Triphap - Funny Travel Stories and Travel Horror Stories

At an unfinished motel in Terlingua Ghost Town, Texas—an old mining town “revived” by artists, naturalists, hippies, and more than a few people with less than a few teeth—we followed a sign that said “Office” around back to an old camping trailer, flanked by a pile of scrap wood and a plastic kiddie pool. There we found two men outside drinking beer, watching a TV that sat on an old washing machine. One (later identified as a bounty hunter) directed us to his wife in an end-room of the motel. Gesturing to a barber’s chair and sink, she told us she was “keeping up with her hair appointments” while they were under construction.

Our room was comfortable and clean, though the walls were fiberboard. We were the only guests. When we asked if there were any restaurants in town, the innkeeper replied “Oh yes! Four!” as if this was an overwhelming selection. Four or five shops were scattered randomly on unpaved roads among houses built from still-crumbling ruins.

On the second night it rained so hard that rivers formed in the sand—the result of a hurricane on the coast. I landed in a... read more >>

At the desk of the funky, pastel-painted New Orleans hostel, a guy acting drunker than he was greeted us in a fake British accent. “Welcome to the brothel!” he said.

Fumbling dramatically, he checked us in, referring to various liquors as his best friend. “There’s candy if you need it,” he said, pointing out a basket of condoms. He grabbed sheets, warned us that the middle shower had been broken the night before by the people having sex in it, and said he’d show us to our beds.

The place was filthy and people of all ages and sexes (more than the usual two genders were represented) were strewn across the room. I checked out the bathroom—not for the faint of heart—and rejoined my friend, who sat on her top bunk, which was approximately a foot and a half above my bottom bunk. The girl on the next bed was removing body piercings and dropping handfuls of them on the floor.

We decided to take in only what we absolutely needed (so as not to risk contamination to the carload), first putting the items into plastic bags. After we delivered our hermetically... read more >>

Sun and Serbian. That’s what I craved on my trip to Montenegro, which is why I decided to kick off my eastern travels in the tiny seaside village of Petrovac.

I had been enthusiastically toting around my Serbian phrasebook for a month prior to the trip, and felt more than ready to use my new vocabulary to learn complex local histories, and ensure access to the tastiest meals and best beaches.

Little did I know that my Serbian would prove comical at first, and fail me in the end.

I spent my first Montenegrin evening at a delightful little Serbian restaurant, tucked under leafy trees and vines on the rocky shore of Petrovac.

A couple glasses of sweet red wine inspired me to practice a bit of my Serbian, and I managed to make very simple conversation with the shy waiter.

On my way out of the restaurant, I smiled and said “dobro vecer,” or “good evening,” to the waiter. To my bewilderment, he began to laugh hysterically - until he was literally red in the face!

“Dobro vecer!” he repeated laughingly, tears running down his checks. “Dobro vecer!”

“I must tell other waiter!” he said, and ran to his coworker, who, upon hearing of... read more >>

Once, when I was younger, my parents took me on my first trip out of the country.  We went to British Columbia, Canada.  The first leg of the trip was spent in Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, a
beautiful city modeled after an old English town, full of touristy touches like double-decker buses, fire jugglers, tour boats, and horse-drawn carriages.


We stayed at a motel with an excellent view of the busy, bustling harbor, and right next door to us was the Parliament Building.  I'd never seen such a building before.  It was tall, ornate, old-world,
and majestic, with a large dome over the top, and bristling with statues and intricate details.  There was also a fountain out front. It was enchanting enough during the daytime, but at night, it was even better.


I persuaded my parents to take us out on a nighttime walk to the Parliament Building, since it was just next door.  They obliged, and I was in awe.  The building was covered in chains of brightly glowing
lights, with all its outlines lit brightly against the night sky.  I was so taken aback by the stunning appearance of the building that I got up close to the front and started... read more >>

“Sorry—I crashed you with my exhauster. I have never had an accident in America before,” said the man descending from the driver’s seat of a ginormous RV. He had a thick German accent, and seemed rather nonchalant considering that 29 days into my 2 ½ month long drive cross-country, he’d hit the car I’d purchased for the trip, our “home” for the remaining six weeks.

