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Most of us go on vacation to relax, but as it often happens when you are in a place where you don’t speak the lingo, things can go south in more ways than one. Someone asked “Travelers, what are some of the creepiest/scariest experiences you've had abroad?” and people shared their eeriest stories.
We got in touch with solo traveler Lavina Dsouza to learn some tips to avoid the sort of stories here. So get comfortable as you read through, upvote the most interesting posts, and be sure to comment your own thoughts below.
More info: Continenthop.com
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Hiking in Huaraz Peru, has been told to watch our gear as locals (and apparently foxes) might make off with items left around the campsite. So we made sure to clean the campsite extra well, packing all our gear in the tent and inside the fly. And after a long day hiking, off to bed. Middle of the night our tent starts shaking like crazy, I wake up freaking out thinking we were getting robbed, I started yelling and screaming. Part of the tent pushes in real far. I manage to get outside to start swinging and come face to face with the cow that had wandered into the tent ropes and got startled. Pretty lucky that it didn’t step down into the tent and hit us.
PeepPeep the duck 1 year ago
Our cow gave birth yesterday, a little girl named Sophia. Happy cows
Daddy’s Girl 1 year ago
That happened when my family was camping in the Appalachians. Middle of the night something sat on the tent right over my brother. We didn’t go take a look but we could hear grunting and it sure sounded like a bear. 😰
RELATED:
#2
On a train in Athens traveling alone, a group of men tried to push me off the train with them at a stop. Three women started yelling at them and pulled me back. It happened to fast I didn't know until the one that spoke English explained they were trying to take me. They made sure I made it back to the hostel and told me not to wear what I was wearing ( shorts and a tank) while alone.
Hańka 1 year ago
During the tour, Athens was the only city where we were afraid to go out for an evening walk. Overnight stay in a hotel near the Acropolis, September 2023. A street full of drug addicts and shady types. They were not Greeks.
Nina 1 year ago
Don't know why you're downvoted. Every city has less savoury parts, especially at night.
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Ausrine Ciapaite 1 year ago
Greece is an amazing country but I'd avoid Athens. There are many amazing places outside Athens! And more authentic too!
Celtic Pirate Queen 1 year ago
I went to college in Cuernavaca, Mexico. We lived in a boarding house, basically. I was 15 and busty with a great figure. Even so, I have always dressed modestly. I was going down to the mercado one day & the ladies of the village started rushing me with blankets screaming "Meetchel". I was wearing walking shorts and a tank top that completely covered my bra straps, but I was "too exposed". Granted this was 1977, but still it freaked me the hell out.
Nina 1 year ago
The way it's worded, it is about Athens in Greece, otherwise the part 'until the one that spoke English' doesn't make sense.
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#3
I witnessed a creepy old man groping a teenager on a crowded train in Osaka. The girl was just enduring it and you can tell that she was holding back her tears. I whipped my phone out and started filming the guy which made him use his other hand which was blocked from my view so I asked my guy friend to switch places with the girl. After that, on the next stop, the creepy guy got off. I asked the girl if she was ok. She thanked us and her friends also expressed their gratitude. I think all of them (all teenage girls) were aware of the groping but I read somewhere that it is not the Japanese culture to make a scene. I was aware that this kind of thing was prevalent in Japan but I'm still shocked to see it in person. That creepy man and the poor girl's face will be forever etched in my mind.
2x4b523p 1 year ago
Which is like putting plaster on a gunshot wound. Women only carriages usually operate only during rush hour. No real changes in society or law and it’s the woman who is in trouble if she kicks up a fuss.
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NutsnB0lts 1 year ago
F**k "cULTuRe". If someone is getting groped, you make as big of a scene as possible. Sexual offenders don't get a to do whatever the f**k they want because of "culture."
DamnBecky 1 year ago (edited)
My Japanese SIL explained to me that the one time she made a scene, she was the one pulled off by metro police and threatened with arrest for causing a disturbance on the train. She had a friend arrested for shoving a guy off of her on the train which resulted in her loosing her job. Japanese men get away with it BC of these reasons.
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HTakeover 1 year ago (edited)
Have the male friend start groping him back, but be painful about it. Give wet w.i.l.l.i.e.s, pour a drink down his pants, etc. Basically non-violent "hoodlum" stuff. If you're a foreigner, you can get away with a lot more when messing with the creep than locals can.
EJN 1 year ago
In Japan, if this happens, you can yell the word 'chikan' and everyone will know some guy is groping you in the crowd. These guys are arrested if caught. The problem is, sometimes the wrong guy is grabbed and it ruins his life. It's not so much that girls in Japan don't want to make a scene as it is that it gets blown up and messes with their lives too. I've concluded that all women should carry a large hat pin and make sure the dude "accidentally" encounters it if he thinks about groping. A large safety pin "accidentally opened" will also do the trick.
Crystalina Ketterman 1 year ago
I will gladly apply to work for the country of Japan and kick the schyitt out of them.
Bored Panda got in touch with Lavina Dsouza, a veteran traveler, journalist, and photographer from Continenthop.com and she was kind enough to answer some of our questions. Given the dour nature of many of these stories, we wanted to, instead, explore some of the positives while still staying safe. So we asked Lavina what travel advice she would give her younger self.
“Never be afraid to travel solo! But irrespective of whether you travel solo or not, always do research and have backup plans ready and have some breathing space if and when things go wrong so that you're not caught off guard and don't end up spending a fortune when you panic!”
#4
I was traveling in Nicaragua several years ago when I got lost and ended up having to take a taxi at 9:30pm back to my hostel. When the taxi pulled up to the curb, the taxi driver locked the taxi doors and told me that I had misunderstood the fare. He claimed I owed him $100 USD which was several times more than we had agreed upon. I tried to pry the doors open from the inside but was completely trapped. Thankfully, he let me out of the taxi after taking all the money I had on me.
The hostel workers told me I was incredibly lucky. A few days earlier, a taxi driver had kidnapped another young female, assaulted her, then dumped her barely conscious body in a field outside town thinking that she was dead. A few local schoolchildren found her on their way to school in the morning.
Bart 1 year ago
Had the taxi scam in Nepal in the early '2000. Driver didn't want to let us out. My travel friend took a can of deodorant and a lighter from her daypack and lit a 1meter flame in the direction of the front passenger seat. The doors quickly opened after that 🙃
Jeevesssssss 1 year ago
Quick thinking, not easy in that situation. I knew hairspray worked but I'm helluva lot more likely to have deodorant on me - thanks!
Load More Replies... Zaphod 1 year ago
My brother and I were in Bangkok and they had a hawker on the street trying to pull you into bars to see the ping-pong show. They advertised $1 beers outside, so we went in. We had four beers but the owner demanded $108. He wouldn't let us leave. I made myself look large and loomed over him. I loudly told him, "NO!" He let us leave after paying the $4 that we owed. I am normally a very pasisve person. Also, we were kidnapped by a tuk-tuk driver that said he would take us to see a giant golden Buddha. Instead, he took us to 4 different shops that his friends owned. We weren't going to buy anything and he wasn't going to take us back. Two hours later we made it to the temple.
#5
In India our bus rounded a corner in the mountains and another bus was on the other side of the curve. Both busses skid to a stop about 1 foot from one another. Both drivers started laughing and poking fun at each other. We saw a bus from the '80s that fell down the mountain about 15 minutes later. Hella intense.
keyboardtek 1 year ago
When we adopted our child from China, the bus driver was speeding to get our adoption group to the airport. Passing in unsafe zones, close to head on crashes. Totally nuts.
