Don’t make these travel blunders!

Let’s do ourselves a favor and learn from other people’s mistakes!

I used to teach elementary school. In addition to the usual academics, I tried to get across to my young charges that not only do we all make mistakes, but we should try as much as possible to learn from our mistakes, so that we don’t repeat them. Or, as I used to joke with them when they made the same mistake a second time:

You’ve already made that mistake. Next time, try a new one.

When it comes to travel mistakes I have made over the years, some of them have been doozies. These are several blunders I have made, each with its own consequence(s). I can happily affirm that I have not repeated any of these. Once was more than enough!

San Juan, 2011

My alarm was set for 5:30 so I could arise, get ready to leave the hotel, and then drive my rental car to the airport in time for my 8:00 departure. But some rude and noisy occupants on my floor in the hotel were returning to their rooms at 4:30, and they woke me up. I couldn’t get back to sleep.

With all that extra time to get ready, I decided to check e-mail. I had two from American Airlines, and I could tell from the headline of one that it was not good news: “Your flight has been canceled.” I was originally routed from San Juan to Miami at 8:00 and then onward from Miami to Tampa at 12:15. It was the second flight that had been canceled.

The other e-mail informed me that I was now scheduled to travel from San Juan to Tampa at 7:40. Wow, I thought: a direct flight, and twenty minutes earlier! Much better!

I switched into high gear so I could be sure I got to the airport, return the rental car, and make the earlier flight.

The counters were understaffed at the airport, but I made it to my gate at 7:10, the printed check-in time. To my surprise, there was nobody at the gate. How could we be leaving from Gate 7 in half an hour and there’s nobody at the gate?

I asked an airport worker if the gate had been changed. She looked at my boarding pass and then told me something I had not even noticed: my departure time was 7:40 PM, not AM. I was now a full twelve hours early for my flight!

I was pissed at myself for not having noticed this. I had checked out of my hotel room and returned the rental car only to spend the day at the airport! In point of fact, the car needed to be returned by 9:00 anyway, or else I’d have to pay for another full day.

When I went to the American Airlines counter for assistance, I learned that they could get me to Miami earlier in the day, but there was a strong possibility I would not be able to leave Miami, as there had been an explosion of one of their fuel tanks the day before, which was the reason why so many flights to and from Miami were being canceled. Even though I would have to wait twelve hours in the airport, my best option was that direct flight to Tampa.

I thought I would ask if it would be possible to stay in the Admirals Club during that time, even though I was not a member. The agent looked me up on his computer and saw that I had a membership in their AAdvantage program. He made a call to the Admirals Club. I was in! That made the day much more pleasant.

The flight to Tampa left an hour late and I arrived there at 23:37. By the time I got my luggage, picked up my rental car, and drove to my cousin Liz’s house, it was almost 1:30 the next morning. I got into bed shortly after that, having been awake for twenty-one hours. That was a long day!

Lesson learned: Pay attention to time on tickets. I have since used the 24-hour clock for noting my departure times as I enter them on my calendar. That never happened again.

Tunis, 2011

I was staying in the picturesque town of Sidi Bou Saïd, facing the Mediterranean and located at the terminus of a commuter train line that went directly into Tunis, where most of the points of interest lie. The train trip was only about half an hour, so it was a good location for having access to both the museums of Tunis and idyllic seaside calm of Sidi Bou Saïd.

It was a December Sunday afternoon around 3:30. My return train from Tunis to Sidi Bou Saïd was uncrowded.

As I boarded the train, I remember ignoring a sensation that came to me: Keep your backpack on and lean on it as you sit in your seat.

There was a group of teenage boys clowning around, continually deboarding the train and then getting back on at the same station. I had already seen this a few times on previous trips: they get off the train and then tried to get back on just as the doors are closing. With their bodies wedged between the closing doors, they ran alongside for a while and then one of them in the train managed to open the doors all the way so that the one on the outside could get in.

There didn’t appear to be any personnel on board to keep tabs on what was going on with these kids. Nor did any of the adult passengers bother to say anything to them.

It was at one of the stops, with the doors of the train open, when one of these kids made a mad dash towards me, grabbed my backpack as it sat on my lap, and then jumped off of the train as the doors closed behind him.

To say I was surprised is putting it mildly. And not just surprised, but bleeding, because when the backpack was snatched out of my grip I was holding it (somewhere — not sure where) in such a way that a nice chunk of skin next to the fingernail of my right hand middle finger came along with it.

I got off at the next station, in order to see if there were a police stand nearby. A man at the station asked me what I was looking for and when I told him, he took me down the street to a shop, where a shopkeeper pointed out a police station.

The police in that station were absolutely unwilling to do a thing. They didn’t get up, they didn’t offer to write a report. “Not in my job description” was their attitude.

So I went back to the station where I had gotten off and then got on a train headed back to the station where the kid had gotten off.

