My worst travel moments of 2022

2022 has been a kind year to me, especially travel-wise. I haven’t had anything majorly scary happen to me like in 2016 when I was shook up by two earthquakes in Japan or like in 2019 when my belongings were stolen in Spain. But of course, there are always things that could’ve gone smoother.

Below are my worst travel moments of 2022!

Forgetting my passport on a trip to Berlin

The same month as I received my UK passport (yay for dual citizenship!), I forgot to bring a passport on an overseas trip for the first time ever…

I was headed to Berlin in the bus from Lolland when I realized I’d forgotten my Danish passport – and intentionally left the UK one at home. Being Schengen countries, crossing the border between Denmark and Germany without a passport *shouldn’t* be a problem, but apparently I risked a fine of 25 euros on the way over and 80 euros on the way back (Denmark is way stricter than Germany!).

I was definitely sweating and stressing out about this, but I lucked out big time! The Danish-speaking border guard in Germany was very kind and told me about the fine, but said he knows it’s a lot of money for me so he let me off and made me promise not to forget it again. He laughed when I showed him the passport copy on my computer, and asked if he should stamp it. On the way back to Denmark, I showed the border guard my driver’s license and said nothing, and he didn’t care. No fine for me – but I’ve definitely learned my lesson!

A mouth infection from Berlin

That same weekend, I came home from Berlin with a mouth infection. It was already quite bad on the way home, but I did manage to eat some of the food I’d brought with me for the long journey. The next day, I could no longer eat bread. Then salad was too painful as well. Then yoghurt, ice cubes and ice cream were the only foods that were bearable to eat. Come Thursday, I couldn’t even eat yoghurt any more. I was hungry all the time, but it was impossible for me to eat. I felt so weak that I had to have four days off work, and I visited the doctor three times (and I’m usually never sick!).

I had blisters all over the inside of my mouth and on my tounge. My gums were red and swollen and would bleed straight away if I attempted to brush my teeth. My tounge eventually developed a yeast infection. I felt terrible, but some slow days at home with my family helped tremendously. Slowly, I started getting better. My mouth healed up and I could finally eat again. By the time my mum’s birthday came around two weeks after it’d all started, I was able to eat a full meal without being in pain. I chose a vegan burger, the one thing I’d craved the most during this whole ordeal!

Belgium: To go or not to go? That is the question.

For Easter, my friend and I had booked a nine-day trip through France, Belgium and West Germany, and planned on visiting the cities of Lille, Bruges, Gent, Brussels, Liège and Aachen. We were supposed to leave on April 9th, the morning after I arrived in Berlin to where he lives. But that plan got messed up big time, when Covid-19 got in the way. We had to cancel our tickets to Lille so our France/Belgium/West Germany trip became just a Belgium/West Germany trip. But thanks to the unnecessarily complicated German bureaucracy and confusing isolation rules, even that trip was in danger.

Which day was day 1 of isolation? Was it the day of the test or the day after? Would we be free to go on day 10 or the day after day 10? Did it count from the day of the rapid test or the PCR test? The answers we received from different hotlines all differed, and many of them were contradicting!

Eventually, after calling around some more, we found out that we would be free to leave Germany 10 days after the first rapid test result, and that was on April 13th. By then, we’d already shaved four days off our trip, so we didn’t see any of Lille or Bruges, and only made it to Gent for one night before having to move onto Brussels where my brother and his friend would join us. We wasted A LOT of time and money on these confusing messages, but at least we got to go in the end…

A night from hell – and our lucky escape!

Back in mid-May, I had booked a shelter in Gedser, Denmark’s southernmost town, for my friend and I. We had been looking forward to spending the night in nature, but it turned out a bit too natural for my liking!

I arrived before him, and was shocked at the sight I saw. Cobwebs hung from every corner of the shelter, all over the entrance and all over the sleeping area. It was obvious that no one had been there for a long time, and nobody had bothered to clean the shelter before our arrival – despite paying to stay there. I spent some time removing the cobwebs, using fire logs that were left by the shelter, and removed the one spider I found. I hoped this would keep the spiders out as I’m terribly afraid of spiders!

But fast forward a few hours, it was evening and raining lightly. We were relaxing in the shelter when I suddenly spotted a spider hanging from a web at the entrance. My friend removed it. But then I spotted another, then another, and another, and so on. We ended up spending well over an hour removing big fat disgusting spiders before we could finally leave for an evening walk. But when we came back, trouble had returned. We had another round of spider removing before finally getting inside again for snuggles and dinner. But as we were sitting there, he suddenly shouted, “don’t move!”, and I know all too well what that means so of course I started panicking. What he’d seen was a spider crawling towards me, but as though that wasn’t bad enough, we also found one crawling around on his sleeping bag!

I think the rain was making them come in because they kept appearing, and eventually, it just got too much for me. We abandoned the shelter, shaking our stuff like crazy before running to the bathhouse which was thankfully large enough for us to sleep in without being caught. We were in the ladies room and a few women did come in to have a shower early the next morning, but we were hidden behind a thin wall and I don’t think they noticed us. Either way, it was much more pleasant than sleeping in that spider hell!

Train travel through Germany during the July heatwave

Thanks to the incredibly cheap 9-euro ticket that allowed almost-free travel throughout Germany for three months this summer, I spent lots of time in Germany and loved the freedom it gave me. However, I definitely regretted travelling from Denmark to Berlin on slow, regional trains on the hottest day of the year. I checked the temperature when I arrived in Hamburg and it said 39 degrees! 39!! In northern Germany!!!

