A vacation should be all about rest and relaxation, but things can go wrong anywhere at any time.
My family traveled a lot when I was a child, but we managed to dodge all the bullets apparently. I don't recall any scary moments along the way.
Reddit user ujin asked:
"What was the scariest moment you’ve had on vacation?"
Found
"Lost my baby brother at seaside boardwalk. My family went crazy for about an hour."
"Finally found him sitting on the bar at an outside saloon surrounded by bikers & their chicks. Bowl of popcorn and a tall soda."
"They were all facing the boardwalk & watching people go by, waiting to see if he recognized anyone looking for him."
~ Rosanna44
Lost
"Went vacationing in Mexico with my family when I was 9."
"Lost my parents in a marketplace in Cancun and tried to tell a guy I was trying to find my family."
"He told me he’d find me a new one, moments before my father arrived."
~ DoorstepCult
Cliffside Views
"Riding a travel bus along a narrow cliffside road in the Cordillera Central mountain range in the Philippines."
~ tacosandsushimi
Rescue Mission
"Not me, but in high school my friend was on vacation with his family in Costa Rica. He went out surfing pretty far before he noticed someone even farther out waving to him for help."
"As he got closer, he realized the guy had kids with him. The man asked my friend to bring his kids to shore and then come back to help him."
"My friend got the kids in safely but by the time he got back to the man, he had drowned from exhaustion."
"My friend had to paddle this guys body back to shore where his family was waiting. My friend was never really the same."
~ mileyisadog
Diagnosis
"Almost died last year. Halfway through vacation I started having pain in my groin/colon after taking my morning bathroom break. Thought it was just something I ate."
"Several bloody poops and pain like I’ve never had before later and I’m in the ER at 12:30 am being told they thought I was septic and I had a 104.5° fever. After taking pain meds stronger than morphine, apparently I passed out for like 30 min and they thought I was gonna have a seizure and die according to several doctors."
"Turns out I had several infections from unchecked leukemia."
" Weird thing is we were vacationing in Outer Banks, North Carolina when I got my cancer diagnosis. Back when I was a kid my dad was diagnosed with cancer after vacationing there."
"Safe to say my family is avoiding it like the plague from now on."
~ thatoneguy2252
Crime Scene
"Camping on the beach in Mexico, middle of the night and we are all sleeping."
"Everyone in our groups' tents get robbed. With all of us f*cking asleep in them."
"That’s some serious boogyman sh*t."
~ GoodLeftUndone
Rip Tide
"I was 13 on vacation overseas with my mom. We woke up at 5 AM due to jet lag, and the morning was beautiful, so we decided to go for a swim."
"We are used to a very calm sea (technically, a bay), so we didn't think it was a big deal to swim when there are no lifeguards. As a result, we got caught in a rip current without knowing what it was."
"My mom was a very weak swimmer, so she told me to swim to the shore and call for help. But the shore was empty, so I knew she just wanted me to leave her and save myself."
"So I grabbed her by the hand and swam as hard as I could. Luckily, we were close to the shore, and my desperate 'sprint' got us to the place where we could stand."
"We went back and felt insanely sleepy, so we went to sleep and woke up 10 hours later. When we looked out of the hotel window, we noticed the red flags on the beach and no one was swimming."
~ Sleepy_Glacier
Left Behind
"On an overnight bus from Delhi to Dharmsala—I am female and was 26 at the time—we stopped at a gas station in the night so we could use a restroom."
"I was the last in line, and when I came out, the bus was taking off and headed back onto the highway. I sprinted after it screaming 'No!' over and over at the top of my lungs."
"Someone must have heard or seen me, and the bus stopped. I truly do not know what I would have done had I really been left behind."
~ liabt
Death In The Family
"My mom and my cousin (her nephew) traveled abroad."
"He had a severe allergic reaction to a pill he took and suffocated/died."
"My mom had to perform CPR on him, go to the hospital after getting exhausted, then arrange to have him flown back to America for burial."
~ Illustrious_Hotel527
Near Drowning
"Was snorkeling with my wife and son. My wife was actually free-swimming so she went ahead of us, while my son and I took our time gently paddling over to the main snorkeling area."
"So she was probably about 50 yards away, everyone else in the area was probably about 30 yards away. So I'm swimming and suddenly I feel something start pushing me down into the water."
"I recover and realize my son, who is 17 and bigger than I am, is holding onto me. He took water into his snorkel and started panicking, so he grabbed onto me."
"Well, I'm trying to tread water and hold up another full grown man and figure out how I'm supposed to get somewhere safe where we can stand or get to shore and I can't manage two people. I start dipping in and out of the water because my arms and legs start getting tired and I'm treading for my son's life (if I'm not trying to hold him up I can just dead-man's float until I can catch my breath)."