HTakeover 1 year ago
Mine had three phones mounted & was tapping on all three at any given time.
Load More Replies... #6
1992 I was walking up the stairs to the ticket booths in the Warsaw, Poland central train station. All of a sudden this dude is falling down the stairs coming to rest a few stairs above where I was standing. Dude had a long screw driver sticking out of his abdomen.
David 1 year ago
Poland back then in 1992 was a high crime, poverty stricken former communist country. Today it is a safe thriving country I love to visit.
Jessie 1 year ago
Poland is a “safe, thriving country”? The same country that has a president who is actively blackmailing the entire European Union into giving him money, has recently accepted some pretty homophobic laws and the country where the democracy has been seriously questioned lately?
Load More Replies... Daddy’s Girl 1 year ago
Something similar happened when I was in Moscow mid 1990s. Dead body side of the road, all our driver said was KGB.
Generally, more extreme experiences come when a person actually goes somewhere off the beaten path, but sometimes it’s simply a result of wanting to save some money at the cost of time and convenience, so we wanted to hear Lavina’s take on balancing the two. “I have been sharing travel tips and tricks on Continenthop.com for almost a decade mainly for professionals and yes, they value time over money!”
#7
Got pickpocketed by a group of 3 on a Paris metro. I'm paranoid of losing my wallet, so I'm always checking myself. When I realized it was missing, I made a bigger scene than the pickpockets were making (they shoved me into their friend and were trying to convince people I knocked him down). I stopped the train from leaving the station. One of the other passengers left to get got conductor and security. I guess that didn't sit well with the pickpockets, so they gave me back my wallet and took off running.
Edit: This event still freaks my wife out.
MaxMi 1 year ago
They knew they were going to be held responsible for the train stop and pay fines if not worse, sure cops were going to be involved. Not worth a wallet, at least they were reasonable.
A. Starhawk Hunt 1 year ago
Well, they could have run off with the wallet.
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Silre 1 year ago
You kept checking your pockets so they knew where your valuables were. You were an easy mark
Charlotte Sandoval 1 year ago
It also marks you as a cash carrying tourist
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NapQueen 1 year ago
This happened when I was living in Paris, but with my Mum. We were getting on the Metro and suddenly these two police officers come storming through the doors as they were closing. They wrestled these two guys to the ground, and that's when my Mum's purse popped out - they were really sly and she didn't realise at all that she'd been mugged! The Paris Metro can be quite dangerous.
Edison Lima 1 year ago
And overtly rude cab drivers. Paris is about as famous for that as it is for the Louvre.
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pineapple87 1 year ago
And yet Americans think European cities are dangerous because pickpockets are so common. How exactly is armed robbery better?
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Max Fox 1 year ago
Nearly had my pocket picked in Madrid. Standing on a bus and a guy across from me makes eye contact and looks down to my pocket as I feel my wallet wiggling. I slammed my hand on my pocket grabbing my wallet, and I see a hand disappearing. I look up, and see a guy running out the bus door - he had timed it so that he would have my wallet just as the door of the bus opened. Thanks to the Good Samaritan and to the fact that the pickpocket flinched when I slapped my hand down, rather than just grabbing and running, I kept my wallet.
Paul Jayne 1 year ago
Typical. Arrived on train from Brussels. Went to ATM. Rode metro to get to accommodation. Discovered wallet missing. Not a great start to Paris holiday.
EJN 1 year ago (edited)
My brother was in Romania and someone tried to grab his money which happened to be attached to a lanyard around his neck. It resulted in him being choked and his assailant did not stop, so he ended up stabbing him with a pocket knife. He reported it to police who dismissed the victim of the stabbing as "a gypsy thief who deserved it" and told him to forget it. He left Romania post haste. He was pretty upset by the whole event, not the least being worried about the poor thief's health.
Melissa Harris 1 year ago (edited)
My husband neatly got pickpocketed on the Paris Metro. We'd been warned so he had his wallet zipped in an inside jacket pocket. They tried the bump and distract but got zilch. I was very cognizant of my bag the entire time we were in Paris, especially on the Metro.
#8
We went on a family trip to croatia and on our way to the Beach we pulled over to the side of a road for a pee break. So we opened the car door and like always our dog jumps out first. He ran into the field right next to the Street. Then suddenly my mother starts screaming the name of our dog, because 10meters away from our car was sign that said: Stay Away, old minefield. Thankfully nothing happened
Zaphod 1 year ago
Old landmines pose a threat long after wars end. I do not understand having royalty, but Princess Diana was a good person. In 1997, she walked through a minefield in Angola to support the HALO Trust. The HALO Trust is a NGO which works to clear landmines left behind by conflicts
CrazyKnitter 1 year ago
Diana was amazing. She did so much good for people. It didn't matter if they were English or not, she just seemed to want to help. Such a beautiful soul deserved much better.
Load More Replies... Verena 1 year ago (edited)
The tourists here learn the hard way that dogs need to be on a leash in unfamiliar areas. A) it is a local rule, to protect wildlife and B) it is common sense, to prevent your dog from being run over in traffic or picking up a sniff and bolt and C) a dogfight with another unleashed dog is no fun. People do manage to loose their dogs 5 minutes into their holiday. And the dog needs to be the last to get out of the car,only if the surroundings are safe.
Gabriele Alfredo Pini 1 year ago
In the Balkans such signs are very real. And normally you found them near woods, most fields are demined but it is very difficult to clean a forest.
Load More Replies... #9
I had a pack of wild dogs chase me from my bus stop to my hotel at 3 am in Kosovo. I also had a old woman yell at me in Russian about not making my bed right on the train and then watched over my shoulder til it was to her satisfaction when I was on my way back to Bucharest from Moldova
lunitavet 1 year ago
There was a Russian woman staying at he same hotel complex while in Rome. No Italian, just a bit of English. Just wanted to know where the toilets were while on my way out. I managed to tell her, but she did ask for my name and she yelled No RUSSIAN? ( I do have a Slavic name, born somewhere else unrelated). I got yelled bc I cannot speak Russian. She stopped herself of saying anything else, probably bc I had stopped to help her.
“Travelers, especially from countries like the USA, tend to have limited holidays and prefer to see as much as possible within the limited time they have. While slow travel is the trend currently unfortunately not everyone can afford that in terms of time and for many countries who depend on tourism, as long as this is done in the most sustainable way possible it still helps provide innumerable locals with income! So in short, there's no right way to travel!”
#10
A good friend of mine in Zimbabwe was grabbed at gunpoint and forced into a van, thankfully they only took her to an ATM and made her drain her account then they left her somewhere outside town. Could've been so much worse
Zaphod 1 year ago
This is a 100,000,000,000,000 Zimbabwe dollar bill. Zimbabwe had hyper-inflation in 2007-8. One month, the inflation rate was 79,600,000,000% Resized_10...3-jpeg.jpg 
Xenia Harley 1 year ago
Many years ago, my cousin's friend was traveling with his young wife to a country. She went into a shoe store and he said he was going to wait for her outside. She never came out, and the people in the shop claimed she was never there. She never was found, even though he tried everything to find her. I won't say what country, but they were Austrian and traveling to a nearby country.
Jessie 1 year ago (edited)
I think people visit fairly safe places but end up in the wrong area/around the wrong people at the wrong time.