It was in the midst of the high season too, so that meant people everywhere which equalled sweat everywhere. And on top of that, trains were delayed up to an hour. Cue even more hot and frustrated people on the platforms and in the over-filled train carriages!

It was my least favourite train journey ever – and I usually love travelling by train!

A visit to the hospital in Wrocław

My summer journey with a friend around Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia was supposed to be worry-free and fun. But we were only a few hours in when I started to feel bad. I experienced sudden, very strong strikes of pain in my stomach. At first, I wasn’t so worried, but then we started googling, and we figured it was better to be safe than sorry. So I called my doctor in Denmark, and she advised me to visit a doctor in Wrocław. My insurance company found a nearby public hospital for me, and then I spent half of the following day trying to figure out where exactly I should go.

Polish hospitals are, as we found out, not easy to navigate. I first went to the SOR (emergency department) where I was told after two hours of waiting that I’d come to the wrong place as I wasn’t critically ill, but they agreed to examine me regardless. They found nothing. Then they sent me to an emergency gynecologist where I waited in line for over an hour without anyone going in or out of the doctor’s office. In the end, we just knocked on the door and they took me in straight away. They told me (again) that I was in the wrong place, but I told them I’d been sent here by the people at the SOR, so they agreed to examine me. It was quite unpleasant being examined by not one but TWO gynecologists, and I felt like it took forever. Thankfully, they didn’t find anything wrong with me either and I didn’t feel much pain in the following days. Maybe it was just a bit of wind 😛

We were probably over-exaggerating with our worries but better safe than sorry, right? It was unfortunate that it took so long as it took away valuable exploring time, but at least it was free and now I know how to navigate the Polish hospital system (well, sort of…).

Attacked by flies on a hike in Slovakia

I spent a lot of time in Slovakia this summer as I was working on archaeological excavations. Most of that time was pretty sweet, except for a nightmare of a hike where I was attacked by little black flies.

I was out on a 15-kilometre hike in the hilly forests near Radava in western Slovakia. It was a hot day and during an hour-long hike through a forest, I was met by hundreds of little black flies that swarmed around me. I got three in my right eye, and one even went up my nose so I had to blow him out. Somehow, he survived. I had to constantly swish my hands so they wouldn’t get too close to my face. Very annoying. This year has definitely been a bug-year for me!

A rental car mess on the Faroe Islands

Prior to visiting the Faroe Islands in September with my family, I’d messaged a friend of mine who rents out old (but usually functional) cars for much cheaper than the rental car companies. He promised there would be a car available for us upon arrival. Sure thing, he kept his promise. We picked up the car at a parking lot above the airport and that’s when the troubles already began.

Because the battery was low, he had left the engine running but it still stalled as soon as I tried to drive it. It was late at night and there were not many people around, but eventually, my brother and I did manage to track down a Faroese couple who helped us jumpstart the car – enough to drive down to our parents and grandmother waiting at the airport with all the luggage. I tried to keep the car running while they loaded it, but the battery was tired and suddenly it was out again. A new search for people was on with seemingly nobody around anymore as the last passengers had been and gone, but I managed to find a Polish family who had just picked up their (amazing) rental car. They laughed when they saw our joke of a car, but didn’t mind helping us get started again. In fact, they poured out glasses of champagne as if to celebrate their first weird experience on the Faroe Islands!

We drove around for a while before going to our airbnb, hoping it would charge the battery enough for it to work the next day. It didn’t. We had to push the car to a steep hill where my dad was able to get it going! The next few days went well, right up until we were about to leave the island of Sandoy after a day of exploring. Warning lights came on as we drove to the ferry, and my dad suspected it was the engine that was about to fail. We held our breaths and crossed all fingers and toes as my dad drove the beast to the ferry and made it just in time before it went out. It was completely dead. Jumpstarting didn’t help, and the ferry staff wouldn’t let us push it onboard. So we had to abandon the car on the island, and catch the bus back to our airbnb on Vágar.

The next morning, we picked up a second car, but this one had problems with the brakes. After a few drives and calls to car-expert friends, we decided it was too dangerous to drive. Luckily, my friend had a third car for us to rent, so we picked it up and all was great until this car also started showing us a bunch of warning lights. It seemed as though the same thing as the first car was about to happen again, so we drove it back to Vágar as quickly as possible and waited for a fourth car. He initially told us that he didn’t have one available, but we got lucky as the tourists that were supposed to rent it never showed up. The fourth car turned out to be the one we could rely on. Finally, everything worked (okay, it was still old and dirty, but you get what you pay for). My friend offered us an even cheaper deal in compensation for all of our troubles, and we still managed to see everything we wanted. So in the end, it all worked out!

An attempted robbery in Copenhagen

My friend and I had spent a fun afternoon in Copenhagen in mid-September, and decided to end our day with a delicious meal at an Asian restaurant in Christianshavn.

Unfortunately, our visit ended abruptly with a rather nasty experience when a man burst in and demanded money from the waitress. For some reason, he decided to run out seconds later, smashing glass bottles against the wall on his way out. We were sitting in the corner and were the only guests who didn’t have a chance to leave when he entered. Luckily, he never spotted us, and nobody was physically hurt. I just hope the police were able to catch him!

This post sums up my recaps of a fun year where Lolland was my home base while I spent the weekends and holidays gallivanting around Europe. 2023 has arrived, and I’m excited to see which fun times and challenges it has in store for me!

Now that you’ve read my worst travel moments of the year, why not head over to my previous post where I wrote about my best travel moments of 2022?