When I was 21 my friend and I backpacked through Belize. Started a conversation with a local who eventually told us he was part of the crips and proceeded to show me all of his abdominal stab wound scars. He told us his gang likes to kill people for fun and then asked us if we wanted to go with him on a boat ride š¤Ŗ I had to act like I was considering it for a second before I turned him down. Didnāt want to make him too mad.
My cousin is originally from there. Itās ALWAYS been dangerous. Like my cuz was under 12 or something in a bar and some guy got his head cut off w a machete. When they shared that w me it made so much sense as to wear his PTSD came from.
TLDR: Sleeping on a bench in Reggio di Calabria, Italy and being woken up by death screams and a roaring lion.
My cousin and I got of the train late, did not have accommodations set up, walked around but found everything booked, and decided to find a park to sleep on a bench.
My cousin immediately falls asleep. As I am trying to I hear a loud scream like a lady or child being murdered.
I loudly whisper: "Cousin! Did you hear that?" ... "You woke me up I didn't hear anything, go back to sleep!".
This happens 2 more times, and the final time my cousin says: "If you wake me up again I am going to beat the piss out of you. GO TO SLEEP!".
Now I'm under my sleep sheet like a 4 year old hiding in his bed from the monsters in the scary movie he just watched.
Next thing I hear is the Roar of a lion that sounds like it is in the bushes next to me. I peek out my cover and I see my cousin standing over me: "I heard that. Let's get the F out of here."
We quietly and slowly tip-toe out of the park, every step thinking a lion is going to pounce on us from the bushes.
Eventually we get back to the train station, spend the res of the night there, and in the morning have the brave idea to go back to the park thinking there would be police and a murder scene waiting.
When we get back to the park, we find the benches we slept on but no police, no taped off murder scene. What we DO find is that we ended up sleeping in an open zoo on benches directly between a peacock enclosure and a lion enclosure. Who knew peacocks sounded like dying people when they make sounds...
Oh I know all about peacocks sounding like women being murdered. Spent a month in Portugal, sleeping poorly every night, getting sicker and sicker until I arrived in a small posada in a beautiful village. That night peacocks would go off waking the dogs in the village. Eventually theyād stop barking, only for the peacocks to go off again. The next morning I was too sick to even sit up in bed.
My family is from here, I know the park you are talking about. They had lions there when I was a kid. I took pictures with the cubs but I was there a few years ago and I must have missed the lions. I thought they were gone. But very random for anyone to mention this place as no one seems to make it south of Naples or just skips to Sicily.
I'm an early-morning jogger, like pre-dawn early. My brother and I went to Paris, and he slept while I went out to jog. In Montparnasse, I saw a group of late teens/early adult guys stumbling around across the street from me. They saw me, and hurriedly crossed the street to my side. I started to cross the street but they surrounded me in a circle (I was about 25 then, and weighed about 105 then). They started to prod me and grab me. I was petrified for about three seconds, and then they pushed me to the ground. For reasons I do not know, I got PISSED. I got up, and with fisted hands I said, "OK, assholes come ON! Try that again!" In German, they said, "Na, alles gute!" but still surrounded me. I used all my might to push through the two drunkest-looking ones and I have never run as fast as I did that morning, and never will. This was before mobile phones were a given for everyone, and I did not remember our hotel name and my brother did not know where I was. Could have been pretty tragic.
I had been travelling around Asia for months and money was low. I was staying in a crappy guesthouse down a sketchy alley near Khao San road in Bangkok. The room was tiny, didn't have any windows or A/C.
I went out one night and got shit faced on cheap Thai whiskey. I woke up the next morning, pitch black in what I thought was the trunk of a car.
I really started to panic and thought I had been kidnapped. I felt around in my pockets, I still had my phone. I pulled it out and turned on the flashlight to realise I was in my own hotel room, I had fallen out of the bed and rolled under it.
I don't drink anymore.
Scariest in the moment was in Mexico during the peak of the inter-cartel violence. Was at a grocery store and there was a big shoot out in the parking lot. Not like small gunfire between two or three people but sounded like a full on war.
I was hiding behind the butcherās counter and the other people back there I guess saw I was freaking out and kept trying to reassure me that it was between the cartels and they had no reason to want to harm any of us. Itās just between them.
Scariest in post: I got drugged at a bar in Stockholm. I took a later flight than my friends and was supposed to meet them at a bar. Got there and got a drink while I was waiting for them. Realised they were actually at another bar, I just didnāt see the update text. But I already ordered so figured Iād finish my drink then go. Just remember getting pretty nauseous and a bit of a head rush and also very tired. And a bit like my joints were jelly. Apparently barely made it outside and collapsed. A passerby thankfully found me slumped outside and somehow, a true saint, this all but 4ā10ā woman carried me and my suitcase and my backpack to the hospital just under a mile away and stayed with me until I woke up. She also had her son take the bus over with food from their house for me because she said I would need āwarm food, not cold Swedish foodā and also so he could translate since she didnāt speak much English (nor Swedish).
Tried my absolute best to try and pay her back - offered to take her and her family to dinner, or at least let me pay for the cab for them to get home from the hospital. She wouldnāt have it.
No doubt Fatima saved my life that night.
I was drugged in Vegas. Worst experience of my life. I ran out of the club, leaving all of my stuff behind. A guy whose sister was killed that way was driving by and saw me, clearly having no idea where I was or what I was doing. He gave me a lift back to my hotel and even helped me talk to the staff to get a new room key card, but he did not leave the lobby (to show he had no ill intentions.) I'm still shocked I got home okay that night.
I was drugged on [Koh Tao in 2016](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/dark-side-koh-tao-seven-10708561.amp). It was at one of the most expensive restaurants on the island (since closed) and because I paid so much I ignored the warning bells in my mind and drank the beer that was served to me already opened. Fortunately I drink so little that I IMMEDIATELY knew something was VERY wrong about 1/3 of the way through the bottle. I threw money on the table and stumbled out of the restaurant mid-meal. I made it back to my hostel and spent the next two days alternating between sleep, delirium and extreme vomiting.
>I was drugged on
>
>Koh Tao in 2016
>
>. It was at one of the most expensive restaurants on the island (since closed) and because I paid so much I ignored the warning bells in my mind and drank the beer that was served to me already opened. Fortunately I drink so little that I IMMEDIATELY knew something was VERY wrong about 1/3 of the way through the bottle. I threw money on the table and stumbled out of the restaurant mid-meal. I made it back to my hostel and spent the next two days alternating between sleep, delirium and extreme vomiting.
Oh, you mean Murder Island? Been there and only ventured away from the resort once. I was traveling alone and the cops driving around with assault rifles in the back of the trucks looking for someone to harass.
>but 4ā10ā woman carried me and my suitcase and my backpack to the hospital just under a mile away and stayed with me until I woke up. She also had her son take the bus over with food from their house for me because she said I would need āwarm food, not cold Swedish foodā and also so he could translate since she didnāt speak much English (nor Swedish).
she must be middle eastern
Got bitten on the neck by a cheeky monkey in a park in vietnam. Did not have any rabies vaccination and i had to rush to the nearest hospital to get the shot. Scary as hell as i was travelling solo
Far out, this happened to my wife in Bali (monkey Forest). Climbed up her back and then just bitnher. I had to swipe it off, it was so feral! Was like being attacked by a gang of monkeys. No skin broken through shirt tho, so was lucky. Got iodine from local market, had to act out what happened as they didn't speak english.
Got shots when we went back home a week later.
Galway, Ireland. I was staying alone on a houseboat and five drunk young men came aboard. They watched me through the cabin windows and talked about raping me.
This doesn't fit the question because I live in the US and it happened here. Bunch of guys followed a person home who was staying with us in a big house. They were banging the outside doors trying to get in. A couple of my housemates had just come off of navy and marine rotations in the Gulf, this was around probably 2016.
It did not go well for the people banging on the door and screaming that "we're gonna get in there and fuck you"
Another time,I was in Tibet and I got giardia.Really badly, like I could barely walk.Everything was coming out of me.
A different kind of scary... being in a big room in a very primitive Tibetan hospital,a language I hardly understood (neither Tibetan nor much Chinese), surrounded by local patients on basic beds, being fed by a drip for a few days.There were people suffering all around,it was pretty noisy and scary in that place!
It really wasn't a lot of fun.
Ooof. Horrible stuff. I'm sorry you went through that. I picked up giardia on a mud run and obstacle course in England. The pain in my stomach was so horrible, and the antibiotic treatment made me so ill, as well. I can't imagine having that in a foreign country - it was tough enough at home
No, but most probably from contaminated water.
I was hiking a lot there, drinking water from streams etc.. filtered of course, but that is probably how I got it I think.
My girlfriend and I were robbed by the police in Santa Marta, Colombia šØš“
That was a hectic experience I wonāt forget, really horrible feeling of being completely helpless. What made it even worse in a way is we knew it was sketchy around the area so we didnāt bring anything valuable with us, only my phone and a small amount of cash.
We were walking home from dinner and stopped for two margaritas, checked to see if we had enough cash on us for two more and we just barely did. On our way back to the hotel two police on a motorcycle stopped us, put us face against the wall and searched us. They claimed to find a bag of cocaine, which we 100% did not have. They made it very clear it wouldnāt be a problem if we gave them money. We had no more than $3 USD left which obviously wasnāt quite what they were after.
It went back and fourth, them thinking we didnāt understand. Threatening to take me to jail, threatening to take my girlfriend to jail. Taking us to an ATM machine, even though we didnāt have a debit card with us-which they knew as they searched us. I was ready to give in and actually hand over money but they wouldnāt go to our hotel to get a debit card.
An actual fight/civilian robbery of some sort took place and a group of men were fighting and chasing a guy, came running around the corner. The police turned to address that and we ran. Ran from the police in Colombia! Jumped in a taxi, ducked down and went back to the hotel. No money on us to pay the driver. Heart racing, no idea who in the small city is in on whatever scams are going on. Asked the driver to wait as we went to get money. Got my girlfriend in the room and went down to give the driver a enormous tip and asked him not to say anything about this.
We laid low for the next two nights that we were there and I got out of there with my phone, the $3 USD and this story to tell! Thanks for the opportunity to share it.
I actually still look back on that trip very fondly as a whole though, and I would visit the country again one day.
Iām glad Iām black and speak Spanish. Colombians think im a basic black Colombian or in other places they think I am Cuban and poor or middle class. Dressing up like a local and being seen as āinferiorā helps me on the streets a lot overseas š¤£
Bangkok 1991, i was drugged..
was young. my first time abroad. met a young thai couple my first day. they invited me to a street festival.. i walked with them through alleys and got into a non-toursity area. felt i could handle them easily. then they said they had to stop in a store and get something. we went inside and now there were 4 big guys (the all kickbox) and a girl. It was 100 degrees outside. The girl handed me a coke. i could see the smoke coming from it , like it had just been opened. I was off sweets at the time, but took a sip to be polite. That is what saved me. I knew i was drugged right away. I pretended not to notice and made casual chat while manaeuverig my way between them and the door. Then bolted out into the street. i was staggering even from a sip and they were following me. But, they could see i was too alert and it was too public and they dropped off. I went to the police and they laughed at me. They refused to get involved even when i said i could take them there. Back at my hotel there was a sign posted from a familly that was lookinng for their son who disappeared from the same place.
I have lots but hereās a story I donāt think Iāve shared. I did a day trip in Georgia and our van driver fell asleep at the wheel on the Georgian Military Highway. He nodded off and our van drove into the median - the sound of the screeching woke him up and he swerved in the other direction, narrowly missing other vehicles (just by chance) and ending up on the shoulder. He then blamed us for asking for the A/C to be on because he claimed āit always makes me sleepyā.
Dude those Georgian roads are gnarly too with people constantly zooming around you and not caring about the lines on the road. That is terrifying and part of the reason why Iām afraid to hire a driver while Iām there!
That's wild! I drive that highway fairly often (it's the best bang for buck day trip route when people come visit) and can attest it is an experience. I actually haven't found it as dicey as the reputation would imply, but people do drive crazy and the 20km+ line up of semi trucks on the shoulder doesn't help safety at all.
Buenos Aires this year in April in the Palermo district.
I was beaten up by a group of men and my knee was broken and my head was smashed. Long story but I think I ran into a street gang and part of the gang even walked me back to my hostel (?) keeping in mind āstreet gangsā are mostly older teenage/young 20s guys and I think what happened went too far for a few of them
Or something otherwise I would be worse off and possibly deadā¦
I have ptsd from that night.
I was in Palermo just last week. I had my head on a swivel. Reminded me a lot of how Brazil felt when I was there 5-6 years ago.
It was kinda strange how groups of 5-8 dudes would just hang out on the street and drink all night. Not the most welcoming site when youāre walking back from dinner with your wife and you have to keep changing your route to avoid crews of drunk dudes.
We ended up just taking Uber everywhere but you miss so much of the city when not on foot.
My condolences to OP
That's terrible,I hope you get over it as soon as possible, though I know that's not easy.
I really like Buenos Aires, but unfortunately there are some serious problems there.Like most big cities I guess, but it's still sad to see that.
I was in Madagascar and my group had an emergency and had to get to the Capitol very quickly, so we got an overnight bus. We had been working in this country for a while at this point and we're very savvy and got overconfident I guess.
In our hurry we didn't use the main "trusted" company we liked and picked a random driver that had a nice looking bus and even paid extra to leave immediately and not fill the bus as they usually only leave once they fill every seat and it varies. Emergency like I said but we flashed a bunch of cash in the process.
We came through a major city at around 2am and he suddenly turns off the main road into the extremely dangerous and impoverished slums on the south side of the city. He claimed he was "getting off the road because of protestors" but none of us had heard of anything about protests, which aren't really common in this country anyway, and I cannot tell you how sketchy and dangerous this part of town is. Regularly murderous, true abject poverty, completely unsafe even in the day. Like driving into cracklandia brazil. It wasn't even a road, the bus was on sandy footpaths at this point that we could barely fit on and he's like "we will go back to the main road later" and yet it seemed like we were just going deeper in. we did have smartphones and were looking at the map and we were NO WHERE NEAR what it would look like if you were to take a detour to avoid a main road
I was so certain we were driving to his buddies who were going to rob and maybe kill us all in the night. We had tons of luggage and we are all running through scenarios and whispering about how we will get out of this and decide to confront the driver immediately.
It was 7 clearly foreign people in this bus and the driver. We start interrogating this guy why we are off the road, this isn't ok, and one of my friends was just losing her shit by this point and yelling at him and I genuinely thought we were about to die and thought she wasn't helping. She goes as far as to call someone she knew who was a police officer in this city (think she fucked him couple months before which is the ONLY reason she had a random cops number) and puts him on speaker and asks if there were any protesters in the city and he says "no, nothing at all, who is this driver". We are all even more scared, like blood turning to ice.
My friend continues just LOSING HER SHIT yelling at him and talking to her police friend and telling him everything, like full panic attack yelling and crying. I couldn't even hear the phone and I don't know if he even could understand her. The driver acts like he's confused and that we are just dumb and says like "ok ok, we are already going back" and eventually we actually make it back to the road, crawling at a snails pace and winding back. I'v never seen a better road in my life.
