Triphap - Funny Travel Stories and Travel Horror Stories

My buddy and I start off on the Trans-America Trail (http://www.transamtrail.com/) in Tennessee, planning to ride our motorcycles all the way to the Oregon coast mostly offroad. It's a Saturday afternoon, we've just had an oil change done on our KTM 640 Adventures.

Hours later as I'm rounding a bend my engine stalls, I look down and it's smoking. Turns out the guy who did the oil change only hand tightened one of the oil drain screws (LC4 engines have two) and it had vibrated almost entirely out. The only thing stopping it was skidplate below the engine.

The bike is unridable. It was the first day of the trip. I had it shipped out from the west coast. So much planning had gone into the trip. We're on a tight schedule. It's a Saturday night and the majority of motorcycle shop are closed on Sunday and Monday.

We do the next logical thing, get a few six packs of beer and a couple pizzas and start drunk brainstorming.

The next morning the two of us are riding on my friends bike. It's a 350 pound bike, my friend weights about 250, I weight 170, and god only knows what *both* of our gear... read more >>

The signboard proclaimed, 'Jimmy G's Pub.'

We could spot nothing to the right or the left of the brightly painted log cabin. It appeared to have sprung up out of nowhere, precisely at the moment we wanted to take a break from the excruciatingly long car drive through the exquisite Irish countryside.

The inside was even more quaint, straight out from a Jonathan Swift setting --- a juke box, a dart board, dusty framed pictures; a harp propped (probably never strummed), a trumpet, all vying for space with other knick-knacks --- tins, cans, bottle openers, coins that went out of circulation aeons ago --- all adding to the happy clutter and the pastoral warmth of the place.

"Welcome, ladies, anything I can do?" a voice boomed in the deep Irish accent. It was warm as it is clear. A tall man emerged from the anteroom. Ducking his head to avoid colliding against the low railing of the door, he appeared to be in his late seventies.

"Can we…er.. have some..Tea?" someone from our journo's team inquired. "Tea?" he snorted. "Not care for anything stronger?" he teased. "No Sir, tea should be fine," said my colleague and he grunted, "O.K, I will try.... read more >>

I was traveling from Washington, D.C. to Rio de Janeiro Brazil and had to change planes at JFK Airport in New York. I had a business meeting the moment I landed so I was dressed very professionally in a business skirt suit. I had my luggage with me because I was changing from a domestic flight to an international flight and had to transfer my own bags. As I stood at the ticket counter, I looked beside me and Robert DeNiro was checking in on the flight. At that moment, Mr. DeNiro turned and looked at me and smiled. Did I mention I'm a HUGE fan of Mr. DeNiro's? Well, when he laid that beautiful, sexy smile on me, I was so smitten that I took a step backward and bumped into my large suitcase. The force of the bump literally knocked me off my feet. I fell backwards over my suitcase, heels thrown like ninja knives in different directions and legs flying akimbo giving Mr. DeNiro a bird's eye view of my unmentionables. I was horrified. I lay on the airport floor, spread eagle, praying that death would come swiftly. I opened my eyes to find Mr. DeNiro standing... read more >>

It was early Summer, 2009. We had been talking about going to New York City since our senior year of high school in 2007. We fell out of touch during our first years of college but came back together with the promise of this wonderful trip. Amanda had been to NYC twice already but it was to be my first time. We had to drive the two hours to Cleveland to catch our flight (tickets were cheaper). The ride was fairly uneventful but for our excitement. We were there early and had fun milling about the airport. Finally our gate opened. We boarded and all was well. We landed happily in Philadelphia for our connecting flight to NYC. That’s when we saw it. The Wright Brothers plane. The thing was small and looked like it had seen many long winters. Once inside the tin can we began to really get scared. I could literally see through the back wall. The seats were crappy and it was extremely loud. Amanda grabbed my arm with a look of terror I have only seen twice (the other time on a state fair swinging boat ride). And we were off into the sky.... read more >>

When I was a senior in high school, two of my best friends and I decided to go to Italy for spring break instead of the general beach trip that most of the other kids in our year were taking.

One of my friend's older sister came with us as a chaperone (a 21-year-old chaperone). The four of us spent 3 days in Rome, took a train to Florence for another 3 days, another train to Venice for 3 more. At the end of our stay in Venice, the plan was to take a flight from Venice back to Rome for one more night and day, and then to fly back to the states. The flight was only going to be about 30 euros a piece, which seemed a pretty great deal.