Load More Replies... #11
Was on a flight once going into Orlando that hit some unexpected turbulence. This was no ordinary turbulence. We went from 0 to 100 in an instant. People literally flew out of their seats, luggage fell from the overhead bins, people screamed like they were going to die. There were several sudden drops in elevation strong enough that people's arms flew up in the air and my butt came out of the seat. I've flown quite a bit and sometimes it gets bumpy. This was the first time I seriously thought something bad was going to happen.
Tobias Reaper 1 year ago (edited)
and that is why you wear seatbelts on a plane so any sudden drop in altitude u dont fly out your seat and hit the ceiling
Xenon 1 year ago
That's how W***y Mayes died. He was the original sham wow type salesman. Hit his head during turbulence and it killed him.
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FrogMan 1 year ago
Will never forget a trip from Minneapolis to Philly. Once we got over the Great Lakes, the plane was like a roller coaster…uppp, downnnn, over and over for what seemed to be forever. Nothing you could do except hold on for dear life. Never been so scared on a plane before or since.
Just-4-2day 1 year ago
I believe this is the best reason that ANYBODY on a flight should be in a seat. No holding babies through the flight. Put them in a car seat.
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
I had something similar happen flying into Lewiston-Clarkston airport, Idaho in the mid-80's. My scariest experience in a plane.
#12
It was my first time visiting New York City. My aunt and uncle who both work in FiDi (Financial District) took the whole week off to show me and my family around Manhattan. It was a beautiful Tuesday morning and we just had our photos taken around Wall Street when the first plane crashed into the WTC
Lord of the laserprinter. 1 year ago
Not only you. I was on the Autobahn when all cars stopped and pulled over in total disbelief. On that day we were all Americans.
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Gen X Feral 1 year ago (edited)
I still get sick to my stomach just thinking about it. I was working as a dental assistant and my ahole boss was yelling it's nothing go back to work. I'm standing there watching on tv people jumping, plummeting to the ground because they were going to burn to death😭
Rosemary . 1 year ago (edited)
Same! Except my work was right in the middle of DC, a stone's throw from the Pentagon. Several coworkers had already left and around 11:30 I told my boss I was going home and he's like "Why?" SMH. The owner sent everyone home a few minutes later anyway. It was such an eerie feeling leaving DC. People were glued to their car radios, there were rumors that another jet was headed for the Capitol in DC. It was so quiet. Just surreal.
Load More Replies... Charlotte Sandoval 1 year ago
I have a cousin who was an absolute genius with computers. He could literally build one from junk, program anything. He moved from France to NY in January 2001 for a very high paying job. His apartment was just a few blocks from the towers, he was chilling on his roof when it happened. Saw it all. Never recovered. Quit his job, disappeared off the face of the earth for years. Not even his parents knew if he was alive. Turned up as a Buddhist monk in Cambodia, hospitalized because he was literally starving himself and ended up back in France, living with his parents at 47 years old.
Kenneth Smith 1 year ago
The most surreal thing about 9/11 is that weather-wise, it was one of the prettiest days. I was in an incredible mood, enjoying a beautiful morning, driving to my class at the University of Maryland, when I heard the news. It just shows that many times, life changes in a moment with no signs or warnings, going from beauty to horror.
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
I remember being so scared because my husband was in the Naval reserve at the time, my in-laws had been traveling around that section of Pennsylvania when we talked to them that Sunday and a business aquaintance had her office in one of the Twin Towers. When I called my mom to tell her, she asked me why I was so upset, it was happening on the other side of the country and didn't concern us in Washington state. I said that someone had just attacked the US, I had a husband in the military whose reserve unit had already been activated and sent to Bahrain as a result of the USS Cole bombing the year before. The only reason he was still stateside was because he was about to put in his 20 year retirement papers. She still didn't think I should be upset. (my husband was allowed to retire- he didn't have the training they needed, my in-laws had traveled out that area of Penn. and my business aquaintence had just moved her office out of the Twin Towers a few months earlier)
She is absolutely right here, as slow travel has become a pretty significant movement over the last few years. In short, the idea is to be as sustainable as possible, which often means traveling shorter distances, using up less carbon, walking often, only eating locally, and, generally, staying in a place for a longer period of time. But, as Lavina mentioned, this does tend to come at a cost. Slow-travel enthusiasts still need to work out a framework to make this concept actually applicable to the average person.
#13
Met a guy in Munich on the street who had lived in the same house as I did... in Cincinnati... 40 years ago...
Charles Greenough 1 year ago
How is that scary? Was he still living in the attic or something?
Hmmm hmmmm 1 year ago
Unless he lived there at the same time as OP.... And he didn't know
Load More Replies... Rebecca Derr 1 year ago
I'm assuming it's creepy bc the house is in another country. Coincidence, but still creepy weird.
#14
I was traveling by van through the mountains in the Philippines with a friend that is a really big guy. We came up on a checkpoint with soldiers searching cars. The guys we’re all wearing mismatched clothes and did not have any insignias on their uniforms or trucks. They searched all of our bags and we’re asking questions of the driver in Tagalog, which we did not speak. We heard them say American and we we’re the only two Americans on the bus. They talked for a little while and finally waved us through. Later we told the story to another American and he said we had gone through a Guerrilla controlled area where Americans had been kidnapped for ransom lately. They all agreed they did not take us because of the size of my friend. I think we got really lucky that day.
#15
I was walking around in a town in Algeria. I wandered in to a neighborhood, and noticed there were hardly any people out. A little further, and there were literally no people out. I started to feel a little uneasy. And then I see an extremely tall man walking towards me, straight towards me, obviously with intent. He gets closer, and I see an older gentleman with a long grey beard and wearing a grey tunic. I stop. He comes right up to me and says, in pretty good English, “you’re not safe here, we need to get you off the street”. I say “OK”, and he says “follow me”. We walk a few blocks and we come to a door, he says “wait here a minute”, and he goes inside. He opens the door again and invites me in. When I get inside, there are maybe a dozen men. They are all dressed in black, and they are staring absolute daggers at me. Grey-beard lays in to them, starts shaking his fists at them, gets really worked up. Then one of the younger guys goes in to the kitchen and brings out some tea and cookies, and offfers them to me. So, I’m drinking tea, and trying to smile, and one of the young guys asks where I’m from and I say “The States” and he starts talking about the CIA and stuff... and then I say “you think the CIA is bad here? Let me tell you about Central America”, and then pretty soon everybody is warming up to me and we’re laughing and talking s**t about American foreign policy and drinking tea. After a bit of that the older man invites me back to his apartment. He has a huge library. I gift him a book that I had finished. And then he tells me what had just happened. His little brother, who was one of the younger men, was the leader of a radical group, all the other men I had met. He had overheard them getting ready to kidnap me. But he had shamed them for not being good hosts, and for disrespecting him because it was his house. He said that I would be safe from then on. TLDR: Gandalf saves my life and got a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for his trouble.
Charlotte Sandoval 1 year ago
So? Still entertaining, who cares if it's true or not. 90% of these posts are exaggerated or blatant lies. That's the internet
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Jen M 1 year ago
Everyone who doesn't believe this, I've been in, and seen situations abroad, just as strange. I wouldn't be surprised if this was real, not one bit.
However, slow or “fast,” many of these trips still ended up scaring the people who took them, so we wanted to finish with some general advice from Lavina that anyone could benefit from. “Research! If planning a trip by yourself try to check which localities are safe, pick tours and companies that are local give back to the community, and make sure you keep family and friends informed of your whereabouts. Always make sure you carry a power bank and any medications needed and keep track of the cultural rules in a country so that you're not caught off guard due to random arguments.” You can find more of her work at Continenthop.com and Instagram.