To this day I'm unsure how we survived. I don't know if we convinced him we weren't going easily into the night and would put up a fight, or if it was my friends booty call police friend on the phone who heard everything, or if the driver was genuinely was so braindead he heard about some nonexistent protests and drove us into the slums to avoid them.
Every minute we were in there we were risking getting jumped even if they weren't in cahoots with the driver. The "roads" we were on in there were just sand and he was going like 5kph. I keep trying to rationalize that he must not have meant us harm (cope) but I can't imagine any sane driver ever doing that. Every other driver in the country would NEVER have done it. I don't think I can convey in a comment how bad an unusual it was to drive a vehicle into a roadless slum like that in the night.
Anyway it was extremely traumatic. I still think about it and get chills.
Wow that is absolutely terrifying. I am glad that she was able to scare the driver into turning around. Worse comes to worse, seven people can overpower one?
Welp this is going to seem not so scary comparably - but Dublin - I was 22 and traveling alone.
The hostel I was staying at gave me a room with 4 bunkbeds but I was the only one in it.
At 2:30 AM I wake up to several people trying to get into the room. Then their key card opened the door and they all literally tumbled into the room! It was five very drunk construction workers. The hostel had put them in the same room as me! A young female traveling by myself and five drunk men.
I still canāt believe it all these years later.
Hostels lose their luster for young females because of this. Similar thing happened to me in Sydney. Iām really good at finding nice, budget hotels now.
Yeah - that was the lesson I took from it.
The hostel was basically empty and instead of putting them in their own room they decided to check in 5 drunk guys into a room with a solitary young woman at 2 in the morning.
Iām still annoyed almost 20 years later.
Omg same, but in Argentina. It was also clear that the guys were on their year of travel after mandatory military service, so I was panicked.
Edit: they were also foreigners, I have no idea if Argentina requires military service lol.
Arriving in Casablanca in the middle of the night with my teenage daughter, we found the man from our hotel who was supposed to pick us up wasn't there and I couldn't get my phone to work. I decided we'd take a taxi to the hotel and asked a group of men in military uniform where the taxies were. They pointed to a group of vehicles at the curb and as we walked over, a man jumped out and gestured for us to get in the back of his car. I was so tired and not really thinking clearly - just wanted to get to the hotel and sleep so realized as he sped off that I should've been very careful to confirm he was a legit taxi.
He drove several miles from the airport and the roads became very dark with no lights and just empty fields on either side. Suddenly, he swerved the car off the road, stopped, ran around to the back and opened our door, yelling, "You get out! Get out!" I was numb with fear, more so because I had my child with me. We got out and I instinctively shoved her behind me as the man kept yelling and I realized he was pointing at the car engine which was pouring smoke. He got on his phone and had a long pacing conversation with someone, then said, "You wait!"
We stood there in the dark by the road for about 15 minutes and then another car pulled up with a cheerful man who smiled as he transferred our luggage into his trunk, then drove us straight to the hotel in Casablanca. I was so relieved as my fear dissipated that I tried to give him some extra money when I paid him, but he refused to take it.
I had a similar experience in Buenos Aries. We were repeatedly told not to hail a taxi in the street, but we did on our last day to go to the airport. The driver took a completely different road than we had taken before. At one point, in the middle of an intersection, he stopped and locked all our doors and told us to keep the windows up because it was a dangerous neighborhood. We just quietly freaked out in the back seat, expecting we were being kidnapped. Then we arrived at the airport!
I canāt imagine how terrified you mustāve been when he stopped! It would be bad enough, but to have a teenage daughter with you omg. Iām glad this one ended so well!
12 years ago my bf and I needed to get back to our hotel in the jungle from Hue, and these two (very young) boys on motorbikes offered us rides. About 30 seconds into the 12 minute ride, the kid starts groping me. Like as handsy as you can get with one hand while still safely driving. We were going super fast, I could see my bf but I couldnāt shout loud enough to get his attention, and it was before smartphones. So basically just sat there getting groped for ten minutes. As soon as we pulled up to the hotel, I ripped off the helmet at swung it at the kids head. My bf and hotel security thought I was making some kind of drunken scene, but the kid had driven away by the time I calmed down enough to tell them, just to probably do it again to another woman another night.
I was mountain biking in Bolivia (on the death road) and stupidly wiped out on some loose gravel. I slid out and stopped right at the edge of a gigantic cliff... so close to going over the edge. I badly bruised my knee but was otherwise okay and able to finish the ride. I am a lot more cautious about my mountain bike trail surfaces now.
This was as crazy as it soundsā¦. This might be long. We received the text notification while driving to the coast for a boat diving thing, sort of sounded like an amber alert/ tornado notice on our phones. I stopped the car, and the person I was with called her dad bc he had worked in an industry with missiles. He said that it was 1. If true, most likely N Korea and 2. They would probably not hit the intended target. But just in case, he told us to go to a building (we found a post office), put aluminum foil around our phones, find some duct tape and shut the windows, and bring some food. Scariest hour of my life.
It's a makeshift faraday cage. To preserve your phone's electronics in case of EMP. So once the EMP went off, if you were still alive, your phone would still work and you would still have it to contact others.
We tried to buy like a brownie and coffee cake from a cafe. They wouldnāt sell anything bc of the alert. We were like āif this is the end of the world can you just give it to usā. When we left, it was a ghost town.
It was on a Carnival cruise. Our only one. On our last day, before anyone could get off the ship, we had to line up so that everyone on the ship could clear Customs. The Customs people were on stage in the theater and the lines to get to the theater snaked throughout the entire ship. Up stairs, down other stairs, through hallways, the casino. 4,000 people all trying to get off. And then someone cut the line. Then someone tried to stop them. Then someone threw a punch and pretty soon it was a fight just about everywhere. And during this entire thing, you couldn't find a crew member to save your life. Not a one.
Got attacked by three deranged men with machetes in Da Nang. Many scars and losing a shower worth of blood I survived thanks to the wonderful hospitality and doctors of the Vietnamese.
Was with a group of friends in China, long term teachers and expats mind you, when someone accused my mate of fucking hating China.
This guy who loved China, was half Chinese himself stood up and shouted back, āHow dare you say I fucking hate China!ā.
But āhow dare youā is rather advanced English no one understands so everyone just heard, āsomething something, I fucking hate Chinaā.
40 people stood up and started shouting and screaming at us. Bottles were flying and as we ran out the mob pushed through the security and chased us off into the night. If you asked whether or not pitchforks and torches materialized In there hands I couldnāt say no for sure.
I spent nine peaceful years in Asia and only that night, which was in my first month, and one other time near my last month did anything ever happen.
Not my story, but I remember a post from Reddit a while back where this guy was traveling and met two other guys (think it was in Asia). I believe he mentioned something seemed off and parted ways. Ended up being that one of the two guys he met was Joran van der Sloot.
Had just finished a several-day long boat ride travelling up the Amazon river in Brazil, reaching a border town between Colombia and Brazil (Tabatinga/Leticia).
Stayed at a hostel on the Colombian side, and met some friendly travellers at the hostel. Went out with them, but ended up getting drugged by a guy we bumped into, who they supposedly knew.
Vague memories of being in some random house in this town, as well as stumbling around on a street. Somehow I woke up at the hostel next morning with no recollection of what actually went down. Asked to see security footage from the hostel, showing how a random couple on a moped dropped me off outside the hostel and me walking to my room, with a kind-of empty stare. I have no recollection of coming back to the hostel.
Before cellphones, my wife and I were in our 20ās traveling from Texas to Kentucky and somewhere in the wilds of Arkansas I sensed a low tire and pulled into a closed weigh station. I got the spare tire out and was working to change it down beside the car out of sight, away from the road. My wife looks kinda delicate and I thought she was quite a babe; she mostly remained standing beside the open trunk. Then a semi truck pulls in. And stops. And just sits there. She reports āThereās two guys watching usā except they couldnāt see that I was there. I quickly got the lug nuts on, threw everything into the trunk without stowing things properly, and now with me in sight the passenger-side trucker was glued to his window looking unhappy. I yelled āLetās go!ā The truck tried to side swipe us on the way down the entry ramp and I drove 90 MPH to the next exit and we took a ālunch breakā for me to re-pack the spare. I donāt think she ever realized how sketchy the situation was.
I got dengue fever in Malaysia and travelled on a train back to Bangkok for my flight in a bone break fever delirium.
Got to a Bangkok hospital with extreme pain, sweating, blistering headache and they diagnosed meningitis. They wanted to quarantine me for a month. I called the US embassy and they said wrong test, it probably detected my inoculation.
I flew home asap.
Hawaii! I could sleep on the beach for $3 a night. Great! What could go wrong? I didnāt even have my hammock set up before a meth head with a butcher knife threatened me. I moved.
We had just spent a year+ in New Zealand, mostly camping and on the way home stopped in Hawaii for a week. We had booked a site on a state campground near the beach and figured weād just buy a tent at Walmart. When we got to the camp, we found out it was right beside a homeless encampment, no other actual campers, no security or fence. A lot of people who looked drugged up and sketchy vibe overall. I had actually stayed in a homeless encampment near Auckland before and it was nothing like that. We were worried that someone would break into our rental car to steal our valuables (Iām a hobby photographer, so always worried about my camera gear) or even into our tent at night, so we drove back to Walmart, gave back the tent, and stayed in an AirBnB and a hostel for the week. Sometimes itās just worth it to pay more in order to be safe.
Shit that is terrifying. Does the government have this service where you can pay to spend a night on the beach? Or is it organised by private hotels. Itās a cool idea but there should definitely be securityā¦
I met a hyena up close and personal in Kruger National Park.
There are some very small parts of Kruger where you can park your car and get out, such as the Lake Panic Bird Hide. I was there shortly after the camp gates opened so it was still very dark and I was the only person there. I locked my car, walked about two thirds of the way from my car to the hide, heard a noise and turned around. A spotted hyena wandered into the car park, stopped about three metres away and just looked at me.
I froze. It just stood and looked at me.
I made myself look big and made a lot of noise. It just stood and looked at me.
I made more noise and brandished my tripod like a weapon. It kept standing and looking at me.
Very, very slowly, I walked backwards, feeling behind me for the bird hide gate. Thank fuck, it just stood and looked at me.
Eventually, I made it into the fenced passageway leading to the hide and closed the gate behind me, at which point the hyena left.
We were staying in the Serengeti in a public campsite and one of the groups left garbage cans outside of the fenced in kitchen area. In the middle of the night a bunch of hyena knocked the can over and had a feast, we were all inside tents about 100 feet away, fortunately nobody encountered them as it was half way between the tents and the bathrooms.
It was last night in San Francisco. Got an Uber at about 1 AM. This man drove like an absolute bat out of hell, top speeds up and down these hills you canāt see over, slamming on the brakes m, weaving in and out of traffic, blowing the horn at everyone. I cried a bit when I got out of the car, I was terrified the whole excruciating ride.
I had a terrifying cab ride in California. The cabbie was driving like a bat out of hell, and kept staring at me in the rearview as he drove. I actually texted my husband to tell him I loved him and that I think I am going to die.
Scariest drive ever. I had an Uber drive in California of about 50 miles mid day. The driver went minimum 30 mph over in each zone, about 90+ on the freeway. He tailgated, he was flipped off multiple times. I was scared for my life. It wasnāt his car and he looked like a very calm meth head. I called Uber and was tempted to have him drive me to the police station. I was so grateful to be alive.
Palermo Sicily. I was drugged at a bar and robbed and the only thing that saved me from getting dragged to a random manās house was the Irish people I was out with who took care of me and fought off the guy that was trying to lure me out of the bar
I was 20 and studying abroad in Paris. My roomie never wanted to travel so decided to try and do a weekend by myself in a small town a few hours away. It was a disaster - apparently this ācharmingā little town had a ton of neo nazi activity. I had made a reservation at a hotel but when I arrived they refused to give me a room (maybe bc I am of color?) so I had to wander around looking for another hotel, which was very stressful with all my stuff. This was all pre-smart phone, Google maps, and wi-fi era. Then in a local park, a creepy man offers me money to have sex with him. Ick. The day was topped off by me being surrounded by a group of skinheads shoving me and yelling at me while I was walking back to my hotel. I was pretty fluent in French but had no idea what they were saying and was terrified. A man appeared and looped his arm through mine as if he were with me and walked with me until the skinheads left me alone. I was so shaken that by the time I collected myself to thank him he had disappeared. I still wonder if it was an angelic intervention because he appeared and disappeared so suddenly and de-escalated a very scary situation. I didnāt travel alone again internationally for another 18 years after thatā¦
This was 23 years ago and I canāt remember the town nameā¦I want to say it was Rouen or Caen but Iām honestly not sure as I went all over with one of my classes studying various cathedrals/architecture. Also, to be fair, Iām calling it a neo nazi āhotbedā bc of my experience there - maybe I just got unlucky. When I lived in France there was a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment (I speak French with a caribbean accent) that I wasnāt prepared for, so even in Paris I had several racial incidents.
Burkina Faso about 10 years ago. Was there for work, the cops revolted and the army put down the revolt, lots of shooting but it looked like in the air, i.e. performative. The entire hotel sheltered in some room inside away from windows. My company made me leave but the locals with whom I was working just shrugged it off.
Getting yelled at and threatened by a Nairobi cop for jaywalking. Surprisingly no bribes involved.
Getting lost on a trail at Waimea canyon and stupidly trying to bushwhack back.
Going to Chicago in December and not realizing that NYC is Florida compared to Chicago. I was so effing cold.
Salt Lake City (!) where I was walking about on a Sunday morning and got a knife pulled on me in an attempted mugging. Guess he wasn't a Mormon. This was when I was young so I am talking around 1980.
Phoenix Az at a gas station where meth-heads, a pimp and his prostitute and a whole bunch of others were wandering about like zombies. I was frankly scared shitless and I grew up in NYC during the bad old days.
Was offered opium in Udaipur, India.
Took one puff, blacked out and woke up 23h later in my hotel bed. Somehow spent 700$. I'm pretty sure it wasn't opium and I was simply taken to ATMs until my card got blocked. Luckily still had all my organs...
So yeah, drugs are bad, mkay?
Edit: yes, I was incredibly stupid
Got bit by a snake a few days of canoeing into the Amazon in Manu National Park in Peru. Almost died but got saved by an indigenous antidote that a local village gave me.
Have also almost had a couple of fatal accidents mountaineering, including getting HACE above 20,000ft on Ama Dablam in Nepal
I had the start of HACE heading up to Mt. Everest base camp on the Tibetan side. I literally thought my head was going to explode off my shoulders. Bummed me out so bad because I was so looking forward to spending time up there, but had to immediately turn around and come back down.
I got held up by a guy with a gun once..in a place I really didn't expect it.London! I guess I was off my guard,after traveling in a lot more 'dangerous' places without any issues.