I told the ticket-sellers what had happened, and they made a phone call, ostensibly to some kind of authority. In the meanwhile, in preparation for filing some sort of police report, I made an inventory of what had been stolen:

In addition to the backpack itself (my brand-new TIMBUK2 pack that was designed to carry a laptop in a separate compartment), there was a pair of sunglasses, a pair of reading glasses, travel umbrella, cell phone charger, the part of the plug leading from my netbook computer to the outlet, the new plug adapter, a friend’s Tunisia guidebook that she had lent me, a bottle of water, one and three-quarters dark chocolate bars, a pen, a mechanical pencil, and a couple of souvenir keychains from San Francisco.

My first approach was to take a look at the positive aspect of what was going on, and to count my blessings: I was alive; I am in good health; I have wonderful family and friends who care about me; I have a nice home; I have a comfortable life; I have the resources to replace the stolen items and then keep on traveling; I didn’t lose my passport, credit cards, or anything more valuable.

I told myself that whenever my thoughts went to the incident, that I would do my best to direct them back to the sense of gratitude. That was going to be my best approach. We’ll just let the universal forces take care of the kid, as they will do a better job than any police report can do.

Lessons learned: Keep the backpack on, pay attention to intuition, don’t sit close to the train doors. That never happened again.

Brussels, 2015

I had been staying with my friend Gus in Brussels. Though I was prepared to take public transport to the airport the morning of my departure, Gus offered to drive me there before he went to work, and I happily accepted his offer. The departure was not without its moments of drama, though:

After we said our good-byes in his car and I got out to enter the terminal, I reached into my pocket for my phone so that I could use the boarding pass that I had saved on there.

My phone was not in my pocket! I had left it in Gus’s car, where I had plugged it in so it could continue charging!

How do I call Gus, with his number stored on the phone?

First thing I did was go to a nearby counter, where a helpful employee agreed to make the phone call for me.

I called my own number, which I had written down in my notebook. It went straight to voicemail. Of course, it did. I had my phone switched to the airplane mode as a means of helping it charge more quickly.

I then found Gus’s phone number on a piece of paper in my notebook, and reached him via the phone of the helpful airport employee. Gus had already noticed my phone in his car and was on his way back to the airport. I was waiting next to the curb where he had dropped me off.

Whew! That was a relief!

Lesson learned: Keep your wits about you when it comes to your phone! That never happened again.

Mexico City, 2015

On the morning of my flight from Mexico City to Oaxaca, I was looking through emails and noticed that my flight reservation had been the PREVIOUS DAY’S DATE! How did it happen that I had missed the date?

What was I to do? I thought I would just go to the airport anyway, try to check in and see what would happen.

Sure enough, it had been the day before, I had missed the flight, and the corresponding flight for that day was full. At the Volaris ticket office, they told me that the next flight for which they had tickets was the coming Saturday.

InterJet didn’t have any tickets for the same day, but they had some for the next day, which cost more than double what I had originally paid.

Should I try my chances for getting a standby seat on the flight that was leaving that afternoon? I decided not to take my chances. It seemed best to book a flight, have the ticket, and be done with it.

Now what? I would try to find a room for the night near the airport.

I felt sick to my stomach at having made this mistake. I knew in my head that I was all right: I was not in danger, I was not in pain, nothing was lost or stolen, I was not in trouble with the police. But the feeling in my gut did not sync with the one in my head.

I took a pedestrian bridge to a hotel on the other side of the highway from the airport. Rooms there cost MXN 4787.37, which is US $277.97. No way! Just down the block, though, I found one for 510 MXN/just under US $30. Not as nice, of course, but at least I’d be near the airport for the next morning’s flight, and there is also a Metro station nearby, so I was all set for getting around during the next 24+ hours.

Off I went to the Museo Nacional de Arte, which was stunning in every way. They had an exhibition called “Los modernos,” focusing on European masters of modern art, such as Picasso, Dufy, Braque, Matisse, and Leger, intermingled with Mexican artists such as Rivera, Siqueiros, and Orozco.

Sure, I made the best of the situation, but it was an expensive mistake that made me miss a day in Oaxaca.

Lesson learned: Pay attention to flight dates. That never happened again!

Paris, 2019

This was probably my most expensive and disruptive mistake ever.

I arrived early at CDG in Paris because I had access to a Priority Pass lounge, where there is always a wide range of food and beverages available. I settled in and got to work on organizing and labeling the photos I had taken during my visit.

After working for a while, I realized that I should check the time to see when I should be boarding my flight. To my horror, I noticed that my flight was departing at that very moment.

I hurriedly gathered my possessions and headed to the gate, only to find that I arrived too late: the flight had just departed!

Such a stupid thing to do!

To the credit of the British Airways agent who helped me, she did the best she could to re-route me from my original CDG-SFO itinerary. It was quite a change!

I flew from CDG to LHR and spent the night at a Heathrow hotel. The next day I flew from Heathrow to DFW and then another flight from DFW to SFO.

It was so distressing to me that I didn’t even bother to keep track of the costs involved for buying the new flights and staying at the hotel.

Lesson learned: Set an alarm for yourself on your phone to be sure you get to your flight on time. That never happened again!