#16
A friend and I were waiting for a night train in Naples and after someone tried to steal our bags decided to go everywhere together. It was a good thing because a man who had been whistling at us for an hour tried to follow us into the bathroom.
MaxMi 1 year ago
Of all the dangerous sides every italian city has, naples is the worst. Almost every train station offers its perks however naples wins.
Paul Jayne 1 year ago
Yup. Hated Naples. Dirty. Scary people. Unattractive city.
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cecilia kilian 1 year ago
You seriously need to be on your guard and listen to your gut in big train stations in Europe if you are an inexperienced traveller, from sob stories about being a student who needs to get home but lost their wallet, to "friendly" dudes trying to make you miss your train so you will have to spend the night at their place...
David Paterson 1 year ago
I got seriously conned while waiting for a train in Naples. There are warning messages about this sort of thing at train stations there.
MaxMi 1 year ago
three cards or ball cups ? they weren't 2 but a team of 8-10 people at least, of which many sentinels for approaching cops and at least 2 fake clients to let you think you can win. this happens literally everywhere.
Load More Replies... #17
I have mostly traveled through Europe, and the only time I've ever really felt uncomfortable was when I was groped on the metro in Rome. We were packed into the car, and I felt a hand against my back...no big deal, I live in New York City, it happens. But then the hand slipped between me and the next person and around to near my stomach. Oh, maybe a pickpocket? Well I had a money belt, so I was okay there. The hand grabbed my breast. We were so tightly packed that I couldn't turn around, and I just...froze. I wanted to say, "stop" or "don't" or anything at all but in the moment every word of my Italian fled from my brain and I felt like a bucket of scalding water had been dumped over my head. The ride felt like it lasted forever. At the next stop I forced my way out of the car and out into the fresh air. Rome is so beautiful, but it felt pretty damn ugly that day.
Diolla 1 year ago
I used to freeze from this type of thing. But then I learned to grip the guy's wrist and sink my nails into it. Great fun. They stop immediately and panic because I AM HOLDING THEM IN PLACE. All this without creating a fuzz.
Tempest 1 year ago
My grandma used to tell how she and her friends used to carry safety pins to prick these kind of people.
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Caroline Nagel 1 year ago
I didn't have to go to another country to get groped. I was groped by a teenager with a filthy smile on his ugly face in a tram in the town where I live.
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
I used the "pinch and twist the skin on the back on the hand" move on a would-be purse thief in London when I was 9. I had a pretty good grip on the purse strings too- wrapped around my wrist and hanging down in my hand. I'd probably read about it in a book somewhere (Nancy Drew?).
A. Starhawk Hunt 1 year ago
I would’ve screamed my head off!. I hope the memory is fading although, I know the ending
pocwaddler 1 year ago
I was on the "pickpocket express" in Prague, standing up, when I felt a tug on my f***y pack. I only had lunch and a map in there, but I reached back and grabbed this little weasely guys wrist (I'm 6"3' and big) leaned down into his face and yelled "DID YOU FIND WHAT YOU"RE LOOKING FOR?!" He bolted out the door. Thanks, Rich Steves, for the tip about the "pickpocket express!"
DarkViolet 1 year ago
Looks like those long porcelain nails would come in handy at a time like this.
#18
A handful of men in Thailand were vehemently trying to haggle with my friends to purchase me. They kept pulling my arms to try and seperate us and asking "how much" and offering different amount of money.
Edit: Jesus this blew up! Thailand is a very beautiful place and very safe for travel, guys! The place I was at, Pattaya Beach, is the central location where we are allowed to stay when the ship pulls into port. It's basically nothing but bars and brothels. Don't go there. I don't know why they even let *us* go there. Even if you did go, you'd most likely not be in any danger, the people are very helpful and kind but every place has bad people and we happened to run into them. I'm not even sure if these men were Thai. Don't let this freak you out from going. SEA does have a dark underbelly of human trafficking but it's pretty unlikely you will be involved in it as a tourist.
And everyone who is freaking out about the Sailors "buying" underage girls; they're just stupid kids who want to get their d**k wet. They have literally no idea that these girls are underage and just think they're paying a prostitue. Most of these idiots can't even fathom that child trafficking is a thing. We make every effort possible to keep this from happening and inform our Sailors about what is really going on. Your average US servicemember is just as disgusted as you are that this happes to children.
MaxMi 1 year ago
Unfortunately is the most tipped route for sex tourism where minors of all age are available. This is so radicated to escape poverty parents will sell their kids for a bounch of dollars and eat six months. The problem are the travellers from all over the world, not the sailors where at least an istitution can watch over them.
NapQueen 1 year ago
I lived in Thailand for 4 years as a teenager, and I've never felt safer. In fact, it's known to be more dangerous for men on the islands than it is for women. That's what it was like 15 years ago or so, anyway.
HighNMightyBigshot 1 year ago
She really thinks that sailors do t know that those girls are underage? Really, when the US Military has double the rate of rape compared to the rest of the population?
#19
Visiting Chicago from Seattle for a week. I booked an Airbnb with a gentleman understanding that I would be in a household with maybe 5 other people as he did bunk beds in the room. The Airbnb was marketed as close to trains, decent area, and the house looked clean with many useful amenities.
Upon arriving at the house, I find that it's run down, unclean, with only the sheets being changed by the maid. On top of that, many appliances were broken and there was no potable water. That was the first strike. Next, there were upwards of 15 people staying in the house. That bunk bed situation? He had 5-6 rooms with varying amounts of bunk beds squeezed in and no room to walk. No one in the house knew about the other rooms from the listing.
I dropped my things off to explore the city and noticed the neighborhood was a bit sketchy but thought nothing of it. When I can back there was one of the other guests sitting waiting for an uber eats because he was too terrified to walk down the street and get food.
Apparently, the night before I arrived, 3 people in the house were mugged while walking 5 minutes from the train to the house. That night, 8 of us sat on the floor of the "living room" (seemed like a small dining area but a lovers couch was place in there with a broken TV) and heard 2 separate occasions of 8-10 gunshots a block away.
I immediately moved to a hostel and argued with airbnb and himself until I received a refund.
Mike, screw you.
Tl;dr: Ended up in an Airbnb in a bad part of Chicago were three housemates were mugged and two people on the street were shot. Didn't stay another night.
Alicia M 1 year ago
I live close to Chicago and I have been there a million times. It's a great city, but has bad areas, like any other big city. I've been to places in Chicago where I feel completely safe and I've been to places that feel sketchy . I always move through the bad areas quickly. I've always had a good time there. Very multicultural city. A lot to do. They have the best museums in my area. I don't think you can beat the Field Museum.
MMcD 1 year ago (edited)
According to a comment on Reddit the place was in Homan Square. It was dirt cheap for a reason. If you’re unfamiliar with the area, it’s near Garfield Park. Do a street view of it. I always look up how safe areas are before I travel. North Sider here, btw. I’m guessing you’re in the Oak Park or Skokie are. Two different directions, but both are close :)
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Shaunn Munn 1 year ago
Air BNB in the US is a joke. Astronomical fees on top of being responsible for doing ALL cleaning. Don't use Air BNB until it's regulated by national laws, NOT state laws.
#20
A cult behind several [crimes] in China tried to recruit me for some reason.