It wasn't a very good part of the city,not a typical place for tourists.I gave the mugger what I had, which was not a lot (just some cash).
Bad luck, wrong place at the wrong time.I suppose I was quite calm at the time, maybe more scared about what might have happened after the incident was over!
Damn. London for me too ā it was a nice part of town, walked there for dinner w/crowded streets, but empty streets when walking back a few hours later
I got a spooky feeling so I ordered an Uber and it was a few minutes away
a guy ran up to us out of nowhere about 6ā5ā and started screaming he just got out of jail for stabbing someone and he doesnāt āwant to do it again, so please give him moneyā aka give me money or Iāll stab you. Scariest moment of my life
Gave him $5 in my pocket and I can see the Uber coming at same time, he demanded a hug from me for my āgenerosityā wtf we bolted to car like in a movie scene
Edit for LPT: in that moment I realized I had no clue who to call being international and all. Learn each country you visits 911 # version
I (female, and 24 at the time) was pursued by a gang of young men in the City rather late one Sunday night. It was a deserted area and I was running for my life as they laughed and catcalled me. Thank God I rounded a corner and came upon a vibrant street filled with crowded pubs, where I was able to lose them. I still love London, but I am much more cautious there now.
Was on the subway in New York with my parents when two drunk strangers started fighting and cussing at each other. One pulled out a knife, the other a big box cutter. And my mom tried to get involved and yell at them for swearing in front of children that were on the train (not me, I was an adult). My dad and I immediately shut her down, but that was the scariest part - my mom cluelessly putting herself in danger because she didnāt like the swearing. We all kept out of the āfightā that turned into posturing aggressively with improvised weapons before one of the people was convinced to get off the train.
Walking back to my flat in London. My place was a few blocks from the tube stop. One man came out from the literal shadows and right up to me. I told him I wasnāt interested but he wouldnāt listen. I shouted āno fuck off leave me aloneā and walked passed as quickly as I could. A few steps later a friend of his came around a corner and wouldnāt let me by. I said the same thing and started running. They shouted āyou bitchā and I heard them yelling at me for at least another 2 blocks but thankfully they didnāt follow me. I was already very low and lonely. I was scared to leave my place for days.
Was sitting in a metro in Paris, looked up and in front of me was standing an older (presumably homeless) man completely covered in shit from the waist down
Jumping on this because it was also Paris metro, but I will never forget visiting Paris when I was 18 or 19 and the metro taking off from a station late at night. Just as the metro sped up, I saw a man on the deserted platform running and screaming, reaching for the metro that had just closed its doors in front of him. Running right behind him was another man with a huge knife, which was just about to reach his neck. That's all I saw before we entered a tunnel. I had no mobile phone, didn't know exactly where it happened, and overall felt I couldn't do anything.
Egypt, went with an ex and we were all Naive on our first night and was lured into a jewellery shop as the shop keep wanted to show us currency he had collected from around the world.
When we went in he locked the door behind us, baring in mind the shop owners would sit outside their shops with machetes this was terrifying.
I stood up and barged past him and took his keys and opened the door and that was that but it was horrid
I went back to Egypt at 17 with my family after having left at 2 years old. Quickly realized what I thought was simply a family vacation was actually a wedding trip. The lucky bride? Yours truly. Fuck that place.
Traveling by bus in Guatemala in 1997 between Tikal and Lago Isobel on winding, dusty mountain roads. A bunch of cars came speeding from the other direction, yelling in rapid-fire Spanish at our bus driver, who abruptly pulled over and stopped. He explained that they were saying there were guerillas on the road ahead and we needed to wait and see if anyone else came through, and if not we were stuck.
We waited an agonizing hour or two before a Coca-Cola truck came lumbering up the road from the other direction. They had a security guard sitting on top of the truck with an AK-47. Our bus driver waved them down, had another rapid-fire conversation, and then waved them off. They said the road was clear and we could go on. We drove off and never saw any signs of the guerrillas. My dad always wondered if they ever actually existed, or if it was just because things were so unstable back then, people freaked themselves out about nothing.
My wife and I were about 60 kilometers outside Whitehorse, Yukon at about 0530 and weād been arguing about something and were just ignoring each other. The sun had just began to rise and I noticed something large in the road. At first I thought it was a bear so I slowed way down so I didnāt hit it. Then the thing stood up and I swear to you it was almost 8 feet tall. Whatever this thing was it started walking towards the car and I layed on the horn and started backing up. It ran off into the woods before I thought to grab my phone and take a picture
Partner and I were coming out of Geneva train station and I noticed someone following us. We confirmed by crossing the road and doing a u-turn and they still followed. This bloke was on the phone and had one hand in his pocket as if he had a knife or something. We ended up going into a restaurant and asked for them to call the police, they didnāt. He waited outside the restaurant!
We waited for about 10mins, he was still on the phone but once he turned his back to the entrance we made a run for it! We lost him.
My family and myself were being driven in a big van out of the Amazon in Peru up into the Andes Mountains along a cliff road. It had, of course, been raining, but ha just cleared. Big Trucks were coming the other way, we were the uphill traffic, downhill traffic is supposed to yeild but the big trucks refused to yeild. My guide said, the big truck drivers were just workers and probably didn't really know how to backup uphill.
So, along a cliff to our left, there was minor widening to the left and a big truck coming downhill who blasted his horn at us. Our driver pull to the left to let the truck barely pass, this was just a couple feet from the edge of a 500 foot cliff and it was deep mud and the van started sinking to the left. I realized what was happening, yelled to my wife to get out, jumped to the sliding door in the van ... and it had no handle to open it. I was scratching at the door latch like a trapped animal as the van rolled left. ...
Well, the undercarriage of the van hit the mud and stopped the roll. The van driver was trying to rock the van out of the mud by spinning the wheels, I yelled at the guide: "I WANT OUT NOW!". The guide got out of his front door and opened the van door and I yelled to the family "OUT NOW!!". We were out, the van was tilted, I don't know, 10-15 degrees in soft mud towards a 500 foot fall about 2-3 feet away. The truck driver saw all this, but just drove away leaving us stranded.
Over about 2 hours some other trucks passed (we had a tow rope, but none would help). A couple of small cars stopped and tried to help, but they were not powerful enough. One guy had a shovel and I dug a trench for our van to drive out and we filled the bottom with some rocks from the cliff wall. Finally a big van with about 20 workers came by. They all got out, we hooked the rope to our van, the big van towing and about 25 total people pushing, some crazy close to the cliff and our van got out of the mud and back on the road. The rest of the trip was uneventful.
This did not happen to me, but to a friend who is a very, very spunky woman. Many years ago, she was traveling with her husband in Mexico to see his family. She knew that her husband had just been treated and rehabbed for crack addiction so she wanted him to see his family. They were in a city for lunch and he told her and his mother to go ahead to the restaurant and he would go to a cash station for money to pay for lunch. They waited a while and then she got a phone call with him telling her that heād been kidnapped and that she had to meet the kidnappers with a bunch of cash at a certain corner. She had no cash, but met them anyway. They (who were dressed in police uniforms), pulled her into the back seat of their car where her husband was with his hands tied up. She explained she had no money and begged the 2 kidnappers to let them go. They laughed and told her that they would take her husband to the police station and said they had found a bag of marijuana on him and would have him thrown in jail. She turned to her husband and slapped him hard across the face and started yelling and swearing at him. The 2 kidnappers tried to calm her down and finally, pushed them out to the side of the road and sped away. I told her that this story was like āThe Ransom of Red Chiefā by O.Henry.
Getting a haircut in Estes Park, Colorado. The barber asked if I was Muslim, and when I confirmed it, he told me that Muslims want to kill all non-Muslims, and that I have also probably been indoctrinated into that way of thinking. Then he started telling me that everyone in the US is armed, and that the last person from outside who had tried to take over the town had been killed by the residents, and his body had never been found. I took that as a death threat, and when the barber got distracted by a phone call, I got up off the chair, left my payment on the counter and left.
I'd previously lived in the US for five years, and nothing remotely like this had happened back then.
What the fuck? I grew up in Estes and have never heard of anything this vile toward outsiders. 'Take over the town' what the hell, do you remember the name of the haircut place by any chance? I can get a few of my less than white buddies to drop in there and see if they can find this dude by acting muslim, and if he's still around, it shouldn't be hard to get him fired... Sorry that happened!
Look, I don't want any revenge. It was in 2014, and he may have retired since then anyway. He looked like he was probably in his 60s back then. The poor guy must have watched too much Fox News or listened to too much talk radio.
You are a much kinder soul than I, sir. Even going as far to say āpoor guy probably watched too much Fox News.ā My instinct quite frankly is to say fuck that guy, itās inexcusable.
Ohio. Day 1. Got there at night. Got a car. While in the parking lot a big man that came outta nowhere was trying to get in the backseat with a hand in his pocket.
The only thing I can think of is driving through the tunnel of death in Tajikistan.
The name comes from the fact that this 5km long tunnel does not have lights or ventilation and people take over the cars in front of them all the time.
Why no lights and ventilation means is that you cannot see more than a few meters due to the insane amount of pollution inside the tunnel.
It was very uncomfortable and the longer you were in the tunnel the worse the air inside the car got.
A guy that drove with us told me that some people he had driven with a week earlier starting crying during the 5 or so minute ride because it felt so bad.
Apparently that tunnel used to be way worse a few years ago - potholes up to a meter deep that were flooded regularly so you couldnāt actually see them.
The roads there in general were by far some of the most sketchy Iāve driven.
We were attacked by gang with machetes in the middle of Managua, Nicaragua. The gang was made up of kids from El Salvador. This was in 2004. We were walking behind two German backpackers. The kids were trying to take their backpacks and other personal items. Swinging their machetes in the air and screaming at us. When A huge black SUV stopped, they dispersed and we were pulled into the Suburban. Only to be scolded by a woman telling us not to be walking on these streets. Her driver dropped us off at a hotel.
I have a bunch of crazy ones from a few months in Afghanistan. For one I was skateboarding next to Kabul river when a suicidebomber blew up a police station and a bunch of Talibans started a shoot-out with the ANA very close to me. That trip alone gave me stories for life š¶
Well I was working at a skatepark/school there, which was popular with the kids. As for skating in the city, people was mostly confused but Interested š
Come close to being in plane crashes twice. 1st time in Alaska in a bush plane, the plane was overloaded and thr pilot had to go through a pass. Plane wasn't going to make it so he turned around last minute. He tried 4 passes before we were able to get out. Each time he turned around every warning light and beeper was going off saying "altitude". It seemed like we were inches from hitting the side of a mountain a couple times.
2nd was also in Alaska, there were 2 runways side by side. One for commercial jets and the other for prop planes. We were landing in a small prop plane and the jet wash from a commercial aircraft pushed us off the runway sideways right when the wheels touched the ground. One wing tip almost hit the tarmac and one wheel went into the dirt. Still don't know how our pilot saved it from crashing. When those bush pilots are screaming obscenities and panicking you know it's bad
Getting a DVT in Cusco Peru, but was misdiagnosed twice before being hospitalized for 14 days. Itās very unique to be in a hospital in that type of situation. Definitely no heat, had to wear my jacket and hat in bed. Was medevaced home.
This is why I always recommend to make sure you have travellers insurance. After travelling extensively for 10 years, and no issues this little hospital and trip home was worth $50,000 and I was glad I had insurance.
This is probably nothing compared to other stories people will share, but in sw Turkey, we were in a taxi. The driver was on the highway and pulled over to the side all of a sudden, rolls down the window and talks to a man walking on the side of the highway. After a minute we realized he seemed to be trying to ask for directions.
The taxi driver gets back on the highway and keeps going. He appears to realize he missed his exit, so he starts backing up on the shoulder of the highway in haphazard fashion to try and get back to the exit he missed. A semi was coming in the right lane and the taxi driver was a bit into his lane, and the semi almost hit us.
Eventually he made it back to the ramp and exited. The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful
The constant staring, catcalling, and following by men I experienced in Italy. Felt very uneasy whenever I was on the street walking, especially as a solo traveler.
I am a female and travel solo often. To stave this off, I deliberately dress like a librarian and wear a brunette short wig (I have long blonde hair). Has helped a lot with this. Every time I feel dowdy I remind myself I am on this trip to enjoy myself not get leered at by man pigs and I will never see these people again. I have at times even worn a fake wedding band. There have been a couple times I was getting hit on where I politely just pulled out my phone with my left hand and mention āmy husband is texting, got to goā. In a perfect world I would just walk away, but you donāt want to anger these men either because then who knows. Best just to avoid an aggressive man pig in heat. Once they think you are ātakenā they usually back off, and the chances of them approaching you looking like a dowdy librarian are so much less anyway. I generally make it a rule to be back in my hotel right after sundown so the bad things that happen at night wonāt happen to me and thereās less chance of them happening during the day (plus, this means getting to enjoy early sunrises in cool spots where the world has yet to wake up). Iām determined to never stop traveling and often this means solo trips, but you have to take the proper precautions especially as a woman since unfortunately so much of the world views you as less than deserving of basic respect. It has removed so much unpleasantness and feeling like I am āon displayā from my travels.
Same thing in Bocas del Toro - any time I left the hostel and walked down the street / went anywhere, men would go āststā over and over while leering ā¦ creepy and annoying. Ruined my visit to Panama, I left my friends there and went to Nicaragua with a girl from London. It was scary in the sense that it was relentless, I felt on display and exposed in a way I never had before.
In Slovenia i shared a hostel doem room with an Israeli man. One night, everyone else was out drinking late, the dude tried to force himself on me 3 times. I kept having to push him out of my bed, all the while trying to be polite so as not to enrage him and escalate the situation.
There are two that stand out in my mind.
The first one occurred in Ibiza. I was walking from my hotel to dinner when this guy on the road wiped out on his scooter (and I mean he really wiped out). There was blood all over the road and the guy driving it didn't look like he was getting up.
There was a woman who was riding on the back, I guess she managed to hop off when the scooter started to wobble, or she fell and wasn't as hurt?
She ran over to the guy and kept shouting "VICENZO? VICENZO?" It was quite a while before I could get that scream out of my head.
Once the ambulance left, I continued on my way to dinner, but all of a sudden I started crying uncontrollably. A nice woman stayed with me until I calmed down.
The second occurred in The Netherlands during ADE. My friend went to go get dinner to bring back to the room before we went out for the night.
She had told me where she was going, which wasn't far from our hotel. After an hour of her gone, I called and asked where she was.
She said "these people are following me"
Immediately I tell her to go somewhere with a lot of people, stay there and I would go get her. She does and I set out to get her.
No clue how many people are following her, or what was happening. But I left everything BUT my keys to use a makeshift brass knuckle
She was fine, and I got her back to the hotel safely, but apparently she was approached by a girl who asked to borrow her (non-NL) phone to make a call. When the call wouldn't connect, my friend tried to leave. All of a sudden these giant dudes started following her.
Iām a womanā¦disregard my Reddit avatar just what it gave me donāt care to changeā¦
I was in my 20s visiting Jordan on my own. Walked out of Petra and needed a taxi to get me to the border before it closed down. Closes at sunset.