I’d developed an obsession with photographing each individual animal we encountered in our travels—as if they were friends I’d made along the way and I’d be able to look back at their faces and tell you their name, hometown, and how we’d shared a six pack around the campfire or traded road stories in the motel hot tub. As I pulled the car onto the shoulder behind several others on a tourist-crammed road in Yellowstone National Park—ready to capture on film yet another elk deer—my traveling companion, a friend visiting from Switzerland, insisted on staying in the car to eat her sandwich.

I crossed the road, snapping away. And then I heard a noise like someone dragging metal across asphalt. Enter the accented RV driver.

“Did we get... read more >>

In a town where the lamp posts look like alien heads and Walmart is painted with UFO murals, you start to believe. Roswell uses aliens as their mascot like Florida uses alligators—in souvenir shops they appear on everything from t-shirts to fake driver’s licenses, menu items are named after them, and you half expect to wake up and find one in your backyard.

After a day of wavering skepticism at the UFO Museum & Research Center, followed by a visit to a storefront whose sign advertised cheap internet access (but turned out to be the headquarters of “Alien Resistance,” who believe aliens are actually messenger of God), and a dinner of “escape pods” at the Crash Down Diner, we were aliened-out.

But they were unavoidable. On the deserted road back to our campsite at the Bottomless Lakes, we noticed two formations of blinking lights. We looked at each other with only mild surprise, and major terror. Roswell’s aliens are the kinds that grace the covers of “Communion” paperback editions—they are not the stuff of ALF or ET. When you think you see a UFO in Roswell, you are pretty sure you will shortly be abducted,... read more >>

“’Ave you ‘ad a hard night on the drink then, young lady?” says the voice with the Irish accent for what seems like the fifteenth time.

I ignore him, and allow darkness to enclose me once again. But a set of fingers jabs into my breastbone, and I’m forced to gasp and rip my eyes open.

“Are you Irish or Spanish?” inquires another voice, and I suddenly see a plump man with a clipboard staring down at me. “Here for work or for study?”

“American,” I manage to hoarsely growl. “Here…for….vacation.”

“Oh no,” says the first man. “Well it’s only uphill from here! Tomorrow you’ll be out at Temple Bar enjoying a nice pint of Guinness.”

The thought of that thick, smelly beverage nauseates me in my thoroughly nauseous condition. I push myself upward, for I’m coughing and violently heaving again, with cold sweats running down my face.

“Bloody hell, the American’s ill again,” says the man with the clipboard, and he shoves a plastic bag under my tortured mouth.

I’m in a Dublin emergency room on the first day of my Easter holiday, having just spent the beginning of this semester as a study abroad student in Madrid, Spain. There’s some 24-hour stomach bug going around... read more >>

I am generally fearful around wild animals, including mangy street dogs, disgusting, common household bugs, slippery lizards and relaxed, unthreatening deer. My urban-dwelling youth didn’t provide me with many opportunities to confront my fears, and to be honest, I never really sought out opportunities to acquaint myself with the animal kingdom, opting to confine my earliest travels to sheltered concrete paradises like Madrid, Paris, London and New York City.

My furlessy blissful ignorance was about to change, however, as I embarked on a trip to the Oaxacan Coast—though animals were certainly the last creatures on my mind as I hopped into a hippie-filled pesero taxi in search of unfettered sunshine and soothing, lukewarm ocean water.

San Agustinillo is a hot, sleepy and sweet little village to be found on Oaxaca’s intense Pacific Coast. I fell in love with it from the moment I queasily emerged from the rickety pesero, which responded by splashing warm road-dust all over me as it continued to tumble along. All was suddenly quiet. I could see only three gringos sipping coconut milk on the beach, and a few locals frying up sizzling seafood in their ocean-side shacks. Tranquility, I was convinced that I had found you in... 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 >>

Growing up my summers were always spent flying to Alaska to spend time with my family. With a flight that long it is natural that some trips would be better than others, but there is one (my first trip post 9/11) that will forever stand out in my mind as being the worst trip ever taken.

It all started when my sister called to see if I could fly up earlier than we had planned. She had just found out that she was going to have to have knee surgery in a few days, and I had just finished my finals for the semester. No problem! She changed the dates and I got packed.

My flight left early on Friday and I was excited about the trip. Jess’s surgery wasn’t until Monday, which gave me a few days to hang out with family before I started playing nursemaid. But even as excited as I was, things went down hill right off the bat. In fact, I think that the only way to make sense of the chaos that ensued is to break it down by day.

Friday: Day 1

Ticket pulled by... read more >>