David 1 year ago
If you mean Falan Gong, the crimes in China are alleged because they oppose the CCP, sure they are a chinese religious cult, but they are anti the CCP and anti communism, so they were banned in China and the CCP uses them as the boogy man whenever they need one. They are pretty pacifist actually
BewilderedBanana 1 year ago
Lit Kidz? Probably just a group of young literature enthusiasts :)
#21
My buddy and I were flying into Malaysia from Vietnam on the day that MH370 went missing. We were at the gate watching the whole thing unfold about it going missing. It was playing on virtually all the TV's in the airport. We were flying Malaysia Airlines. The tickets were expensive (for a backpacker's budget) and they weren't offering any refunds. Told ourselves that maybe they'd be extra cautious now so we're actually more safe. Definitely puckered up for 2 hours until we touched down.
Zaphod 1 year ago
I have flown on Malasia Airlines several times. One flight from Bangkok to Chaing Mai, Thailand was only $40. This was long before MH370.
Astro 1 year ago
I flew Bangkok to Phuket for $35, I wish flights were that cheap in Canada! A similar trip that I often make here costs $400-$700 depending on season
Load More Replies... #22
I was in Barbados walking on a main road back to where I was sleeping. Not far from a main beach, on the south side. It was late and dark.
I come across this man carrying a white bucket.
"Hi, I'm Bush"
Bush has plants in the bucket. He also has a machete.
"Do you have any food for me? Some rice?"
I tell him I do not have any food, but that I do have weed that I could share --I had bought some from a bunch of kids at the beach the night before.
"Follow me", says Bush.
So I follow this man with a machete off the road, into a empty lot. At the back of the lot is a back alley heading to the side.
We take this alley -- a man is sitting, sleeping on a wall, a few broken down cars are parked. It is a dead end.
I was wondering earlier whether all this was a good idea, and my mind was beginning to form an opinion along the lines of "no".
So we get to the end of the alley. He enters a door, and brings out two chairs.
Turns out this is his mom's place. I begin to notice a small garden all around -- made from the plants that Bush picks up and brings back in his bucket.
We light up. He tokes first. He coughs.
"Ugh, this stuff is s**t! You feed this to the sheep!"
Astro 1 year ago
It’s that unbelievable to you that, on this giant planet of billions of people living billions of lives, this might have happened somewhere?
Load More Replies... Gourdeous 1 year ago
I had this misfortune to live and work in Barbados for 8 weeks as a student. It is one of the worst places I have ever been. I don't think tourists staying in the resorts realise just how impoverished it is, and as a young white female I spent most of the time totally terrified
LGBTQpanda 1 year ago
So you didn't follow strange, ARMED men into dead end walkways, right?
Load More Replies... #23
I was walking to a pharmacy down a busy avenue in Rabat, Morocco. It was the Feast of the King so most people had off work and school, meaning the avenue was empty. Myself and two volunteers (all three young, white females) are walking and chatting when two guys on a motorbike pass us the opposite way. They drove over the median and pulled up beside us. The guy on the back gets off and walks toward us then pulls a machete out from underneath his flannel. Girl 1 throws her purse, Girl 2 throws her phone, and both go running. Guy comes after me and I wrap my hand around my purse (had my passport, wallet, phone, etc.) and he holds the machete up to my neck. I say a few choice words to him in Arabic (essentially “Shame on you by Allah”, which is something I was taught by locals to keep the kids I was working with at an orphanage in line). Machete man promptly appears to s**t his pants. He goes after the dropped phone and purse and I start running the rest of the way to the pharmacy. I wind up there crying and the other two girls meet me. People are starting to congregate. Some witnessed it while driving by while others are trying to translate for us. A woman says she will drive us home after speaking with the security guard at the pharmacy. We agree and get into a minivan. I provide directions in Arabic and the woman drives right past the house, blowing stop signs and ignoring traffic lights. It’s then we realize we’re about to get kidnapped. One of the two girls reached forward, opened the door of the van, and we jumped out while it was moving. TLDR: Held up at machete-point then almost trafficked in Morocco during my first international travel experience.
Melissa Neubauer 1 year ago
Ive been told by several people that went that Morocco is soooo dangerous for women and children. A kind of step cousin went with her mom and sister when they lived in Europe. Several times men were trying to “buy” her and her sister. They start talking and trying to physically separate the people they “want to purchase”. It’s such a beautiful place otherwise but I’m too afraid.
Paul Jayne 1 year ago
I was staying with a tour group in a hotel in Tangier. My friend and I (both F and 50ish) wanted to go for a walk by the beach after dinner. We knew we had to dress appropriately, meaning completely covered. Our tour guide said this was impossible as we would be treated as sex workers because respectable women simply do not go out in the evening unless accompanied by a male relative or husband. So instead we went to the bar in the hotel and watched well dressed businessmen drinking copious amounts of alcohol and groping very young women dressed in skimpy little cocktail dresses.
#24
I was traveling in Costa Rica with two flashy businessmen who were there to possibly purchase a gentleman’s club. We were staying at the Radisson and asked the concierge to get us a cab to the club. We got in the cab and made sure that the driver knew where we were going. We were told it was a 10 min drive. About 7 min in I realized that we were not in a touristy part of town. At all. The driver is whispering into his phone in Spanish, staring at us in the rear view mirror. I get uneasy and look at my companions, who are clearly feeling the same way. We ask “are we almost there?” Oh si! Uno momento. More whispering. Not good. We are being set up. It’s been 10 minutes and we are in a sketchy residential area. I’m sitting in the middle and my partner opens his briefcase and hands me a pen and tells me to stab someone if I need to. What?! He passes another pen to the other man. He’s sitting directly behind the driver and takes his own gold pen and holds it to the drivers jugular and screams “TAKE US BACK TO THE RADISSON RIGHT F*****G NOW”, the partner snatched the drivers phone and hangs up. I’m just clutching the pen. We did make it back to the Radisson. The jewelry was deposited into the safe in the room for the rest of the trip and we eventually made it safely to the club. I was young and naive, I had had my passport for 3 days at this point and didn’t really get that we shouldn’t have been traveling there with that amount of flashy jewelry.
Zaphod 1 year ago (edited)
I had a high school friend that lived in Costa Rica. He was a DJ at a gentleman's club. He said it was like the Wild West. Gangsters, hookers and coke were the norm. They had a shoot out in the bar, one night. People were not fazed by it. Edit: I meant the bar, not Costa Rica itself. He loved living there.
Laura Calvo 1 year ago
Costa rican here... This is very rare. You have to go to really bad areas to experience this.
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crazydogmama 1 year ago
Isn't that just Rule #1?!? Don't wear flashy, obviously expensive jewelry?
#25
When I was a kid, my dad used to lead groups of college kids to Central and South America to build houses. One year he decided that we should ride the chicken but from Guatemala City to Mexico City. Long trip.
We got to the border and a soldier with a hell of a big machine gun got on the bus and looked around. Saw that we had about 15 college girls on the bus, and then went and talked to someone on the phone. About two minutes later, a bunch of guys with machine guns got on the bus and informed us that all the males had to get off the bus and line up in front of it.
I remember that we did it, but there was a hell of a lot of tension in the air as we did.
Soldiers crammed into the bus. We waited.
Finally, they got off the bus and we got back on and away we went. It was a whole lot of nothing, really, but I remember my dad, the leader of the group, looking very pale and sweating bullets.
Edit 1: this was in the late 80s. We'd heard lots of tales of bad stuff.
Edit 2: chicken BUS. We didn't ride the chicken, we rode the chicken bus.
Edit 3: okay, they might not have been machine guns. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. They still were large caliber guns, I was 12 and I was unarmed. I'm sure if it had gone differently and I'd have been shot to death, it would have given me great comfort to know that my death was caused by a semi-automatic.