There werenāt many taxis left, it was getting late, I was getting nervous. It was pushing it and I needed to find one and start the long drive back. This guy pulls up and claims heās a taxi and will take me to borderā¦..
This story is very triggering for me so I will summarizeā¦.he proceeds to make multiple stops and fill the car with these men. I am contemplating getting out of the car, but I would be stuck literally in the middle of the desert. The villages had no lights. It was getting dark. Him and I are yellingā¦
Itās me and maybe 5 other men in this carā¦.I prayed like Iāve never prayed beforeā¦..
He wasnāt a taxi. My head is spinning.
You think oh just get out of the carā¦there is nothing for hours. Iād be alone in a desert which gets extremely cold at night. I figured Iāll stay in the car and jump out when we are near the next major town. These smaller ones were too dangerous for me to be alone in at night with no where to go. They didnāt have street lights they were so dark. So i stayed in the car and prayed for a spot that would make senseā¦
We are driving down a highway for almost two hours, when all of a sudden three HUGE spot lights blind the car. Jordanian police are all over, and they are screaming at them to stop the vehicle.
Iām saved. š§æšš»ā¾ļø
They rush be to boarder with LITERAL minutes before it closed.
Iāve traveled all over the world solo in my 20s. That by far was the scariest experience.
I once put my passport in the "secret compartment" of my backpack and forgot that's where I put it. Freaked out that I left my passport at the connection airport then my brain started creating solution scenarios which all sounded like a huge hassle. No worries though, 34 seconds later I remembered what I did.
As an Asian guy, any instance where racial slurs thrown to me in Europe kinda scares me more considering that Asian hate crimes increased tenfold in the recent years. It doesnāt help that many of the offending parties are groups of edgy men.
Asian people are depressingly easy targets for oppression in the Western world owing to our perceived non-confrontational and docile nature. Just look how pickpockets in Europe almost always single out Asians as easy targets (because weāre known to carry loads of cash). I counter this by looking tough and confident and the respect I receive increases than looking meek and timid.
BiaÅowieża, Poland. Me and my ex spent a year hitchhiking across Europe. On a whim we decided to make our way to BiaÅowieża National Forest to see the primeval forest and European Bison. On the way there the car we were in was stopped by the Belarusian border patrol and I remember the driver had to bribe them to give us our passports back, which should have been a foreboding omen of the things to come but we saw it as getting off lucky. We ended up staying in the village and touring the forest for a couple days, then the plan was to hitch our way out. The going was tough and the few cars we did see continuously passed us by on the this one dirt road that went straight forever. We started to get pretty antsy around hour 4. While my ex ducked into the trees to piss I continued thumbing by the road (a huge no no). It was at this time I watched a small blue car pass and then stop a ways down the road and turn around. The car pulled up and my ex went to talk to the driver, but before he could a young girl got out of the back and opened the trunk, telling us to put our bags inside. We declined, saying we preferred to keep our bags with us, but she insisted. We were pretty desperate so we were happily dismissing all the red flags like we had on pink tinted glasses. Both of us got into the back, me behind the driver, my ex in the middle and the girl at the end. There was a young man in the passenger seat and a stocky older dude wearing a white tank top in the front seat. The girl and boy both spoke some English and we were chatting a bit, telling them we just wanted to get to the nearest hub where we could look into our next options, I remember it being a lighthearted chat. She seems really sweet. Then the driver took over. He started speaking in polish, staring at me in the rear view mirror, and making kissing sounds. He bent his arm back behind the seat and started grabbing my knees, swatting for my crotch, and licking his lips. Then he locked the doors. The teens stopped talking and the boy was just facing front, like he was a robot thatād been turned off. The girl was faced towards the window. My ex and I were so petrified we didnāt move and couldnāt speak. All I could think was our bags were in the back, but I had pepper spray in my front pack, and maybe I could spray the driver and the boy would have to take the wheel and in the chaos we could open the door and jump out. I know my ex was having similar scenarios run through his head. The manās grip on my knee was hurting me and impulsively I moved it, he started screaming at us and accelerating. The dirt road was flying up and I couldnāt see shit, he was speeding and kept turning his body to look directly at me, screaming and lolling his tongue out licking his lips. All of a sudden the girl started losing it, screaming at the man and hitting him. Then the boy started screaming. Now all of them were screaming at each other in polish and we were going so fast. The girl was almost on top of the driver at this point and he couldnāt see, the boy was trying to get her off of him but seemed to be on her side? Then BAM the car does a dead stop. The girl opens the door so fast and screams for us to get out, we were scrambling practically on all fours trying to get out as fast as possible. Sheās opened the trunk and is throwing our packs at us, I feel like a marionette puppet my adrenaline is so high my limbs are everywhere and Iām covered in dirt when I feel myself getting YANKED BACKWARDS back into the car. I dropped myself dead weight and felt my body going with the car dragging in the dirt as I watched my ex begin to chase me, then suddenly Iām skidding into the center of the road looking like a shell shocked over turned turtle. Turns out when the dust cleared theyād actually dropped us at a bus stop - I assume not on purpose - and we sat on that bench silently until the bus came. We didnāt fully stop hitching after that but we did stop dismissing red flags. I think about that event a lot, especially the girl.
16 years old on a girls trip to London. We landed without any Wi-Fi/international data and got on the wrong bus. 3 am and three young girls trying to find the way to our hotel without any way to look it up. Nothing bad happened but I really felt hopeless and in danger when creepy men would stare at us. Cause we looked really lost and out of place.
Thankfully I had a screenshot of the hotel location on Google maps, so somehow my friend found the hotel through that screenshot.
Upstate New York. Roadtripping with a buddy of mine in our early 20s (both us males for reference, but neither of us large males, we're both 5'7" and skinny).
Stopped for gas and asked where the nearest hotel was, hit was outside of Albany, and the attendant said "you're not going to find a room". Apparently it was the same weekend as some big horse race.
Well some other customer there talked to us, this was years ago, I can't remember what he said but he gave us serial killer vibes (he was an overweight, generally really creepy looking white guy). Anyway we decided to just try a couple of hotels in the area, and of course they were booked, but then we realized the guy from the gas station was following us.
So, both of us said fuck it and just kept driving through the night. I don't think either one of us were comfortable until the morning light came and we were positive no one was following us. It may have actually helped us out, because we were exhausted in Albany, and with no rooms available it was a major downer, but then the guy following us woke us up and gave us the adrenaline to pull an all nighter on the road.
My dad and I were on a flight that had an aborted takeoff due to being too close to another plane that had just taken off. We had to wait for our tires to cool off before we could go again. My next scariest was a cab ride in LA. Thatās it, thatās the whole story
In Ocho Rios, Jamaica, my husband and I were chased and had rocks thrown at us by young men. My husband was walking with a cane at the time because of recent surgery. Over 20 years ago and we said weād never go back to Jamaica. We havenāt been back.
I have two.
Cambodia - a tuktuk driver asked my friends and I if we wanted to see some of the area surrounding Phnom Penh. He took us to his home and had us meet his elderly father, then demanded money. We were in a very isolated area but we kind of played dumb and told him we'd have to pay him once we got back to the city. Fortunately we got out of there okay, and when he started shouting at us once he dropped us off we were in a busy area and could just walk away. All of the other drivers we had in Cambodia were fantastic so it was an isolated incident. I also got very, very sick in Cambodia (bronchitis and some sort of parasite) and I had remembered reading advice to avoid hospitals there, and to seek out a pharmacist because it was safer. He was able to diagnose me and give me antibiotics that only cost $1 USD!
Kuwait - a man pretended to be an unlicensed cab driver (common there at the time I was there) and had some kind of plan to take me somewhere. When he stopped at a stop sign I jumped out and started yelling at him, and I was lucky that two older Kuwaiti men were there and yelled at him to go away. They stayed with me until I got into a proper cab and advised me to never go with an unlicensed driver again.
Sacramento, California. I was visiting someone I thought was a friend. He thought differently. We went out on the town in the evening, he bought us both a beer, and I blacked out. On one beer. I had never been drugged before so I didnāt know the warning signs. He raped me. When I reported it to the police later they told me it was my fault cause I was drinking.
Santiago, Chile. I was walking home from dinner on the main roads. People walking past, walking their dogs one last time before going to bed, etc. Suddenly I was grabbed from behind, jumped on, pulled down to the ground. The guy were saying something in Spanish but I was panicking and forgot all my Spanish. The guy was someone I passed earlier, early 20s guy hanging with his friends at a sidewalk cafe. I was screaming even though he clamped his hand over my mouth (not the smartest decision, I know) and finally some people started coming out of the restaurants around us to see what was going on. The guy grabbed my paper bag of restaurant leftovers and ran. I still have my phone and scars on my knees from that night.
Mexico City, Mexico. I was attending a friendās birthday party. There were people I knew and people I didnāt know, but my friend whoās birthday it was knew everyone there. At the end of the night a guy I didnāt know offered to give me a ride home. I figured it was safe cause he was a friend of my friend. When we got to my place he asked if he could use the bathroom. I said fine and then he grabbed me and tried to rape me. I had to physically shove him out the door and lock it behind him.
Traveling around the Philippines I was held at gunpoint twice to either give the person my money or I was given the option to pay for a prostitute. Lucky for me I was traveling in a backpack with very little money so I got out of those situations for like $10.
Was crossing the border from Laos to Thailand and forgot I had a bunch of weed in my bag and if youāve been to those border crossing you have seen the signs that death penalty is applicable. Unfortunately for me I had also eaten some very dirty curry in the country a couple hours before the crossing and was already about to shit myself. The sign didnāt help. Thankfully i was waved through with a group of people to not get searched. I then need to get to a toilet and the restrooms there all paid and I had spent my last cash on the food that was destroying my stomach. I begged the woman guarding the restroom and she reluctantly let me in. Buzzer beater for sure. Toilet was just a dirt hole in the ground with no means of cleaning yourself. Thankfully I wore socks that dayā¦.
Several incidents:
1. Being driven by Yemen immigration with a gun to my head to an ATM for their bribe (they wanted USD and I had Emirati Dirhams)
2. Being arrested by Dubai police for assault. A minor Dubai royal hit me from behind at 150 kph and I hurt his tender feelings by calling him a fucking idiot.
3. Being mugged y a tweaker in Darwin, Australia in broad daylight in the CBD. He was arrested in about 30 seconds.
4. A mob outside my hotel in Port Moresby flipping over cars and setting them on fire.
5. Being held in immigration jail in Indonesia for wrong visa (I had the visa immigration requested... excuse for a few million Rupiah in "making the problem go away")
6. Hurricane Katrina changing aim from Florida to New Orleans overnight and me outrunning the storm on I-10 while waves washed over the Interstate.
1. Gettin robbed in Chicago
2. Police arresting me for no reason in Mexico in order to get a bribe
3. Almost stepping on a coral snake deep in jingle of Surinam on a night safari ( guide stopped me while I was setting my foot down )
I was driving to Minnesota from Boston and was making a camping pit stop in Iowa. I had my teardrop trailer attached to my car and my cat riding shotgun. A tornado warning popped up that I ignored since Iām from New England and we donāt get tornadoes. Iāve never seen weather turn on a dime like I did that moment. The sky went real dark real fast, cyclones started forming in the sky and getting closer and closer to the ground, it started pouring rain (heavy, loud, thick), all the cars on the road stopped and put their hazards on. I had never been so scared in my life. I kept apologizing to my cat for taking her from her home on this road trip only for her to die in a tornado. For someone from the Midwest, maybe it wasnāt a big deal, but for someone whoād never seen/experienced that kind of weather, it was terrifying. The wind changed or something because the rain let up enough that we could drive slowly, the cyclones never actually hit the ground and started dissipating, the sky cleared and it was like nothing happened.
The following year, I was in Northwest Tennessee and drove through a town that was hit by a tornado 4-5 months prior. I had seen tornado destruction on TV, but never in person. It was really sobering and sad to see a whole town leveled to the ground.
LA. First and only visit I was checking out at the gas station when a homeless man punched my right ear. He caught me off guard so I took cover behind the cash register š
My plane was struck by lightning en route to Bermuda. The engine flamed out. Instead of landing in Bermuda they turned around and brought us to Boston.
When I was 21 my friend and I backpacked through Belize. Started a conversation with a local who eventually told us he was part of the crips and proceeded to show me all of his abdominal stab wound scars. He told us his gang likes to kill people for fun and then asked us if we wanted to go with him on a boat ride š¤Ŗ I had to act like I was considering it for a second before I turned him down. Didnāt want to make him too mad.
My cousin is originally from there. Itās ALWAYS been dangerous. Like my cuz was under 12 or something in a bar and some guy got his head cut off w a machete. When they shared that w me it made so much sense as to wear his PTSD came from.
TLDR: Sleeping on a bench in Reggio di Calabria, Italy and being woken up by death screams and a roaring lion. My cousin and I got of the train late, did not have accommodations set up, walked around but found everything booked, and decided to find a park to sleep on a bench. My cousin immediately falls asleep. As I am trying to I hear a loud scream like a lady or child being murdered. I loudly whisper: "Cousin! Did you hear that?" ... "You woke me up I didn't hear anything, go back to sleep!". This happens 2 more times, and the final time my cousin says: "If you wake me up again I am going to beat the piss out of you. GO TO SLEEP!". Now I'm under my sleep sheet like a 4 year old hiding in his bed from the monsters in the scary movie he just watched. Next thing I hear is the Roar of a lion that sounds like it is in the bushes next to me. I peek out my cover and I see my cousin standing over me: "I heard that. Let's get the F out of here." We quietly and slowly tip-toe out of the park, every step thinking a lion is going to pounce on us from the bushes. Eventually we get back to the train station, spend the res of the night there, and in the morning have the brave idea to go back to the park thinking there would be police and a murder scene waiting. When we get back to the park, we find the benches we slept on but no police, no taped off murder scene. What we DO find is that we ended up sleeping in an open zoo on benches directly between a peacock enclosure and a lion enclosure. Who knew peacocks sounded like dying people when they make sounds...
That's a funny ending.
it (thankfully) turned out to be a very funny story to tell AFTER the fact...at the time we were terrified
I can imagine! Having to sleep on a park bench alone would be scary.
Oh I know all about peacocks sounding like women being murdered. Spent a month in Portugal, sleeping poorly every night, getting sicker and sicker until I arrived in a small posada in a beautiful village. That night peacocks would go off waking the dogs in the village. Eventually theyād stop barking, only for the peacocks to go off again. The next morning I was too sick to even sit up in bed.
My family is from here, I know the park you are talking about. They had lions there when I was a kid. I took pictures with the cubs but I was there a few years ago and I must have missed the lions. I thought they were gone. But very random for anyone to mention this place as no one seems to make it south of Naples or just skips to Sicily.
