My worst travel moments of 2018

2018 has been an incredible travel year, but any traveller knows that all the good also comes with some bad once in a while. Every year since 2016, I’ve looked back at the year gone by and recalled the worst travel moments of that year. I tell these stories here, because they’re also part of life as a traveller, which isn’t always as wonderful as it may seem. In 2016, I got caught in two earthquakes in Japan, which shook me to the core, and a few weeks later, I was surprised by a naked man while walking alone on a mountain in Seoul. And in 2017, I had a hike ruined by two aggressive boys, who tried to steal my phone. 2018 has also given me my share of bad days and life-threatening events, although 2016 still tops as the worst travel year in terms of scares for my life.

But before we get too negative, maybe you’d like to take a look at my previous post, where I listed my ten BEST travel moments of 2018? Those experiences are, after all, the reason why I continue this lifestyle year after year.

But let’s get to it – here are my ten worst travel moments of 2018!

The 52-hour no-sleep hell

On January 23rd, I woke up at 7 AM as I usually do when I go to work. I worked all day and then went home to pack, as I was going on a trip to Russia and Azerbaijan, starting that same day at 11.30 PM. After work, I could’ve slept, but I prioritized watching Recess instead (I know I know… but those childhood memories, though!).

When I boarded my flight, I wasn’t overly tired, but I knew that I had to get as much sleep as possible during the 2,5-hour flight to Moscow. However, the stewardesses for some reason wouldn’t let me sleep. They woke me up constantly, to ask if I was comfortable, if I wanted coffee etc.

I had a 21-hour stopover in Moscow, so I had planned to see as much of the city as possible. And that I did! I walked so much that day that my feet were killing me by the end and I was feeling overly exhausted. I really needed to get some sleep.

I went to the airport just after sunset, hoping to find somewhere secluded to sleep for a few hours before my next flight would leave at 00.45 AM the next morning. But the airport was PACKED, and there were cleaners in every toilet constantly (otherwise, I would’ve totally slept there – been there, done that). So of course, I didn’t get any sleep at all.

Then came the flight to Baku. I did manage to get some sleep on the 3-hour flight, but when I woke up, I felt even more tired. As happy as I was to finally arrive at my end destination, it was disheartening to learn that it was only 4 AM and I had to wait until 2 PM to check in at my hostel. So I spent half of the day wandering around Baku, before FINALLY being able to check in the hostel and get some sleep, after being almost constantly awake for over 52 hours!

The rabies scare and the hellish aftermath

The same day as I was wandering around a city in Asia with no sleep for the past two days, I got bit by a cat. Anyone who knows me knows how much I LOVE cats (and I still do), so I can’t help but cuddle them whenever I see them. And this cat was sooo cute. Well, until she bit me in the face! I was a little worried at first, but waaaay too tired to think any further about it. It wasn’t until I woke up later that day, that I realized the cat might’ve had rabies – and that if I didn’t get treated ASAP, I would have it too!

And so it started. The aftermath. After the bite, I had to base myself in the city for my entire stay in the country, as I had to get vaccinations on day zero and day three and another two once I got back to Denmark. At first, I had a hard time even finding a clinic with English-speaking doctors in the city, but thankfully the owners of my hostel helped me out and went with me to the hospital.

Getting bit by the cat certainly put a strain on my enjoyment of travelling in the country, but what I went through there was nothing compared to what awaited me back in Denmark. To my big surprise, getting a vaccination against rabies is not easy in Denmark. I managed to spend an entire day calling my doctor, multiple pharmacies and the Danish State Serum Institute before someone finally told me that it should be my doctor calling around, not me. In the end, my doctor called the serum institute and they sent over the vaccines with a taxi so I could get the injection the following day. The rabies vaccinations have to be given on specific dates, so I was stressing out for my life, but thankfully it all worked out in the end.

And on a positive note, I’m now 100 % rabies free!

Read more: That one time I had a rabies scare

EDITED 2021: I’ve edited the blog post to remove the city and country of where I was bit. As a reader kindly let me know, my story could have a negative impact on the street cats in the city, and I would hate to be responsible for any harm done to them. I still love cats just as much as before, and I don’t blame this cat for what I had to go through. It was solely my fault for stroking the cat. Please be kind to any street cats (and dogs!) you meet on your travels. Feed them and talk to them, but keep a safe distance to avoid any possible rabies transmission.

