picture of me in a compromising situation or covered in tears. In fact, most pictures of me are half smirking selfies taken on public transport. I spare you these here.

Not taking my own medicine

Ah, the first trip of the year, it is always special, because I usually visit somewhere warm and sunny, and if possible, I scuba dive. Now add to that the fact that I spend the preceding three months in a practice where the coughs and sniffles feature heavily, a heavy work load, and bingo! by the time my holiday comes around, I usually have a cold.

Not wanting to stay at home, I loaded up on nasal drops and proceeded to lie around in the sun on my first day in Muscat, followed by more nose drop applications, inhalations and all sorts of potions. So, the next day, I felt fine, and happily drove to the dive base, and hopped into the water… only to get a coughing fit. I always advise to not dive with a cold, but, like a doctor sneaking away for a cigarette after preaching not to smoke, I am very bad at looking after my own health, especially when I feel like I could miss something.

Thankfully, the dive was easy and very controlled, and having my sinuses flushed by saltwater sent the cold in the right direction. I did not appreciate the nosebleeds that put a bit of a dampener on my dives, but I survived – and had a great time. Now I have learned to have at least two weeks when planning diving holidays, with an option to change dates for dives just in case I do get a cold. I had planned another dive trip to Okinawa this coming January, but baled out and chose to do a bit of a winter journey instead where a cold should not ground me completely.

Leaving flight booking to others

Earlier this year, I was asked to fly out to Bali to assist in repatriating an injured diver. The whole trip was organised last minute and not by me, so on the way in, I just went to the airport after work and hoped for the best.

The return leg was complicated in that we required wheelchair assistance, which was duly booked, and we had a generous two or three hours to transfer comfortably at Singapore. We even had Business Class tickets for the long flight to Europe, so I felt that was well taken care off and I could concentrate on the safety and comfort of our client.

We got a bit miffed when we sat on my hotel terrace in Bali trying to complete the online check-in for our flights. Not possible. Oh well, we thought, we just go to the airport a bit earlier. The staff at the airport could only check us in for the feeder flight to Singapore. Uh-oh.

I only really got a bit more worried when our flight was very late to depart, giving us less than an hour to change planes at Singapore AND get boarding passes. Honestly… we had to change terminals, and the usually so efficient Singapore Airport was… slow. We held up a 747 for about 10 minutes as the flight kindly appeared to wait for us, while we sprinted through the airport, me pushing some fairly heavy hand luggage and running like I have not run in years. I arrived at the plane huffing and puffing, red faced and completely sweaty. Just the way to fly Business Class.

Later, when I looked into how this could have been prevented, it turned out that booking Special Assistance threw a spanner in the online check-in works, and the inability of Bali Airport Staff to check us into a codeshare flight, the late arrival of the aircraft ad changing terminal and finding a transfer desk just brewed up the perfect storm. I am not a fan of staying in airports overnight, but staying in an airport overnight with someone who is not that well and needs to be repatriated without delay of a different matter.

Thankfully, it worked out well, and from now on, I will probably try to book my own flights whenever possible, even tough work is not to blame, either… just making long-distance calls from Bali with our office in Germany while running through Singapore Airport while the office was on the phone to the airline caused a lot of unnecessary stress.

Cancelling it all

I planned a lovely trip to Nepal in spring to work at a hospital for a UK based charity for three weeks. Not only was I not feeling the best to tackle the Himalayas with increasing pain, but my mum had joint trouble, just ten times worse, and ended up in hospital with a septic knee, when really, she was admitted to have the joint replaced. Two surgeries later, she is okay now, but my charity trip got shot to pieces and I was at home nursing my mother instead during my annual leave.

Still, things could have been way worse, and I am just glad my mom recovered eventually. As if I had been smelling trouble, I had not booked a flight yet, and I was able to cancel all my bookings in Nepal, as I had made reservations with free cancellation. The silver lining of that was that as soon as my mother was out of the woods and into rehab, I used the rest of my annual leave to spend five days in Japan. Yes, it’s a bit crazy to fly that far for less than a week, but I was definitely ready for a holiday away from it all after this.

I learned that whenever possible, think about unplanned disasters. Book with free cancellation policy, even if it costs a little more. Check flight prices and check what the actual cost of the flight ticket is because this is the portion you will lose if you cancel a non-refundable ticket. I know there is travel insurance for that, which I actually have, but I am not sure they will accept mom’s gammy knee as a valid reason not to travel.