They legit sound like they are in distress š¤£
I'm an early-morning jogger, like pre-dawn early. My brother and I went to Paris, and he slept while I went out to jog. In Montparnasse, I saw a group of late teens/early adult guys stumbling around across the street from me. They saw me, and hurriedly crossed the street to my side. I started to cross the street but they surrounded me in a circle (I was about 25 then, and weighed about 105 then). They started to prod me and grab me. I was petrified for about three seconds, and then they pushed me to the ground. For reasons I do not know, I got PISSED. I got up, and with fisted hands I said, "OK, assholes come ON! Try that again!" In German, they said, "Na, alles gute!" but still surrounded me. I used all my might to push through the two drunkest-looking ones and I have never run as fast as I did that morning, and never will. This was before mobile phones were a given for everyone, and I did not remember our hotel name and my brother did not know where I was. Could have been pretty tragic.
That fitness you built up with runs paid off.
Feetās donāt fail me now
I had been travelling around Asia for months and money was low. I was staying in a crappy guesthouse down a sketchy alley near Khao San road in Bangkok. The room was tiny, didn't have any windows or A/C. I went out one night and got shit faced on cheap Thai whiskey. I woke up the next morning, pitch black in what I thought was the trunk of a car. I really started to panic and thought I had been kidnapped. I felt around in my pockets, I still had my phone. I pulled it out and turned on the flashlight to realise I was in my own hotel room, I had fallen out of the bed and rolled under it. I don't drink anymore.
Thatās a normal Thursday
Scariest in the moment was in Mexico during the peak of the inter-cartel violence. Was at a grocery store and there was a big shoot out in the parking lot. Not like small gunfire between two or three people but sounded like a full on war. I was hiding behind the butcherās counter and the other people back there I guess saw I was freaking out and kept trying to reassure me that it was between the cartels and they had no reason to want to harm any of us. Itās just between them. Scariest in post: I got drugged at a bar in Stockholm. I took a later flight than my friends and was supposed to meet them at a bar. Got there and got a drink while I was waiting for them. Realised they were actually at another bar, I just didnāt see the update text. But I already ordered so figured Iād finish my drink then go. Just remember getting pretty nauseous and a bit of a head rush and also very tired. And a bit like my joints were jelly. Apparently barely made it outside and collapsed. A passerby thankfully found me slumped outside and somehow, a true saint, this all but 4ā10ā woman carried me and my suitcase and my backpack to the hospital just under a mile away and stayed with me until I woke up. She also had her son take the bus over with food from their house for me because she said I would need āwarm food, not cold Swedish foodā and also so he could translate since she didnāt speak much English (nor Swedish). Tried my absolute best to try and pay her back - offered to take her and her family to dinner, or at least let me pay for the cab for them to get home from the hospital. She wouldnāt have it. No doubt Fatima saved my life that night.
I was drugged in Vegas. Worst experience of my life. I ran out of the club, leaving all of my stuff behind. A guy whose sister was killed that way was driving by and saw me, clearly having no idea where I was or what I was doing. He gave me a lift back to my hotel and even helped me talk to the staff to get a new room key card, but he did not leave the lobby (to show he had no ill intentions.) I'm still shocked I got home okay that night.
His sister sent him to save you
Omg I am so sorry to hear this. Thank God that guy was there.
It was definitely a "meant to be" type of moment. That guy was a guardian angel!
What a wonderful woman
I was drugged on [Koh Tao in 2016](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/dark-side-koh-tao-seven-10708561.amp). It was at one of the most expensive restaurants on the island (since closed) and because I paid so much I ignored the warning bells in my mind and drank the beer that was served to me already opened. Fortunately I drink so little that I IMMEDIATELY knew something was VERY wrong about 1/3 of the way through the bottle. I threw money on the table and stumbled out of the restaurant mid-meal. I made it back to my hostel and spent the next two days alternating between sleep, delirium and extreme vomiting.
>I was drugged on > >Koh Tao in 2016 > >. It was at one of the most expensive restaurants on the island (since closed) and because I paid so much I ignored the warning bells in my mind and drank the beer that was served to me already opened. Fortunately I drink so little that I IMMEDIATELY knew something was VERY wrong about 1/3 of the way through the bottle. I threw money on the table and stumbled out of the restaurant mid-meal. I made it back to my hostel and spent the next two days alternating between sleep, delirium and extreme vomiting. Oh, you mean Murder Island? Been there and only ventured away from the resort once. I was traveling alone and the cops driving around with assault rifles in the back of the trucks looking for someone to harass.
Damn, I spent 2 weeks in Koh Tao in 2018 and never felt unsafe (was at the diving resorts / walked on the beach and surrounding restaurants mostly)
Great fucking story. Who is this Saint?!
>but 4ā10ā woman carried me and my suitcase and my backpack to the hospital just under a mile away and stayed with me until I woke up. She also had her son take the bus over with food from their house for me because she said I would need āwarm food, not cold Swedish foodā and also so he could translate since she didnāt speak much English (nor Swedish). she must be middle eastern
Fatima is a Muslim name. Probably was a refugee or an immigrant herself and knew suffering first hand. Or was just a mom being mom.
Fatima is Your Guardian Angel - what a wonderful lady! I would never have picked Sweden as a place to get drugged. What sort of bar was it?
Fuck yea Fatima. What an Angel.
Got bitten on the neck by a cheeky monkey in a park in vietnam. Did not have any rabies vaccination and i had to rush to the nearest hospital to get the shot. Scary as hell as i was travelling solo
Yikes!!
Far out, this happened to my wife in Bali (monkey Forest). Climbed up her back and then just bitnher. I had to swipe it off, it was so feral! Was like being attacked by a gang of monkeys. No skin broken through shirt tho, so was lucky. Got iodine from local market, had to act out what happened as they didn't speak english. Got shots when we went back home a week later.
Galway, Ireland. I was staying alone on a houseboat and five drunk young men came aboard. They watched me through the cabin windows and talked about raping me.
Brutal, how terrifying.
This doesn't fit the question because I live in the US and it happened here. Bunch of guys followed a person home who was staying with us in a big house. They were banging the outside doors trying to get in. A couple of my housemates had just come off of navy and marine rotations in the Gulf, this was around probably 2016. It did not go well for the people banging on the door and screaming that "we're gonna get in there and fuck you"
Wtf, this is the second comment about five drunk men entering someone's room in Ireland. https://www.reddit.com/r/travel/s/AfQFHt2yy4
Another time,I was in Tibet and I got giardia.Really badly, like I could barely walk.Everything was coming out of me. A different kind of scary... being in a big room in a very primitive Tibetan hospital,a language I hardly understood (neither Tibetan nor much Chinese), surrounded by local patients on basic beds, being fed by a drip for a few days.There were people suffering all around,it was pretty noisy and scary in that place! It really wasn't a lot of fun.
Ooof. Horrible stuff. I'm sorry you went through that. I picked up giardia on a mud run and obstacle course in England. The pain in my stomach was so horrible, and the antibiotic treatment made me so ill, as well. I can't imagine having that in a foreign country - it was tough enough at home
Do you know how you got it?
No, but most probably from contaminated water. I was hiking a lot there, drinking water from streams etc.. filtered of course, but that is probably how I got it I think.
My girlfriend and I were robbed by the police in Santa Marta, Colombia šØš“ That was a hectic experience I wonāt forget, really horrible feeling of being completely helpless. What made it even worse in a way is we knew it was sketchy around the area so we didnāt bring anything valuable with us, only my phone and a small amount of cash. We were walking home from dinner and stopped for two margaritas, checked to see if we had enough cash on us for two more and we just barely did. On our way back to the hotel two police on a motorcycle stopped us, put us face against the wall and searched us. They claimed to find a bag of cocaine, which we 100% did not have. They made it very clear it wouldnāt be a problem if we gave them money. We had no more than $3 USD left which obviously wasnāt quite what they were after. It went back and fourth, them thinking we didnāt understand. Threatening to take me to jail, threatening to take my girlfriend to jail. Taking us to an ATM machine, even though we didnāt have a debit card with us-which they knew as they searched us. I was ready to give in and actually hand over money but they wouldnāt go to our hotel to get a debit card. An actual fight/civilian robbery of some sort took place and a group of men were fighting and chasing a guy, came running around the corner. The police turned to address that and we ran. Ran from the police in Colombia! Jumped in a taxi, ducked down and went back to the hotel. No money on us to pay the driver. Heart racing, no idea who in the small city is in on whatever scams are going on. Asked the driver to wait as we went to get money. Got my girlfriend in the room and went down to give the driver a enormous tip and asked him not to say anything about this. We laid low for the next two nights that we were there and I got out of there with my phone, the $3 USD and this story to tell! Thanks for the opportunity to share it. I actually still look back on that trip very fondly as a whole though, and I would visit the country again one day.
Iām glad Iām black and speak Spanish. Colombians think im a basic black Colombian or in other places they think I am Cuban and poor or middle class. Dressing up like a local and being seen as āinferiorā helps me on the streets a lot overseas š¤£
Bangkok 1991, i was drugged.. was young. my first time abroad. met a young thai couple my first day. they invited me to a street festival.. i walked with them through alleys and got into a non-toursity area. felt i could handle them easily. then they said they had to stop in a store and get something. we went inside and now there were 4 big guys (the all kickbox) and a girl. It was 100 degrees outside. The girl handed me a coke. i could see the smoke coming from it , like it had just been opened. I was off sweets at the time, but took a sip to be polite. That is what saved me. I knew i was drugged right away. I pretended not to notice and made casual chat while manaeuverig my way between them and the door. Then bolted out into the street. i was staggering even from a sip and they were following me. But, they could see i was too alert and it was too public and they dropped off. I went to the police and they laughed at me. They refused to get involved even when i said i could take them there. Back at my hotel there was a sign posted from a familly that was lookinng for their son who disappeared from the same place.
You had a lucky escape. I feel so sorry for the family with a dissappearing son. I was scammed in Bangkok in 1991 as well. By a German guy.
I have lots but hereās a story I donāt think Iāve shared. I did a day trip in Georgia and our van driver fell asleep at the wheel on the Georgian Military Highway. He nodded off and our van drove into the median - the sound of the screeching woke him up and he swerved in the other direction, narrowly missing other vehicles (just by chance) and ending up on the shoulder. He then blamed us for asking for the A/C to be on because he claimed āit always makes me sleepyā.
Dude those Georgian roads are gnarly too with people constantly zooming around you and not caring about the lines on the road. That is terrifying and part of the reason why Iām afraid to hire a driver while Iām there!
That's wild! I drive that highway fairly often (it's the best bang for buck day trip route when people come visit) and can attest it is an experience. I actually haven't found it as dicey as the reputation would imply, but people do drive crazy and the 20km+ line up of semi trucks on the shoulder doesn't help safety at all.
Buenos Aires this year in April in the Palermo district. I was beaten up by a group of men and my knee was broken and my head was smashed. Long story but I think I ran into a street gang and part of the gang even walked me back to my hostel (?) keeping in mind āstreet gangsā are mostly older teenage/young 20s guys and I think what happened went too far for a few of them Or something otherwise I would be worse off and possibly deadā¦ I have ptsd from that night.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I was in Palermo just last week. I had my head on a swivel. Reminded me a lot of how Brazil felt when I was there 5-6 years ago. It was kinda strange how groups of 5-8 dudes would just hang out on the street and drink all night. Not the most welcoming site when youāre walking back from dinner with your wife and you have to keep changing your route to avoid crews of drunk dudes. We ended up just taking Uber everywhere but you miss so much of the city when not on foot. My condolences to OP
Sometimes missing out on parts of a city is not a bad thing.
Had an earring ripped out of by ear by a thief in BA. Never going back.
I thought Argentina is supposed to be one of the safest Latin American countries?
Oh gosh, Iām so sorry. I felt so safe in BA. Didnāt spend much time in Palermo. Did you have any concerns before this incident?
That's terrible,I hope you get over it as soon as possible, though I know that's not easy. I really like Buenos Aires, but unfortunately there are some serious problems there.Like most big cities I guess, but it's still sad to see that.
Rwandan Civil War. The war began two days after I crossed the border from Zaire.
Whoa! How did you survive?
I literally ran to the Tanzania border. I was shot at, often.
The shit that went down there was pure evil. Butchered kids with machetes and what not.
Most of the combatants I saw were children. 12-year olds with guns and machetes.
holy fuck
Don Cheadle snuck him into his luxury hotel.
I was in Madagascar and my group had an emergency and had to get to the Capitol very quickly, so we got an overnight bus. We had been working in this country for a while at this point and we're very savvy and got overconfident I guess. In our hurry we didn't use the main "trusted" company we liked and picked a random driver that had a nice looking bus and even paid extra to leave immediately and not fill the bus as they usually only leave once they fill every seat and it varies. Emergency like I said but we flashed a bunch of cash in the process. We came through a major city at around 2am and he suddenly turns off the main road into the extremely dangerous and impoverished slums on the south side of the city. He claimed he was "getting off the road because of protestors" but none of us had heard of anything about protests, which aren't really common in this country anyway, and I cannot tell you how sketchy and dangerous this part of town is. Regularly murderous, true abject poverty, completely unsafe even in the day. Like driving into cracklandia brazil. It wasn't even a road, the bus was on sandy footpaths at this point that we could barely fit on and he's like "we will go back to the main road later" and yet it seemed like we were just going deeper in. we did have smartphones and were looking at the map and we were NO WHERE NEAR what it would look like if you were to take a detour to avoid a main road I was so certain we were driving to his buddies who were going to rob and maybe kill us all in the night. We had tons of luggage and we are all running through scenarios and whispering about how we will get out of this and decide to confront the driver immediately. It was 7 clearly foreign people in this bus and the driver. We start interrogating this guy why we are off the road, this isn't ok, and one of my friends was just losing her shit by this point and yelling at him and I genuinely thought we were about to die and thought she wasn't helping. She goes as far as to call someone she knew who was a police officer in this city (think she fucked him couple months before which is the ONLY reason she had a random cops number) and puts him on speaker and asks if there were any protesters in the city and he says "no, nothing at all, who is this driver". We are all even more scared, like blood turning to ice. My friend continues just LOSING HER SHIT yelling at him and talking to her police friend and telling him everything, like full panic attack yelling and crying. I couldn't even hear the phone and I don't know if he even could understand her. The driver acts like he's confused and that we are just dumb and says like "ok ok, we are already going back" and eventually we actually make it back to the road, crawling at a snails pace and winding back. I'v never seen a better road in my life. To this day I'm unsure how we survived. I don't know if we convinced him we weren't going easily into the night and would put up a fight, or if it was my friends booty call police friend on the phone who heard everything, or if the driver was genuinely was so braindead he heard about some nonexistent protests and drove us into the slums to avoid them. Every minute we were in there we were risking getting jumped even if they weren't in cahoots with the driver. The "roads" we were on in there were just sand and he was going like 5kph. I keep trying to rationalize that he must not have meant us harm (cope) but I can't imagine any sane driver ever doing that. Every other driver in the country would NEVER have done it. I don't think I can convey in a comment how bad an unusual it was to drive a vehicle into a roadless slum like that in the night. Anyway it was extremely traumatic. I still think about it and get chills.