Paying 355 SEK to check in for my WizzAir flight to Skopje

I never knew that it was mandatory to check in online for WizzAir flights in order to not have to pay for it at the airport. I honestly thought only Ryanair had silly rules like that… I’ve flown with WizzAir before, but I can’t remember having to check in online 3 hours before departure.

Oh well, I learned it the hard way. I found out when I got to the check in counter at the airport in Malmö, and the guy behind the counter told me that I should’ve checked in online and now had to pay 355 SEK if I wanted to board the flight to Skopje. I actually considered just going back home, but when I thought about how much I would lose doing that, I decided to just pay it and try to forget about it.

So in the future – remember to check in online for WizzAir (and Ryanair) flights!!

The mould issue in Ljubljana

When my mum and I travelled to Ljubljana in March, we were supposed to stay at Ginger Rooms for three nights, but we discovered that the room was extremely cold and damp, and there was mould all over the walls (most of it was hidden by a large picture). We asked the receptionist to move us to another room since mould is dangerous and we already had a headache after spending just half an hour in the room. She decided to call her boss, who was unwilling to help and instead offered to move us to a sister hotel for an “upgrade” that we would have to pay 15 euros EXTRA for!!

No compensation whatsoever for the health risk, and it definitely wasn’t much of an upgrade either, it was just another room, but without mould…

Missing our flight to Cuzco

Ever heard of Kiwi.com? Ever considered using them? Well, here’s a word of advice – DON’T!

My younger brother Brandon and I had booked our tickets from Lima to Cuzco via Kiwi.com using the Viva Air Peru airline. Everything seemed fine until a week before take-off. We still hadn’t received our boarding passes, which they were supposed to send us, and on June 10th, it was suddenly too late to check in for the flight, which wasn’t until June 13th. Still, that wasn’t the biggest problem that we had with this company (or should I say these companies…).

When we arrived at the airport at 00.35 on the 13th coming from Montréal, we headed straight to the check in counters to see if we could check in early. Our flight wasn’t until 6.35 AM (or so we thought), but we wanted to get the boring stuff over and done with. But we couldn’t find the airline anywhere and no one seemed to know it. One guy even told us that it doesn’t exist.. Oh well.

We decided to try to get some sleep and set our alarm for 4 AM, time enough to check in and go through security comfortably. We got up and saw that the airline was still nowhere to be seen and the flight wasn’t on the ‘Departures’ board either. This didn’t seem very legit.

Finally, one guy was able to help us and pointed us towards counter 20, where an American couple told us that they were waiting for their flight with Viva Air Peru, although not to Cuzco. The counter was set to open at 5.20 AM. After more than an hour’s wait, it finally opened, but it was not to much help for us. The lady behind the counter told us that our flight had already left at 5 AM and we would have to buy a new ticket for the afternoon.

First of all – we had been standing there since 4 AM! No way on earth could we have missed the check in! Secondly, the flight had been nowhere on the ‘Departures’ board. Thirdly, I had received NO email whatsoever or anything else from Kiwi.com or Viva Air Peru telling us that the flight times had changed! And lastly, we had already been waiting for 5,5 hours in the airport and weren’t up for waiting much longer!

Instead, we decided to suck it up and buy a new ticket, but with another airline. Star Peru sold us two tickets for 214 USD in all for a flight leaving at 7.45 AM. Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait too much longer to go to Cuzco, but we were furious about having to pay for another flight when we clearly weren’t to blame.

The second rabies scare – this time in Cuzco

On our first day in Cuzco, Brandon was bit by a dog, completely unwarranted. The dog literally just came up from behind and bit him in the leg! Having gone through my own rabies scare a few months earlier, I knew how frightened he must be.

We headed to all the hospitals that we could find on the map and that people recommended us to go to. Unfortunately, after four hospital visits, we still hadn’t found one that had the vaccination available, but the fifth one ended up being a life-saver. We spent a good hour at the hospital, getting all the necessary tests done, getting the wound cleaned, getting his vaccine and antibiotics and waiting for the insurance documents. Thankfully, we were able to get the vaccine that day, but we were almost about to give up after our fourth try! I’m glad we didn’t, because now I know for sure that my brother is safe.