Summer in Japan? Yes, sure!

Short on the heels of this years’ spring Japan trip, I was all over in love with Japan again and decided that another visit is in order. The only problem was that all I had available was a week in July of pre-booked annual leave. I have to book all my leave about a year in advance, so I don’t have a lot of flexibility. But well, I was in Kyushu in June last year, it wasn’t that unbearably hot, surely it would be fine further north? Also, there would be festivals. Lovely festivals. There was a cheap flight on Etihad Airways, who are quite nice, and I booked it.

The first few days were very hot, but I was ducking in and out of nice air-conditioned cafes and convenience stores, and carefully stayed out of the sun as much as I could which become extremely hot after 9am. My walking day on Kumano Kodo was rainy, and there is a lot of shade, so no big issues.

Then I arrived in Kyoto and well, I do have my plans when I am in Kyoto. I learned the hard way that when you cycle the grid-like streets of Kyoto in the middle of the day, you often have zero shade. Even with a hat and a long-sleeved short, I felt like I was getting sunstroke one day. That was it – I ducked into a kakigori cafe and basically visited museums and covered shopping streets from then on, carefully planning my cycling routes to include shady stops in shrines , temples and cafes. I took longer trips by (airconditioned) bus.

Still, I do not regret my trip to Japan in the midst of summer – but there is no leisurely strolling outside for all the hours of daylight. It’s not a season for extensive sightseeing. But then, I would probably do it all over again for the festivals and the kakigori. I went to two major festivals, Nachi Fire Festival and Gion Matsuri, and I liked both, although Gion Matsuri is spread out over a whole month, with events staggered, so while it gets very busy, you don’t have that many tourists at the famous sights because it’s not a typical tourist season due to the heat.

The delay from HEL

Towards the end of the year, I was in Japan again, this time taking a pair of crutches with me. Everyone said I am nuts to travel, but I feel quite at home in JApan as a tourist and I know should things go wrong, not only is there decent medical care, but I would also be able to fly home swiftly. Or so I thought. Now, while I was fine and basically learned walking without crutches again, it was a leaking tyre on the plane that would keep me from returning home.

I have not written about this yet, but probably will – to make it short, the airline left us grounded at Kansai Airport with no assistance whatsoever at 2am, and our return flight would not be until two days later, then we were stuck at Helsinki Airport again overnight because there were about 10cm of snow and HEL was utter chaos.

Things worked out well at Kansai Airport as I knew there was a First Cabin Hotel in the airport, so after a feeble attempt of booking a hotel room near the airport I just walked there, joined by another solo woman traveller, and we begged them to let us sleep there. I have actually become quite a fan of First Cabin since – you may not be able to book for the same night online, but they are staffed around the clock, and chances are, they often have room… if you arrive early enough not at the tail end of a full A350 disgorging all its passengers.

So, to learn from this… difficult. Bad things can happen to any airline, but not keeping an Airbus A350 wheel at a major airport is , in my humble opinion, grossly negligent. Leaving passengers, some of whom quite vulnerable, to their own devices in the middle of the night, shows how the airline does not care at all. The thing is, I liked the airline before – they are one with the best safety records and fine once you are in the air. The last straw was their really poor customer service and batting off my complaint and claim for compensation saying it was a “safety issue”. So, off it went to the lawyer, we will see if there will be some monetary compensation to cover the extra expense.

I now always double check what hotels are at the airport so I can walk there even if online booking is no longer possible after midnight, and figure out the best route to walk there. And I have a taxi app on my phone. We landed safely in Berlin about two days and a half late, and I am aware this can happen again any time.

Stand Up and Carry on from the worst 2024 travel fails

There is probably no travel without mistakes, adverse events, no matter how experienced you are. By having a backup plan, appropriate insurance and some emergency funds, many of these can be safely navigated through and after a few weeks, hopefully the good memories are the ones that stay. I actually made new friends in some of these sticky situations, saw some new places, and it wasn’t all bad. And while I save and publish this, I shall pack my “lucky foods” and a bottle of sparkling wine and head into a brand new year with hopefully many new travel delights in tow. Hope you will start the New Year well and safe and happy travels now and in the coming years!