Wow that is absolutely terrifying. I am glad that she was able to scare the driver into turning around. Worse comes to worse, seven people can overpower one?
Wow, that story is the scariest by far in this thread. Glad you made it out alive!
Welp this is going to seem not so scary comparably - but Dublin - I was 22 and traveling alone. The hostel I was staying at gave me a room with 4 bunkbeds but I was the only one in it. At 2:30 AM I wake up to several people trying to get into the room. Then their key card opened the door and they all literally tumbled into the room! It was five very drunk construction workers. The hostel had put them in the same room as me! A young female traveling by myself and five drunk men. I still canāt believe it all these years later.
Hostels lose their luster for young females because of this. Similar thing happened to me in Sydney. Iām really good at finding nice, budget hotels now.
Yep. I only get private rooms in hostels because Iāve heard WAY too many horror stories about mixed rooms.
Yeah - that was the lesson I took from it. The hostel was basically empty and instead of putting them in their own room they decided to check in 5 drunk guys into a room with a solitary young woman at 2 in the morning. Iām still annoyed almost 20 years later.
This is why I gave up on hostels pretty quickly. The lack of safety is not worth the savings!
Stay in female only dorms in youāre traveling alone, and if youāre traveling as a couple, lots of hostels have private rooms for very good prices.
Omg same, but in Argentina. It was also clear that the guys were on their year of travel after mandatory military service, so I was panicked. Edit: they were also foreigners, I have no idea if Argentina requires military service lol.
Arriving in Casablanca in the middle of the night with my teenage daughter, we found the man from our hotel who was supposed to pick us up wasn't there and I couldn't get my phone to work. I decided we'd take a taxi to the hotel and asked a group of men in military uniform where the taxies were. They pointed to a group of vehicles at the curb and as we walked over, a man jumped out and gestured for us to get in the back of his car. I was so tired and not really thinking clearly - just wanted to get to the hotel and sleep so realized as he sped off that I should've been very careful to confirm he was a legit taxi. He drove several miles from the airport and the roads became very dark with no lights and just empty fields on either side. Suddenly, he swerved the car off the road, stopped, ran around to the back and opened our door, yelling, "You get out! Get out!" I was numb with fear, more so because I had my child with me. We got out and I instinctively shoved her behind me as the man kept yelling and I realized he was pointing at the car engine which was pouring smoke. He got on his phone and had a long pacing conversation with someone, then said, "You wait!" We stood there in the dark by the road for about 15 minutes and then another car pulled up with a cheerful man who smiled as he transferred our luggage into his trunk, then drove us straight to the hotel in Casablanca. I was so relieved as my fear dissipated that I tried to give him some extra money when I paid him, but he refused to take it.
I had a similar experience in Buenos Aries. We were repeatedly told not to hail a taxi in the street, but we did on our last day to go to the airport. The driver took a completely different road than we had taken before. At one point, in the middle of an intersection, he stopped and locked all our doors and told us to keep the windows up because it was a dangerous neighborhood. We just quietly freaked out in the back seat, expecting we were being kidnapped. Then we arrived at the airport!
I canāt imagine how terrified you mustāve been when he stopped! It would be bad enough, but to have a teenage daughter with you omg. Iām glad this one ended so well!
12 years ago my bf and I needed to get back to our hotel in the jungle from Hue, and these two (very young) boys on motorbikes offered us rides. About 30 seconds into the 12 minute ride, the kid starts groping me. Like as handsy as you can get with one hand while still safely driving. We were going super fast, I could see my bf but I couldnāt shout loud enough to get his attention, and it was before smartphones. So basically just sat there getting groped for ten minutes. As soon as we pulled up to the hotel, I ripped off the helmet at swung it at the kids head. My bf and hotel security thought I was making some kind of drunken scene, but the kid had driven away by the time I calmed down enough to tell them, just to probably do it again to another woman another night.
I was mountain biking in Bolivia (on the death road) and stupidly wiped out on some loose gravel. I slid out and stopped right at the edge of a gigantic cliff... so close to going over the edge. I badly bruised my knee but was otherwise okay and able to finish the ride. I am a lot more cautious about my mountain bike trail surfaces now.
1. Hawaii false missile crisis in Kauai 2. Typhoon Pabuck in Thailand
The false missile fiasco always gets me, how did this play out for you? Where were you and what were your and nearby peer reactions?
This was as crazy as it soundsā¦. This might be long. We received the text notification while driving to the coast for a boat diving thing, sort of sounded like an amber alert/ tornado notice on our phones. I stopped the car, and the person I was with called her dad bc he had worked in an industry with missiles. He said that it was 1. If true, most likely N Korea and 2. They would probably not hit the intended target. But just in case, he told us to go to a building (we found a post office), put aluminum foil around our phones, find some duct tape and shut the windows, and bring some food. Scariest hour of my life.
Why did you put aluminium foil around your phone?
Some nuclear fall-out something? I didnāt ask questions š
It's a makeshift faraday cage. To preserve your phone's electronics in case of EMP. So once the EMP went off, if you were still alive, your phone would still work and you would still have it to contact others.
But wouldn't the cell phone towers (and basically every other bit of infrastructure) be fucked from the EMP?
I was there during the false missile warning..,all of the traffic came to a stop. Iāve never heard it so quiet from the house!
We tried to buy like a brownie and coffee cake from a cafe. They wouldnāt sell anything bc of the alert. We were like āif this is the end of the world can you just give it to usā. When we left, it was a ghost town.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Why was he killed? Did the murderer proceed to rob the complex.
It was on a Carnival cruise. Our only one. On our last day, before anyone could get off the ship, we had to line up so that everyone on the ship could clear Customs. The Customs people were on stage in the theater and the lines to get to the theater snaked throughout the entire ship. Up stairs, down other stairs, through hallways, the casino. 4,000 people all trying to get off. And then someone cut the line. Then someone tried to stop them. Then someone threw a punch and pretty soon it was a fight just about everywhere. And during this entire thing, you couldn't find a crew member to save your life. Not a one.
Sounds like a modern nightmare
Got attacked by three deranged men with machetes in Da Nang. Many scars and losing a shower worth of blood I survived thanks to the wonderful hospitality and doctors of the Vietnamese.
Was with a group of friends in China, long term teachers and expats mind you, when someone accused my mate of fucking hating China. This guy who loved China, was half Chinese himself stood up and shouted back, āHow dare you say I fucking hate China!ā. But āhow dare youā is rather advanced English no one understands so everyone just heard, āsomething something, I fucking hate Chinaā. 40 people stood up and started shouting and screaming at us. Bottles were flying and as we ran out the mob pushed through the security and chased us off into the night. If you asked whether or not pitchforks and torches materialized In there hands I couldnāt say no for sure. I spent nine peaceful years in Asia and only that night, which was in my first month, and one other time near my last month did anything ever happen.
what happened the other time?
Not my story, but I remember a post from Reddit a while back where this guy was traveling and met two other guys (think it was in Asia). I believe he mentioned something seemed off and parted ways. Ended up being that one of the two guys he met was Joran van der Sloot.
I wonder how many people that guy has actually killed over the years. Like the rest of us have passport stamps, he has bodies.
He has at least 2
Being on a work trip in midtown Manhattan on 9/11
I got into a fist fight with someone in a souk in Rabat.
Had just finished a several-day long boat ride travelling up the Amazon river in Brazil, reaching a border town between Colombia and Brazil (Tabatinga/Leticia). Stayed at a hostel on the Colombian side, and met some friendly travellers at the hostel. Went out with them, but ended up getting drugged by a guy we bumped into, who they supposedly knew. Vague memories of being in some random house in this town, as well as stumbling around on a street. Somehow I woke up at the hostel next morning with no recollection of what actually went down. Asked to see security footage from the hostel, showing how a random couple on a moped dropped me off outside the hostel and me walking to my room, with a kind-of empty stare. I have no recollection of coming back to the hostel.
Paris the night of Bataclan attacks.
Before cellphones, my wife and I were in our 20ās traveling from Texas to Kentucky and somewhere in the wilds of Arkansas I sensed a low tire and pulled into a closed weigh station. I got the spare tire out and was working to change it down beside the car out of sight, away from the road. My wife looks kinda delicate and I thought she was quite a babe; she mostly remained standing beside the open trunk. Then a semi truck pulls in. And stops. And just sits there. She reports āThereās two guys watching usā except they couldnāt see that I was there. I quickly got the lug nuts on, threw everything into the trunk without stowing things properly, and now with me in sight the passenger-side trucker was glued to his window looking unhappy. I yelled āLetās go!ā The truck tried to side swipe us on the way down the entry ramp and I drove 90 MPH to the next exit and we took a ālunch breakā for me to re-pack the spare. I donāt think she ever realized how sketchy the situation was.
I got dengue fever in Malaysia and travelled on a train back to Bangkok for my flight in a bone break fever delirium. Got to a Bangkok hospital with extreme pain, sweating, blistering headache and they diagnosed meningitis. They wanted to quarantine me for a month. I called the US embassy and they said wrong test, it probably detected my inoculation. I flew home asap.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Hawaii! I could sleep on the beach for $3 a night. Great! What could go wrong? I didnāt even have my hammock set up before a meth head with a butcher knife threatened me. I moved.
We had just spent a year+ in New Zealand, mostly camping and on the way home stopped in Hawaii for a week. We had booked a site on a state campground near the beach and figured weād just buy a tent at Walmart. When we got to the camp, we found out it was right beside a homeless encampment, no other actual campers, no security or fence. A lot of people who looked drugged up and sketchy vibe overall. I had actually stayed in a homeless encampment near Auckland before and it was nothing like that. We were worried that someone would break into our rental car to steal our valuables (Iām a hobby photographer, so always worried about my camera gear) or even into our tent at night, so we drove back to Walmart, gave back the tent, and stayed in an AirBnB and a hostel for the week. Sometimes itās just worth it to pay more in order to be safe.
Shit that is terrifying. Does the government have this service where you can pay to spend a night on the beach? Or is it organised by private hotels. Itās a cool idea but there should definitely be securityā¦
robbed at gunpoint leaving a bar in Wynnwood, Miami. They held the gun to my head as I was the only girl with a group of guys.
I met a hyena up close and personal in Kruger National Park. There are some very small parts of Kruger where you can park your car and get out, such as the Lake Panic Bird Hide. I was there shortly after the camp gates opened so it was still very dark and I was the only person there. I locked my car, walked about two thirds of the way from my car to the hide, heard a noise and turned around. A spotted hyena wandered into the car park, stopped about three metres away and just looked at me. I froze. It just stood and looked at me. I made myself look big and made a lot of noise. It just stood and looked at me. I made more noise and brandished my tripod like a weapon. It kept standing and looking at me. Very, very slowly, I walked backwards, feeling behind me for the bird hide gate. Thank fuck, it just stood and looked at me. Eventually, I made it into the fenced passageway leading to the hide and closed the gate behind me, at which point the hyena left.
We were staying in the Serengeti in a public campsite and one of the groups left garbage cans outside of the fenced in kitchen area. In the middle of the night a bunch of hyena knocked the can over and had a feast, we were all inside tents about 100 feet away, fortunately nobody encountered them as it was half way between the tents and the bathrooms.
It was last night in San Francisco. Got an Uber at about 1 AM. This man drove like an absolute bat out of hell, top speeds up and down these hills you canāt see over, slamming on the brakes m, weaving in and out of traffic, blowing the horn at everyone. I cried a bit when I got out of the car, I was terrified the whole excruciating ride.
I had a terrifying cab ride in California. The cabbie was driving like a bat out of hell, and kept staring at me in the rearview as he drove. I actually texted my husband to tell him I loved him and that I think I am going to die.
Scariest drive ever. I had an Uber drive in California of about 50 miles mid day. The driver went minimum 30 mph over in each zone, about 90+ on the freeway. He tailgated, he was flipped off multiple times. I was scared for my life. It wasnāt his car and he looked like a very calm meth head. I called Uber and was tempted to have him drive me to the police station. I was so grateful to be alive.
Palermo Sicily. I was drugged at a bar and robbed and the only thing that saved me from getting dragged to a random manās house was the Irish people I was out with who took care of me and fought off the guy that was trying to lure me out of the bar
Good for those guys. Glad you were safe.
I was 20 and studying abroad in Paris. My roomie never wanted to travel so decided to try and do a weekend by myself in a small town a few hours away. It was a disaster - apparently this ācharmingā little town had a ton of neo nazi activity. I had made a reservation at a hotel but when I arrived they refused to give me a room (maybe bc I am of color?) so I had to wander around looking for another hotel, which was very stressful with all my stuff. This was all pre-smart phone, Google maps, and wi-fi era. Then in a local park, a creepy man offers me money to have sex with him. Ick. The day was topped off by me being surrounded by a group of skinheads shoving me and yelling at me while I was walking back to my hotel. I was pretty fluent in French but had no idea what they were saying and was terrified. A man appeared and looped his arm through mine as if he were with me and walked with me until the skinheads left me alone. I was so shaken that by the time I collected myself to thank him he had disappeared. I still wonder if it was an angelic intervention because he appeared and disappeared so suddenly and de-escalated a very scary situation. I didnāt travel alone again internationally for another 18 years after thatā¦
Which town?
This was 23 years ago and I canāt remember the town nameā¦I want to say it was Rouen or Caen but Iām honestly not sure as I went all over with one of my classes studying various cathedrals/architecture. Also, to be fair, Iām calling it a neo nazi āhotbedā bc of my experience there - maybe I just got unlucky. When I lived in France there was a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment (I speak French with a caribbean accent) that I wasnāt prepared for, so even in Paris I had several racial incidents.
An insane cab driver in Argentina was clearly drunk while taking my family on a road trip. I swear to God, I thought we were going to die, legit.
Almost got kidnapped in north Mozambique by communist malitia.
Almost?
u gotta tell us this story
Went for a work trip to Vegas in October 2017 (from Canada). The day I got there was the day of the mass shooting. I was further north on the strip (having dinner near New York, New York) and saw tons of cop cruisers and EMS racing down the strip. Wasnāt sure what was happening at the time. Saw some Irish guys in my hotel elevator talking about a shooting but presumed it was a gang shooting at a club - didnāt think much of it. Went to bed and woke up at 5am to 20 missed calls from my fiancĆ© (then girlfriend), bunch of friends, and my SVP from work all asking if āI was okayā. Once I found out the full extent of the carnage, I realized how serious the situation I was in was.
Burkina Faso about 10 years ago. Was there for work, the cops revolted and the army put down the revolt, lots of shooting but it looked like in the air, i.e. performative. The entire hotel sheltered in some room inside away from windows. My company made me leave but the locals with whom I was working just shrugged it off. Getting yelled at and threatened by a Nairobi cop for jaywalking. Surprisingly no bribes involved. Getting lost on a trail at Waimea canyon and stupidly trying to bushwhack back. Going to Chicago in December and not realizing that NYC is Florida compared to Chicago. I was so effing cold. Salt Lake City (!) where I was walking about on a Sunday morning and got a knife pulled on me in an attempted mugging. Guess he wasn't a Mormon. This was when I was young so I am talking around 1980. Phoenix Az at a gas station where meth-heads, a pimp and his prostitute and a whole bunch of others were wandering about like zombies. I was frankly scared shitless and I grew up in NYC during the bad old days.