A. Starhawk Hunt 1 year ago
OP, I like your style. Edit 3 was an ode to deserved, appropriate, intelligent piece of snark, with silver stars for sheer effect on my day!👏👏👏
Jen 1 year ago
I want to know what (if anything) happened on the bus with all the girls still on it 😬
SilverSkyCloud 1 year ago
hate to jump to conclusions here but maybe the had all the men leave the bus so that they could rape the girls
#26
I was stalked by a guy while walking through the Tiergarten in Berlin. I was walking a path, enjoying the park alone. I saw this guy standing on the edge of the walkway just looking off into the distance. I passed him and when I was about twenty feet away, he turned and followed after me, keeping pace. I started to take a very meandering path, even leaving the park and entering again. The guy stuck with me the whole way. Eventually I got to a place with some sharp turns and heavy greenery. I was able to lose the line of sight and put myself up against a corner. I'd just been in Switzerland and had bought a pocket knife, so I opened the blade and held it inside my jacket pocket. I stood there, waiting, and then this guy comes walking out of the path confused and obviously trying to see where I went. When he finally spotted me, he jolted and since I had the drop on him, he played it cool and continued walking as if he hadn't followed me there. He stopped a little ways ahead, and I kept watching him. I wanted to confront him to find out why he'd followed me, but since I was a visitor in the country, I thought better of it. Instead, I waited until I saw a big group of people leaving and fell in with them. He started to follow me, but I finally lost him outside the garden. It unsettled me because to this day I have no idea why he was following me. I'm a guy and at the time I was in my early twenties, pretty fit, and had a sour disposition, so I didn't seem like a prime mugging target. But, maybe he thought otherwise. EDIT: Half the reason I posted this story was because I hoped someone on Reddit would know what the guy was doing. You didn't fail me.
and_a_touch_of_the_’tism 1 year ago
To quote one of the replies, “he wanted to share his bratwurst with you”
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#27
Went to Honduras. Nearly drowned in a sea of children begging for money. Also the wife and I went out into the ocean. She was on a paddle board and I on a canoe. She couldn’t paddle back in and it was taking her out so she had to hold onto me while I paddles us in. Good thing I was in really great shape at the time.
Zaphod 1 year ago
In 1999, I went to a baseball game in Havana, Cuba. I gave some cute kids some nickels ($0.05 coins). I was immediately swarmed and I could not see the rest of the game. Here is a picture from that game. Picture-04...269647.jpg 
#28
The first day in the Philippines when I landed in Manila, a white Canadian tourist was [unalived] by people who align with IS. So there was that.
Nacho Man Sandy Ravage 1 year ago
ISIS, IS, ISIL.....they're all the same group
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#29
The first time I ever visited the London Bridge was the day the terrorist attack happened where they drove a van through the crowd.
Huddo's sister 1 year ago
That period (I feel like it was a couple of months but I don't remember) where there were people in multiple countries carrying out attack by driving cars into crowds was terrifying! I was in the city not long after the one in Melbourne and was scared every time I had to walk along stretches without bollards next to the road.
#30
after being sexually harassed for a good half hour by a guy at Roma termini I boarded my overnight train just to wake up to the sight of a lovely red eyed man in my door with the words "IM FROM MAROCCO DO YOU WANT ME" eloquently leaving his lips as he proceeded to point to all the beds in the coupe and sitting next to me in the bed..............
Do-nut touch da donut 1 year ago
A fancy way of refering to someone speaking
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#31
I went to Zambia in June and July of 2013. Part of my time there was spent in a very isolated village called Lubwe in the northernmost province of the country. To get to Lubwe, you have to take about a 12 hour charter coach trip from Lusaka to the closest established city/village with any sort of infrastructure To set the scene - this was the jankiest charter coach I'd ever seen. -Cracked windows that were letting in cold air. -Bad smells because people were allowed to bring small livestock with them. -Genuinely no room to move because the undercarriage was overly stuffed with luggage forcing pretty much everyone to bring their extra bags onto the bus -Deafening music that was played through the duration of the bus ride. -A front door that was held closed by a towel being tied to the hand rail on the bus stairs. The bus was so s**t that we stalled three times before even exiting the stations loading area. (This detail is important, remember it). Our departure time was 2:35 PM and we didn't end up getting out of the bus terminal lot until 4:00 PM. Other members of my trip were a group of some seasoned international travelers along with some particularly soft, sheltered people who have had every comfort in the world handed to them. The types that are scared of their own shadow - about 11 in total, iirc. All of us were uncomfortable - some more so than others and they let that be known quite often. Well, we finally get out of the bus station and on to the road where we have to make a wide right turn. Zambia's traffic laws are fairly non-existent. People just kind of drive how they please. Our bus driver and conductor were fairly aligned with that mantra. Well, we pull this huge turn on to this street cutting off a great number of cars when our bus stalls yet again. Many honks, whistles, and screams thrown in our direction, whatever. The bus gets back to running in about 2 or 3 minutes, no big deal, right? Well, this is where is gets interesting. Among those we cut off was a small military force. I don't know if they were from Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, the DRC...all I know is that they were real f*****g angry with our bus. Like 6 guys are in this hummer and are flagging the bus to pull over as we get back up and running. We don't. This military group mounts the curb in their truck and starts screaming and waving for us to stop. Our conductor opens the door and let's them know we're going to continue on. That doesn't fly. These guys dismount the curb, and make sure our bus doesn't go any further. At this stage, our conductor, driver, and a coach hand get off the bus with a few other passengers and a huge screaming match begins. Most of the passengers deescalate and get back on the bus. Now it's basically our bus crew and the military guys. One of the military guys lifts his shirt and flashes a pistol as another shows off an AK from the back of the truck. The bus crew gets pulled onto the truck and proceed to have the s**t kicked out of them. I had the unfortunate luck of being in a seat where I could see everything unfold. But I look up for a moment and see 3 new guys get on our bus and it takes off without any warning. Leaving the old crew stranded and my group of 11 totally disoriented white people in a f*****g panic. At this stage it's getting dark so none of us, including the leader who had been there a year before, know where we're headed. So essentially we're thinking we're on a 12 hour bus ride that's been hijacked or we're off to some sort of dungeon in the middle of nowhere Africa. We eventually recognized that it was some back up crew from the bus line as we made stops and passenger changes but there were like 2 hours where I was worried that this trip I had struggled so much to be on would end in a f*****g tragedy. Most stressful bit of travel in my life. And an essential detail I neglected to speak of when I told my mom I'd be going back the next summer.
#32
I was working in a poor community in a small village in Romania (helping to build a small extension to a school), at around dusk I decided to go for a short walk to the local shop for some water when a car drove past me. They suddenly breaked and reversed down the road and stopped besides me, telling me to get into their car as they want to show me their cool things (radios, cars, knives) they kept slowly curb crawling me and demanding I got in the car until I got back to my group whereby they sped off. For the next couple of days the same car (I believe) kept driving past and stopping outside where we were staying (for 30 minute intervals several times a day) and I was staying a good hour away from the villege.
Creepy as all hell and I still believe it could have gone badly.
#33
I was staying in a weird hostel by myself in Barcelona, woke up to a man staring at me while I slept. He was looking over a one of those wood dividing screens that the shared room had. I pretend to still be asleep because I was afraid of what he would do if I move or confronted him and I didn't know if there was anyone else in the room. He stared for like 2 hours until finally my alarm rang cause I had to to take an early train, so I put all my stuff in my bag and left the room. As I left I told the owner, but I was really in a hurry and didn't ask what he was going to do with the guy.