"Finally, I get another snorkeler's attention and call for help and a group of them come over. Someone with a paddleboard gets my son, and then I float and paddle as much as I can while a dude who's there pulls me toward a boat."
"By the time I got on the little boat I just about passed out from exhaustion. I legit thought both my son and I were goners. The crazy thing is we're both good swimmers."
"If he wasn't panicking he could have just swam to shore, which wasn't that far away, or just blew the water from his snorkel and continued swimming. And since he was pulling me down, I'm now panicking and not thinking straight to tell him what to do."
"One of the scariest experiences of my life."
~ SweetCosmicPope
Public Intoxication
"I got really drunk in New Orleans. My phone died, and I couldn’t get an Uber. Decided to walk back to my hotel. Could see it from where I was so just started walking."
"Two women saw me walking and asked if I needed a ride. I said sure. Told them where I was going and jumped in the back seat (obviously Idiotic drunk move). They drove me and I could tell we weren’t heading to my hotel. They were acting very strange, making phone calls, stopped at a gas station to 'get some gas'."
"I was sobering up REAL quick as this was all going down."
"At the gas station, they said the station 'wouldn’t take cash' and were just stalling. I managed to get $20 out of my pocket, put it on the center console and luckily got out of the car, ran inside the gas station, and waited there for 15 minutes."
"After a while I took off running toward my hotel and made it there safely."
"I only ever told one person about this and I wonder all the time what they had planned for me."
~ MattThomas0808
FAFO
"My uncle decided to f*ck around on a trail in Yellowstone near some hot pools. He was walking backwards on the trail and f*cking FELL OFF right onto the crust near the hot pools."
"By sheer luck, he didn't fall through. It was horrifying. I thought we were witnessing a man die."
~ alizabs91
Creepers
"In 1995 I was in Europe for the summer. The last week was for travel, and I was by myself, a 21-year-old female."
"As a broke college student, I took advantage of as many freebies as possible, and with my Eurorail pass, I got a free cruise on Lake Geneva."
"It ended up being much longer than I thought it would be, and it was a really hot day. Because of this, I switched from being on the sunny deck to going inside several times."
"After I had made the switch a few times, I noticed that a couple was mirroring my movements, but they weren't sitting together. I thought I was being paranoid, so I started moving even more frequently, but the couple followed my every move."
"Assuming they just wanted to take advantage of a young girl alone (maybe to get my passport or plane ticket??) I decided that I would just let them disembark first. At the end, we were the only 3 people on the boat."
"At this point, I was actually starting to get scared. It was a Sunday, and all my parents knew was that they needed to pick me up at the airport on Friday. If something happened to me, there was no way to track my movements, and there would be a delay of nearly a week."
"Finally, I noticed that there was a police officer near the end of the ramp. I got off the boat and stood by him. The couple actually hung around for a bit but finally must have figured out that I wasn't going anywhere by myself."
"I still had about 6 hours until my train was going to leave and had planned to do a bit of sightseeing in the town we were in, but decided to play it safe and just stay in the train station where there were other people around."
"I have no clue what they wanted, but I still have no doubt that they were up to something."
~ motormouth08
Paranormal Activity
"I have an interesting story from the 80s when I was a young child. Each summer, my parents took us to Wildwood, NJ, and we always had a blast. These memories have stayed with me."
"One summer, we stayed at our usual reputable beachfront hotel, where we had stayed in previous years. Our room had a living room, kitchen, bathroom, and a hallway leading to the bedroom. I was probably seven at the time, and I remember this well because it scared us."
"On the first morning, we found our front door slightly open, even though we always locked it, deadbolted it, and secured the chain. My parents thought one of us might have been sleepwalking."
"The next night, my father slept in one bed with me, and my mother slept in the other bed with my sister. They slept on the outer sides of the beds to make sure they'd wake up if we got up. Yet, the door was open again the next morning."
"My father went to the main office to discuss the issue with the manager. The manager apologized and said there were no other rooms available. He gave my dad a lighter bill for the week and had someone check the locks, which were found to be in working order."
"That night, my parents placed all the luggage against the door. The next morning, the door was open, and the luggage was thrown into the living room, with one item on the table."
"The following night, they put the kitchen table against the door. The next morning, the table was back in its place, even though it was heavy."
"My parents laughed it off, but later told us they had no idea what was happening. No money was taken, and nothing was disturbed while we were at the pool or beach."
"Was it my dad sleepwalking? He had never done that before. Was someone getting into the room somehow?"
"Was it a ghost? I don’t really believe in that, but whatever it was, we could never explain it."
~ BirdLawOfficeESQ
What scary travels have you experienced?