Our 3 Worst Travel Moments In 3 Years Of Traveling

Traveling isn’t always kittens and cupcakes, even though Hannah would like it to be. Something is bound to happen here and there while traveling. We’ve had our fair share of travel mishaps but nothing will stop us from seeing the world. Thankfully, we’ve never been hurt or in serious danger. There have been several moments where we thought to ourselves “What are we doing with our lives?” but after a few days, we wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. Here are our 3 least favorite travel moments over the last 3 years of traveling.

Getting Robbed in Kuala Lumpur

We both still remember this day like it was just yesterday. We were in Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown and Adam was taking pictures inside a temple while Hannah was just outside playing on her phone. Next thing you know, a motorbike drives up on the sidewalk and grabbed her wristlet, with phone/camera inside, right out of her hands. We later found out this is called a “snatch thief” and they are totally common in Asia. Thankfully our World Nomads insurance reimbursed us for all items, but talk about a headache and scary experience.

From that day forward the way we traveled changed. Hannah was paranoid for months (and still is sometimes) while using her phone on the street in big cities and we both trust no one. It’s sad but snatch thieves, distraction scams, and Gypsies’ are all over the world trying to find victim’s to rob.

Shit Literally Running Into Our Room

Imagine waking up to an odor and water coming into your room… we opened our door to see this “liquid” wasn’t just water but instead it was coming from the toilet. Now that is one shitty travel moment. You’re probably thinking “where in the world were you staying?” We were staying in a $100/night guesthouse in Barcelona with a shared bath, which was no big deal we stayed in several guesthouses similar in Europe in order to stay on budget.

At that moment we knew we were done traveling for awhile, we needed a break. Yes, traveling is exhausting and we needed a vacation from traveling. Thankfully we had an apartment in Chiang Mai a month after this happened. Even though we didn’t have the best of luck with accommodation in Barcelona we fell in love with the city. Barcelona is one of our favorite places in all of Europe. A place we both could see ourselves living actually.

Getting Sick in Malawi

We’ve both been really healthy the entire trip, we each just had one sick day where we contemplated going to the hospital. Hannah’s sick day probably couldn’t have been in a worse place, Malawi.  The Hospital in Malawi is a place no one wants to go. Funny thing we actually visited a Malawi hospital the year before. Let’s just say the ceiling was falling down, bat poop on the floors, hand-drawn AIDS education signs, and just somewhere we never planned on returning.

We don’t know what she ate but whatever bug got in her stomach wasn’t a friendly one. She would barely be back in the tent and she’d be running back to the bathroom. She couldn’t keep water down and then her fever spiked and we struggled to cool her down. We tried cold showers and jumping in the lake. The campsite we were at had no air conditioning or fans…it was a rough and scary 24 hours. Thankfully her body cooled itself down and 48 hours later she was back to normal.

I am sure there will be a few more travel mishaps in our future but that is expected. We will just have to deal with them as they come and stay positive.