ScootyPuffJr 1 year ago (edited)
My friend woke up at a London hostel we were staying at to a man pleasuring himself while staring at her. I complained like crazy, got our money back, and we got the hell out of there. I don't miss the cheap travel of my 20s.
Astro 1 year ago
Ew that’s so fricking weird and gross! I’m glad you got out of there!
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#34
Friend of a friend went to Jamaica with her parents and sister when she was about 12. They came back to their hotel room one day to find a guy in there trying to rob them. He stabbed the girl's dad (he lived) and escaped. They had to go through family therapy after that.
#35
I was on a volunteer trip to Guatemala and we took a day trip to see some Mayan ruins on a small island. My friend and I were looking for a bathroom and several locals pointed us in the direction of one at the top of the mountain. We found a small building with no door and one toilet. My friend says I can go first and she’ll stand watch. I start going about my business when I hear my friend saying that I should hurry up and then I hear a mans voice shouting something in spanish about “permiso”. Out of no where he barges in while I’m mid pee pointing a very large gun at me. He had some sort of uniform on so he may have been police but I’m not sure. I pull up my pants, completely paranoid, grab my friend, tell the man Lo siento over and over and run as fast as I can down the hill. He was shouting after us but didn’t follow. Although nothing happened I was terrified and my poor friend still had to pee!!
Firstname Lastname 1 year ago
Judging by how scared you were, it's possible your friend didn't have to pee anymore...might've had a terror tinkle.
Xenon 1 year ago
Terror tinkle?? I'm sorry, I know the situation was terrifying but that is funny.
Load More Replies... #36
Shortened version of a long tale: Got my phone pick pocketed on the subway in New Delhi, I was able to grab one of the thieves (he didn't have my phone), a mob of random commuters beat the living f**k out of him at the next stop, the police arrived and continued to beat the s**t out of him with cricket bats, we took him to the police station, told him to call his friend who had the phone, friend wouldn't come, police close the door to their office with the thief and I just hear screams, I wait and wait, police officer brings the kid into my room with a black plastic bag, throws the kid on the dirt ground, opens the bag, pulls out my phone from a bag of curry. He throws the curry on the ground and makes the kid eat it. He even gave him a spoon. Got my phone back though.
#37
I went to visit Ukraine with my parents because they wanted to see the small villages where their parents were born. We have no family in the area so we hired a guide to take us around since the country can be a bit corrupt. As we were driving around on a highway we suddenly were stopped in traffic (literally middle of nowhere). The guide gets out of the car and takes a look, then quickly jumps back into the car, does a U-Turn and drives off telling my mom we can't go to her mom's village. We ask why and he says that was some kind of russian millitant roadblock. This was during the whole Crimea thing.
Johnnynatfan 1 year ago
Um the "whole crimea thing" is still a thing and is still happening. Lets not forget that Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014.
Bartlet for World Domination 1 year ago
The whole Crimea thing has happened. It's quite far from where the fighting is now.
Load More Replies... Astro 1 year ago (edited)
Once in Kyiv a random guy suddenly handed me a beautiful white owl, and my dumbass willingly let him put it on my arm because I was like “ah cool pretty birdy!” Suddenly we owed him 500 hryvnia (like $20) for the “photo op”, my boyfriend was so annoyed with me 😂 it ended up being a pretty good photo of me and it’s still on my fridge 8 years later so I’m not sorry. Hope the owl and the guy are doing ok…
#38
Being cornered by a group of men and one of them practically begging me to go down on him.
Neffla Parsons 1 year ago
If a man ever actually makes you do that, bite down really hard and shake your head like a dog attacking a toy. Rip into him. And maybe pull his balls down as hard as you can with your hands and twist them. Then run. He'll be too f'd up to follow you. SA disgusts me so much.
JB 1 year ago
One man, yeah, ok. A group of them? Really bad advice. Since there’s no context about where, when etc. I don’t know what advice I’d give.
Load More Replies... Neffla Parsons 1 year ago
Sadly true. Bad advice, sorry. May work for just one man. As explained in a comment above, probably more of a revenge fantasy as when it happened whenI was a kid, instead of fight or flight, I just froze and let it happen and kind of can't forgive my younger self for that. Think I promised myself I'd never let it happen to me again as an adult but I'm unlikely to be a target now I'm much older and look like the proverbial grey man from the CIA.
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Neffla Parsons 1 year ago
Worth it for me. But as admitted on replies to other comments, probably really stupid advice and more of a revenge fantasy.
Load More Replies... #39
Saw some "refugees" from North Africa beat up and stomp a guy to death at Rome central railway station in the wee small hours while I was waiting for it to open to catch my 05:30 train to see my grandmother. I mean jumping on his skull until it popped like a watermelon. This was in the late 80s.
#40
I was backpacking in Denali and got lost. Like, real f*****g lost, and all around us a we were wandering was fresh bear s**t. At one point we made a decision between going left or right- left took us to the road, had we gone right I don't think I'd be writing this
Astro 1 year ago (edited)
It’s a mountain in Alaska, USA. I had to Google this because I work for a GMC dealer in another country and was very confused for a moment 😂
KittyMommy 1 year ago
It's the name of the national park where the mountain is too
Load More Replies... #41
Crossing from Ukraine in to Russia at a small checkpoint was a terrible idea in hindsight. Dudes in urban camo and AK-47s demanding bribes and yelling at us in Russian, while in the middle of nowhere, was terrifying. Edit: This is our route through Russia from Ukraine. I haven't gone back to update the link since it was created, so I'm not sure what happens if roads change in the interim. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1KrB_SPUlz6mSxZcxjcttZWzM6BA&usp=sharing At that last camping icon, we ate at a kebab place that was a big metal drum with seating inside, like a tank that was above ground and propped up. It sat on the concrete pad just south of that gas station. Looks like it's not there any more :(
#42
In rural Puerto Rico, there isn't any drunk driving enforcement. Makes for some very, very scary trips when the susn goes down.
#43
Gypsies in Romania tried to (what I can only assume) sell me a baby... The woman, who looked like she was using since the day she first saw light, kept a one sided haggling conversation in her own language all the while shoving the tiny child at me. The swarm of children aged between 2-12 kept touching me and what I can only imagine is "appraising" my clothes... This didn't really end until I had to raise my voice and go serious. I walked away and went back to the village where I was staying with a friend of mine at his distant relatives' house. After telling our hosts the bizarre tale attempted human trafficking, they proceeded to inform me that the child was most likely stolen from somewhere else in Romania, another town most likely. It was apparently a local racket, reselling newborn kids to international tourists. What really gets me is the way in which they were telling this story. As if it was business as usual. P.S. Hosts where very kind hospitable people. Lead tough lives though...
I’ve Seen Things 1 year ago (edited)
Very common ruse, but most of the time it is a fake baby as the idea is to keep you distracted. Those kids were not “appraising” your clothes, you were being pickpocketed. Happens across Europe especially popular in France.
HTakeover 1 year ago
Probably both. Why only get money on one gambit when you can try multiple?
