Don't get me wrong, travelling is great! I love it - you get to explore and experience new cultures. For me, 99% of travels go really smoothly, however, the 1% of times when things don't go as smoothly as you would like can be incredibly stressful and are pretty much always the parts people miss out in their stories and social media.
I recently had one of these situations, to an extent that I cancelled the rest of my trip and had to fly home. I felt like a complete failure - I didn't know anyone who had ever had to do something like this. Why did their travels go hitch-free whilst mine couldn't? After talking to several other people who I know have travelled extensively, I realised that everyone does have ups and downs in their travels, but very few actually say anything about it, normally tending to miss these details out when recounting all the fun they had. So, here are a few of the 'bad' things that very few people ever talk about:
1. Things do go wrong
Trains can get cancelled, you can miss your flight, your passport could get stolen etc. On one of my most recent trips, I missed my train, had to wait over 2 hours in a train station where all the shops were closed and was mostly deserted, the next train was then delayed by half an hour, the platform was changed, nobody then knew where the train was going to and then, finally, once on the train people kept taking others' seats due to reservations. It was a stressful morning. So, just a heads up, things can and will go wrong, you just need to try to keep calm and you can get through it.
2. Accomodation is not always as it appears
Hotels, hostels, B&Bs and the like will do anything in their power to make their accomodation, rooms and building as appealing as possible. In light of this, scrutinise every photo, if their rooms don't look great or offers look way too good to be true, they probably are. Additionally, really look at their location. On AirBnB, for example, when looking at the location of an accomodation, they give you a circle of approximately where in the area it is. However, I recently went to an AirBnB where it was miles away from the centre - at the very edge of the circle, on the other side of where we wanted. Once we got there, the location was far from what was described. Anyway, my word of warning is try to look at lots of reviews (do take these with a pinch of salt though) and the location and photos.
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| An Amazing Hotel we stayed at with water-slides! |
Travelling is great! Sometimes, however, things do go really wrong. Make sure you can take care of yourself - if you're super tired, go take a nap; if you really don't like the accomodation, change it; if you aren't feeling safe in a place, you can move on. Allow yourself to adapt to different situations but, at the end of the day, you're wellbeing is the most important - if, after thinking a lot, you think the best thing to do is to fly home, that's okay too. No-one will judge you or hold it against you. If anything, they might respect you more for realising you might not enjoy the rest of the trip. Do what you think is best, and act on it.
So, these are the major ways in which I have found travelling can go wrong. However, for the majority of time, travelling is amazing. If you want to explore, go out and explore. Travelling can teach you so many things that you will only learn if you actually act on travelling.
I hope this was interesting and happy travels!