We were staying in a hotel in a small town called Mestre, outside of Venice itself for cost reasons. 5:30 in the morning, we go to the bus stop that will take us to the airport. The bus, due at 6:00, was still conspicuously absent at 6:30. Our flight was scheduled for 9am, so, worried, we go back to our hotel and call a cab. The cab comes... read more >>

My husband and I are originally from the Pacific Northwest, but moved to Saint Louis, Missouri, when I finished college. I had a teaching job lined up that I was very excited about, so we agreed to move to the Midwest for a couple of years, and then move home to Oregon.

When we moved to Saint Louis, we had one cat, and she moved with us. We returned to Oregon frequently for short visits, and stayed longer a couple of times a year, around the holidays and in the summer. As a teacher, I had a couple of weeks off in the winter and a couple of months in the summer.

While our cat was fine alone in the apartment for a few days, she couldn't be left unattended for weeks or months on end. As such, twice a year, we took her with us back to Oregon. We had to pay the airlines a fee, and her pet carrier was considered my carry on piece of luggage. We had to take her out of her carrier at security, and walk with her through the metal detectors. After a few times at this,... read more >>

There are nine children in my family, and we traveled frequently. Besides a bus, a conversion van was just about the only vehicle that could fit all of us. My parents had a beat up, old, brown dodge, with the words "Miracle Van" stenciled on the side. That van was a miracle, it had made it through several cross-country trips, and safely carried all us precious occupants. On vacation in Canada, we got to add 'monkey attack' to the list of things the Miracle Van had survived.

My parents decided to take us through the African Lion Safari in Ontario. The Safari was impressive. The animals meandered around their natural environment, and we were explorers caged in our car. We followed a dirt road through the park. There were big metal fences and gates that separated the predators from the prey, while still allowing safari traffic to flow through. There was a sign outside the monkey area that told us to close all of our windows to keep the monkeys from climbing in. It also warned that the monkeys would remove any loose objects from our cars. There was a road around the monkey area for motorist that were worried about... read more >>

It was a regular Sunday morning. Mani and I had returned to the camp after seeing off a bunch of friends at the airport. Two new guests had checked into our white water river rafting camp at Rishikesh (India) meanwhile, while we were busy doing our run over the Ganges river.

We slumped down at the campsite to unwind after doing two hectic days of river, beach and the rapids. Then, sooner than we had expected, it started drizzling. About half an hour later, an eerie silence prevailed, and the wind started to blow again --- gaining horsepower, every passing minute. I recalled having read somewhere, that a strange calm always precedes, a mighty storm.

The strong wind swept the sand from the beach and began to create weird, swirling patterns on the calmly flowing river. I had never witnessed anything like this before; a squall of this magnitude in all three years that I'd been going to the mountains. I surveyed the campsite and saw tent poles clutching at the strings. Most tents lay in a collapsed state, and before we could assess the full damage, the wind returned with brutal force, making us scamper for cover under the... read more >>

Nine years ago, when I was new to Delhi, I didn't know the bus routes very well. Many-a-times, I would hop on a wrong bus, realize my mistake and then get off at this point or that, after posing inane questions to the bus drivers or the conductor, which sometimes irritated them.

On numerous occasions, I got reprimanded by the irate passengers as well, but then, it always takes me an inordinate amount of time to find my bearings at a new place. No matter, how many times, I may have gone down the same lane, it always appears new to me. I don’t think I like most people, take in a road scene all at once...It goes in, in bits and pieces, that quite explains why, I don’t get the complete picture and keep losing my way on the same road!

Once tired from a morning row with my old landlady (for not paying the rent on time) and late night at the office the night before, I fell asleep on the bus. I was comfortably settled in the 'Ladies only' section, after making a young man give it up for me, a cool breeze was blowing, the bus was... read more >>

My thirteen year old granddaughter, Angela, and I were touring Northern Australia. We were on the train from Sydney to the Lightening Ridge Opal Mine, chugging through pastures of sheep, sheep and more sheep. I was describing the landscape into my hand-held recorder while Angela sat gazing out the window. The conductor came around to check our tickets and gasped. “You’re on the wrong train, miss.”

I could have swallowed my tongue. “How do we get on the right train ─ to Lightening Ridge?” I asked.

“Sorry, miss, you’re out of luck. I’ll have the engineer radio ahead to the bus depot. Take the bus to Warris Creek where you’ll pick up another bus to the nearest town of Dubbo. You’ll have a one day layover until the train to Sydney comes through again.”

We stood beside our luggage at the side of the narrow, deserted highway and watched the bus chug away in a puff of smoke. I took in our surroundings. Warris Creek was exactly that…a creek with musical frogs. I glanced down at Angela’s stricken face, gave her a hug and told her the next bus would be arriving soon…not to worry. But what if it... read more >>