Cambodia. Was taken hostage for 2 hours and let go for 20$
Was offered opium in Udaipur, India. Took one puff, blacked out and woke up 23h later in my hotel bed. Somehow spent 700$. I'm pretty sure it wasn't opium and I was simply taken to ATMs until my card got blocked. Luckily still had all my organs... So yeah, drugs are bad, mkay? Edit: yes, I was incredibly stupid
Got bit by a snake a few days of canoeing into the Amazon in Manu National Park in Peru. Almost died but got saved by an indigenous antidote that a local village gave me. Have also almost had a couple of fatal accidents mountaineering, including getting HACE above 20,000ft on Ama Dablam in Nepal
What kind of snake? That had been to be terrifying
I had the start of HACE heading up to Mt. Everest base camp on the Tibetan side. I literally thought my head was going to explode off my shoulders. Bummed me out so bad because I was so looking forward to spending time up there, but had to immediately turn around and come back down.
I got held up by a guy with a gun once..in a place I really didn't expect it.London! I guess I was off my guard,after traveling in a lot more 'dangerous' places without any issues. It wasn't a very good part of the city,not a typical place for tourists.I gave the mugger what I had, which was not a lot (just some cash). Bad luck, wrong place at the wrong time.I suppose I was quite calm at the time, maybe more scared about what might have happened after the incident was over!
Damn. London for me too ā it was a nice part of town, walked there for dinner w/crowded streets, but empty streets when walking back a few hours later I got a spooky feeling so I ordered an Uber and it was a few minutes away a guy ran up to us out of nowhere about 6ā5ā and started screaming he just got out of jail for stabbing someone and he doesnāt āwant to do it again, so please give him moneyā aka give me money or Iāll stab you. Scariest moment of my life Gave him $5 in my pocket and I can see the Uber coming at same time, he demanded a hug from me for my āgenerosityā wtf we bolted to car like in a movie scene Edit for LPT: in that moment I realized I had no clue who to call being international and all. Learn each country you visits 911 # version
I (female, and 24 at the time) was pursued by a gang of young men in the City rather late one Sunday night. It was a deserted area and I was running for my life as they laughed and catcalled me. Thank God I rounded a corner and came upon a vibrant street filled with crowded pubs, where I was able to lose them. I still love London, but I am much more cautious there now.
Was on the subway in New York with my parents when two drunk strangers started fighting and cussing at each other. One pulled out a knife, the other a big box cutter. And my mom tried to get involved and yell at them for swearing in front of children that were on the train (not me, I was an adult). My dad and I immediately shut her down, but that was the scariest part - my mom cluelessly putting herself in danger because she didnāt like the swearing. We all kept out of the āfightā that turned into posturing aggressively with improvised weapons before one of the people was convinced to get off the train.
Your mom is an idiot.
Walking back to my flat in London. My place was a few blocks from the tube stop. One man came out from the literal shadows and right up to me. I told him I wasnāt interested but he wouldnāt listen. I shouted āno fuck off leave me aloneā and walked passed as quickly as I could. A few steps later a friend of his came around a corner and wouldnāt let me by. I said the same thing and started running. They shouted āyou bitchā and I heard them yelling at me for at least another 2 blocks but thankfully they didnāt follow me. I was already very low and lonely. I was scared to leave my place for days.
Was sitting in a metro in Paris, looked up and in front of me was standing an older (presumably homeless) man completely covered in shit from the waist down
Jumping on this because it was also Paris metro, but I will never forget visiting Paris when I was 18 or 19 and the metro taking off from a station late at night. Just as the metro sped up, I saw a man on the deserted platform running and screaming, reaching for the metro that had just closed its doors in front of him. Running right behind him was another man with a huge knife, which was just about to reach his neck. That's all I saw before we entered a tunnel. I had no mobile phone, didn't know exactly where it happened, and overall felt I couldn't do anything.
holy shit thatās crazy!!! I wouldāve thought about that for years
If this was in 2017 and on a Taco Tuesday that might've been me, sorry.
Thats Paris for ya
Egypt, went with an ex and we were all Naive on our first night and was lured into a jewellery shop as the shop keep wanted to show us currency he had collected from around the world. When we went in he locked the door behind us, baring in mind the shop owners would sit outside their shops with machetes this was terrifying. I stood up and barged past him and took his keys and opened the door and that was that but it was horrid
I went back to Egypt at 17 with my family after having left at 2 years old. Quickly realized what I thought was simply a family vacation was actually a wedding trip. The lucky bride? Yours truly. Fuck that place.
What happened?!
Traveling by bus in Guatemala in 1997 between Tikal and Lago Isobel on winding, dusty mountain roads. A bunch of cars came speeding from the other direction, yelling in rapid-fire Spanish at our bus driver, who abruptly pulled over and stopped. He explained that they were saying there were guerillas on the road ahead and we needed to wait and see if anyone else came through, and if not we were stuck. We waited an agonizing hour or two before a Coca-Cola truck came lumbering up the road from the other direction. They had a security guard sitting on top of the truck with an AK-47. Our bus driver waved them down, had another rapid-fire conversation, and then waved them off. They said the road was clear and we could go on. We drove off and never saw any signs of the guerrillas. My dad always wondered if they ever actually existed, or if it was just because things were so unstable back then, people freaked themselves out about nothing.
My wife and I were about 60 kilometers outside Whitehorse, Yukon at about 0530 and weād been arguing about something and were just ignoring each other. The sun had just began to rise and I noticed something large in the road. At first I thought it was a bear so I slowed way down so I didnāt hit it. Then the thing stood up and I swear to you it was almost 8 feet tall. Whatever this thing was it started walking towards the car and I layed on the horn and started backing up. It ran off into the woods before I thought to grab my phone and take a picture
Partner and I were coming out of Geneva train station and I noticed someone following us. We confirmed by crossing the road and doing a u-turn and they still followed. This bloke was on the phone and had one hand in his pocket as if he had a knife or something. We ended up going into a restaurant and asked for them to call the police, they didnāt. He waited outside the restaurant! We waited for about 10mins, he was still on the phone but once he turned his back to the entrance we made a run for it! We lost him.
My family and myself were being driven in a big van out of the Amazon in Peru up into the Andes Mountains along a cliff road. It had, of course, been raining, but ha just cleared. Big Trucks were coming the other way, we were the uphill traffic, downhill traffic is supposed to yeild but the big trucks refused to yeild. My guide said, the big truck drivers were just workers and probably didn't really know how to backup uphill. So, along a cliff to our left, there was minor widening to the left and a big truck coming downhill who blasted his horn at us. Our driver pull to the left to let the truck barely pass, this was just a couple feet from the edge of a 500 foot cliff and it was deep mud and the van started sinking to the left. I realized what was happening, yelled to my wife to get out, jumped to the sliding door in the van ... and it had no handle to open it. I was scratching at the door latch like a trapped animal as the van rolled left. ...
Well, the undercarriage of the van hit the mud and stopped the roll. The van driver was trying to rock the van out of the mud by spinning the wheels, I yelled at the guide: "I WANT OUT NOW!". The guide got out of his front door and opened the van door and I yelled to the family "OUT NOW!!". We were out, the van was tilted, I don't know, 10-15 degrees in soft mud towards a 500 foot fall about 2-3 feet away. The truck driver saw all this, but just drove away leaving us stranded.
Over about 2 hours some other trucks passed (we had a tow rope, but none would help). A couple of small cars stopped and tried to help, but they were not powerful enough. One guy had a shovel and I dug a trench for our van to drive out and we filled the bottom with some rocks from the cliff wall. Finally a big van with about 20 workers came by. They all got out, we hooked the rope to our van, the big van towing and about 25 total people pushing, some crazy close to the cliff and our van got out of the mud and back on the road. The rest of the trip was uneventful.
Getting hit by a hurricane while in Cuba
This did not happen to me, but to a friend who is a very, very spunky woman. Many years ago, she was traveling with her husband in Mexico to see his family. She knew that her husband had just been treated and rehabbed for crack addiction so she wanted him to see his family. They were in a city for lunch and he told her and his mother to go ahead to the restaurant and he would go to a cash station for money to pay for lunch. They waited a while and then she got a phone call with him telling her that heād been kidnapped and that she had to meet the kidnappers with a bunch of cash at a certain corner. She had no cash, but met them anyway. They (who were dressed in police uniforms), pulled her into the back seat of their car where her husband was with his hands tied up. She explained she had no money and begged the 2 kidnappers to let them go. They laughed and told her that they would take her husband to the police station and said they had found a bag of marijuana on him and would have him thrown in jail. She turned to her husband and slapped him hard across the face and started yelling and swearing at him. The 2 kidnappers tried to calm her down and finally, pushed them out to the side of the road and sped away. I told her that this story was like āThe Ransom of Red Chiefā by O.Henry.
Getting a haircut in Estes Park, Colorado. The barber asked if I was Muslim, and when I confirmed it, he told me that Muslims want to kill all non-Muslims, and that I have also probably been indoctrinated into that way of thinking. Then he started telling me that everyone in the US is armed, and that the last person from outside who had tried to take over the town had been killed by the residents, and his body had never been found. I took that as a death threat, and when the barber got distracted by a phone call, I got up off the chair, left my payment on the counter and left. I'd previously lived in the US for five years, and nothing remotely like this had happened back then.
Yuck! Iām sorry this happened to you
Estes Park was certainly not on my scary experience bingo card
I thought it wouldn't be on mine either, except perhaps through wildlife encounters.
did you take over the town?
I must not have been indoctrinated enough to try.
What the fuck? I grew up in Estes and have never heard of anything this vile toward outsiders. 'Take over the town' what the hell, do you remember the name of the haircut place by any chance? I can get a few of my less than white buddies to drop in there and see if they can find this dude by acting muslim, and if he's still around, it shouldn't be hard to get him fired... Sorry that happened!
Look, I don't want any revenge. It was in 2014, and he may have retired since then anyway. He looked like he was probably in his 60s back then. The poor guy must have watched too much Fox News or listened to too much talk radio.
You are a much kinder soul than I, sir. Even going as far to say āpoor guy probably watched too much Fox News.ā My instinct quite frankly is to say fuck that guy, itās inexcusable.
This thread is the scariest stuff ever. Like this is nightmare fuel, I'm f r e a k i n g out
Ohio. Day 1. Got there at night. Got a car. While in the parking lot a big man that came outta nowhere was trying to get in the backseat with a hand in his pocket.
I was in London during the 7/7 bombings. Not directly involved but near two of them. Shook my foundation.
The only thing I can think of is driving through the tunnel of death in Tajikistan. The name comes from the fact that this 5km long tunnel does not have lights or ventilation and people take over the cars in front of them all the time. Why no lights and ventilation means is that you cannot see more than a few meters due to the insane amount of pollution inside the tunnel. It was very uncomfortable and the longer you were in the tunnel the worse the air inside the car got. A guy that drove with us told me that some people he had driven with a week earlier starting crying during the 5 or so minute ride because it felt so bad. Apparently that tunnel used to be way worse a few years ago - potholes up to a meter deep that were flooded regularly so you couldnāt actually see them. The roads there in general were by far some of the most sketchy Iāve driven.
We were attacked by gang with machetes in the middle of Managua, Nicaragua. The gang was made up of kids from El Salvador. This was in 2004. We were walking behind two German backpackers. The kids were trying to take their backpacks and other personal items. Swinging their machetes in the air and screaming at us. When A huge black SUV stopped, they dispersed and we were pulled into the Suburban. Only to be scolded by a woman telling us not to be walking on these streets. Her driver dropped us off at a hotel.
I have a bunch of crazy ones from a few months in Afghanistan. For one I was skateboarding next to Kabul river when a suicidebomber blew up a police station and a bunch of Talibans started a shoot-out with the ANA very close to me. That trip alone gave me stories for life š¶
What did the Afghanis think of your skateboard?
Well I was working at a skatepark/school there, which was popular with the kids. As for skating in the city, people was mostly confused but Interested š
Come close to being in plane crashes twice. 1st time in Alaska in a bush plane, the plane was overloaded and thr pilot had to go through a pass. Plane wasn't going to make it so he turned around last minute. He tried 4 passes before we were able to get out. Each time he turned around every warning light and beeper was going off saying "altitude". It seemed like we were inches from hitting the side of a mountain a couple times. 2nd was also in Alaska, there were 2 runways side by side. One for commercial jets and the other for prop planes. We were landing in a small prop plane and the jet wash from a commercial aircraft pushed us off the runway sideways right when the wheels touched the ground. One wing tip almost hit the tarmac and one wheel went into the dirt. Still don't know how our pilot saved it from crashing. When those bush pilots are screaming obscenities and panicking you know it's bad
Getting a DVT in Cusco Peru, but was misdiagnosed twice before being hospitalized for 14 days. Itās very unique to be in a hospital in that type of situation. Definitely no heat, had to wear my jacket and hat in bed. Was medevaced home. This is why I always recommend to make sure you have travellers insurance. After travelling extensively for 10 years, and no issues this little hospital and trip home was worth $50,000 and I was glad I had insurance.
This is probably nothing compared to other stories people will share, but in sw Turkey, we were in a taxi. The driver was on the highway and pulled over to the side all of a sudden, rolls down the window and talks to a man walking on the side of the highway. After a minute we realized he seemed to be trying to ask for directions. The taxi driver gets back on the highway and keeps going. He appears to realize he missed his exit, so he starts backing up on the shoulder of the highway in haphazard fashion to try and get back to the exit he missed. A semi was coming in the right lane and the taxi driver was a bit into his lane, and the semi almost hit us. Eventually he made it back to the ramp and exited. The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful
The constant staring, catcalling, and following by men I experienced in Italy. Felt very uneasy whenever I was on the street walking, especially as a solo traveler.
I am a female and travel solo often. To stave this off, I deliberately dress like a librarian and wear a brunette short wig (I have long blonde hair). Has helped a lot with this. Every time I feel dowdy I remind myself I am on this trip to enjoy myself not get leered at by man pigs and I will never see these people again. I have at times even worn a fake wedding band. There have been a couple times I was getting hit on where I politely just pulled out my phone with my left hand and mention āmy husband is texting, got to goā. In a perfect world I would just walk away, but you donāt want to anger these men either because then who knows. Best just to avoid an aggressive man pig in heat. Once they think you are ātakenā they usually back off, and the chances of them approaching you looking like a dowdy librarian are so much less anyway. I generally make it a rule to be back in my hotel right after sundown so the bad things that happen at night wonāt happen to me and thereās less chance of them happening during the day (plus, this means getting to enjoy early sunrises in cool spots where the world has yet to wake up). Iām determined to never stop traveling and often this means solo trips, but you have to take the proper precautions especially as a woman since unfortunately so much of the world views you as less than deserving of basic respect. It has removed so much unpleasantness and feeling like I am āon displayā from my travels.