The terrible minibus ride from Lima to Nazca and back again

On a weekend trip to Nazca, Huacachina, Islas Ballestas and Reserva de Paracas, I experienced the hands-down worst bus ride of my life! Just 10 minutes after we had left at midnight, the problems started. After getting himself in a muddle trying to get out of Lima, we were just a few kilometers from our hostel when he drove over something that punctured two of our tyres. The driver had never driven a minibus before, so he wasn’t familiar with all of its functions, such as the fan to clear the windows, so basically he couldn’t see where he was going when he drove over the sharp object.

Changing the tyre took about an hour, but at least it was then fixed and we thought the driver would’ve learned his lesson by that. But nah.

A few hours later, we were all woken up when the policed pulled us over, apparently because the driver had fallen asleep and was driving irresponsibly. I already find it so scary to put my life in other people’s hands like this, so this didn’t exactly help my anxiety. There’s no excuse for falling asleep during driving – he should’ve slept beforehand and prepared himself for the night journey.

The next day when we were on our way back from Nazca, the hazardous driving began. He’d already been driving crazily, but this was worse than the day before. At one point, he almost hit a truck when he pulled out to overtake right in front of him!

On top of that, the driver was not given enough money from the travel company to fill up petrol for the ride home, and maybe he was too proud to ask us for help, because we ran out on the middle of the highway and had to wait an hour in a dodgy neighbourhood for petrol.

Worst of all, he gambled with our lives constantly as he exceeded the speed limits and overtook at every slim chance he had. I honestly felt like my life was in danger multiple times during that trip.

Food poisoning in the air

I’ve been quite lucky throughout my travel life to not get food poisoning and I felt sure that I wouldn’t get it in Peru either, as I have quite a strong stomach and I’m rarely ill. Well, I almost didn’t get it in Peru, as it wasn’t until I laid down on the three seats I’d been lucky to get on the flight to Toronto that I felt it coming, the vomiting and the diarrhea. I’m not sure what had caused it, since I ate at the same restaurants as I did most evenings a few hours before leaving Lima… But that plane ride was for sure the worst I’ve ever had, which is a real shame since I had those three seats to myself and could actually lay down for once!

But every time I woke up, I had to puke and I ended up feeling completely empty in my stomach and worn out from puking so much. I also got diarrhea on the plane, and while I was waiting in a queue for the toilet I was so close to fainting that I had to ask to go in front of the queue in order to not faint. It was a terrible flight and it did affect our long stopover in Toronto, but thankfully it was over by the time we boarded our next flight to Copenhagen.

Technical problems on the ferry to Mykines

The first day of my trip to the Faroe Islands with Amanda in July/August was supposed to end on Mykines, the bird island famous for its thousands of puffins. We got to the ferry terminal in good time, got on the ferry and waited for it to leave. The time for departure at 4.20 PM came, but the ferry did not depart.

We were told that there were some technical problems, so we wouldn’t be able to leave until 6 PM. We waited and waited and 6 PM came, and there were still problems, so they decided to call for another ferry that would leave at 7.30 PM instead.

Amanda and I then decided to go on a small hike above the village to kill some time. But when we got back down, we were told it would arrive at 8.30 PM instead… Which it did (finally!), but first THEN we were told that there wouldn’t be any ferries back from Mykines the next day, meaning that we would miss out on Ólavsøka. We didn’t want to miss that, so after waiting for over four hours, we decided not to go to Mykines anyways… Such a waste of a day!

Being defeated by a mountain in Nuuk

I’m a huge mountain enthusiast, and I always try to climb as many as possible when I travel. Of course, I planned on doing the same while living in Nuuk for five months. But one of the mountains there defeated me.

Mt. Ukkusissat at 772 meters high is the steepest mountain I’ve ever attempted to climb, and as I found out, it’s not a great idea to go there without a local guide. I went there with three friends, and we all thought we would be able to do it. But knowing beforehand that a lot of people have died in the attempt to climb the mountain, I was extra cautious during the climb. The first part was relatively easy, although there were some dangerous parts, where we had to pull ourselves up.

But then we came to the top half, which was covered in thick ice. We continued the climb, being extremely careful not to slip and fall. But at about 450 meters above sea level, we decided to turn back and go down as it had become too slippery and dangerous. We no longer felt safe.

I don’t like giving up on things, but it would’ve been the biggest regret in my life if something had happened to us, so it was the right decision to descend at that point. But someday (in the summer), I will stand on top of Mt. Ukkusissat!

I got through 2018 without any major scars, although with a few moments of fearing for my life. But overall, it has been a wonderful travel year, probably my favourite one yet!