Load More Replies... #44
I was in Guatemala and traveling from Antigua to Guatemala city. Apparently there is a short cut called *'The Trap'* that we took. It was absolutely insane. We plowed over rivers at about 45 mph because bridges were out & were flung to the side of 1000m cliffs going about 80 made out of sandstone. My buddy passed out due to the trauma. I asked after all of that why the hell we were going so fast and the driver replied akin to "it's a trap after the sun goes down." I didn't fully understand... was it vampires or something? He later stated while driving a bit drunk near sundown at 100mph "No, no monsters in the trap... Only chicken bus. No lights. We would need to pull over and camp until daylight." Apparently on this stretch of road chicken buses run people off the roads at night without care. I was hesitant to believe it but saw the carcasses of several SUVs like ours along the river the road followed
#45
In Colombia around the elections this year. Traveling from Pereira to Buga to visit the massive church there. Cops there don’t really “pull people over” they just sorta stand on the road and wave people to the side. So they wave us to the side. Ask for ID. I have my US license, didn’t think to to bring my passport—this was my second time visiting for a couple weeks and I never brought it anywhere the first time. So my girlfriends dad has his and her Colombian IDs. I break out my NJ license. Cops take it and go back to talk. My girlfriends dad tells us we’re basically about to get shaken down. Cops come back and say that if we pay them 200,000COP that we’ll be able to pass. I’m like f**k no, show them my police badge, cops s**t their pants like, “Oh f**k. This was a bad idea.” and let us go on our way. In the two-ish months I’ve spent in Colombia, that was legit my only bad experience. The country is amazing.
Zaphod 1 year ago
I used to live in San Diego and I have been shaken down MANY times in Mexico. One time they took my friend's surf board. The Federales only made $40/month in the 80s, so they supplemented their income through tourists. One time I was harassed for having, "Too much fireworks." They are legal, so how can you have too much? Another time they planted cocaine on us and demanded $700 ($100 each). They settled on $14.
#46
I was drunk as hell in Tokyo(more like a suburb of Tokyo?) and was having trouble getting back to the place I was staying at as nothing looked familiar and I was too sauced to read the map properly. It being Japan, someone came to my aid to try to get me home. Problem was, he didn’t speak English I don’t speak Japanese so he ended up going into a restaurant to ask for help. When we walked in there were three guys and a lady, all the guys were tatted up which I knew was bad news. The guy immediately went to turn a way and the lady yelled the guys stood and grabbed him and the lay was pointing and yelling at me. I ducked the f**k out of there and started running as fast as I could as I heard the man that was trying to help me yelling. I ran through every back alley and ditched my flip flops along the way so they wouldn’t make any sound. I eventually found my way back home and then left for the north the next morning. Idk I highly doubt it was a yakuza operation or anything like that, but I doubt it would’ve been good if I stuck around.
#47
Prostitution is legal in Costa Rica so I was propositioned multiple times. Only went out with the dog or other people, although that's because I'm pretty shy not because the country is very dangerous.
Svenne O'Lotta 1 year ago
Prostitution is legal in Denmark too. I've been propositioned zero times in my life.
What do you think ?
David Paterson 1 year ago
Have you ever been camping in a tent when it was hit by a tornado, at night? I don't recommend it.
Xenon 1 year ago
How about a non scary one? Flew into Tokyo in the middle of the night. Lone white female. Place was pretty much deserted believe it or not. Stood there confused as to what to do next. Group of Japanese men talking and gesturing for me to get into a small bus type thing with them. I did. It went to the nearest hotel and dropped us all off. I thanked them and we all went our separate ways. Thanks guys!
Diolla 1 year ago
Had many scares. One was in Venezuela. We went into a big cave to "see" the birds that fly with sonar (and clouds of bats). No one was allowed a flashlight except the guide as to not to disturb the birds. We went so far into the cave that daylight was no longer visible. Guide moved his flashlight up to the birds and then to the ground to show us the path. That's when I saw the path was maybe 60cm wide and the ground on both sides was COVERED with enormous spiders and scorpions. CRAWLING with them. Only one flashlight for the entire group so most of the time it was not shining on the path in front of me. Have never been as afraid to fall down as I was that day.
John Dilligaf 1 year ago
In Frankfurt Germany, was taking a short-cut through an ally at night and came upon a bunch of German Police whaling the absolute dog-s**t out of some poor dude. One big cop disengaged long enough to look me in the eye and silently point back the way I had come .... I'm proud to say I didn't run, but I sure walked real fast.
Do-nut touch da donut 1 year ago
My group was stalked and followed while we were delivering food boxes once... fun times lol
gerard julien 1 year ago
I didn't see much about the US here, must be the safest place in the world, HEAVEN on earth ?
DeoManus Argentem 1 year ago
When I was 18 and backpacking through Europe, I got into Prague late one night and hopped on the subway (or maybe it was a train - it was 20 years ago) to head to my hostel. The cabin was completely empty, and at one stop five guys dressed in all black, wearing ski masks and carrying rifles got on the train - three sat across from me and the other two sat on either side of me. Complete silence, then a couple stops later they all silently got off. Did I get in the middle of the Czech SWAT team catching the subway on their way to a raid? I thought it was over for me.
Rtblast66 1 year ago
Was a on holiday in Greece when I was 14, made a few friends whilst there. Me and a couple of friends went on one of those pedalos, further out we go, discovered no steering, the rudder had fallen into the abyss, current taking us out further, eventually rescued and towed back to shore. Scary.
David Paterson 1 year ago
Have you ever been camping in a tent when it was hit by a tornado, at night? I don't recommend it.
Xenon 1 year ago
How about a non scary one? Flew into Tokyo in the middle of the night. Lone white female. Place was pretty much deserted believe it or not. Stood there confused as to what to do next. Group of Japanese men talking and gesturing for me to get into a small bus type thing with them. I did. It went to the nearest hotel and dropped us all off. I thanked them and we all went our separate ways. Thanks guys!
Diolla 1 year ago
Had many scares. One was in Venezuela. We went into a big cave to "see" the birds that fly with sonar (and clouds of bats). No one was allowed a flashlight except the guide as to not to disturb the birds. We went so far into the cave that daylight was no longer visible. Guide moved his flashlight up to the birds and then to the ground to show us the path. That's when I saw the path was maybe 60cm wide and the ground on both sides was COVERED with enormous spiders and scorpions. CRAWLING with them. Only one flashlight for the entire group so most of the time it was not shining on the path in front of me. Have never been as afraid to fall down as I was that day.
John Dilligaf 1 year ago
In Frankfurt Germany, was taking a short-cut through an ally at night and came upon a bunch of German Police whaling the absolute dog-s**t out of some poor dude. One big cop disengaged long enough to look me in the eye and silently point back the way I had come .... I'm proud to say I didn't run, but I sure walked real fast.
Do-nut touch da donut 1 year ago
My group was stalked and followed while we were delivering food boxes once... fun times lol
gerard julien 1 year ago
I didn't see much about the US here, must be the safest place in the world, HEAVEN on earth ?
DeoManus Argentem 1 year ago
When I was 18 and backpacking through Europe, I got into Prague late one night and hopped on the subway (or maybe it was a train - it was 20 years ago) to head to my hostel. The cabin was completely empty, and at one stop five guys dressed in all black, wearing ski masks and carrying rifles got on the train - three sat across from me and the other two sat on either side of me. Complete silence, then a couple stops later they all silently got off. Did I get in the middle of the Czech SWAT team catching the subway on their way to a raid? I thought it was over for me.
Rtblast66 1 year ago
Was a on holiday in Greece when I was 14, made a few friends whilst there. Me and a couple of friends went on one of those pedalos, further out we go, discovered no steering, the rudder had fallen into the abyss, current taking us out further, eventually rescued and towed back to shore. Scary.
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