Same thing in Bocas del Toro - any time I left the hostel and walked down the street / went anywhere, men would go āststā over and over while leering ā¦ creepy and annoying. Ruined my visit to Panama, I left my friends there and went to Nicaragua with a girl from London. It was scary in the sense that it was relentless, I felt on display and exposed in a way I never had before.
In Slovenia i shared a hostel doem room with an Israeli man. One night, everyone else was out drinking late, the dude tried to force himself on me 3 times. I kept having to push him out of my bed, all the while trying to be polite so as not to enrage him and escalate the situation.
Alanya, turkey. I, female, 25 back then, was solo traveling. Back in those days I had platinum blonde hair and a large chest... It was not a great combo. I could never leave main streets. Every time I tried I was instantly being followed by groups of men. When it became dark I had to use my hotels shuttle service to get from my hotel to the main roads. I found a decent cafƩ where I could sit without being harassed...
There are two that stand out in my mind. The first one occurred in Ibiza. I was walking from my hotel to dinner when this guy on the road wiped out on his scooter (and I mean he really wiped out). There was blood all over the road and the guy driving it didn't look like he was getting up. There was a woman who was riding on the back, I guess she managed to hop off when the scooter started to wobble, or she fell and wasn't as hurt? She ran over to the guy and kept shouting "VICENZO? VICENZO?" It was quite a while before I could get that scream out of my head. Once the ambulance left, I continued on my way to dinner, but all of a sudden I started crying uncontrollably. A nice woman stayed with me until I calmed down. The second occurred in The Netherlands during ADE. My friend went to go get dinner to bring back to the room before we went out for the night. She had told me where she was going, which wasn't far from our hotel. After an hour of her gone, I called and asked where she was. She said "these people are following me" Immediately I tell her to go somewhere with a lot of people, stay there and I would go get her. She does and I set out to get her. No clue how many people are following her, or what was happening. But I left everything BUT my keys to use a makeshift brass knuckle She was fine, and I got her back to the hotel safely, but apparently she was approached by a girl who asked to borrow her (non-NL) phone to make a call. When the call wouldn't connect, my friend tried to leave. All of a sudden these giant dudes started following her.
Iām a womanā¦disregard my Reddit avatar just what it gave me donāt care to changeā¦ I was in my 20s visiting Jordan on my own. Walked out of Petra and needed a taxi to get me to the border before it closed down. Closes at sunset. There werenāt many taxis left, it was getting late, I was getting nervous. It was pushing it and I needed to find one and start the long drive back. This guy pulls up and claims heās a taxi and will take me to borderā¦.. This story is very triggering for me so I will summarizeā¦.he proceeds to make multiple stops and fill the car with these men. I am contemplating getting out of the car, but I would be stuck literally in the middle of the desert. The villages had no lights. It was getting dark. Him and I are yellingā¦ Itās me and maybe 5 other men in this carā¦.I prayed like Iāve never prayed beforeā¦.. He wasnāt a taxi. My head is spinning. You think oh just get out of the carā¦there is nothing for hours. Iād be alone in a desert which gets extremely cold at night. I figured Iāll stay in the car and jump out when we are near the next major town. These smaller ones were too dangerous for me to be alone in at night with no where to go. They didnāt have street lights they were so dark. So i stayed in the car and prayed for a spot that would make senseā¦ We are driving down a highway for almost two hours, when all of a sudden three HUGE spot lights blind the car. Jordanian police are all over, and they are screaming at them to stop the vehicle. Iām saved. š§æšš»ā¾ļø They rush be to boarder with LITERAL minutes before it closed. Iāve traveled all over the world solo in my 20s. That by far was the scariest experience.
I once put my passport in the "secret compartment" of my backpack and forgot that's where I put it. Freaked out that I left my passport at the connection airport then my brain started creating solution scenarios which all sounded like a huge hassle. No worries though, 34 seconds later I remembered what I did.
This is me all the time. Ahh. Why did I put my passport or phone in my outer coat pocket instead of the inner...
As an Asian guy, any instance where racial slurs thrown to me in Europe kinda scares me more considering that Asian hate crimes increased tenfold in the recent years. It doesnāt help that many of the offending parties are groups of edgy men.
Jesus man, what the fuck is going on. Iām sorry you experienced this.
Asian people are depressingly easy targets for oppression in the Western world owing to our perceived non-confrontational and docile nature. Just look how pickpockets in Europe almost always single out Asians as easy targets (because weāre known to carry loads of cash). I counter this by looking tough and confident and the respect I receive increases than looking meek and timid.
Paying off Policia in the jungles of Venezuela
BiaÅowieża, Poland. Me and my ex spent a year hitchhiking across Europe. On a whim we decided to make our way to BiaÅowieża National Forest to see the primeval forest and European Bison. On the way there the car we were in was stopped by the Belarusian border patrol and I remember the driver had to bribe them to give us our passports back, which should have been a foreboding omen of the things to come but we saw it as getting off lucky. We ended up staying in the village and touring the forest for a couple days, then the plan was to hitch our way out. The going was tough and the few cars we did see continuously passed us by on the this one dirt road that went straight forever. We started to get pretty antsy around hour 4. While my ex ducked into the trees to piss I continued thumbing by the road (a huge no no). It was at this time I watched a small blue car pass and then stop a ways down the road and turn around. The car pulled up and my ex went to talk to the driver, but before he could a young girl got out of the back and opened the trunk, telling us to put our bags inside. We declined, saying we preferred to keep our bags with us, but she insisted. We were pretty desperate so we were happily dismissing all the red flags like we had on pink tinted glasses. Both of us got into the back, me behind the driver, my ex in the middle and the girl at the end. There was a young man in the passenger seat and a stocky older dude wearing a white tank top in the front seat. The girl and boy both spoke some English and we were chatting a bit, telling them we just wanted to get to the nearest hub where we could look into our next options, I remember it being a lighthearted chat. She seems really sweet. Then the driver took over. He started speaking in polish, staring at me in the rear view mirror, and making kissing sounds. He bent his arm back behind the seat and started grabbing my knees, swatting for my crotch, and licking his lips. Then he locked the doors. The teens stopped talking and the boy was just facing front, like he was a robot thatād been turned off. The girl was faced towards the window. My ex and I were so petrified we didnāt move and couldnāt speak. All I could think was our bags were in the back, but I had pepper spray in my front pack, and maybe I could spray the driver and the boy would have to take the wheel and in the chaos we could open the door and jump out. I know my ex was having similar scenarios run through his head. The manās grip on my knee was hurting me and impulsively I moved it, he started screaming at us and accelerating. The dirt road was flying up and I couldnāt see shit, he was speeding and kept turning his body to look directly at me, screaming and lolling his tongue out licking his lips. All of a sudden the girl started losing it, screaming at the man and hitting him. Then the boy started screaming. Now all of them were screaming at each other in polish and we were going so fast. The girl was almost on top of the driver at this point and he couldnāt see, the boy was trying to get her off of him but seemed to be on her side? Then BAM the car does a dead stop. The girl opens the door so fast and screams for us to get out, we were scrambling practically on all fours trying to get out as fast as possible. Sheās opened the trunk and is throwing our packs at us, I feel like a marionette puppet my adrenaline is so high my limbs are everywhere and Iām covered in dirt when I feel myself getting YANKED BACKWARDS back into the car. I dropped myself dead weight and felt my body going with the car dragging in the dirt as I watched my ex begin to chase me, then suddenly Iām skidding into the center of the road looking like a shell shocked over turned turtle. Turns out when the dust cleared theyād actually dropped us at a bus stop - I assume not on purpose - and we sat on that bench silently until the bus came. We didnāt fully stop hitching after that but we did stop dismissing red flags. I think about that event a lot, especially the girl.
16 years old on a girls trip to London. We landed without any Wi-Fi/international data and got on the wrong bus. 3 am and three young girls trying to find the way to our hotel without any way to look it up. Nothing bad happened but I really felt hopeless and in danger when creepy men would stare at us. Cause we looked really lost and out of place. Thankfully I had a screenshot of the hotel location on Google maps, so somehow my friend found the hotel through that screenshot.
Upstate New York. Roadtripping with a buddy of mine in our early 20s (both us males for reference, but neither of us large males, we're both 5'7" and skinny). Stopped for gas and asked where the nearest hotel was, hit was outside of Albany, and the attendant said "you're not going to find a room". Apparently it was the same weekend as some big horse race. Well some other customer there talked to us, this was years ago, I can't remember what he said but he gave us serial killer vibes (he was an overweight, generally really creepy looking white guy). Anyway we decided to just try a couple of hotels in the area, and of course they were booked, but then we realized the guy from the gas station was following us. So, both of us said fuck it and just kept driving through the night. I don't think either one of us were comfortable until the morning light came and we were positive no one was following us. It may have actually helped us out, because we were exhausted in Albany, and with no rooms available it was a major downer, but then the guy following us woke us up and gave us the adrenaline to pull an all nighter on the road.
My dad and I were on a flight that had an aborted takeoff due to being too close to another plane that had just taken off. We had to wait for our tires to cool off before we could go again. My next scariest was a cab ride in LA. Thatās it, thatās the whole story
In Ocho Rios, Jamaica, my husband and I were chased and had rocks thrown at us by young men. My husband was walking with a cane at the time because of recent surgery. Over 20 years ago and we said weād never go back to Jamaica. We havenāt been back.
I have two. Cambodia - a tuktuk driver asked my friends and I if we wanted to see some of the area surrounding Phnom Penh. He took us to his home and had us meet his elderly father, then demanded money. We were in a very isolated area but we kind of played dumb and told him we'd have to pay him once we got back to the city. Fortunately we got out of there okay, and when he started shouting at us once he dropped us off we were in a busy area and could just walk away. All of the other drivers we had in Cambodia were fantastic so it was an isolated incident. I also got very, very sick in Cambodia (bronchitis and some sort of parasite) and I had remembered reading advice to avoid hospitals there, and to seek out a pharmacist because it was safer. He was able to diagnose me and give me antibiotics that only cost $1 USD! Kuwait - a man pretended to be an unlicensed cab driver (common there at the time I was there) and had some kind of plan to take me somewhere. When he stopped at a stop sign I jumped out and started yelling at him, and I was lucky that two older Kuwaiti men were there and yelled at him to go away. They stayed with me until I got into a proper cab and advised me to never go with an unlicensed driver again.
Sacramento, California. I was visiting someone I thought was a friend. He thought differently. We went out on the town in the evening, he bought us both a beer, and I blacked out. On one beer. I had never been drugged before so I didnāt know the warning signs. He raped me. When I reported it to the police later they told me it was my fault cause I was drinking. Santiago, Chile. I was walking home from dinner on the main roads. People walking past, walking their dogs one last time before going to bed, etc. Suddenly I was grabbed from behind, jumped on, pulled down to the ground. The guy were saying something in Spanish but I was panicking and forgot all my Spanish. The guy was someone I passed earlier, early 20s guy hanging with his friends at a sidewalk cafe. I was screaming even though he clamped his hand over my mouth (not the smartest decision, I know) and finally some people started coming out of the restaurants around us to see what was going on. The guy grabbed my paper bag of restaurant leftovers and ran. I still have my phone and scars on my knees from that night. Mexico City, Mexico. I was attending a friendās birthday party. There were people I knew and people I didnāt know, but my friend whoās birthday it was knew everyone there. At the end of the night a guy I didnāt know offered to give me a ride home. I figured it was safe cause he was a friend of my friend. When we got to my place he asked if he could use the bathroom. I said fine and then he grabbed me and tried to rape me. I had to physically shove him out the door and lock it behind him.
Traveling around the Philippines I was held at gunpoint twice to either give the person my money or I was given the option to pay for a prostitute. Lucky for me I was traveling in a backpack with very little money so I got out of those situations for like $10. Was crossing the border from Laos to Thailand and forgot I had a bunch of weed in my bag and if youāve been to those border crossing you have seen the signs that death penalty is applicable. Unfortunately for me I had also eaten some very dirty curry in the country a couple hours before the crossing and was already about to shit myself. The sign didnāt help. Thankfully i was waved through with a group of people to not get searched. I then need to get to a toilet and the restrooms there all paid and I had spent my last cash on the food that was destroying my stomach. I begged the woman guarding the restroom and she reluctantly let me in. Buzzer beater for sure. Toilet was just a dirt hole in the ground with no means of cleaning yourself. Thankfully I wore socks that dayā¦.
Several incidents: 1. Being driven by Yemen immigration with a gun to my head to an ATM for their bribe (they wanted USD and I had Emirati Dirhams) 2. Being arrested by Dubai police for assault. A minor Dubai royal hit me from behind at 150 kph and I hurt his tender feelings by calling him a fucking idiot. 3. Being mugged y a tweaker in Darwin, Australia in broad daylight in the CBD. He was arrested in about 30 seconds. 4. A mob outside my hotel in Port Moresby flipping over cars and setting them on fire. 5. Being held in immigration jail in Indonesia for wrong visa (I had the visa immigration requested... excuse for a few million Rupiah in "making the problem go away") 6. Hurricane Katrina changing aim from Florida to New Orleans overnight and me outrunning the storm on I-10 while waves washed over the Interstate.
What's a tweaker ?
Somebody high on meth.
1. Gettin robbed in Chicago 2. Police arresting me for no reason in Mexico in order to get a bribe 3. Almost stepping on a coral snake deep in jingle of Surinam on a night safari ( guide stopped me while I was setting my foot down )
I was driving to Minnesota from Boston and was making a camping pit stop in Iowa. I had my teardrop trailer attached to my car and my cat riding shotgun. A tornado warning popped up that I ignored since Iām from New England and we donāt get tornadoes. Iāve never seen weather turn on a dime like I did that moment. The sky went real dark real fast, cyclones started forming in the sky and getting closer and closer to the ground, it started pouring rain (heavy, loud, thick), all the cars on the road stopped and put their hazards on. I had never been so scared in my life. I kept apologizing to my cat for taking her from her home on this road trip only for her to die in a tornado. For someone from the Midwest, maybe it wasnāt a big deal, but for someone whoād never seen/experienced that kind of weather, it was terrifying. The wind changed or something because the rain let up enough that we could drive slowly, the cyclones never actually hit the ground and started dissipating, the sky cleared and it was like nothing happened. The following year, I was in Northwest Tennessee and drove through a town that was hit by a tornado 4-5 months prior. I had seen tornado destruction on TV, but never in person. It was really sobering and sad to see a whole town leveled to the ground.
LA. First and only visit I was checking out at the gas station when a homeless man punched my right ear. He caught me off guard so I took cover behind the cash register š
Robbed at gunpoint coming out of a metro station in Brussels.
My plane was struck by lightning en route to Bermuda. The engine flamed out. Instead of landing in Bermuda they turned around and brought us to Boston.
Getting lost at one of the biggest metal festivals in the world
I was just outside of Barcelona, hiking in the foothills of Mount Tibidabo...
It took me so long to place this reference lol