Triphap - Funny Travel Stories and Travel Horror Stories

It was my first week as an exchange student. I was sixteen years old and in Paris with my best friend Jim. We would leave our host house, take the subway into the heart of the city, wander around Paris for the day, then take a bus to meet up with our exchange group. It worked perfectly the first day we tried it. We met up with Mr. Reily and the rest of the exchange students at the D'Orsay museum.

The second day we were not so lucky. We underestimated the ability of Parisians to pull a fast one on unsuspecting American youth. We were supposed to meet our exchange group at the Arc de Triomphe. Around two o’clock we started asking French citizens how to get to the monument. Our French skills were lacking, but many of the French spoke English, and we were soon on a bus on our way to the Arc. Following our guide’s instruction we got off the at a park on the edge of the Seine River.

We made our way to the center of the park where there was a twenty-foot arch in the middle of a fountain. An hour went by, it was... read more >>

My husband and I were spending several days in Barcelona, Spain before we traveled around the Mediterranean into France and finally Italy. We landed in Barcelona after connecting from a flight from Charlotte, North Carolina to Frankfurt, Germany.

Like any traveler crossing several time zones, we were exhausted when we landed. However, our rule when taking an overnight flight to Europe is just to bear through the obvious exhaustion and make it through a full day before "crashing." Typically, we never have a problem with this because we are too excited to explore the sights and sounds of a new place and forget about how tired we really might be.

We lived through our jet lag in Barcelona just as we did in every other place. We explored the Barri Gotti and Las Ramblas, feasting on the flavors and culture that is Barcelona. We went to bed that night and slept the way people sleep when they have not been to bed in almost forty-eight hours, of course our sleep was fueled with Sangria and wonderful wine. We woke in the morning ready for what would happen next.

My husband was in the shower and I decided... read more >>